Fort Outpost - April 2023

from the

advisor.

Jennifer Fay

“You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”

~ Walter C. Hagen

Spring is here! A time for change and the renewing of New Year’s resolutions. Whether you are working hard at a sport, trying to pass all your classes or giving yourself some much needed TLC, this is the time to do it.

This is also the time of year when the new growth is evident in ourselves and nature, the sun is shining and the culmination of another year is just around the corner.

As we see the end

contributors.

Isaac Dennett - Editor in Chief

Hey everyone! Thanks for reading this article. I’m Isaac, I’m a sophomore. I like to draw, write, read, and play videogames. I also code, golf, and swim!

Christian Golden - Associate Editor

I’m half black and half Japanese. I enjoy doing sports, especially track and I like being able to do new things.

Amy Nguyen - Assignment Editor

Hi I’m Amy, in my free time I like to read books and watch anime. I speak English and Vietnamese, I also know ASL.

Alex Sweeten - Writer

I like to be outside, do artsy sci-fi stuff and sing/songwrite. I am a freshman. I’m a student ambassador and I am learning French as my second language.

of the year in sight and the beginning of Summer and all the fun that can bring, I remind you all that you are capable students who are in the midst of that adventure called life.

Don’t give up! Seek out help from all the staff, teachers and other adults on campus who believe in you. You can succeed.

Go Fort Trappers!

JenniferFay

Advisor - Journalism Club

Tjay Barhitte - Writer

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m Tjay. I like to play video games, drawing, sleeping, taking walks, watching shows/movies, talking to friends, bowling, listening to music and much more.

Isabel

Laib - Writer

I’m a freshman, I enjoy writing for fun, watching tv, and playing video games. I only speak English, but I’m planning to learn spanish.

Christina Martin - Writer

I am a sophomore. I like garlic bread and my cat. I am very passionate about women’s rights.

Iara Garcia - Writer

I am 17 years old and from Barranquilla, Colombia. I’ve lived most part of my life in Colombia, I enjoy things like reading, singing, writing, and dancing.

Empty Classes

Hvae you noticed a shortage of school buses this year? It’s not a problem that’s unique to Fort Vancouver, it’s happening everywhere!

April 2023

let’s get social.

Polls: We asked, you answered

An argument could be made that a homeroom time would be more valuable than the current social emotional learning time we get each Monday.

SEL vs Homeroom Spring Fling

While not highly attended, March’s Spring Fling dance was a lot of fun. Bikers vs Surfers proved to be a great theme that prompted costumes aplenty.

Spring Tastes

We’ve got delicious recipes for Strawberry Crepes and pot stickers that take advantage of seasonal fruits and vegetables.

Fort students were sent a poll last month, and we sure did get some good responses! Take a look.

This time we asked about cereal soup, cheesecake tarts, and hot dog sandwiches!

Let’s start with the data. SCIENCE!

HOMEROOM VS. SEL

Which one do students need?

Right now, every Monday, we have SEL time. SEL stands for Social Emotional Learning. It is a time required by the district to help students with being social and with their mental health. Character Strong is the curriculum teachers use during these 30 minutes of valuable class time. But, is this really helping students? Let’s talk about SEL time and a good replacement for it.

First, let’s break down SEL. Social Emotional Learning is a time set apart every monday. During this time, teachers use the Character Strong curriculum to help students learn about their emotions. They learn about keeping courage, how to deal with sadness, and who they look up to. But, why does everyone think it is bad then? Well, let’s get into our interviews with students. I interviewed our student body and was able to get down to three points. One, it is very repetitive. Many SEL lessons are very similar, and use the same starting and end. Two, it is a waste of class time. Many students have work to do! They need the class time to talk with their teacher or get homework done. Three, it is boring. Many students are forced to socialize when they just want to talk to people they know.

The lessons are also not very interesting and don’t give students many reasons to even listen.

So, this lesson time obviously isn’t working very well. If you walk into any 3rd period class during SEL time, you may find disengaged students, students doing other work, or the class not even doing SEL time! So we sent out an anonymous survey to the teachers at our school to find out what they think about SEL time.

The responses were as expected. 37% of our teachers responded that they think SEL needs to be replaced with something else, for a variety of reasons. Some think it’s not relateble, others think that time can be better used elsewhere. Let’s talk about one option that many people agreed would be a good idea.

The lessons aren’t very good. They always drag on too long, and half of the students can’t even relate to what is being said. This leads to 0 impact.

BY CRISTINA MARTIN

Why is Homeroom a good option instead?

Homeroom time/ periods are used to make announcements, conduct general administrative tasks, and do activities. Homeroom is often a safe space for students to open up and be in a judgment free zone. This time of period is usually used as well to make sure students have an understanding with the school’s expectations and objectives for its students. Recommending curriculum and other various things can be a good use for the time homeroom would be presented with.

