Fort Outpost - June 2024

www.sites.google.com/fort-outpost

from the

advisor.

Jennifer Fay

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.”

~Herman Melville

It is with a heavy heart that Fort staff mourn the loss of our long time staff member Brenda Hall (above), while at the same time celebrating our Seniors as they are released into the community to begin their lives after high school.

This duality of nature teaches us to celebrate each day and be thankful for the moment as we are living in it.

Brenda will be missed and remembered everyday for the lasting effect she had in contributing to a positive community here at Fort Vancouver High School. As our Seniors move on, may they remember Brenda and all of the Fort community that supported

them along their journey and continue to carry with them the love and lessons they have learned.

Community is a mighty thing and you are all a part of ours here at Fort. Make lasting memories and enjoy every moment of your Summer!

Don’t forget that, when we come back in the Fall, we’ll be looking for more students who want to contribute to the Fort Outpost and make their own lasting impression in our school community.

contributors.

Isaac Dennett - Editor in Chief

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

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. My favorite color is purple and my favorite artist is Beabadobee.

Leila Folsom - Writer

I’m one of the newest writers on staff. I’m working hard to find stories that are interesting and heartfelt to share with you!

Isabel Laib - Writer

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

Cristina Martin - Writer

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

JenniferFay Advisor - Journalism Club

Jacob Owen - Writer

Hello! I’m a junior at Fort and Clark!

I have rats and I enjoy doing art in different mediums.

Christian Golden - Associate Editor

corrections... We have a few corrections on our previous Interstate Bridge Replacement article!

• When the bridge is raised, traffic is completely stopped, not slow, along the bridge and I-5.

• “A two-level bridge is being studied, but this configuration would have the roadway stacked on top of transit and active transportation pathways, respectively – not two roadways stacked on top of each other.”

• One of the lanes in the 4 lane set up is an auxiliary lane, used for merging traffic.

• No final decisions on bridge construction have been made.

• Tolls are not fines.

• Tolls will not be implemented on I-205.

FLY Me to the MOON

FORT VANCOUVER STUDENTS WERE TREATED TO PROM AT THE HISTORIC HANGER AT THE PEARSON AIR MUSEUM.

WRITTEN BY LEILA FOLSOM

ASB hosted a cozy prom that closed off the 2023-24 school year. It was based on the serene, midnight-hued palette of Frank Sinatra’s fan-favorite “Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)”. While the theme ranged from navy blues to solid golds, a myriad of colors were presented in the outfits of the roughly 500 attendees that showed, including deep reds and dark greens. Prom night was June 1st, taking place at The Historic Hangar, an indooroutdoor venue that had rustic themes with its giant barn doors, as well as a refined edge, with resin-lined white floors and paneling. Students mingled outdoors while the sun was setting, before heading inside as the night brought in cooler temperatures.

The prom court was announced within an hour of its opening, revealing the popular pairing Andrew Walzyk and Alyssa Gogue to emerge as Prom King and Queen. After being crowned, the journalism club proceeded to interview the seniors who’d shown up that night.

We opened up the interviews with a lighthearted question: “What are you most excited about today?” Almost all the seniors were excited to socialize and dance with their friends, taking a moment to enjoy the scenery when their energy ran low. Of the less sociable few, they said they were more than excited to return to their beds once prom concluded.

The second question was “What was your most memorable experience from high school?” The seniors fondly reflected on the friends they made within the clubs they took part in. These clubs, many said, allowed them to feel “part of something for once,” and “connected to those [they] share backgrounds with.” To them, the clubs fostered communities within Fort that gave them space to be themselves.

On the topic of their future, and “What they were planning to do after college,” most were already prepared to leave the confines of home. From law school, to coding, to not knowing what the future held for them after college, each had their own variation of finding their freedom in graduating.

Of the questions we provided, most of the interviewed seniors had much to say on the last question, “What advice would you give to students attending Fort next year?” The most common advice given to those preparing for the 2024-25 school year included “finding a balance between school and home life,” “putting yourself out there, instead of getting hung up on your insecurities.” And, lastly, “finding friend groups that aren’t prone to drama.”

