The Globe: April-May Issue, 2016

Mamaroneck High School

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Mamaroneck, NY

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Volume XXXIII, Number 9 • April-May 2016

SURVEY REVEALS FALL IN BLOCK DAY ENGAGEMENT

Block Day Survey Results

By ANDREW BALLARD

By JACK MOLLIN

opted for three on most questions.

This may be a natural instinct, but the data do tell a story. The ambiguous feedback echoes the ambiguity of the school community’s understanding of the purpose of block days and how they ought to be used.

If block days are intended to

Students’ engagement during block day periods has undergone a net decrease since the administration introduced block days at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, according to a recent student survey run by the school administration in comparison to a Globe poll of 393 students published in October 2014.

The most recent survey, which was emailed to students on Feb. 11 of this year, yielded 948 student responses. They answered questions regarding learning, class-to-class transitions, lesson plans, engagement and stress in the context of the block day—or X/Y day— schedules, during which students attend four classes a day, each for 80 minutes. Each question presented a statement on the subject to which students responded on a scale from one to five; one indicated strong disagreement, three was

On April 19, the Mamaroneck Board of Education adopted the Superintendent’s proposed budget for the 2016-2017 school year.

The adopted budget--which totals $133,159,163--reflects a decrease of 0.55 percent from the previous year despite an increase in districtwide enrollment.

Highlights of the budget include a plan to further emphasize STEAM education (the traditional STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and math with the addition of arts) while also ensuring that there is enough technology to go around for all district students. Specific initiatives at the high school include the addition of more advanced classes in areas such as computer science and engineering and the expansion of the 1:1 ratio of students to computing devices in grades 8-12.

Notable changes are also tak-

SEE “ANALYSIS,” PAGE 14

SEE “SURVEY,” PAGE 14

SEE “BUDGET,” PAGE 8

NEWS ANALYSIS Findings Reflect Lack of Clarity on Block Days’ Purposes

By STEVEN ROME When the concept of the block day was introduced to the Mamaroneck High School community two years ago, it represented a significant departure from the traditional schedule and was hailed as a transformational conduit of deeper enrichment in the

classroom.

Yet the results of the administration’s fall surveys of both students and faculty about X/Y days amount to a collective “meh.”

All the questions were structured to garner responses on a scale of one to five for different prompts about the schedule, and, speaking generally, most people

Rodriguez of Washington Heights School Appointed as New Mamaroneck Assistant Principal

OSR’s Mann ’17 Advances to Intel ISEF Finals

By EFFIANA SVARRE For the second time in the history of Mamaroneck High School, a junior has been selected to compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF). Ali Mann ’17 was selected at the Westchester Science Fair to go to Phoenix, Ariz. from May 8 to 13 to compete with 1,700 other high schoolers from 75 different countries. In this competition, students showcase their research projects and compete for awards that add up to a total of $4 million.

At MHS, Oringal Science Research is an elective in which students learn how to research different scientific topics. Eventually, students reach out to different mentors throughout the New York City area, complete their own projects and present them at different competitions. The Intel ISEF is considered to be a highly selective competition. Mann, who

Board of Ed Adopts New Budget

is the seventh person in the OSR program to be selected for this competition was able to answer some questions about her project and her experiences.

Could you give a basic overview of your research?

I worked with my mentor, Michael Davis, at Willsboro Research Farm where I tested the effects of three cover crops for corn. I planted white clover, annual ryegrass and tillage radishes, and tested the effects they had on the number of weeds and corn yield. I also looked at the abundance of cover crops on each plot to compare it to the corn yield. I conducted this experiment because I wanted to find a more efficient and environmentally friendly way to control weeds so local farmers could make a larger profit with less damage to the surrounding ecosystem.

What made you choose this area of science for your project?

I spent summers upstate on

By SOPHIA HOWARD Following the promotion of Michael-Joseph Mercanti-Anthony to Interim Assistant Director of Special Education for the District, the search was on for a new Assistant Principal for Mamaroneck High School.

Principal Elizabeth Clain appointed a committee of faculty, students and parents to be responsible for searching for a candidate they felt best suited for the position and Mamaroneck’s culture. The Committee included Clain, Assistant Principal Mario Washington, Central Elementary School Principal Carol Priore, dance teacher Allison Parsley, Spanish teacher Ana Marina Rua Kahn, Guidance counselor Robert Schwartz, Special Education teacher Ronald Blain, physics teacher Edmundo Nunes, government teacher Joseph Liberti, English teacher James Short, parents Ms. Paras and Ms. Tucker, and students Jefferson Reyes ’18

SEE “OSR,” PAGE 8

and Sophia Howard ’17.

The first round of interviews took place in April. Commit-

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAMARONECK SCHOOLS

tee members met candidates and asked them questions regarding their experience, beliefs and desire to be the Mamaroneck AP. After the first round of interviews, the candidates were narrowed down to a select group for a second round. Two days later, more extensive interviews were conducted, allowing committee members to learn more about the

potential candidates. After the final interview of the second round, the search committee selected two finalists to be recommended to the Superintendent.

On Wednesday, April 20 it was announced that Jenny Rodriguez would been appointed the New Assistant Principal at Mamaroneck High School. Rodriguez has extensive experience, her most recent position being the instructional leader and the Assistant Principal at the Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School (WHEELS) in New York City.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Ms. Rodriguez to the Mamaroneck Schools family,” Superintendent Dr. Robert Shaps said. “Jenny comes to Mamaroneck with more than 20 years as an educator in a variety of settings. The search committee enthusiastically supported Ms. Rodriguez’s appointment, and we are confident she will be a wonderful addition to our administrator staff.”

INSIDE THE GLOBE EDITORIAL The real controversy about “college apparel day.” Page 2

OPINION Reflecting on the deaths of David Bowie, Prince and the true weird.

Page 3 The case for eliminating J-Prom.

Page 5

NEWS

ARTS & LEISURE

Did you receive these emails from your favorite Democratic candidates?

Page 13.

Computer Science students win awards at Westchester Mobile App contest. Page 8

FEATURES MHS student and aspiring professional dancer: Lily Schwendener’s double life.

Page 15

HUMOR

THE MOOYAH REVIEW SEE PAGE 11

SPORTS

Special Report: What can explain the striking success of the Mamaroneck sports program? Page 17 At press time, Varsity baseball is on a double-digit winning streak. Page 19

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2015-16 STAFF EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Andrew Ballard Hannah Lachow Steven Rome

MANAGING EDITORS Alex Corbin Hannah Kahn Siri Nadler Ali Steinberg

EDITORIAL DIRECTORS Eli Cousin Liv Golden

BUSINESS MANAGER Lauren Chapey

COPY EDITORS Phillip Jaffe Zachary Susswein

SECTION EDITORS assistants listed in italics

Arts and Leisure Liam Katz Aoife McManus Mary McMillan Gabby Tucciarone Peter Simpson

Features

Lizzie Clarke Katherine Heaney Camryn Cohen, Greg Corbin, Caitlyn Chapey, Sam Master, Noah Patrick

News

Noah Horowitz Owen Zucker Emma Gottsegen, Sophia Howard, Patrick Jeffry, Jack Mollin, Zac Plett

Opinion

Jimmy Quinn Gabe Tugendstein Sebastian de Lasa, Rebecca Novick, Emily Renner, Jordan Steinberg

Sports

Talia Land Matthew Mason Stephen Rothman Eli Lederman, Daniel O’Rourke, Will Young

Humor

Avi Goldstein Emma Kaneti Hector McKemey

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Editorials

Effectively Utilizing Post-AP Class Time An assessment of what MHS seniors should be doing post AP

We have finally reached that time of year — the time where gym is outside, flip-flops get caught in the overpass, and the chances of getting a spot in senior lot are the highest they will ever be. It is also the time of year when upperclassmen begin to beg the question “so what will we do after the A.P.?” This question—-which may drive AP teachers mad— addresses an important isSTEVEN ROME/THE GLOBE sue: what should our post One remedy for post-AP senioritis may be senior internships.

However, students should have other choices to A.P. seniors, and seniors conclude their high school careers, and schould not be required to participate in the internship program. in general, be doing for home is dwindling, missing out on any step of the fun is far their final month of high from trivial. school?

While required senior internships may work at other The senior internship program at Mamaroneck High School has grown popular over the past few years. This schools, and have legitimate reasoning behind them, such program allows seniors to apply for, and take part in a six standardization might not fit MHS’s character. One of the week internship of their choosing instead of coming to greatest aspects in which MHS students take pride is the school. While the program is optional at MHS, many other freedom given to them at school. Easily exhibited by an open high schools in the area (among them Scarsdale and New campus, free periods and open enrollment policy, freedom Rochelle) have similar internship programs required of all is central to the Mamaroneck culture. Forcing a senior inseniors. These schools bring up a valid point: if everyone is ternship poses serious limitations. And it is not to say that required to do an internship, more seniors will be excited to putting a kid into the “real world” and letting them explore take part in them, especially knowing that their friends aren’t their interests and apply what they have been taught is such at school having fun without them. FOMO (fear of missing an infringement of freedom. However, if some students out) seems like a somewhat frivolous argument in defense don’t necessarily know what interests them, or have yet to of mandatory internships, but when seniors know their time SEE “INTERNSHIP,” PAGE 6

College Apparel Day Exposes Larger Issue Event raises questions about more than just on which day it should fall

Toward the end of April, the “MHS Class of 2016” Facebook group was set ablaze by a contentious debate regarding the timing of this year’s College Apparel Day. The “holiday” is a tradition on both the local and national level, as students across the country participate in the event every year. The concept of the day is relatively simple — every senior goes to school wearing apparel from the college that he or she will be attending. The day typically falls on the same date—May 1st—typically the day following the deadline to put down a deposit for a school. However, a problem arose this year as a result of May 1st falling on a Sunday. When multiple replacement dates were proposed, there appeared to be conflicts with each one. Between A.P. exams, internships and the actual deposit deadline, there seemed to be no simple solution that would allow every senior to fully participate in the event.

