ALIEF HASTINGS HIGH SCHOOL
FEBRUARY 2022
4410 COOK ROAD, HOUSTON, TX 77082
www.BearFactsMedia.com
VOL. 49 ISSUE #2
Photo by Dayana Martinez
Read up on this year’s teacherof-the-year nominees for HHS and HNGC. Page 4
Photo by Litzy Gonzelez-Garcia
Voters approved 3 out of 4 propositions on a new bond for district-wide improvements. Get the details inside. Page 5
Lady bears are back By Mya Bourgeois
The girls basketball team officially qualified for playoffs and continued their season after winning their sixth district game against their rival team, Elsik Rams. “We haven’t been to the playoffs in 3 years. Our team motto this year was ‘we’re back,’” head coach Corey Brotherton said. “As in we’re back to the playoffs and back to prominence.” Since the beginning of the season, the Lady Bears had their heart and mind set on qualifying for the playoffs. Their grit and stamina got them to the point of reaching their goal. “Some of our goals were to make playoffs, win twenty games,
and go as far as we could this “It started at the end of the seayear,” Brotherton said. son last year,” Brotherton said. Being a young team, with “Things we worked on in off seaonly two seniors, it was importson workouts transferred into sumant for the Lady Bears to show mer workouts, and then pre-seamaturity by staying son.” focused during pracAlthough they’ve tice, games, and tourreached their goal by naments. making it to the play“Our nucleus of offs, it is not time to seniors and varsity celebrate just yet. girls really stepped “I was excited that up,” Brotherton said. we made the play“They showed up offs because that was everyday and worked one of our goals,” hard” Photo by Giselle Hernandez Platero Brotherton said. “But For the Lady Bears, we want to do more the mental and physical prepathan that, we want to advance and ration started during the go as far as we can. Let’s not be satoff-season. They knew exactly isfied with just that; we made the what needed to be done. playoffs, now let’s win.”
Photo by Nyia Ramsey
See the scholar athletes committing to colleges on signing day. Page 8
Inside this issue:
Opinions ................. Page 2, 3 Campus ................... Page 4, 5 Features ................. Page 6 News ...................... Page 7 Sports ..................... Page 8 Visit Bear Facts Media online for events, sports scores, digital content and more.
Publications Staff Bear Facts Editor-in-Chief: Bear Tracks Editor-in-Chief: Digital Media Editors: Assistant Editors: Sports Editors: Photo Editors:
Mya Bourgeois Kendra Chavez-Lozoya Emani Jackson Julissa Marcos Maritza Ramos Juanita Omeje Reyna Duarte Aniya Didley Naomi Akinlami Samantha Lopez
Staff Reporters Jay Christopher Sonia Diaz Herrera Lola Oladimeji Denis Vasquez Se’Rayia Clarke Anh Dao Kim Nguyen Desiree Oladipo Kam’ryn Anderson Cristian Wilmore Tana Agbabi Christian Ojeda
Sonia Salazar Zitlali Alvarado Hernandez Naomi Akinlami Zata Dizadare Michelle Flores Litzy Gonzalez-Garcia Janacia Jackson Samantha Lopez Matthew Marte Dayana Martinez Fidel Martinez Aaliyah Bouwell
Photo Staff: Ashley Corona Nuvy Garcia Leny Garcia Romero Ileana Hernandez Zayra Hernandez Kimberly Hernandez Dominguez Angel Acuna Garcia Kevin Bolanos Shihab Thamer Brooklyn Warren Emani Williams Business Manager: Nyia Ramsey Adviser: Tiffany Fitzpatrick Principal:
Lynette Miller
Bear Facts, a public forum for student opinion, is published at Alief Hastings High School, 4410 Cook Rd., Houston, TX 77072. The purposes of Bear Facts are to inform, entertain and to provide both a catalyst and forum for student expression. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of staff leadership. Bear Facts encourages letters to its staff and editors. Letters, which may be edited for length and clarity, should be brought to room 108N. Opinions expressed by those of the collective staff or individuals within do not necessarily represent the views of the adviser, administration or the Alief School Board of Trustees. Bear Facts is a member of the Interscholastic Press Conference, the National Scholastic Press Association and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
we need It’s our time &more of it The end of the school year is fast approaching. Another set of seniors are preparing for the end of the By Janacia Jackson year, seniors are ordering senior packages, buying prom tickets, choosing their outfits to wear to prom and ordering their memories after they leave high school. But even though we have lots of things to take care of for the end of the school year, there’s not exactly a lot of time to get everything done. We only have four months to order everything. So we might as well get started with everything now while we still have the chance. Even though the end of the school year is coming quickly, we don’t really have a lot of time to get everything done and choose our outfits for prom and due dates to make payments are already happening.