With summer coming up within the week, it is with our warmest regards that we hope you take this advice in mind: Find some time to unwind from the stresses of this year, whether that be with family and friends, reconnecting with nature, or even taking a week to sleep in until noon. It was a tough year, but we’ve made it through, ready to tackle more in the future.

AN INterview with our SUPERINTENDANT

Teachers are losing their jobs at the end of this year. In a process called a Reduction in Force (Rif), many staff are going to lose their jobs. This is because our district is broke. Very broke. We are cutting 35M worth of positions at the end of the school year. The district is calling it a Budget Crisis. Our journalism club had the opportunity to ask him some questions on behalf of you guys. We sent out a survey, and students left some questions that we asked.

To start, we asked him to explain the Reduction in Force. “So what happens is with a reduction in force that there’s contract language is a part of the collective parenting agreement. And so whenever we have contracts that are up, and this isn’t unique to us in public education, this would be like nurses or whatever healthcare. In any kind of employment where there’s a labor union you make agreements with them about what happens for salary, what happens for professional learning, what happens for transfer, and unfortunately what happens when you have to reduce staff. And so those agreements are kind of already put in place. And so a lot of those agreements are based on years of experience. I think that’s pretty typical in labor contracts.”

What is being said here is that the reduction in force is based on how many years the teacher has been in the school district. That’s already set in place, and the district cannot change it. In the first couple of years of teaching, teachers are on a provisional contract that can be ended at the end of the year. They are ending many provisional contracts to meet the cuts they need to make. Another question Fort students have is why we are losing so many teachers compared to other schools. Our school has more provisional teachers than the rest of our district. Once the RiF occurs, we will

lose more provisional teachers than everyone else because we have the most. This RiF process set in the union contract also prevents firing or keeping certain teachers for equity reasons, which is unfortunate. The teachers’ union needs to change how seniority works if they would like to change how this occurs.

We also asked if there was going to be a second round of budget cuts, and Dr. Snell said this; “There will not be additional people, but moving people at this point because of those provisional contracts. Basically, the number of people that were reduced was about the target that the board set for us.” So, he’s trying to say that no additional people will be removed because the board has already hit its target for budget cuts. There will only be people moved around. So, your teacher may be moved to another school based on necessity, which won’t be fully decided until the 2024-2025 school year almost starts.

A big question many students at our school have is if we will still be offering AP classes at our school. Dr. Snell said this; “At this point, there’s no direction from the district like you must collapse these classes [ap classes] or anything.”

Another thing that may happen though is more classes will become college in high school classes. “I think what we would probably do is be expanding more College in the high school because now the state is funding that. And so like AP, you still have to pay for a test sometimes. And we’ve tried to pay for that as much as we can, but that’s an added cost, whereas now the college in the high school is more consistent across our state. It might be the better option moving forward.”

“Even though there was going to be some really challenging times that maybe I could help in some way”

- Dr. Snell

To end this, Snell said this about the student protests:

“I had this surreal moment when. I came down to Fort when the protest was happening and I walked with them. On my desk, in my office, I have something from the welding program. They welded me this FV love sculpture. It’s one of my favorite possessions I have because when I started as principal we had a lot of gang violence here and it was a very challenging start. We rallied around that. And so for me, one of the reasons I became a leader is because of my experience at Fort. And so then to be walking with the student protest, the irony of like, the reason I’m leading is to try to help all schools, but in particular for a place that is near and dear to my heart. And then I am the face of basically tearing down things that are built and I don’t want to do that.”

STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

The student perspective for next year may look different, as numbers aren’t exact for the amount of teachers and staff that are being cut as a direct result of the rift. The amount of cuts are going to impact class size, possibly reducing class variety, substitute teacher variety/opportunities, less class resources, school programs/resources, and counselor resources will be impacted, as well as losing teachers directly from the rift or choosing to retire is a huge impact for students.

Classroom sizes will be impacted by an increase of students per class, teachers are expected to have an average of students higher than in years prior. For each subject the average size varies, and exact numbers are not available, and will have to be averaged out after the increase

occurs. Multiple teachers you know will be teaching other subjects.

Students can intend a general increase of students per classroom, as well as changes with teachers and possibly class variety. Due to the budget cuts, classroom resources may be cut as well, this can include supplies being less available. Counselors around the building will also be a part of the rift, exact lists of staff members other than teachers are not finished/ official.