The inexistence of a date that would work for everyone ultimately led to a heated Facebook argument. While the argument was focused on which particular day to hold the event, it also highlighted a much larger issue.

Seniors are typically eager and excited to parHANNAH LACHOW/THE GLOBE ticipate in college apparel day. After completing the four year journey that is high school, it can only be Showing off our future college may be exciting, but what does it say about the comSEE “COLLEGE APPAREL,” PAGE 6

mercial nature of the college process and our emphasis on rankings?

Webmaster Julia Lehman

Photography Lazaro Rabanales

FACULTY ADVISERS Darren Bosch Craig Goldberg

The Globe is Mamaroneck High School’s student produced newspaper. Articles represent The Globe and its editors as a whole. For advertising information, contact Alex Corbin (914)255-1028, Hannah Kahn (914)844-0987 or Ali Steinberg (914)629-0433. For subscription information, contact Hannah Lachow (914)629-2429, Steven Rome (914)318-0551 or Andrew Ballard (914)409-5357.

The Globe has a mailbox in the school and can be reached online at globemanagingeditors@gmail.com. To subscribe by mail, send a letter to MHS care of Mr. Bosch and Mr. Goldberg with a check for $15 payable to Mamaroneck High School, 1000 W. Boston Post Road, Mamaroneck, NY 10543.

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Opinion

The Red Tape Epidemic

Are bureaucracy and funding hurdles stopping real medical progess?

By MICHAEL ALBERT

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e’re in a posture of knowing that time is precious and collaboration is essential,” CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat, M.D, told Reuters in early March.

What we are seeing right now is unprecedented. The threat of Zika virus remains large, yet underestimated. As the warm Gulf air creeps its way north as the Eastern seaboard heads into its summer, with it will come Zika-bearing mosquitos, making their way closer and closer to our homes. However, I would like this article to focus not on the threat of Zika (albeit a great one), but on some of the changes needed to combat this imminent world health crisis.

The only way to swiftly eradicate this threat from the face of the Earth is through increased collaboration of researchers. Let me say that again, the ONLY way to eliminate Zika is by knocking down the barriers of collaboration and rewriting the current timeline for research. Collaboration has long been an integral part of advancements in science and medicine, but, unfortunately, the nature of such collaboration has shifted toward partnerships rather than collaborators. This means

that institutions, the government and companies are deliberate with whom they work with, and instead of prioritizing advancements in knowledge, their first concern has become boosting themselves and their partners. Notoriety and fame have become paramount, and that is truly impeding our potential for advancements across the board.

It is clear where the source of this lies. The process of obtaining funding is extremely convoluted, and it fosters an element of secrecy and selfishness among scientists.

I have witnessed this process firsthand. It takes tens of pages, multiple submissions, hours of preliminary research and sometimes over a year just to get a response from the government—which could still be rejection—in regard to funding. This slows idea sharing to a halt. I recently submitted a grant proposal to the government for about $500,000 for a research project that I have already invested hours of work and dedicated thousands of dollars university funding to. However, in this interim period while the grant is pending, researchers are encouraged not to share details of their work, so they can retain the recognition and rights to their own idea. This cannot be the way we go about conducting research—especially in cases like Zika.

I was lucky enough to have the

opportunity to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) in April, at which Vice President Joe Biden would later speak. In his speech to 19,000 of the world’s preeminent cancer researchers, and it was clear that the main message of the speech addressed the same sentiment many Zika experts have.

He said of the intricate funding process that it is causing us to “slow down our best, young minds making them spend years and years in the lab before they get their own grants.” Frustrated with the current systems, Biden vowed to tear down the silos that remain in the way of researchers today.

Biden expressed his contempt for the valuable research that sits “behind the paywalls of journals.”

He attributed this directly to the broken system that causes cutting edge research to be delayed for up to a year through editing and publishing, and, even then, requires a subscription—often costing thousands of dollars—to the journal itself.

This cannot be the case for cancer, and especially not for epidemics like Zika and the Ebola outbreak of last year. While research is an integral part of advancing our society, infectious diseases like Zika need to be put on the fast-track. In early April, with Zika slated to strike U.S. cit-

HANNAH LACHOW/THE GLOBE

ies in mere few months, congress blocked President Obama’s proposal for $1.9 billion in emergency funding to combat the virus. This has already begun to prevent cities like Los Angeles from filling 17 vacant positions and upgrading equipment in its public health laboratory. While we know Zika can cause microcephaly and other birth defects in the unborn children of

pregnant mothers, researchers are worried that is not all the harm it does. With such a poorly understood virus making its way closer and closer to American masses, it is imperative that we “knock down silos,” as Biden said, and change the way we research, so we can expedite our efforts to withstand a great risk like Zika.

The Death of True Weird

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avid Bowie often sang of visiting worlds outside of earth. He sang of being stuck in space, of pondering the possibility of life on other planets, of playing alongside his buddies: the spiders from Mars. And it made sense too; it was kind of like he was from another world.

He was androgynous and bisexual and dressed like a there was no established notion of costume. He changed personas seemingly every five years: a schizophrenic bohemian, a fictional pop fantasy, an upscale fascist, a depressed wanderer, an angry hard-rocker, an elder statesmen. All the while as flamboyant and unpredictable as ever. He was weird.

He was really, really weird. He wasn’t unorthodox or quirky or wacky, he legitimately had a few screws loose. He didn’t subscribe to being counterculture; he disregarded culture, he established his own culture. It was as if Bowie wasn’t even a real person, just some vessel through which all the other weirdos could explore.

When Bowie died at the be-

The state of freaks, oddities and wackos in today’s pop culture

ginning of this year, it took a real, personal toll on me. Even alongside family or other celebrities that had had an impact on me, Bowie’s death was tough because he was the pinnacle of weird. He was a guy who had ideas—like many of us—of personifying creativity and paying no mind to convention.

This was a guy who wore a dress around town, a guy who lived a decade off of cocaine, milk, and chili peppers. The world was not a place that told David Bowie what to do; it was merely the setting of one of his many lives where he could experience and experiment.

There weren’t many, maybe any, that were able—through cocaine, sleep deprivation, 1970s Los Angeles nightlife, whatever—to channel raw weirdness into art like Bowie. Prince came close. He may not have been as purely nonsensical as Bowie, but Prince sure liked to spit in the face of the apparent natural order of things. Like Bowie, Prince was successful in evoking authentic sex and passion while (perhaps because) he slammed through the constrictions of traditional gender concepts. He wasn’t manly and he wasn’t sexy; he was sex itself. His name was a symbol, beyond words, and to those who couldn’t wrap their heads around

that, his name was simply a reference to what his name had been.

Prince was commercially successful, yet remained an enigma. He was a pop culture icon, but still in-

which redefines normal in the entertainment sphere. Just listen to Kanye talk about how he discards with tradition and changes the game based on the smallest capric-

Instead of taking in all of the world—its contradictions and beauties and realities—and spitting it all back out in a way which disregards rule and custom, modern weirdness is more a tint through which we view the world in the same way we always did. credibly hard to define; a caricature of himself, but never one which settled into comfortable dependability.

Now he’s dead too, and as hard as it is to definitively say this, I can’t help but think that true weirdness in entertainment has died along with him.

After the death of these two titans, I heard quite a few modern day equivalents, who either had their way paved by Bowie and Prince, or acted as comparisons.

Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Beyoncé—people who are so influential that they can single-handedly alter the status quo. I can’t disagree. It appears that these, among a few others, are doing stuff every year

es; it’s like the only thing he ever talks about.

But none of these people are the same. They’re just not weird enough. And through no fault of their own—there simply isn’t an open door for a Bowie or a Prince in today’s world. When Lady Gaga was wearing meat dresses and developing a male alter ego, it looked like a page straight out of Bowie’s book. But Lady Gaga wasn’t doing this on whimsy or to act as a vehicle through which the odd of the world can live vicariously. She was doing it precisely because it was weird, because it was the unnatural thing to do. It wasn’t who she was, it only what she did.

We’ve branded weird, made

it into an element of entertainment rather than a doctrine to live by. Instead of taking in all of the world—its contradictions and beauties and realities—and spitting it all back out in a way which disregards rule and custom, modern weirdness is more a tint through which we view the world in the same way we always did. We all love somebody who lives dangerously and against expectation, but a true freak is nowhere to be found in modern pop culture.

Thinking about all of this I can’t help but be reminded of David Bowie’s music. On “Life on Mars?” questioning whether the true oddities and absurdities of the world even knew that, from the outside, they looked like the universe’s greatest vaudeville, then wondering how America managed to corrupt the innocence of Mickey Mouse and sell the purity of Lennon. It’s an inevitable thing, the exploitation and impurifying of true, raw ideals. It’s the difference between a weirdo who doesn’t know he’s “the best-selling show” and a weirdo “on sale again.”

