Inklings
Volume 73 Issue 5 • Crown Point High School • 1500 S. Main Street Crown Point, IN 46307 • inklings@cps.k12.in.us
• Friday January 30, 2009
Tomorrow’s forecast High 31° Low 26°
Saturday: Partly sunny
Local winter fun
When I grow up...
Going to the beach and the waterpark in winter? See what winter fun they hold.
Students share their workplace plans after high school and college
page 7
page 6
Braving wintry roads How to stay safe on the roads during snow, sleet, or hail page 8
The minus touch
Bestselling author Jodee Blanco Freezing temperatures and heavy snow close school visits CP By Lauren Cain / advertising assistant Jodee Blanco, a Hollywood publicist, was on the set of a movie with Jim Carrey when news of the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, committed by two outcast students, was released. Watching the CNN news footage of the tragedy drove Blanco to make a decision of her own: to leave her successful job in publicity to write a book about her own journey through school as a bullied child. Blanco visited Crown Point on her national book tour for her NY Times bestseller, Please Stop Laughing at Me. Taft teacher Melanie McClure invited Blanco to speak as part of the CASS (Creating A Safer School) initiative, which was incorporated at Taft in 2006. “I think this is a great step as a real life story that’s relevant and can impact a student’s life,” Director of Curriculum and Instruction Jim Hardman said. Blanco travels the nation to share her experiences with relational aggression, also known as covert bullying. “My story has a happy ending, but there are kids in this room who won’t unless we help them,” Blanco said. She reenacted several incidents that have happened for students at Taft and Wheeler, as well as to families at CPHS. She shared stories from her book while reinforcing the mantra, “It is not just joking around. You are damaging each other for life.” Blanco offered tips to parents of bullied children in addition to students themselves. “I know I’m giving them courage because I survived. I’m helping people understand. Everything will follow that,” Blanco said. Part of the CASS initiative is to survey students annually. These surveys conducted by the Ophelia Project, partner for CASS, students reported seeing relational aggression occur in the hallways 60 percent of the time, 57 percent in the cafeteria, and 45 percent in the classroom. According to the Ophelia Project, the more
see BLANCO, pg. 3
Photo by Georgia Otte
Sophomore Amy Kesler scrapes the windshield to her car after one of the many recent snowstorms. The past months has seen record low temperatures and high snowfall, causing schools to close and Crown Point to delay finals for two days.
Two unexpected days off from school and delayed finals, frozen windshields and frostbitten lips: the cold weather has rewarded and frustrated us for weeks. The unusual cold and heavy snow has kept us inside and the meteorologists busy. As the thermometer drops lower and lower, students and teachers struggle to keep warm and make sure their schedules stay on track. By Megan Binder / editor-in-chief As Crown Point is so close to Lake Michigan and is influenced by what is commonly called “lake effect,” the city is no stranger to bizarre weather. Yet the past month has seen record low temperatures and snow that has closed area schools and even pushed back CPHS’s finals schedules two days. “The days off so far have been great,” senior Sarah Gallas said. “It’s been nice to have a break, but as I don’t want to go any further into the summer, it would be fine if we just finished the school year.” Temperatures plummeted to negative 10 and 15 degrees with even colder wind chills on Jan. 15 and 16, the two days that finals were scheduled. In an attempt
to keep younger children from waiting outside for an extended period of time for their buses in the mornings, the Crown Point School Corporation decided to keep the entire district home those days. “The end of the semester had to be rescheduled,” assistant principal Deb Cuffia said. “Hopefully students retained all of the skills and concepts they needed to do well on the semester exams.” Those days off will have to be made up at the end of the year during this June. According to Cuffia, the school has now taken four days off this year. Those four days will likely be added to the end of the year, and if the district does not take any more days off, the last day of school will likely be June 10. Seniors have a tradition of taking their finals and finishing
their high school careers a few days earlier than the rest of the student body. With the snow day affecting the rest of the schools’ schedule, however, that may change when and if the seniors will leave early. “Right now, it’s being discussed,” Cuffia said. The freezing temperatures and constantly snow-covered roads have inconvenienced many students, particularly those who drive to school. “It’s been really hard to get to school with the ice, especially since I live all the way out in Winfield,” senior Jessica Walters said. Nearly two feet of snow has fallen in the first month of 2009 alone, far more than normal amounts for this area. Salt trucks have been working to take care of the roads that have been made treacherous by blowing snow, especially for students who live farther from the school, like Walters. But for many students the cold has been the worst part of the wintry mix to deal with. “My bed is so warm, it’s hard to convince myself to get up, especially since I know the cold weather is waiting outside,” Gallas said. “Plus, as I have to start my car earlier to get it defrosted before I leave, I have to wake up earlier than normal to begin with.”
big freeze
• Winter 2008-2009 has
been the coldest in 8 years • January’s average temperature is 12 degrees less than last years information from
Chicago Tribune