Homeroom can be used as a time and a room without academic rating and can be a place for students to experience academic success and have a supportive home base environment. Homerooms can present ideas and have activities to do in a more proactive manner. It can be time for students to plan with teachers, someone to ask general questions to, and time for the teachers to check up and make sure all of their students are OK. It’s a very multi use time, and is way more time effective that SEL ever would be.

65% of teachers at our school want a homeroom period. Many of them think it would be a good idea, and all of them agree with the activities and plans of what they would do that I listed above. So, why not. Maybe it’s time to convince the district to replace SEL with the better alternative, Homeroom.

Kneel, Concrete Rose, and Victory Stand.

IN BETWEEN THE LINES

THE LETTERS AND LINES IN A BOOK HAVE ENOUGH POWER TO CHANGE THE WORLD.

BY ALEX SWEETEN

It’s that time again! We have a interview with our librarian about what books you should read! Right now, the librarian is reading Clap when you land by Elizabeth Acevedo. She also said that we got War Cross and Wild Card by Marie Lu in Ukrainian at our library! She also has top 3 suggestions for books right now. One, Kneel by Candace Buford. Two, Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas. And three, Victory Stand by Tommie Smith.

KNEEL BY C. BUFORD

This fearless debut novel explores racism, injustice, and selfexpression through the story of a promising Black football star in Louisiana. The system is rigged. For guys like Russell Boudreaux, football is the only way out of their small town. As the team’s varsity tight end, Rus has a singular goal: to get a scholarship and play on the national stage. But when his best friend is unfairly arrested and kicked off the team, Rus faces an impossible choice: speak up or live in fear.

VICTORY STAND BY TOMMIE SMITH

On October 16, 1968, during the medal ceremony at the Mexico City Olympics, Tommie Smith, the gold medal winner in the 200-meter sprint, and John Carlos, the bronze medal winner, stood on the podium in black socks and raised their blackgloved fists to protest racial injustice inflicted upon African Americans. Both men were forced to leave the Olympics, received death threats, and faced ostracism and continuing economic hardships. In his first-ever memoir for young readers, Tommie Smith looks back on his childhood growing up in rural Texas through to his stellar athletic career, culminating in his historic victory and Olympic podium protest. Cowritten with Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Honor recipient Derrick Barnes and illustrated with bold and muscular artwork from Emmy Award–winning illustrator Dawud Anyabwile, Victory. Stand! paints a stirring portrait of an iconic moment in Olympic history that still resonates today.

CONCRETE ROSE BY ANGIE THOMAS

If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison. Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control. Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father. Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different.

When King Lord blood runs through your veins, though, you can’t just walk away. Loyalty, revenge, and responsibility threaten to tear Mav apart, especially after the brutal murder of a loved one. He’ll have to figure out for himself what it really means to be a man.

WHERE ARE OUR CLASSMATES?

By: Isaac Dennet and Iara Garcia

It’s getting pretty bad. Students are not staying in class. Why?

We decided to go break down the reasons behind the disappearances of our student body in their classes throughout the day, and we have some reasons to share. Let’s break down these points and anonymous interviews into categories, being; one: classes are overwhelming, two: classes are not engaging, and three: there not being any reason to stay. Let’s start with one.

Classes are overwhelming.

Some students have really been struggling with school since the pandemic, and even before the pandemic many kids have found school a challenge. And that’s fine, school isn’t one size fits all. But it does mean that the students who aren’t getting the support they need are struggling, and don’t want to stay in class. Even more than that, students may have been placed in classes with large, stressful work loads. Some kids just don’t have the time in their day either. Some kids have fallen so far behind that they cannot even learn anymore. They could have stuff from home. Here’s interviews and opinions from our students about this

“School is really stressful right now, and all it makes me want to do is give up.”

“Its overwhelming sometimes to have already some much in mind and getting to class and just putting more weight to my lie so I prefer to stay out until I prepare myself. The school system don’t force me to attende to class so I can just put up an excuse and stay out”

How could we fix this? I think that this is fixable by giving students a better support structure from classmates at school. I think that if we had better class sizes, and a better team and social structure, I think it would relieve a lot of the stress on students. They would also have more people to reach out to during class, or even out of class.

Classes are not engaging.

Y eah, classes can be super boring. This also ties into the point after this. Students may not be understanding, and therefore, the class is so boring! They also may not have any friends in the class, or the class dynamic may not be super enjoyable. A good example that I saw the most was math. Students were behind, had no friends, and wanted to skip. It was really bad for math.

“I just don’t like my teacher, is boring the way they teach me, I feel that thats why I prefer just staying out, I learn better from wikipedia”

“Well, some teachers are boring and they don’t know how to teach their classes, they should motivate them to come to their classes.”