Early 2016 has seen goodbyes to David Bowie and Prince. I can only hope they’ve now found worlds that allow them to flourish in all their true weirdness.

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ARTWORK COURTESY OF ELI CANTER

A Minimum Standard

By SAM MOLLIN

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n March 26, California became the first state in the Union to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, with our own governor, Andrew Cuomo, pining to follow in its footsteps. And it’s about time. Faced with both Democratic presidential candidates promising to raise the minimum wage upon their election, opponents of a higher minimum wage have started to throw everything they have on to the national stage. Any opposition to a higher minimum wage, however, is ignoring both historical precedent and the plight of current low-income workers.

The idea of a minimum wage was born in the Gilded Age, when our country’s industry was booming and factory owners were becoming some of the wealthiest people of their time and of the present day- if inflation is accounted for. This gilded economic surface, however, masked the suffering working class. Millions of Americans had flocked to cities to work at the new factories that were making obsolete traditional home industries and left farms that were being driven out by larger farming

operations. The industrialists who hired these people gleefully took advantage of them, consistently lowering wages to cut costs. Eventually, the workers fought back in the Progressive Era and gained a minimum wage. The purpose of that minimum wage was not, as opponents of a minimum wage increase like to say today, supposed to be a wage for teenagers working part time. The minimum wage was for men and women who toiled eight hours a day or longer, in hard and dangerous working conditions, to make ends meet. That is what the minimum wage needs to be today.

It’s well known that someone working eight hours a day, earning $8.75 an hour, cannot survive. An individual on minimum wage can barely afford food and housing, let alone healthcare, which is almost never provided by low income workplaces, utilities and quality of life goods. What isn’t well established, however, is just who takes minimum wage. The common myth is that the only people working minimum wage jobs are college students with free time or teenagers looking for an extra buck.

In the current economy, despite what conservatives would like us to think, that isn’t true. The middle

class still hasn’t recovered from the devastating layoffs after the 2008 financial crisis, and while the official unemployment rate has gone back to five percent, most of the new jobs are either temporary, part time or low income jobs. A book called Nickel and Dimed published in 2001, before the economic crisis, shows our economic reality.

America’s low-wage service jobs are staffed by struggling people from every age group and every race, and every one of them is caught in an inescapable cycle of poverty with our current minimum wage. The life of a minimum wage worker struggling to get by consists often of as many jobs as they can take. Working two shifts a day at high stress jobs, as a waiter, for example, leaves no time for an individual to prepare themselves to move up, and at $8.75, the alternative is starving or sleeping outside.

The other prevalent argument is one that hasn’t been proven; the notion that raising the minimum wage will destroy jobs, making it more expensive to hire workers and operate businesses. While raising the minimum wage will obviously make hiring people more expensive, economists are torn on whether this will actually destroy jobs. Furthermore, there can and

should be different minimum wages for people over and under 18, or more accurately, based on whether one is providing for themselves.

There are also various ways to account for teenagers working not to support themselves but just to work, like paid internships. A $15 minimum wage wouldn’t be forcing businesses to pay $15 an hour for unimportant tasks done by teenagers, because businesses could just offer paid internships instead. It’s a glaringly obvious solution that has so far been completely ignored in national discourse.

Regardless, the minimum wage is meant to provide a minimum standard of living in America, for anyone willing to work eight hours a day, five days a week to earn it. Technically, someone could certainly live off of $8.75, or even less. Their life would be a poor one, assuming they worked one job, living in abject poverty.

But a minimum wage, as I’ve reiterated so many times, is not just to survive. It is, or should and can be, a measure to ensure distribution of wealth. In our society of abundance, it is a moral imperative to make sure every single person has a meaningful life. America has moved past the stage of needing to sacrifice the well-being of the poor

in every way to ensure that the rich stay richer. The middle class is shrinking and has been shrinking for years. We need better jobs but we also need the bottom of the income level to be higher, both to raise up our lower class and provide a higher standard for every wage.

This election, this moment in American history, is a turning point. The opportunity to close the growing wealth gap in America is staring us in the face, and it won’t come again. Raising the minimum wage to $15 is a clear message that every single American born and raised in this country, or even those partaking in it for the first time, have the right to share in its prosperity. Every citizen has the right to prosper economically if they choose to work, not just the right to survive. In our town, we live in a bubble. None of us are ever likely to experience the cycle of poverty that afflicts everyone currently on the minimum wage, but most of the country doesn’t have the opportunities we have here. The time for incremental change is long past, and the time for bold moves is here whether we like it or not.

It’s time for a $15 minimum wage.

The Whole-Government Approach A

little over a week ago, the Supreme Court upheld an appellate court decision allowing the government to seize two billion dollars of Iranian assets on behalf of the families of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing.

More than rendering a just decision, however, the court modeled how the United States ought to engage with the Islamic Republic.

Nowadays, it’s almost clichéd to call Iran the world’s number one sponsor of state terror. With material support for Hezbollah in the Levant, Shia death squads

in Iraq and even its own Quds force—which is, by the way, responsible for the murders of over 500 American servicemembers—it exports its brand of radical Islamic revolution to tragically vulnerable societies across the Middle East.

The perpetual political morass in Lebanon, ceaseless bloodletting in Syria and a newly inflamed bankruptcy of stability in Yemen are all blessings of the Ayatollah’s irredeemable foreign policy.

Iranian provocations will not end until the revolutionary insecurity of the current regime is assuaged by the establishment of a Shia crescent and until the clerics feel that their ideology and political will enjoys widespread dominance throughout the region. Bankrolling terrorist organizations is only one method that Tehran uses to realize its ambitions. It feels, as do all re-

gional bullies, that acquiring nuclear arms will make it a great power.

Despite what some in the west hailed as a victory of moderate forces in March’s parliamentary elections, a cohort of disguised conservatives assumed office under the guise of centrism. These patrons of Iran’s paramilitary branch, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, aren’t going to put an end to the Death to America chants anytime soon. Just as well, the IRGC will continue testing ballistic missiles engraved with “Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth” in both Farsi and Hebrew.

What about the nuclear deal, though? Shouldn’t the accord reached last summer at least help bring some reasonableness to these issues?

Well, the agreement does limit

Iran’s access to weapons grade uranium for the next 10 to 15 years, although imperfectly. However, it does not address ballistic missile technology or support for terrorism. It dismantled the international sanctions regime that crippled Iran’s economy—while neglecting to leave in place a credibly effective option to reapply them. Oil exports are climbing, and European tycoons have begun measuring the drapes for their apartments in Tehran. All the while the administration has granted Iran billions of dollars—through an international claims tribunal and the buyback of heavy water intended for plutonium enrichment—in excess of the assets it promised to release.

This leaves us in a bind. To withdraw from the arrangement now, without the support of Iran’s newfound commercial patrons,

would not only be ineffective, but also a grave foreign policy misstep.

To continue the White House’s policy of accommodation, however, would be national security malpractice.

The United States must, then, pursue a whole of government approach to containing Iran. Every branch, department and institution of government must put a lid on Iran’s destructive tendencies.

The treasury should continue to bar Iranian access to the dollar.

Congress should pass a new set of sanctions. And the president should intervene in Syria on behalf of the moderate opposition.

Make no mistake, this is a war of wills that will transform the Middle East as we know it today.

With smart policy choices, America can win.

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Is Junior Prom Really Necessary?

By REBECCA NOVICK and EMILY RENNER

J

unior Prom season has come to a close—the boys have returned their tuxes and the girls have finally hung up their dresses, never to be worn again.

But after all the drama and craziness leading up to this big “Bar Mitzvah,” we are left with one question: what’s the point?

The majority of schools around the country do not have a Junior Prom. Junior Prom is more of an overblown school dance that takes some of the spotlight away from its senior counterpart. Senior prom is special for a reason—it’s the last event before graduation that the entire class can participate in together. If there was no prom during junior year, it would emphasize the importance of the senior prom, making it a unique event to look forward to.

Junior prom is not cheap.

Mamaroneck’s junior prom required countless school fundraising events and months of planning in order to happen. The cost of the tickets alone was extremely

expensive, and this doesn’t even include all of the extra preparations that are needed in order to make prom night “perfect.” The exces-

body values way more than junior prom: senior prom. Sometimes, we get too caught up in preparing for junior prom that no money is left-

junior prom shouldn’t take priority over that.

Let’s face it: stress is probably the number one word associated

HANNAH KAHN/THE GLOBE

sive amount of time and money that was used could’ve been put towards something that the student

over to pay for senior prom. The main focus should be to make senior prom an unforgettable night;

with junior year of high school.

Challenging classes, standardized testing, extracurriculars, and col-

lege visits are just a few of the many activities that crowd the busy schedules of sixteen and seventeen year old students. It’s hard enough to deal with all of these other obligations; adding junior prom on top of that creates a load almost impossible to bear. There’s undeniable pressure associated with finding (or hoping to find) a date, choosing a dress (or a tux), making arrangements for pictures beforehand (and making plans for afterward), not to mention the smaller details of shoes, hair, and bowtie-dress color coordination.

It’s a lot to manage—especially in the beginning of April, when APs are right around the corner, the third quarter is coming to a close, and the end of the year frenzy is within view.

While junior prom is fun in the moment, it’s important to step back and look at the bigger picture, which is that it’s not worth all of the time, money, or stress.

We should instead focus our energy and excitement on something monumental that will remain in our hearts forever: senior prom.