Soon the seniors will start to stress about the payments, prom and all the preparations, but as long as the seniors keep up with the due dates and pay attention to what they need to do in order to have a fun and successful prom and end of the school year, everything will be just fine for the seniors. Seniors also have to complete the FAFSA, take their final state tests, and stay on top of their attendance for the remainder of the year. So in conclusion, the seniors must be responsible for everything they need to take care of for the end of the school year, they need to pay for their senior packages, get their prom tickets taken care of, get their prom outfits also taken care of and begin to prepare for the end of the school year and then once all payments are made on time and everything is taken care of the class of 2022 will have a great graduation and end of the school year!
What went wrong... We all crave that ideal romantic interest that keeps us pushing through life. Not being shown real love from a By Nyia Ramsey young age impacts our generation's view of romantic relationships, pushing us in many cases to want to be in one. This leads to dating from a young age as we try to find someone who will make us feel better about ourselves. Hopefully, your ideal person is someone you imagine will always be there for you, who chooses to love and care about you and only you. Or maybe you don't feel it's necessary for you to be in a relationship at a young age. Speaking of the adverse effects of teenage dating, not every teen becomes mature once they reach high school. That's four years
to develop from common mistakes that are usually made and to find yourself in the works of high school. Indeed, mental health is the most critical factor in the life of a high-schooler. Having a relationship that you take seriously in high school isn't beneficial to your mental health, because continuing to put that "person" above yourself is the biggest problem when in a relationship. Social media always projects the best parts of a relationship; social media's impact on young adults shows why so many teens crave that intimacy with a person. No one ever talks about the bad days a relationship brings, like the times where you don't know if the connection will last because of how bad of a day it has been. What about the days where you guys aren't okay and can't figure out why, or those times when you argue about why the relationship isn't working? Focusing just on the relationship will leave you off track
with your personal life, causing you to lose sight of other things such as school, extracurricular activities, and most importantly your mental health. Adding to this, you learn more about a person by spending time with them. It takes time to know a person for who they really are, and once you do and the relationship works for the first few months, all seems well. But when it comes to arguing, there's a different feeling. You care so much you invalidate your feelings and thoughts because you want to be happy with them, but not all relationships work the way we want them to. Letting your feelings become invalidated because of how your "person" feels shouldn't be stood for. A person's character in hard times proves to you if the relationship is worth the effort. The concept of a relationship negatively hitting a low makes you sad, and you focus so much on them and trying to make them feel better you lose focus on the real
issue. Make sure that you're okay first, before you lose yourself in the process of trying to be in a relationship, putting in excessive effort to make it work. Relationships take a lot of strength, and not every teen has that strength. With personal life on top of school and a relationship, the high stress levels can be unhealthy, negatively impacting the way you live and think. Not many teens know how to balance a relationship and still focus on their mentality and health, because they aren't mature or genuinely open to understanding how to be. Not having a direct mind on yourself and how you are before you get into a relationship can keep you from growing into the person you want and aim to be. If you can't mentally handle it, continue to be positive and focus on becoming a better person. We are still young and growing, and relationships aren't for the weak. Please protect your heart.