What is the benefit of staying?

I think this one might be a little harder to understand, so we will circle back to a point from earlier. Kids are so far behind that it is hard, if not impossible , to learn some of the things they are learning in class right now. What is the point of staying if you aren’t learning anything anyway? Again, this is due to very large class sizes. Teachers do not have enough time in a period to help 20-30 students catch up. There is too much going on.

We talked with many kids, and got some more opinions from them. “Honestly… they [the classes] are so packed that it is really hard to focus or get anything done, really. There isn’t really a point anymore.” Or, this quote for another student; “You want me to stay through a whole period for me to get nothing done with people I don’t like? I’ll pass.” From their point of view, you are getting negative things done by staying! There are zero reasons to stay. Even from the point of view of: you will catch up eventually, that isn’t really true.

Many teachers that I talked with referenced the fact that it has been a struggle since covid to keep kids on a path

to success, with varying degrees of skill and proficiency in different topics. They said they would need more time or smaller class sizes to catch everyone up with where they should be. Many teachers said that no matter what, if kids can’t somehow catch up themselves, without any help, they may be left behind.

So how do we fix this? I think that first, more teachers for smaller classes should help a lot. Coming out of covid, we have less teachers, and more need for students to get individual help. We can’t help kids with the amount of teachers we have right now. Also, this isn’t really too easy to do, but we need to relieve mental stress on some of our students right now. It’s killing a lot of students who were doing good before.

So here’s a summary of problems. Large class sizes, not enough individual student attention, and a large student mental stress amount. Just remember more than anything, to put in as much work as you can into your school. This shapes your entire future.

Teacher Kaylee Krapfl

Q. Name?

A. Ms.Krapfl or Ms.K

Q. Favorite color?

A. Cargo Green

Q. What do you teach?

STAFF MEMBERS MEET THE NEW

A. Family consumer science, careers in ed, real life 101, and child development

Q. How long have you been teaching?

A. First year in high school, earlier childhood for seven years

Q. What can you tell us about your history?

A. From Illonis, went to Illinois State, taught kindergarten, taught preschool, then taught preschool teachers, then I realized I wanted to work with high school students

Q. Favorite Food?

A. Thai food

Q. Favorite Subject?

A. Child development and English

Q. Favorite Quote?

A. “Always be a little kinder than whats necessary”

EACH YEAR, SCHOOLS GET NEW TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND SUPPORT STAFF. WE WANT TO INTRODUCE ALL THESE NEW FACES AS THE YEAR GOES ON.

BY AMY NGUYEN

Spring Fling

By Isabel Laib

T he Spring Fling was held on Saturday, March 11, the theme being Surfers vs Bikers. While one of the smaller dances of the year, it was still very fun. There was a playlist, cool lighting, beach balls and balloons on the ground. People danced and played games with the beach balls. Some people played with the beanbag toss as well.

The concession stand was even playing Teen Beach movie songs, some playing in the actual gym as well. It seemed there were more bikers than surfers, so they ended up getting the juice bar in the end. It seems like not a lot of people showed up but everyone who did show up hopefully had fun.

Many popular songs played and people sang and danced to them. It seems that a bunch of people didn’t want to show up though, and their reasons why were; they didn’t want to, they didn’t think the theme matched the time, they didn’t feel the dance was important, or this dance was too close to the winter formal. The dance may have been slightly empty but it was still a fun way to spend the night.

Do you ever wonder how ASB sets up all the dances and events? How does it all get set up, how is it confirmed? I interviewed Mr. Hansen of ASB for these answers and here’s what I got.

ASB first starts with having a meeting and brainstorming, coming up with ideas and running them by each other. They think about every little part they want to do before settling on an idea. They then have to run it by administration for clearance. Mr. Hansen confirms the plan, then the administration confirms the plan. They have to do this every time they set up an event. It’s really amazing what they can come up with and all us trappers are very grateful for them.

HISTORY MONTH

BY CRISTINA MARTIN

Women’s history month is a time to accentuate and highlight women’s contributions to society and history. Women’s day was first established in 1911 on March 8th and was often overlooked as a holiday. Later, in 1980, it became National Women’s History Week, then soon after that in 1987 it was claimed as Women’s History Month.

There are millions of women to celebrate and many in your life as well. Many discoveries and creations have made great contributions to today’s society. Women’s rights activist Emmeline Pankhurst was most famous for participating with the movement of women’s suffrage, also known as when women were fighting for the right to vote. Many other large activists who had fought for women’s rights and to be treated equally such as Rosa Parks who was an activist in the Montgomery bus boycott movement and was declared the first lady of civil rights and the mother of the freedom movement. Lucretia Mott was an abolitionist and a women’s rights activist in the 1800’s, she spoke

against slavery and co-wrote the first woman’s rights convention in history. Lucretia helped to light the fire for the right’s for women to vote and be treated equally.