Due to all of these changes, make sure to be patient with all staff going into next year. They will try their best, and I hope you guys do too!

Fort Spring Sports Recap

by Amy Nguyen

01. Girls Tennis

They had over 50 players on the team and 1/4 were seniors. They had 2 team wins against Evergreen. Singles 1, Zoe Triol (senior) won her match against Columbia River making her the first Singles win over River that Forts has had. Our singles 3 Natalie Weinmaster (junior) had the most Varsity match wins in the League season. This season Girls Tennis improved their indoor practice area and equipment for rainy days. Wider location in the commons, more indoor softballs to help with coordination, and new indoor nets.

02. Track & Field

This season, track and field has made amazing accomplishments. Many players headed to district championships and state. Anthony Rivarda (junior) ran an 11.61 in the 100m hurdles to start and an 11.11 to qualify him for district championships and to state. Savaya Sanders (sophomore), PR’ed in the 100m from last year’s time of a 12.99 to a 12.91making her 3rd place going into the district championships. She also qualified in the 200m, breaking her time down from a 28.10 to a 26.80, and putting her in third going into championships.

Trian Clark (senior) is an amazing athlete despite getting severe pain from the first meet, in an attempt to clear the height jump, Trian’s body sailed further than intended and missed the mat completely. She was in severe pain, but continued to run the women’s 4x100. She improved on her jumps later in the season and qualified for districts with a jump of 4’10.

Apirlmicca Cruz qualified for districts in both long jump and triple jump. Her PR for long jump was 16.08 and her Triple Jump PR was 33.4. April is also the first leg of the girls 4x100.

Our Women’s 4x100 also qualified by winning the sub-district race with a time of 51.3, they’re fastest time of the season. This team includes Aprilmicca Cruz (senior), Trian Clark (senior), Fatou Bojang(sophomore) and Savaya Sanders (sophomore). They are currently the #1 team in the district.

03. Boys Soccer

They had a great season, finish just one game out of the playoffs.

A great team that had 35 amazing players this season in total.

The boys soccer team won six games in the 2023-24 season.

04. Softball

This team won a few games at the end of the season and greatly improved this season from last year. A strong and amazing team that shows great sportsmanship.

05. Baseball

Had a great progress of improvement this season and continued to grow outside of the season.

They had two seniors, Will Monroe and David Dunbar.

Despite the challenging season they continued to play their best during all their games.

ALTERNATIVE

Written by Christian Golden

Was making our school start time later the right decision? Personally I believe so but it definitely isn’t perfect. I think being able to wake up much later is a big positive for this schedule but the day is over so soon. Doing sports,work, or any other activities seem to take away so much of the remaining time left in the day. Nonetheless, I feel that a later schedule has lessened the amount of fatigue felt from having to wake up so early in the morning. But this shouldn’t be the only schedule type that we consider. I’m sure many of us are tired of the 6.5 hour days, 5 days a week so let’s see how some other schedules.

A four day school schedule is one that has been adopted by hundreds of school districts throughout the country. Personally I like the idea of a 4 day school schedule a lot. It gives us a 3 day weekend and only results in the school day increasing by an hour and a quarter. A schedule like this has been seen to save the school

money, something that is really relevant to our school district after facing countless layoffs. There have also been some signs that this schedule in the best case shows signs of education improvement and at worst case shows no change in education. There have also been less behavioral issues from the schools adopting this schedule with decreased bullying and fighting. This is without talking about the benefits to teachers; being given more prep time and days off.

While this schedule seems to have many upsides it doesn’t come without its negatives. For one it lengthens the day even longer, taking away crucial hours people have to work, practice, or anything else. This schedule also creates another day that lower income families need to worry about watching over and feeding their kids. Especially when dealing with very young kids, not having a place to put your child while working is a nightmare to deal with. A 4 day school week can be helpful to many students but can bring up new challenges that other schedules don’t need to deal with.

ALTERNATIVE

School Schedules

A less drastic schedule change that we can get instead would be shorter school days and less condensed Summer break. Instead of having longer days like the 4 day schedule, we would have 5 days but shorter days. This concept has been used by many European countries. For example Finland which has been consistent in getting very high education performances have 5 hour school days compared to our 6 and a half hour long days. The tradeoff for a schedule like this is the amount of days we want to be at school. Finland goes to school 190 days; 10 days extra to our 180.