to block it. Private citizens are permitted to file a lawsuit against those they are convinced may have been involved in assisting a pregnant woman in getting an abortion, according to Elle.com. “Our Creator endowed us with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion. In Texas, we work to save those lives,” Texas governor Greg Abbott said as he signed the law into effect last May. “ That’s exactly what the Texas Legislature did this session.” According to Abort 73, in 2019 roughly 57,275 abortions took place in Texas alone. In other words, 13.2% of Texas pregnancies were ended by abortion. Since the Heartbeat Bill became law in September, thousands of demonstrators have marched at the Texas Capitol in Austin and in cities all over the state to protest the restrictions on abortion, citing the need for a woman to have access to essential healthcare. But confronting the answer to whether abortion is morally and socially right takes courage. In the quest for truth, one must be willing to accept the possibility that the
answer may not be something they like. Some have compared abortion to murder. According to Oxford Languages, murder is defined as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.” It is true that the destruction of fetuses in the womb is protected by national laws in many parts of the world, although it is inhumane. Some question how we consider murder to be such a crooked action, a sure sign of wickedness and barbarism and deserving of condemnation and punishment, but welcome the deliberate, unjust taking of a defenseless child’s life. But to answer the question about whether abortion is right or wrong, whether we as a nation are actually endorsing murder, we must first ask the question, when does human life really begin? Is a fetus actually a living human child or just a bundle of tissue? Medically speaking, extensive biological research confirms that human life starts at conception. As stated by the American College of Pediatricians, when a mother’s egg and a father’s sperm come together to create a fertilized zygote, a genetically distinct and unique human being has emerged.
In the DNA resides the instructions for the new human to grow and develop healthily. Therefore, a zygote hidden in a womb is no less human than the mother carrying it. Considering this truth, we as a society must be very careful. If we constantly create new definitions of humanity based on warped views of what is right or simply for convenience, the festering wound that is injustice will know no end. Essentially, isn’t the true difference between a fetus and you or I just age, dwelling place, and level of development? So is abortion a legalized form of murder? Well, feticide is still a deliberate decision to end a human life and meets all the attributes of murder. It is only different from the full definition of murder because manmade laws protect the practice. But it would be flawed to argue that what is legal is always right. Abortion is the decision to take another human’s life, and that will always be the definition of murder, regardless of what human laws say. Simply put, it is a legalized form of unjust killing--murder in disguise.
PROTECTING THE INNOCENT: A QUESTION OF CHOICE? By Juanita Omeje
The state of Texas has recently passed a law that bans in-state abortions about six weeks into a pregnancy. It is just one of the many restrictive state-wide measures on abortions going into effect across the United States. The Senate Bill 8, widely known as the Heartbeat Bill, prohibits a woman from receiving an abortion in Texas once cardiac activity can be detected in the womb. Normally, this is about six weeks into a pregnancy, when most women have not yet realized they are pregnant. The wording of the law makes it difficult to challenge in court, and the Supreme Court has already refused
Part 1, to be continued
Teacher(s) by
of the
Naomi Akinlami
Ms. Gopalakrishnan or Ms. G as many of her students call her is our Alief Hastings High School Teacher of the Year. You can find her in the foreign languages hallway in the South building surrounded by Spanish and French teachers teaching the less easy language of mathematics. Although it can be said that the topics explored in her classroom are challenging, her students trust her patience, compromising skills, and teaching to get them across that hurdle. She understands the difficulty of her classes and encourages her students to practice when they can and is always ready to help them to do so. She shared a story about practicing mathematics on newspaper clippings as a child because she did not want her father to spend more money on notebooks. In order to help her student’s parents avoid the same situation, she provides notebooks, folders, markers, and whiteboards allowing them to study and practice in the way that best suits their learning styles. “She taught like she knew what she was doing and not like teachers that watched youtube videos before class, she’s smart and knows how to convey a topic well,”Alumni Victor Ogunbodede said. She has been teaching for 26 years now and enjoys teaching because she is contributing to the success of the future generation and holds a passion for mathematics. Although she was elected teacher of the year by her peers she believes the quality a good teacher possesses is the ability to make connections with students. “Ms.G is not like any other
Year
By Litzy Gonzales-Garcia
teacher I had before, it’s her dedication and motivation that helps us as students grow. She’s Photo by Dayana Martinez caring, nice, and charming but there are no words to explain why she has become the most important person in my career. I want to thank her for being dedicated to her work because without her the high school experience wouldn’t be the same”. Senior Ashley Hernandez said. Although Mrs. Gopalakrishnan is our teacher of the year, she remains humble and is just glad to be recognized. She is not surprised to have been elected teacher of the year because she held a positive mindset through the process and is grateful for her win but she just enjoys teaching and helping her students grow. “I think Mrs. G is an amazing teacher and I value her because of her dedication to me as a student. She doesn’t mind staying well after regular tutoring hours just to answer any questions I have. She is also very aware and considerate of her students’ strengths and weaknesses, therefore helping them thrive without feeling embarrassed in the classroom. Thank you Mrs. G” Senior Deborah Kolawale said. She demonstrates that being a good teacher is truly about connecting with others, her patience, empathy, and care for her students do not go unnoticed and she is here to help the future generation grow with or without recognition: from the newspaper staff, her students, and fellow faculty members,we thank you for your dedication to the service of others and appreciate all of the teachers who go a mile and beyond for their students without being recognized. Thank you.