It’s Time To Drop The SAT

By LINDSEY RANDALL

T

his spring, the College Board made some major changes to the loathed standardized test, the SAT. According to USA Today, these modifications include returning the highest score to 1,600, no penalty for incorrect answers, more time for each section, and an optional essay. Although the new test format may bring a sensation of relief to many high schoolers, SATs remain an unnecessary and expensive strain, have a racial bias, and are not a perfect prediction of college or life success.

For most high schoolers, junior and senior year are the most challenging years. The classes become more difficult, rigorous APs are fit into busy schedules, and college applications are around the corner. These students are constantly being slammed with assignments, deadlines, and to increase the already-heavy burden, the SAT. According to the College Board, “the SAT and SAT Subject Tests are a suite of tools designed to assess your academic readiness for college. These exams provide

“If you’re rich, you can buy your kid a high SAT score.” a path to opportunities, financial support and scholarships, in a way that’s fair to all students.” High school juniors and seniors spend months preparing for this fourhour test that helps “determine” their futures.

ALL STUDENTS WHITE BLACK MEXICAN-AMERICAN PUERTO RICAN OTHER HISPANIC ASIAN/ PACIFIC ISLANDER AMERICAN INDIAN/ ALASKA NATIVE OTHER

AVERAGE SAT SCORE

Lauren, a junior at Mamaroneck High School, claims she “didn’t prepare as much as others” in her grade, but still participated in rigorous “8 weeks of group tutoring with a 4-hour class on Sunday and an optional 3-hour review on Tuesday.”

Like Lauren, thousands of high schoolers across the country are enrolled in time-consuming group and private tutoring. Tutoring is the key to doing well on the SAT, but it’s mindbogglingly expensive. According to a recent Forbes study, most private tutors charge anywhere from $100 to $1000 per session. Only the very wealthy can afford this kind of instruction.

The College Board claims “the test measures ‘reasoning ability,’” but the only aspect it really measures is a student’s wealth. If a student comes from a family who can easily afford the costly preparation it’s inevitable that he or she will score a higher grade on the test compared to another student, who may be just as smart, but not as wealthy. Charles Murray, a political scientist and alumni of Harvard University claims, “If you’re rich, you can buy your kid a high SAT score.” The higher the student’s income, the higher score they receive. This is an unacceptable but true correlation. A talented and intelligent kid’s low income shouldn’t be a factor that puts their SAT score, and future, at risk.

It has been argued that these costly tests also have a racial bias.

Harvard recently published a study proving that the SAT questions in the verbal section favor white students because they used language that white students were more familiar with than non-white students. Education Week reported that black students of equal academic ability scored lower on the section. According to an NCES study, in 2012 and 2013 the average reading score for black students was 431, 96 points behind the average of white students. These large gaps in the scores demonstrate the inequalities and bias in American society. SAT scores reflect upon one’s background and often race.

Because minorities are less

JORDAN STEINBERG/THE GLOBE

likely to attend expensive and wellstaffed schools and enroll themselves in expensive test prep than white students, their scores are generally lower than those of white students. The bias in the SAT does not allow it to accurately predict the potential of kids raised in lower socioeconomic background, as these kids are often minorities.

Should the College Board reconsider the statement “the SAT is fair”? Because using a test that white, wealthier students consistently do better on is an accurate measure of skill, ability, and potential life success, right?

Not only are the SATs time consuming, outrageously expensive, racially biased, but they are also pointless and a poor reflecSEE “KEY WORD,” PAGE 7

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A New Kind of Barbie Girl

By LAUREN KROELL

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eing born in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s in New York, most Mamaroneck High School students have grown up in a similar environment—one filled with hours and hours watching Nickelodeon and trading Silly Bandz on the playground. Personally, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to spend my childhood living all over the world. In the first eight years of my life, I’ve lived on

Barbie’s appearance is unattainable.

Despite this, many have become a victim of “Barbie syndrome”—a term for when one attempts to resemble the doll, sometimes obsessing over it. The company has taken those statements to heart, resulting in a new line of Barbie dolls with tall, petite and curvy figures.

Considering the popularity of Barbies, this new line is vital to put the idea into young people’s minds that a certain figure is not a

HANNAH KAHN/THE GLOBE

four different continents. Despite the fact that I spent my childhood years in so many different environments, there was one recurring theme that still persists today: the obsession with Barbie dolls.

requirement for looking beautiful.

Children will also be able to connect more with the dolls since they will look more like themselves.

There are still downsides that come with the new design, how-

Many have become a victim of “Barbie syndrome”—a term for when one attempts to resemble the doll, sometimes obsessing over it.

Barbie dolls made their first appearance in 1959, and have since been a worldwide phenomenon.

The company that produces the dolls, Mattel, has estimated that about 90 percent of girls in America between the ages of 3 and 10 own at least one Barbie doll, with girls between the ages of 3 and 6 owning an average of 12 dolls each.

And who wouldn’t love them? You can buy new outfits for your doll, style her hair, and buy things such as mansions and even pets for your Barbie to make her life even more realistic.

Actually, realistic may not be the right word. In recent years, the company has come under fire for the doll’s unrealistic portrayal of women, with critics saying that

ever. Even with the changes in appearance, the Barbie dolls still reinforce many stereotypes of girls and women today, focusing mainly on appearance, makeup and fashion.

Barbie dolls still spread the idea that a girl needs to have the perfect clothes, hair and looks in order to be considered beautiful. It is also important to note that the change is not applicable to male Barbie dolls.

While this surface change may bring many benefits to a generation of young girls and boys playing with them, there are other reasons as to why the change is almost harmful as well. In the end, however, the doll’s new focus on how beauty takes many forms is one that shouldn’t be ignored.

College Apparel Day Exposes Larger Issue COLLEGE APPAREL, FROM PAGE 2 expected that students will be proud of their hard work and accomplishments. As seniors prepare to graduate and head off towards the next chapter in their lives, it is a nice idea to have the senior class come together to partake in a group event that both highlights their accomplishments and provides a platform for which students can share their future plans with their peers. Yet for an event that is supposed to be a collective celebration, several aspects of college apparel day appear to be divisive and out of step.

If college apparel day is truly fullfilling its purpose, it should be an outlet for students to not only celebrate their decision, but to also feel excited about the next few years of their life. College apparel day does aim to achieve this purpose, but it is not without its flaws.

The most obvious and basic problems surrounding the event are its ability to make students upset or dissapointed if they see their peers sporting clothing from a school that they themselves were rejected from. The event could also be deemed pretentious, with the potential for students to be seen as bragging or boasting about their college acceptance. While these issues are important to consider, the true problem is what college apparel day reveals about the college process in our current society.

College decisions should always be about finding the right fit, and not simply picking the school that is more popular or has a better name brand. By holding an event that emphasizes logos and big names on eye catching apparel, we collectively endorse the notion that the college process is one that is in-

in one’s life. For a decision that is so important and meaningful, the idea of parading around in a t-shirt seems rather immature.

Ultimately, students have the right to wear and support the school that they will be attending.

Wearing apparel from the school that one will be attending is per-

The true problem is what college apparel day reveals about the college process in our current society. credibly commercial. Furthermore, college apparel day in many ways supports the idea that the school that one wears across their chest defines that individual.

College apparel day is not the cause of these issues—it is not the reason why the college process has become one large business, and it is not the reason why we as a society place so much empasis on rankings and popularity. However, it is undoubtedly a symptom, and subsequently has exacerbated a much larger issue. While it may not be necessary to rid the event in its entirety, it is important to question whether dressing up in college apparel is an appropriate way to celebrate academic achievement and this significant decision

fectly normal, and is even to be expected. However, by having a school regulated event that places an even greater emphasis on the name on the front of one’s shirt seems to only contribute to the many flaws that exist within the college process today. We can be proud of our accomplishments while being mindful of others, and simultaenously reject the commercialism and ultra-competitive nature that is currently fueling the college process. We should make sure we allow our personal preferences and goals guide us through the college decision process, not a bumper sticker or a comfortable tshirt.

Effectively Utilizing Post A.P. Class Time

INTERNSHIP, FROM PAGE 2 discover something they are truly passionate about, is it fair to make them decide? In addition, if students are taking part in internships they aren’t passionate about, and not necessarily being engaged to their potential, do we truly want them representing MHS in the ‘real world’?

The general problem with forcing a kid to do an internship,

This doesn’t mean students would have to leave the MHS campus. What if MHS didn’t keep seniors outside its closed doors, but instead opened up its doors to new opportunities within the school?

For seniors, this last month could be the final time to get something out of high school. Hypothetically seniors— those who did not want to take part in the internship

about something they are passionate about. This idea would allow students to learn without the pressure of grades or requirements.

Students could learn just to learn.

The idea is rough, very rough.

There are undoubtedly flaws and unrealistic measures. (Yes, senior teachers teach more than just seniors. Yes, seniors take classes other than A.P.s). However, this

What if MHS didn’t keep seniors outside its closed doors, but instead opened up its doors to new opportunities within the school? and frankly the general problem with this time of year is motivation, or lack thereof. It may not be in MHS’s best interest (or realistic) to require all seniors to take part in an internship. And while students sprawled across the overpass may say otherwise, most would agree that it is in MHS’s best interest to keep its students engaged for the final month of school.

program—could take seminars at school. It could be as simple as trying an elective you never got to—is clay really that hard? What actually goes on in PACE? So this is what my classmates have been doing in OSR all those years? Or new seminars could be conducted: “personal banking,” “putting together a resume.” In fact, teachers could create seminars of their own

draft brings attention to some solid arguments. Mamaroneck High School takes pride in its freedom and the diversity of its student body. It seems unrealistic to force a whole graduating class to take part in the same activity. An internship shouldn’t be mandatory. Yet, more opportunities do not cut into the freedom of MHS students but rather enrich it.