A schedule like this can reduce the overload of information given in a days worth of school that I’m sure many of you have experienced as well. To run this schedule I wouldn’t mind losing some of my Summer break because I feel at times that it is too long. The long break also causes people to lose the learning they built up during the year. Resulting in weeks of catchup required to do before the next school year’s learning can take place. A schedule with shorter

days can benefit the learning process and decrease the amount of Summer learning loss we currently have.

It’s fine if you have different opinions about the schedule because everyone wants a schedule that supports them best. But everyone is so different in backgrounds and living situations that it’s hard to create the perfect schedule. I think it’s lucky that we got the approval of our current schedule even if it isn’t perfect because it gives an opportunity to improve. Getting these opinions to people who have the power to change the schedules is the first step in getting our “perfect” schedule.

Recipes For Summer deserts

It’s finally here, summer!!

As we enter this new season here are a few sweet treats to welcome summer and celebrate a break from school. Have a great summer Trappers! :) by

Pineapple Dole Whip

Ingredients

• 4 ounces of pineapple juice

• 1 scoop vanilla ice cream (about 3/4 cup)

• 2 cups frozen pineapple chunks

• 2 tablespoons of sugar

• Splash of lemon juice

• Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth and creamy, if needed push down pineapple chunks for it to blend.

2. Freeze the mixture for 30-40 minutes, then transfer it into a piping bag with a 1M star tip.

3. Swirl into cups and enjoy!

Giant S’mores Skillet Cookie

Ingredients

• 2 sticks (1 cup) salted butter, at room temperature

• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar (use 3/4 cup for a sweater cookie)

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

• 2 large eggs, at room temperature

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

• 4 squares graham crackers broken into bite-size pieces

• 8-10 marshmallows

• 2 Hershey chocolate bars broken into pieces

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly butter a 10-12 inch skillet.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until combined. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until combined. Add the vanilla, beating until creamy. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in the chocolate chips.

3. Spread 1/3 of the dough into the bottom of the prepared skillet. Arrange the graham crackers over the dough, then add the marshmallows and Hershey’s pieces. Add the remaining cookie dough, gently spreading the dough over the marshmallows and chocolate. It’s OK if not all the dough covers the mallows.

4. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake for 20-22 minutes for an extra doughy center or 22-25 minutes for a more set cookie. Remove from the oven, and let cool for 3-5 minutes. Sprinkle it with sea salt (if desired).

Tiramisu

Ingredients

• 3 tsp instant coffee granules

• 3 tbsp coffee liqueur

• 250g tub mascarpone

• 85g condensed milk

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 4-6 sponge fingers

• 1 tbsp cocoa powder

Directions

1. Mix the coffee granules with 2 tbsp boiling water in a large jug and stir to combine. Add the coffee liqueur and 75ml cold water. Pour into a shallow dish and set aside.

2. Make the cream layer by beating the mascarpone, condensed milk, and vanilla extract with an electric whisk until thick and smooth.

3. Break the sponge fingers into two or three pieces and soak in the coffee mixture for a few seconds. Put a few bits of the sponge in the bottom of two wine or sundae glasses and top with the cream. Sift over the cocoa and chill for at least 1 hour before serving.

Strawberry Fool

Ingredients

• 1 pound fresh strawberries

• 2 cups heavy whipping cream

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Hull and cut strawberries into quarters. Place the strawberries in a blender with 1/4 cup of sugar. Pulse until slightly blended but still chunky.

2. In the bowl of your mixer, add the whipping cream, 1/4 cup sugar and the vanilla. Beat on high until stiff peaks form.

3. Pour half the strawberry puree into a bowl and add half the whipped cream. Fold together.

4. To assemble your strawberry fools, in a glass bowl or cup, add a dollop of whipped cream. Top with a spoonful of the strawberry puree and then fill the glass with the strawberry fool mixture. Top with a spoonful of whipped cream and garnish with fresh strawberries, fresh mint leaves or a thyme sprig.

5. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator up to 4 hours.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Fort Vancouver High School

Class of 2024