Mr. Graham hated biology in high school then something inside him clicked, and he started to love it when he rediscovered it in college. When he was asking meaningful questions about life, biology had the answers for him. “Human beings might be the most complex and interesting things in the universe, and I want to know what makes us tick.” Every year every teacher nominates another teacher for the title of ‘Teacher of the Year’. Many of Mr.Graham’s coworkers nominated him and won, as humble as he is he would love to know why they chose him. He has the highest respect for every teacher in the world, and he does his best to master the profession he is in. He sees every year as an opportunity to learn and grow from the lessons of his previous years. He takes it very seriously and gives it his all. He loves his job and does his best. Maybe his co-workers noticed. Every teacher has a successful and an unsuccessful lesson. His most successful lesson might be when he taught the students how to transcribe and translate genetic code into a protein he calls the lesson “Pokemon Synthesis.” Normally this lesson would describe a protein, but when teaching it they have to describe a Pokemon card. The students describe a particular card with genetic code,
and when they are done they get to keep it as a souvenir. His most unsuccessful lessons would probably be when he started teaching. As a beginner teachers normally get too excited and dive too deep into the material that some students don’t understand and Mr.Graham was one of those teachers, but like they say practice makes perfect and now he is dedicated to simplifying complex ideas into “easy-to-understand brain food.” Teaching is a hard job and during this line of work teachers might encounter difficult students. Mr.Graham has rarely encountered tough students but when he does he treats them like any regular student. He talks with them, He waits for heads to cool first, both theirs and his, and then talks to them like he would to any other person. He’s found that most people, young and old, don’t mean harm and don’t mean to be difficult. There’s always a reason or a misunderstanding. Usually, a reasonable chat is all it takes to resolve problems in my classroom. He loves learning and discovering new things about the world. He loves it now more than when he was younger. Now he tries to make learning fun and interesting to spark that interest in his students. This was all said by Mr.Graham, someone just had to write his story.
Photo by Dayana Martinez
ABCD
Voters approve 3 bond propositions by
Naomi Akinlami
Alief ISD voters recently approved three of the district’s four propositions totaling $541.7 million during the August Board Workshop. The workshop took place virtually and members spent many hours of their time, exploring information, taking virtual tours, and making deliberations regarding the benefit of each proposition. The four propositions are propositions A, B, C and D Proposition A includes funding for safety and security, new buses, rebuilding two elementary schools,
a new agricultural science center, fine arts, Career and Technology Education (CTE) equipment, and districtwide modernization. It was the largest of the four propositions costing $482.4 million, passing by a 60.7% margin, and the largest proposition in Alief ISD history. Proposition B includes resurfacing and rebuilding district tennis courts and ball fields, scoreboards, turf, and dugouts replacements. It totaled $9.1 million and passed by a 50.3% margin among the voters. Proposition C includes a new playing surface and track, a new video scoreboard, and a renovated
press box at Crump Stadium. It also included locker room renovations and miscellaneous renovations but was defeated by a 52.9% margin and will not be taking effect. The proposition totaled $19.4 million and would have helped renovated Crump Stadium which has undergone minimal renovations since it was built in 1974. Proposition D includes updating campus inventories, student and teacher devices as well as online teaching devices. It will also implement a strategic replacement cycle and passed by a 57.6% margin. The proposition totaled $30.6 million.