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Beware the College Group Chat

y this time of year, seniors like me are caught in a state of utter confusion. None of us know if our grades matter, if we should care about APs or whether we want to hug or kill every last one of our peers. Most of us know what we are doing next year and have started trying to mentally prepare for it, but we do still have a few months left here and don’t know how to make the best of it. We are caught between a multitude of opposites: feeling ready to start fresh but intensely nostalgic about our first days at Mamaroneck, feeling like there’s no use in being here but like there isn’t half enough time to check off all the things we want to do before we leave.

The goal for those of us going to college is to find a balance between feeling excited for the future and holding onto our last moments with our Mamaroneck friends. And the first showing of being excited for college is joining your school’s respective Facebook group. These groups are overwhelming to say the least. They contain posts from inquisitive students asking about a certain major, posts from hardcore sports fans perpetually updating scores and—most of all—posts from the bold and fearless: the miscellaneous posts.

Any senior in a college Facebook group has seen the posts.

You know exactly which ones I’m talking about. “I want to get to know you all! If you were a color, what would you be? I’m 100% terra cotta.” “Are we allowed to keep swords in our dorm rooms?” “So excited to eat mango with you guys next year!!!” It’s frightening enough to make any prospective student rethink their college decision, if only for a second.

So we “normal” Mamaroneck High School seniors, along with others, have created a solution. We get added to GroupMe group chats by our friends’ camp friends— filled with girls with whom you played field hockey in middle school and girls your camp friend’s cousin knows and girls who—just like you—love Red Plum in Mamaroneck. And it is reassuring, for sure. It’s nice to know that you aren’t going to college with only people who are concerningly geeky or people who post odd Facebook collages for the entire class of 2020 to see. It’s a nice way to familiarize yourself with people and possibly find a roommate if you are nervous about going random.

This is all innocent enough.

There is certainly an understandable comfort in the familiar, in

kids who grew up with similar backgrounds and who you know are not serial killers or extreme nerds. But these group chats create microcosms of our home lives, considering they are purely created on the basis of pre-existing friendships and acquaintances. And as much as we all have grown to know and love Mamaroneck High School and our lives here, we cannot go to college in search of recreating those lives.

We’ve all heard the speech about how college is a time to expand our comfort zone and explore new options. From what I can tell, college freshmen do a great job of this in the classroom. With so many fresh course options, it is exciting to try out something new.

And for the students who don’t possess that drive, a majority of schools utilize distribution requirements, pushing you to expand your intellectual horizons in areas you wouldn’t naturally feel compelled to do so.

Where students fall short in being receptive to this “expanding your horizons” speech is in these “normal” group chats. I’m not suggesting that “distribution requirements” or quotas should exist within these group chats; that isn’t natural or productive. But we need to be aware that these group chats are just a sliver of the college we’ll attend, an even smaller sliver of the real world. We just have to be aware that if we are going to college to hopefully burst the bubble that is Westchester, these group chats and the kids within them aren’t going to get the job done.

It’s not that we should close ourselves off to prospective students similar to us, it’s just that we should be open to students a bit different as well. (But maybe not as different as the 100% terra cotta student.)

There is a fairly simple danger in letting these group chats go too far: you end up closing yourself off to a large percentage of what could be your next four years. And I am not saying that attending a meetup or being a member of one of these group chats is “going too far.” It’s one thing to attend a meetup. It’s another to only talk to the five girls there that you’ve already hung out with twelve times. It’s one thing to be a member of a group chat with 55 girls. It’s another to form a solidified “friend group” or “clique” or “XX university bffs forever” group chat to which you refuse to add other people. It is one thing to use these groups to dip your toes in, get a taste for people you’ll be meeting next year, knowing that you’ll also be meeting thousands of others. It is another to lock yourself into a clique before you even step on campus and pretend that your group of five or six represent the entirety of your school and your next four years.

Newsbite

The 2016 Presidential Primary Election cycle has produced record-breaking turnout and a general excitement that has motivated many people to vote who are voting for the first time or who have not voted in years. Unfortunately, States throughout the nation have found themselves to be ill-equipped to deal with the unprecedented voter turnout, and the elections were botched causing dubious results which foster a growing sense of mistrust in the American Democratic process... Such systemic incompetence demoralizes the electorate and fundamentally damages our democratic system.

This lawsuit is brought to cut off impending constitutional violations; foster a confidence in the electoral process in New York; and to ensure that citizens’ fundamental right to elect their chosen representative is preserved.

From a lawsuit brought by disenfranchised Democrats against New York State Board of Elections

It’s Time to Drop the SAT

SAT, FROM PAGE 5

ARTWORK COURTESY OF ELI CANTER

tion of skill and ability. SATs are not. Former Dean of Admissions for Bates College William Hiss conducted a study showing the relationship between college success, high school grades and SAT scores. His evidence “clearly shows that high school GPA matters. Four-year, long-term evidence of self-discipline, intellectual curiosity and hard work; that’s what matters the most.” According to his data, he concluded that if a student’s GPA isn’t great, a good test score will not promise college success. Students with high grades and moderate SAT scores did better in college than students with lower high school grades and better test scores.

The president of Ithaca College, Thomas Rochon, recently made the decision to institute a test-optional policy for college ap-

plicants. His reason supports the study by Hiss, as he claims, “test scores add relatively little to our ability to predict the success of our students.” Over 850 colleges and universities across America have also instituted a test-optional policy including Arizona State University, Bowdoin College, Colorado College, George Washington University and Pittsburgh State University.

Bill Clinton was one of the most popular presidents in history.

He was driven, charismatic and intelligent. These traits made him influential, successful and loved by many Americans. Did his relatively low SAT score stand in the way of his career? Nope. Even though Clinton scored a 1032, his notable qualities took him far in life. SATs are not accurately able to measure determination, confidence or per-

severance. These are the traits that result in long-term success regardless of the field.

SATs are a complete waste of time, effort and money. They do not determine how well you will do in college or life; they only benefit the privileged kids, and they make high schoolers even more stressed out. This isn’t a call to action to bomb the SAT or totally neglect it, but it shouldn’t be something we take loans out for or stress over.

We should focus on learning in school as most of the courses we take are interesting (sometimes), valuable and free. We shouldn’t be forcing useless, expensive and dull material into our brains just for one distressing test that is meaningless to us and our futures.

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News

Junior Advances to ISEF Finals

OSR, FROM FRONT

my grandparents’ farm and realized how much science is applied to farming and agriculture. I wanted to do something that benefitted the local farmers I had met upstate.

Many of the farmers were struggling to increase their crop yield and found it hard to turn a profit. Nutrients in the soil were depleting due to overuse and erosion. Planting cover crops alongside main crops allowed farmers to produce a crop and maintain soil health.

What was your experience over the summer working on it?

I had a great experience with my mentor Michael Davis on the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station in Willsboro, NY. I was invited to an open house on the research farm where I spoke briefly about my project and the OSR program and also made many connections to local farmers and

agricultural scientists. One person I met was Myra Lawyer from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). She had been working on a new establishment technique for annual ryegrass and documented some of my work at the research station.

How did you feel when you advanced to the ISEF finals?

I was in shock! When they were first announcing the winners, I was wondering who else could be a junior in Plant Sciences from Mamaroneck High School. The last thing I expected was for them to call my name.

How are you preparing for them?

I have been putting in many extra hours including free periods, lunch and after school. There have been numerous deadlines, and Mr. Garbarino has been incred-

“Looking back, I see that OSR is so much more than a science class.”

Board of Education Adopts Superintendent’s Budget

BUDGET, FROM FRONT

ing place at the Hommocks Middle School, where new electives are being proposed to increase the technological proficiency of students.

These electives include a computer science course for sixth graders and a course for eighth graders titled “Exploring Music,” which uses computer technology.

In addition to adjusting for new trends in education, the budget also adjusts for the trend of increased enrollment at MHS. To accommodate the additional 51 students projected to join the Mamaroneck School District next year, 27 of whom will to come to the high school, Robert Shaps, Superintendent, allocated funds for three new teachers and one bilingual psychologist. The addition of new teachers correlates to an almost two percent increase in the amount of money set to be spent on new teachers.

Yet despite the new teachers and courses being introduced, the budget is set to be less than what is projected to be spent on this school year. The main reduction in the budget comes at the expense of teachers, rather than students, as the benefits section of the budget is set to decrease by 3.5 percent, saving over one million dollars.

The district as a whole is also reducing staffing, mainly due to more efficient scheduling (assigning teachers more periods) and some excess hires. Notable eliminations include the laying off of nine teacher aides, the ending of

the media elective at Hommocks, and the reduction of one English teacher. There are also reduced workloads for some teachers, due to the elimination of everyday gym in eighth grade and the restructuring of some electives, such as Home and Careers in the middle school.

There has been some student backlash proposed to the staffing changes, including a petition to save Chemistry teacher Michael Pepe, which has been circulated on Facebook and been signed by 156 students. One signer of the petition, Sebastian de Lasa ’18, spoke well of the first-year teacher, stating that he “provides a fun and enriching learning environment and is also a really good guy as well.”