Theres also WiFi which was contributed and created by Hedy Lamarr, this invention led to bluetooth and GPS. Computer software was created by Grace Hopper. A groundbreaking discovery of stem cell isolation by Ann Tsukamoto. Antifungal drugs were also created by a woman Rachel Fuller Brown and Elizabeth Lee Hazeh, fungal infections are life threatening and occur world wide, this creation has saved thousands of lives. Beer, a very popular and addictive drink that is drunk worldwide, was first created over 7 thousand years ago by women, women were only allowed to drink beer and created breweries.

Just remember that at the end of this history month, that there are many things that women have created.

Ford, a popular automobile manufacturer, had released an advertisement on March 8th, women’s history day. This advertisement featured a new Ford Explorers Men’s only addition, this advertisement highlighted all of the uses on a car women have created are missing. Such as windshield wipers, no heater, no turn signals, no rear view mirror, and no GPS.

March is the month dedicated to women’s history month. This is a month dedicated to spotlighting achievments, creations, and ideas from women.

Ford Commercial

There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish.

Video Game News

Minecraft Legends is an upcoming action-strategy video game developed by Mojang Studios and Blackbird Interactive and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is set to be released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows on April 18, 2023. It is a spin-off of Minecraft. Form alliances with new friends and familiar mobs, then lead the charge in epic battles against the fierce piglins to defend the Overworld in the Minecraft universe.

by Tjay Barhitte

Sons of the Forest is a first-person video game developed by Endnight Games and published by Newnight. It is the sequel to the 2014 video game The Forest and was released on February 23, 2023 for Microsoft Windows. It may come to PS5 and Xbox in the future. It’s also in beta for PC for $29.99.

Resident Evil 4 is a remake of the 2005 game of the same name, scheduled for release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on March 24, 2023. The game player follows agent Leon S. Kennedy who faces several enemies in a mission to save Ashley Graham, daughter of the President of the United States.

Recipes For SPRING

by Christian Golden

With the start of Spring, there are many great ingredients in season to spice up your work in the kitchen. In this issue, we’ve got one sweet and one savory recipe for you. Turns out, they go great together! Let us know what you think.

Strawberry Crepes

Prep time 30 minutes

Cook time 30 minutes

Serves 6

Makes 12 crepes

Ingredients

• ¾ cup all-purpose flour

• ½ cup milk

• ½ cup water

• 3 eggs

• 3 tablespoons butter, melted

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 1 ¼ cups sifted confectioners’ sugar (Powdered Sugar) if you don’t have either try blending sugar in a blender

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 cup heavy cream, whipped

• 4 cups sliced strawberries

Directions

1. Put the flour, milk, water, eggs, melted butter, and salt into a blender, then blend until smooth

2. Mix the confectioners’ sugar, cream cheese, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla in a bowl until smooth. While mixing slowly fold whipped cream in

3. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or non-stick skillet over medium heat

4. Pour around 2 Tbsp’s of batter for each crepe you want to make. Tip the pan to spread the batter. Flip the Crepe when the edge is beginning to brown

5. Continue cooking until sides are yellow with light brown, stack finished crepes with damp towel

6. Fill crepes with ¼ cup of strawberries and ⅓ cup of cream cheese filling

Pork & Chive Pot Stickers

Prep time 60 minutes

Cook time 5 minutes

Makes 5 dozen pot stickers

Ingredients

• 2 medium carrots, finely chopped

• 1 small onion, finely chopped

• 1/2 cup finely chopped water chestnuts

• 1/3 cup minced fresh chives

• 1 large egg white, lightly beaten

• 3 tablespoons soy sauce

• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

• 1 pound ground pork

• 60 pot sticker or gyoza wrappers

• 3 tablespoons canola oil, divided

• 1 cup chicken broth, divided

Directions

1. In a big bowl combine the carrots, small onions, water chestnuts, chives, egg, soy sauce, and pepper

2. When combined add the pork and mix lightly but thoroughly

3. Add slightly under a tablespoon of the mix

4. Wet edges of the wrappers and close the sides together, and make sure make sides are closed

5. Place the closed pot stickers on a flat surface to create flat shape on bottom

6. If you don’t want to cook right now you can freeze the pot stickers for later time

7. If you want to cook now, heat a teaspoon of oil in a nonstick pan on medium high heat Cook for 1-2 minutes until bottoms are golden brown

8. Reduce the heat to medium low and add ⅓ cup of broth, and cover the pan with a lid. Continue cooking till the broth is almost fully absorbed in 2-3 minutes

9. Continue cooking for around a minute until the broth has evaporated and bottoms are crispy

10. Repeat steps 6-9 to finish other potsticker batches