The bond election these propositions were suggested in was Alief ISD’s first bond election since 2015 and the second since 2003. It is also the largest proposition in Alief ISD history and will improve student and staff safety, technology upgrades, Career and Technology Education (CTE), rebuild Youens and Chambers Elementary Schools. It will also allow Alief ISD to continue to be the Top Workplace in the Houston Chronicle Workplace as it has been for six consecutive years and improve district-wide morale.
Steering into the main problem in the show is the “Glamorization” of drugs, sex and violence, this is a big problem with a lot of teen dramas to date but euphoria has created a fanbase that religiously is based of their liking for the shows realness. But is this really real? Are us teens actually seeing reality when we watch shows like this? The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program aka The D.A.R.E program has spoken upon the claims of the glamorization stating”Rather than further each parent’s desire to keep their children safe from the potentially horrific consequences of drug abuse and other high-risk behavior, HBO’s television drama, Euphoria, chooses to misguidedly glorify and erroneously depict high school student drug use, addiction, anonymous sex, violence, and other destructive behaviors as common and widespread in today’s world.” The program goes to furtherly explain “It is unfortunate that HBO, social media, television program reviewers, and paid advertising
have chosen to refer to the show as ‘groundbreaking,’ rather than recognizing the potential negative consequences on school-age children who today face unparalleled risks and mental health challenges.” This goes to allow me to say that while Euphoria is a diverse, industry changing coming of age TV show, The mark that the show is leaving may not be the one we should be praising. Now that the show is in its second season hopefully the writers can steer the show in the right direction joining both reality and teen drama to hopefully get the message across without killing realistic demands that teens are faced with. The show isn’t all horrible as fans like Sadie Walsh states in her critique. “From the beginning to the end, the cinematography that the show had created was incredible”, so therefore maybe us fans can chip in and create that reality because at the end of the day Teen media is always going to affect teens.
The Euphoria Effect Media impacts teen lives today by
Kam’Ryn Anderson
Ever since this generation watched Barney sing about loving strangers and Barbie sing about her glamorizing lifestyle, kids have always been influenced by the media and what we see. This goes on until adulthood due to minors being life size sponges. As kids grow, of course, they develop their own sense of thought, but it specifically hits harder during our teenage years. Seeing the new Hit show, Euphoria, which debuted and hit the charts on June 16 2019, has prompted the ‘effects of teen media on teens’ conversation to be brought up. The show is based on a seventeen year old Rue Bennet who suffers with addiction,mental health and grief of her father who passed away. The show takes Teen drama to a whole new level introducing Death, Sex, Exciting outburst and Overdosing, all in the pilot. Due to how big the show was talked about and praised about its accuracy, its relatability and
its glamorization of trauma , the show has instantly become a hit and had much anticipation for its sequel season which had 2.4 million viewers Sunday night january 9th. The show itself is a hit and has made history already due to its distinctive difference to other coming of age tv shows , but they’re lots of eyebrow raisers that make the show look very suspicious with its intent towards their audience Starting off, the show is targeted toward teens and it highlights the special activities teens partake in specifically in highschool. Most of the cast is made up of adults with the youngest adult cast member being 18 playing a 13 year old, the reality of adults playing children is regular and has been being done forever but the glamorization of mental health and drugs being stereotyped to teens is where the problem begins to take place. The level of difference that euphoria has to its peer shows is very high, which makes the details of the show very noticeable.
by
Who wants to be famous?