The adopted budget for the 2016-2017 school year attempts to save money while also advancing students’ education through technological fields. The positives of this approach can be seen through the broadened opportunities in fields such as computer science and engineering while the taxpayers will save money from nonclassroom related cuts in benefits.

A few teachers are slated to be let go, upsetting some MHS students.

Mamaroneck residents will be able to decide whether the positives outweigh the negatives when they vote on May 17.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAMARONECK SCHOOLS

Ali Msnn ’17 pictured with a poster displaying her research. Mann recently advanced to the Intel International Scienceand Engeneering Fair.

ible, helping me meet them. The steps he told us to follow for the

ISEF preparation.

How has your experience overall been in OSR? I never realized how much I could get out of an elective class.

In the beginning I thought I would just be reading articles and summarizing them, but Mr. Garbarino was adamant that we find a subject we were passionate about and then a mentor to help us with our research. I was nervous when I chose my topic because it’s unusual to study agriculture in Westchester, but Mr. Garbarino was very supportive. Looking back, I see that OSR is so much more than a science class. I feel confident that the research, the writing, and the presentations have prepared me for my college career. And, it has given me the opportunity to follow my passion while helping others. I’ve met many influential people in the field and I now have a network of professionals to share my research and ideas.

WESEF competition were so valuable that I am applying them to my

Computer Science Teams Champion Westchester County Mobile App Contest

By HANNAH LACHOW While most Mamaroneck High School students spent the afternoon of April 15 checking Instagram and sniping Snapchats, an impressive bunch of A.P. Computer Science students were out developing and presenting their own

was graded on creativity, functionality, and usage.

Three of the seven MHS teams that competed came out with notable awards. Among the over 50 teams from the tri-state area that competed, MHS’s “OXD4853” team won third place in the functionality category, “Oceans7” won third in creativity and “The Rock

common issues with their phones.

Blumberg, who is planning on majoring in computer science in college next year, commented on the process and effort it took to produce the app. “My group came up with the idea after visiting the Sarah Neuman nursing home and realizing that many seniors want to use more modern technology,

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JIGAR JADAV

Sam Blumberg ‘16, (right) takes home the grand prize trophy for “Touch Here,” his team’s app.

apps at the Westchester County Mobile App Contest.

The seven teams that participated in the event had spent countless hours both in and out of the classroom to prepare for the contest. This specific contest entailed students creating an app geared towards the elderly, although A.P. Computer Science itself has prepared students to create apps in a multitude of fields. Each team

Club” won the grand prize.

“The Rock Club,” comprised of Alex Ewald ’16, Sam Blumberg ’16, Max Bobby ’18, Pablo Garza ’18, Paul Pedrozo ’18 and Sam Brause ’18, was awarded top scores in the areas of creativity, functionality and usage. Their app, “Touch Here” is geared at informing the aging population on how to productively use technology. It aids users in using apps and solving

but find it very daunting. We then got to work designing the app and what it would look like. I used Android Studio to code it.”

This hard work clearly paid off, as the “grand prize” granted the team $1,000 as well as some state-of-the-art gadgets. Most importantly, their app will soon be featured in the app store for public use.

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Campaign Takes on Local Flavor Westchester Voters Mirror Statewide Result

Ohio Governor John Kasich Stumps at Iona College

By OWEN ZUCKER

By STEVEN ROME

Ohio Governor John Kasich brought his message of moderate conservatism to Westchester when he held a Town Hall at Iona College on April 9. At the town hall, he told supporters that he is pinning his hopes on the July convention in order to become the Republican presidential nominee.

More than 700 people turned out to hear the candidate speak, cheering at any chance they had and taking advantage of the chance to see their favorite candidate up close.

Kasich introduced himself to the room full of Westchester students, parents, and workers as someone who doesn’t “play politics,” and who comes from a hometown that was filled with “blue-collar, God-fearing conservatives.” Most of his followers find him easy to relate to, and prefer his moderate stances on many issues. Kasich discussed his plans to help drug addicts, assist the mentally disabled and improve the education system.

One of his most respected plans is his economic formula.

Kasich said he would reduce regulations for small businesses,

Typically the presidential campaign is all but resolved by April.

In this unusual cycle, however, the races on both sides of the aisle are still competitive, meaning the latervoting states have a much more significant role in deciding the outcome. One such state is New York, which held its primary on April 19.

Candidates scheduled numerous events in New York City and even in Westchester as part of their efforts to win over the votes of the Empire State.

In Westchester, former Sec-

JIMMY QUINN/THE GLOBE

cut taxes, and promised to be fiscally responsible. He also made a concerted effort to contrast himself with Republican front-runner Donald Trump by emphasizing how many of his views differed from the leading Republican candidate. The majority of the crowd, clearly in favor of Kasich over Trump, applauded his effort.

Kasich is far behind the other candidates, but he still has vowed to stay in the race and spread his message to supporters across the US and hopefully win at a contested convention.

REPUBLICAN PRIMARY

retary of State and former New York Senator Hillary Clinton won the vote on the Democratic side, while businessman Donald Trump edged out Ohio Governor John Kasich in the Republican primary.

In recent weeks these candidates, who also won the entirety of New York State, have pulled ahead of their competitors and indicated that they are beginning to pivot toward the general election.

However, both Clinton and Trump must continue to perform well in the upcoming primaries in order to lock up their parties’ respective nominations.

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK TIMES

Upcoming Events: May SUNDAY 1

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Day X

Day Y

AP Calculus AB/BC (AM)

AP US History (AM)

New SAT (MHS)

AP Environmental Science (AM)

AP Computer Science (AM)

AP English Literature and Composition (AM)

AP Chemistry (AM)

AP Spanish Language (AM)

PACE 2 Show (7:30)

AP European History (AM)

AP Physics 2 (PM) V. Softball Game (Central, 4:15)

AP Art History (PM)

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Mother’s Day

AP Biology (AM)

AP US Government and Politics (AM)

AP English Language and Composition (AM)

MHS Awards Ceremony (7:30)

AP Physics C (PM) V. Girls Lacrosse Game (5:00)

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AP French Language (AM) AP Macroeconomics (PM) V. Baseball Game (3:30)

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Original Science Research Symposium (7:00)

School Budget Vote (7:00 AM - 9:00 PM)

Performing Arts Festival (7:30)

Performing Arts Festival (7:30)

Performing Arts Festival (7:30)

Performing Arts Festival (7:30)

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MHS Spring Art Show (6:00-8:00)

MHS National Honor Society Induction (7:30)

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MHS Video Show (6:30)

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SCHOOL CLOSED

SNOW MAKEUP OR SCHOOL HOLIDAY (If there have been four school closings, then school is in session - Day 5)

MHS Spring Concert (7:30)

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Arike ’16 Mixes Color and Mortality in Art

By ALI STEINBERG MHS senior Laura Arike has created eye-catching and colorful art throughout her high school career. Arike met with The Globe to discuss her pieces and her inspirations.

The Globe: Describe your involvement with art, both at MHS and in other programs.

Laura Arike: I’ve taken all the studio art programs Mamaroneck High School offers—Art Foundation, Drawing and Painting, Advanced Drawing and Painting and now AP Studio Art. I also take intermediate clay—my first year taking clay at MHS—which is a really great time, and a nice break from 2-D art. I’ve taken two courses at FIT over the past two summers, an illustration class and a portfolio class. It was a great experience to trek into the city everyday and just make art for hours straight.

TG: When did you first become interested in art? What sparked your interest?

LA: It sounds cliche, but I feel like I’ve been interested in art for as long as I can remember. It was inevitable-my grandmother is a professional printmaker, and my older sister has always been incredibly artistic. It just felt like a natural path for me to take, even when I was doodling poorly in elementary and middle school.

TG: Who, or what, has been most influential in shaping you as an artist?

LA: Aside from my family, I really do believe that the Art Department at Mamaroneck High School has played a crucial role in helping me develop as an artist, especially Adam Rizzuti, Kevin Klein and Don Keene (Michael Dollar is good for tough love, too.) They’ve constantly forced me to think further, push harder, do more—even when the criticism was tough to hear sometimes.

Without all of their advice, guidance and critiques, I don’t think I would be nearly as invested in art as I am today. I’m also extremely passionate about art history, and I find a lot of my inspiration to create through the study of art and its impact/relations to world history.

TG: How has art changed your outlook on the world or how you view yourself ?

LA: In my daily life, I’ve become more observant of my surroundings and how I can manipulate them into art. Mundane things become sources of inspiration; I’m always seeking new, unconventional ways to translate my environment and experiences into artwork.

TG: How would you describe your style?

LA: My style is a bit strange—I don’t attempt, nor want, to make my art hyperrealistic and completely accurate, so there’s a somewhat of a cartoonish feel to it in some pieces, despite the often dark subject matter. My AP Art concentration this year is “memento mori”, Latin for “remember you will die”, so naturally, the subject matter is macabre. However, a lot of my work is colorful, since my favourite medium is colored pencils.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what my style is, but this year at least, it’s a juxtaposition of vibrant color with heavy themes.

TG: Who are your favorite artists?

LA: I’d have to say Hieronymus Bosch—his work is so surreal and fascinating, and I always find new things to admire in every single painting each time, no matter how many times I’ve seen it.

He balances disturbing and grotesque subject matter with brilliant and inviting color palettes, something I strive to do.

I’m also a big fan of Egon Schiele and Otto Dix. TG: What is your favorite piece or project that you’ve done?

LA: My favorite piece I’ve done so far is most likely the diptych of the two skeletons who are dressed in overly elaborate Medieval clothing. It was a lot of fun to make, and I’m really happy with the overall outcome and detail. I also really dig the piece with a little girl’s face melting into a skeleton—it’s unsettling, but extremely colorful, which I think is somewhat funny.

attending art school—Pratt Institute—so I’ll be doing nothing but art for thenext four years. It’s going to be fantastic to never have to worry about science or math again, and instead just do what I love.

TG: Do you intend to pursue art in college or professionally?

LA: Yes, definitely! I’m actually

TG: What advice can you give to other MHS artists?

LA: Take risks! That’s the number

ARTWORK COURTESY OF LAURA ARIKE

one critique Mr. Keene has given me this year—he likes to remind me with every piece I do—and it’s definitely true. If you don’t take risks and challenge yourself in your artwork, you will never grow or develop as an artist. Don’t hesitate to do something that feels o u tof your comfort zone or different from what you normally do—a lot of my best pieces have

stemmed from being spontaneous and disregarding anything that may holding me back (for example, being scared to do a background in fear of ruining the figure, etc).

T G :Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?

LA: Everyoneneeds to check out the version of The Life of Pablo on Spotify A.S.A.P.

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Arts & Leisure DINING REVIEW

New Burger Joint Finds Balance Between Bustle and Local Charm Larchmont welcomes its first fast-food, teen-centered hub

By STEVEN ROME Its “Coming Soon!” banner had long turned from a sign of hope to a punch line. Its dim interior seemed destined for perpetual emptiness, its doors forever locked.

But Mooyah was not a restaurant gone out of business, falling plague to the string of vacancies that has infected Larchmont’s main streets—it had not yet opened.

Now, having (finally) turned on its lights on April 18 for the first time, it seeks to find a balance between a bustling chain and an intimate social hub in the heart of our community.

While Mooyah is a worldwide fast-food behemoth based in Texas with outposts in 19 other states as well as in Azerbaijan, Kuwait and Qatar, it is fresh in New York, and this franchise clearly is trying to emphasize its connection with its adopted town—superimposed inside the off-kilter typography in its logo are defining images of Larchmont, including Murray Avenue School’s entrance, the Larchmont Fire Department and the gazebo at the manor. The almost-tooover-the-top friendliness from the servers (they were clearly trained to call you by the name you give them for your order) might wear off, or perhaps it reflects the burger joint’s attempt to embed itself within the community.

Regardless, Mooyah’s long line (it moved fast enough) and sea of employees (red visors were everywhere) bring a new vibe to the Larchmont dining scene, providing high-schoolers a spot to grab a bite in an energetic scene without having to drive over to Mamaroneck Avenue. Especially with the hype of opening week, you seemed to know every other person who walked in.

But beyond the novelty of eating fast food on Palmer Avenue— that will fade after another trip or two—Mooyah earns its keep with a reliable burger and a top-notch milkshake. For those with the the luxury of a car, it will be a matter of personal taste and atmosphere to keep you in the 10538 rather than heading to Mamaroneck’s Smashburger or New Rochelle’s Pow! Burger. Mooyah’s is a crispy patty, thinned out and nearly burnt at the edges outside its swollen bun, while the inside remains moist and flavorful. With the right toppings—the selection is more or less the same as its peer establishments—the crispiness adds texture to your bite without compromising dryness. From a quantity-of-meat standpoint, Pow! Burger indeed packs a bit more pow.

If you want a crispy chicken

STEVEN ROME / THE GLOBE

The colorful and crowded restaurant personalizes itself with its Larchmont-centered sign (above).

WHO’S YA-YA FOR MOOYAH? sandwich, you had better stick with Smash or Pow, as the competitors are commonly known—Mooyah provides no such option. (Only Smashburger offers a veggie burger.) And you should remain loyal to the former if you prefer thinner, saltier, McDonald’s-like fries.

Mooyah’s fries contain more potato and seem more natural, in line with those of Five Guys. (To enhance this comparison, large cartons of raw potatoes are stacked toward the front of the restaurant, reminiscent of Five Guys’s industrial-style pile of peanuts for those waiting on the line.) A medium order ($3.49) is heaping enough to share with a friend.

It remains to be seen how the restaurant will impact its neighbors on Palmer. Although the increased traffic could be a boon for the Ice Cream Parlour, which replaced Longford’s on the corner but fails to attract large crowds of MHS students, one need not leave Mooyah for a first-rate dairy product. Its shakes are thick and satisfying, their consistency just on the border of ice cream while still accessible by straw. A table sampling of vanilla, cookie dough, and Reese’s flavors all netted positive results, edging out the offerings of both Smash and Pow. The experience at Mooyah amounts to a sensory overload. The walls are dominated by large panels of bold typography (“MOO! Layers of goodness! SCORE! Did someone say *fries*?”) and graphic representations of cows. The workspace for the cooks behind the cashier stations is completely visible, stretching nearly the en-

tire length of the restaurant. Every so often one hears an unseen microphone announce above the din, “Tim, your Mooyah is ready!”

Music thumps in the background, and red is everywhere, down to the placards denoting your order number you keep on the table.

If you put Mooyah in a sieve and filtered out these aesthetics, you would end up with Pow! Burger. The latter’s formula is the simplicity of a good hamburger, and its smaller sitting area and more isolated location add to this calmer, quieting effect. One’s choice of atmosphere is the determining factor between the two.

But in contrast with the equally busy Smash, Mooyah prioritizes personality, and its staff earns an A for ability to charm. Should it maintain this ethos, evocative of the small-town homeliness of some of Larchmont’s small businesses, this is a nice bonus. The layout of the restaurant is also a plus: the long rectangular seating of tables keeps all tables in view at all times; this unifying factor is absent in the irregularly-shaped Smash. The proximity of tables with one another builds on this ambience, while the music and flurry of activity allows you to hold a conversation comfortably without feeling that everyone else is listening to you, something not always the case at Pow. However, the predominance of four-person booths could hamper the dining experience of larger groups.

MHS students will have to decide if these advantages are worth a few extra dollars; Mooyah is the priciest of the area’s three burger

Mooyah 1943 Palmer Avenue, Larchmont

Offerings Make-your-own hamburger; turkey burger; house salad; ten milkshake flavors; fries and sweet potato fries Pricing Higher end of fast-food pricing Atmosphere Bustling, friendly, noisy

options. The baseline “Mooyah Burger” starts at $5.69 plus toppings (add $1 for cheese) and a dollar more for the double patty.

Smashburger’s single create-yourown burger is only $4.59, while Pow’s costs $4.75. The double at Pow, however, is actually more expensive than Mooyah’s, at $6.75 compared to $6.69. A small fries from Mooyah is priced at $2.49 versus Smash’s $1.99. Pow offers only one size at $2.95. A medium ($3.49) and large ($4.99) order of fries from Mooyah are also more expensive.

The smaller-size shake, a “Little Moo,” is cheaper than Smash’s one-size only shake and Pow!’s small size; a Big Moo and a large from Pow are equivalent. All in all, the cost is not prohibitive, and perhaps over time the gas you save (depending on where you live) will make up for it.

Even considering its busy design, Mooyah keeps it simple: a good burger and milkshake, superior service, and a new social spot in the heart of town. Wave to your friend at the table across the bustling room, wipe off your hands and pinch yourself: yes, you’re still in Larchmont.

“I liked the atmosphere and the staff a lot. There was a lot of enthusiasm. The burger itself wasn’t exceptional, but it wasn’t bad. The milkshake was on fleek. It’s the only fast food in Larchmont, which makes it convenient. I’d probably put it in third place in the debate between Mooyah, Smashburger and Pow! Burger (Smash is in first).”

Alex Haft ’16 “Overall, I was disappointed by Mooyah. With so much hype around the place, you would expect a decent enough burger.

I thought that the burger was cooked all right, but the bun completely turned me off. It tasted stale and very odd. I did order a milkshake and fries and was very impressed by both.

Pow! Burger is the number one burger place in my opinion.”

Marc Gowda ’18 “Mooyah is essentially the lovechild of our local burger places; the burger itself is on the same level of Pow, the fries and shakes are as good, if not better than, Smash and the overall atmosphere is unmatched.”

Eli Lederman ’16 “Overall, Mooyah’s food is very good. There are no ‘ready built’ menu options, which I miss.

Smashburger, for example, has some great preset menu options (not to mention more space) compared to Mooyah. Other than that, Mooyah is a pretty refreshing change for a village center that has been getting more and more crowded with insurance companies, real estate agents and banks.”

Victor Odouard ’16

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12 Spring Fashion Notice Tips to Warm Up Your Wardobe

By ROSA KAMINSKI and JULIA SHAPIRO Make a statement this season! Spring style this year really brings out the playfulness in the season. We can show how to integrate these spring styles into your closet and make them fit the mood of the season.

DENIM. Reworked denim is this season’s biggest trend. Worn by the likes of Rihanna, Gigi Hadid and Zendaya, this fabric is sure to make your closet anything but boring.

We’re not only talking about your standard pair of jeans, we’re talking about denim in every style.

As seen by famous fashion icons, denim is one of the most versatile fabrics out there. Rock the double denim look with a colorful blouse, or just wear an adorable light-wash denim work shirt with a black skirt.