Naomi Akinlami
Walking through the halls, you might find students filming TikToks to viral sounds and challenges, doing things such as hugging strangers or asking rather odd questions hoping for a viral-worthy reaction. On social media platforms like Instagram, there are trends such as shout-out for shoutouts, where students post each other’s accounts in hopes of sharing an audience. This fame-seeking behavior leads to the question of why people want to be famous. The Evolution of Fame: The individual’s desire to be famous is not an unprecedented phenomenon. In fact, many people through the centuries have gone to great lengths to achieve fame. Yet only 0.0086 percent of the world is famous, while others indulge in mere minutes of notoriety. A common example of people’s desire to be famous prior to the 21st century and the availability of the internet is young men and women outside the Twentieth Century Fox building in the 1920s following the beginning of Hollywood’s mainstream success (Columbia Magazine). Many of them hoped to become stars and directors in the luxurious and growing party scenes of young Hollywood. Those who did this were aware of their one in a hundred chance of being picked from the enormous crowds but intoxicated by the lure of fame and fortune, many would spend days and years in those lines awaiting a casting director’s gaze. Similarly, some would accept binding contracts, undergo life-threatening surgery, and change their names, actions, and looks to be on the silver screen. “I think it all changed when that tape of Kim Kardashian came out, since then being famous has no meaning, ‘’ Senior Lisbet Villanueva said. “Back then you had to have real talent to be famous, but now anyone can be famous like every day high schoolers are famous. Why can’t I be famous?”.
As time passed and the entertainment industry evolved, there was the rise of stars like Paris Hilton who became famous for being famous and having access to reporters, paparazzi, and tv producers. Creating a shift in what it means to be famous and how to achieve that fame, most significantly the era of being famous without talent. People simply had to live in LA and behave in attention-grabbing ways to get offered reality show appearances on channels like TLC. The need for talent and dedication to the craft was no longer a requirement for fame. Following this shift in the requirements to be famous was the rise of the internet which brings us to where we are today. The internet made fame more accessible with platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, Snapchat, Tumblr, Youtube, and MySpace that allowed people to create and share content without the location barrier or living in Los Angeles. The rise of scene queens, viners, and YouTubers introduced many people who would otherwise forget their desire to be famous as they get older and realized they either lack the talent of their own or did not have the financial stability to desert their jobs chasing fame to content at the go. You could sit in your car and post a video with the possibility of it going viral, or dedicate the time that would otherwise go towards a hobby to building an audience on either of these platforms because there was no middle man(managers, publicists, and agents) to appease. An audience was potentially out there for everyone, regardless of gender, hobby, talent, or attractiveness. Essentially you too could be famous, because it is just a click away.
Why Do People Want to be Famous? “I only thought about being famous once or twice but I didn’t like the idea of everyone in my life. It’s invasive, everything is out there,” Junior Vianey Barrera said. Psychologically, there are a mul-
photo by Zata Dizadare Sophomore Ferron Rodriguez creates TikToks during down time in class.
titude of reasons why people want to be famous. A 2012 study by John Maltby found 6 major reasons why people seek fame: Intensity, Vulnerability, Celebrity Life-Style, Drive, Perceived Suitability, and Altruism. These motivations were also found to be closely related to narcissism. Perceived Suitability is the most common reason why people want to be famous. Most people have had a moment when they idolize someone famous or notable. This can create a connection between fame and acceptance in someone’s mind because if they can idolize a famous person, the chances of fame leading to them being idolized and accepted seem high as well. “I think about it literally like 24/7, you become famous, ‘’ Senior Lisbet Villanueva said. Your life is set, I could do whatever I want. In today’s society, it’s so easy to become famous, You can literally go viral on TikTok for something stupid, one thing blows up and then you can buy a car, buy a house, buy anything you want”. Some of our students also feel that fame has become easy and accessible with the use of social media. “I’m on a quest to be famous, it’s literally so easy, just post, and keep up with your content,” Senior Treasure Amusat said. On the other hand, a poll asking students from our school how many of them have ever wanted to be famous had 57 percent of students replying yes, some stating
they felt it would be fun. Others said because they wanted to be liked, to receive money, and to make an impact. One individual said they attempted to be famous by posting a youtube video. Like most people without access to resources that would garner their fame, they chose to build their own audience on an accessible platform that is easy to navigate. Why do more people seek fame today? Although it might seem like more people want to be famous, they do not. More people have access to ways to become famous, because of platforms that present the opportunity to grow an audience and make an income virtually while pursuing one’s desire to be famous. There are more people following their dreams, some of them in our halls. In our school we have aspiring Tik-Tokers, Soundcloud rappers, YouTubers and influencers. Unlike in the past fame can be achieved anywhere. The economic independence and location barriers do not prevent anyone from “blowing up”(gaining a large following online) which is why there are more people following their dreams of achieving fame. Realistically not all of them will become successful but the opportunity to try is now available to anyone with a phone. In other words, you too can be famous if you just turn on that camera.
20.3
Current positivity rate
%
14-day average as of Feb. 10. Data according to Harris County Public Health. Alief residents wait in the drive-up line for testing at Crump Stadium in January. The district was forced to change the hours for free testing due to the nationwide test kit shortage. Photo by Etanami Agbabi
Harris county back to threat level red by
Dayana Martinez
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an on January 29, 2021 requiring the wearing of masks by people on public transportation conveyances. CDC will be amending this order as soon as practicable, to not require that people wear masks while. Centers for DIsease Control and Prevention “Face Masks should be worn by everyone and everywhere because it keeps people safter, It's going to be really hard to go back to our regular life ” said Angelica Alvarez. The definition of a regular life changes throughout the years of being alive. Ever since Covid hit our regular lives have changed. Covid cases have increased in Harris county. Is there anything that we could do to change the data? We should all wear masks or get vaccinated to protect ourselves and others. “I think if you're going to be in a situation where you will be in close proximity with other people you should have a mask on. Have I been wearing mines every second of every class period? No, it's optional and like I said when my class is small enough and I stay at my desk
at the front of the room, I feel comfortable having gotten both vaccine shots and my booster that I'm ok standing there behind my desk. If I go and try to help a student individually and I know I'm going to be all up in their space then I'm trying to do better by bringing my mask and wearing it.” Mr. Littlefields said. Many people have many different opinions on whether everyone should wear masks or not. In January 2022 there was a severe and uncontrolled level of COVID-19 cases in Harris County, meaning outbreaks were happening and worsening, and public health capacity was strained or exceeded. At this level, unvaccinated residents should take action to minimize contact with others wherever possible. Unvaccinated individuals should continue to mask physical distance, and avoid all gatherings. Vaccinated individuals should follow the latest local public health guidance on whether to also wear a mask while indoors in public places, in crowded outdoor settings, and for activities with close contact with others who are not fully vaccinated. “I think they are necessary until
we are able to get control of the Covid-19. If you're not vaccinated then it's really important that you wear it, to protect yourself and to protect people around you... So I think until we all can be safe without a mask on, I think we all need to wear a mask until then.” said Coach K. Many people don't like wearing masks but there is an alternative option which is getting vaccinated. There are approximately 2,861,078 of people fully vaccinated in Harris County and more than 535 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in the United States from December 14, 2020, through January 24, 2022. There are rare cases in which people have experienced serious health events after COVID-19 vaccination. Any health problem that happens after vaccination is considered an adverse event. An adverse event can be caused by the vaccine or can be caused by a coincidental event not related to the vaccine. Viruses are constantly changing, including the virus that causes COVID-19. These changes occur over time and can lead to the emergence of variants that may have new characteristics.
Vaccines continue to reduce a person's risk of contracting the virus that causes COVID-19. Vaccines are highly effective against severe illness. Emerging evidence (CDC) shows that getting a COVID-19 vaccine after you recover from COVID-19 illness provides added protection to your immune system. With the rise of Covid cases, some people might be asking if we would go back to online classes. There are many opinions on whether we should go back online. “It's safer for everyone and for me it was kinda easier.” Angelica Alvarez said but not everyone agrees. “I think it's more beneficial for the students and the teacher to stay in person because it's beneficial to our social, mental and physical health. I think a lot of kids suffer because they were only online and they didn't get the health that they needed. Which causes them to have a lot of problems when they come back to in-person. So I think we should all be able to see each other in real life” said Coach K. Everyone has different opinions and it's up to us to think for our safety and also the safety of others.
National signing day 2022
photos by
Julissa Marcos Nyia Ramsey
graphics by