STATEMENT EARRINGS. Shoulder dusters are this season’s trendiest earrings. They can be a bit drastic for your normal high school day, but with evening wear (especially plain black strapless dresses) they can look spectacular. These can totally be worn casually; these are the season’s earrings for a reason! Just wear a great pair of eye-catching earrings with simpler clothing. They look especially great with offthe-shoulder tops or tank tops.

BOLD SPRING COLORS. Look no further than fash-

In the past few months, many new exciting movies have been advertised and/or released. From action to comedy to animated movies, this is a rundown on the movies that are currently playing and the ones to be anticipated.

The Boss This movies is starring one of everyone’s favorite comedians, Melissa McCarthy. McCarthy stars as a successful business woman that stands as the richest woman in America. After information is exposed about her illegal insider trading, her bank account is frozen, and she is sent to prison. After she is released, she finds herself being viewed as a con artist rather than the sweetheart she was once viewed as. On average this movie has received a 2.5/5 star rating and has had mixed reviews, however it is probably a comedy that you don’t want to miss.

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice For fans of superhero movies, and there are quite a few, this movie is a must see. It focuses on two of the most iconic superheroes known, Batman and Superman. Two years after the destructive battle between Superman and Zod left the city of Metropolis

Student Scores Zero on SAT, Gets Admitted to All Eight Ivies

By KEVIN SHEN

PHOTO S COURTESY OF ELLE.COM

ion magazines to discover this trend! They’re all the rage with the fashion-forward French company Chloé. These colors strike just the right blend of being bold, but not too loudly or crassly. Pair a loose, cheerfully colored blouse with something simpler to strike just the right note and to have a killer outfit.

FRINGE. Fringe isn’t finding its place in the Wild West anymore but rather on the red carpet. Its busy, playful texture adds just the right amount of light-heartedness to an otherwise ordinary outfit.

Selena Gomez and Lucy Hale are just two celebrities spotted wearing this. Add some style to your simple everyday outfit by adding a striking fringe clutch or shirt.

LOOSE CLOTHING.

This season, the key word is comfort. That’s how loose, roomy clothes have come onto the fashion scene and on the runway. These clothes look and feel great! The best part is, they’re super au courant.

The trick is to keep from looking like you tumbled out on the street in your pajamas. Make this outfit work by pairing a piece of loose clothing like a flowy blouse with a tight piece of clothing to add some structure.

Check Out These New Movies From action to animated, this list has it all

By AOIFE MCMANUS

Humor

ing something about the “jewel of Morro Bay, California,” she sets out to find her family with the help of Nemo and Marlin. When she arrives at the Monterey Marine Life InstiPHOTOS COURTESY OF MEDIA-FEED.COM tute, she meets fellow sealife, devastated, Bruce Wayne or BatBailey, Destiny and Hank, who beman, played by Ben Affleck, has comes her guide. become convinced that Superman, Suicide Squad played by Henry Cavill, is a large Last but certainly not least is threat to humanity. Wayne then de“Suicide Squad,” which is being cides to plan a way to overthrow released on August 5. Based on Superman’s reign on Earth, while the DC comics, the movie focuses Lex Luthor also planned to destroy on a secret government agency, the man of steel. Scoring a solid known as “Task Force X,” led by 3.5/5 stars, this movie is definitely Amanda Waller, which recruits imworth seeing. prisoned supervillains to eliminate Finding Dory Finding Dory is a movie con- dangerous black ops missions, in tinuing the beloved story Find- exchange for peace, and saving the ing Nemo. This movie is being world from an unknown but powreleased on June 17, 2016, and is erful threat. The movie stars Will being highly anticipated by many Smith as Deadshot, an outstanding people. Starring Ellen Degeneres marksman and assassin, as well as as Dory, this movie is something other well-known actors and acto look forward to. The movie tresses, including Jared Leto, Martakes places six months after the got Robbie, Joel Kinnaman and end of “Finding Nemo.” After the Viola Davis. beloved blue tang fish recalls her childhood memories. Remember-

Brian Wang, a senior at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Springfield, New York, is one remarkable student: he’s been accepted into all eight Ivy League schools.

The Ivy League schools, which consist of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Dartmouth and Cornell, are known for their competitiveness and very low acceptance rates among prospective applicants, but for Mr. Wang, whose parents immigrated from China to the United States in 1984, all eight were a resounding yes.

Mr. Wang’s claim to fame: he’s the first-ever high schooler to receive a score of 0 out of a possible 2400 points on the SAT, one of America’s primary college entrance exams.

“I honestly don’t know how I did it,” Mr. Wang told The New York Times. “I came to the testing center feeling energetic and prepared to write a great essay, but I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the big zero on the Colleg Board website. At first I thought to myself, it must have been a typo.”

Mr. Wang was caught completely off guard upon hearing of his admission to the Ivy League.

“I wasn’t really aiming high, and I applied to a couple of small state schools and community colleges, just hoping to get into at least one,” he said.

“My friends and I all just agreed to send applications to all those schools as a joke, so we could laugh about how we applied to Harvard when we’re older. But as the acceptance letters kept coming in, I was like, ‘There’s no way this is actually happening to me.’”

He was also accepted into Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University and several State University of New York (SUNY) schools, and was waitlisted at the University of California - Davis.

Mr. Wang is ranked in the top 75% of his class of around 500, according to his guidance counselor at King High School. He is also the captain of his school’s varsity thumb wrestling team, plays the gong and the harmonica in the chamber orchestra, and serves as the director of “the Department of the Critical Evaluation of the Validity and Healthfulness of Bake Sales” in his student council. Last year, he won a statewide award for

his research project on the correlation between vaccination and the risk of autism on three-year-old children.

While Mr. Wang didn’t have high hopes while applying to college, admissions officers have been all but thrilled to have him as a potential student. “Even if you write down only your name on the SAT and nothing else, you’ll still score a 200 in every subject for a combined score of 600. But we’ve never even heard of a kid with an SAT score of 0 before,” said Harvard chief admissions officer Darien Fairfax.

“In fact, I’d say it’s just as difficult, if not harder, to get a 0 as it is to get a 2400. You can get a couple of multiple-choice questions wrong on the reading and writing sections and still get a 800 for both. However, to get a 0 you have to answer every multiple-choice question incorrectly without leaving any blank, and write a completely offtopic essay. If you answer just one question right you’ll still just get at least a couple of points.”

The Ivy League schools see Mr. Wang as a valuable addition to their freshman classes next year. “We’re always on the lookout for unique students that stand out beyond the rest of the pack,” said Francesca Cambridge, Princeton’s Regional Advisor for Undergraduate Admissions. “At Ivy League schools like Harvard and Princeton, the average SAT score is around 2300. Meanwhile, Mr. Wang got a score of 0—that’s 2300 points away from the average.

Mathematically speaking, that’s as unique as you can get.” And Oliver Mathewson, Harvard’s Director of Student Affairs, told reporters, “We love having a student body with a wide variety of interests. But we’ve never had an applicant who competitively thumb wrestles or proficiently plays the gong and the harmonica. We hope Mr. Wang will bring his unique experiences to the halls of Harvard, and we’re confident that he will use his leadership skills to share his passion and provide cultural enrichment for the rest of our students.”

Mr. Wang has not yet made a final selection on his school of choice for next fall, but he seems to have his eyes on Harvard. “After taking a campus tour and getting to meet all the wonderful professors and staff members, Harvard seems like the perfect school for me. I would love to become a part of such a diverse and welcoming class.”

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13

Humor You’ve Got Mail, from the Democrats

By EMMA KANETI From: Hillary for America To: Friends@gmail.com Subject: Votes and money??

Dear Friend, I really do care about you. You are a hard working beautiful American and I would sincerely like to hug you just like I do with Charlotte, my granddaughter. I don’t know if you’ve heard that I’m now a grandma, after the last 45 press releases, but I guess I’ll let you

know again, because as you know, a kind and caring person is who you really want for president, not Donald Trump. Americans, Democrats, obviously Clinton supporters, I know your taste. Senator Sanders is too loud and messy and kind of poor. You need someone as reliable as my pantsuit combos- they keep coming back, debate after debate. No matter where you come from, what you look like, or who you love, I will never fail to not release my Wall Street speeches until someone else does. I will also fight for a better future, on the side.

I’m so glad you’re here, did I mention that? You could change the race, you could be the difference. Especially if you’re black, Latino, or another minority, I value your opinion and your vote.

Please donate $1, as with a combined effort from all of the people #withher, I might not have to leave the White House as poor as when Bill was president! This won’t be a trip to the Hamptons (or to Wall Street) but come on Americans, don’t you want to elect the FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT?!!

P.S. We’ll be releasing “vote for the first dude” bumper stickers soon, stay posted!

From: Bernie Sanders To: Pooraf@gmail.com Subject: Come feel the Bern

Sistas and Brothas, Are you being disadvantaged by the American economy? Have you been cheated out of money by corporations and banks? Do you want to take down the billionaires of Wall Street? Are you old, partially deaf, and have sporadic hand spasms? So am I. In my 74 years on this planet, I have had a number of discouraging and simply unacceptable experiences. I have seen Wall Street suck the life out of the poor and throw it back up as mansions and expensive cars that the billionaires get to drive around in. UNACCEPTABLE! I will not live in such a country dictated by the top 1%.

Although I may only have 1% left in my life, I promise you a (short) future to believe in.

I’ve said throughout my entire campaign, trust me, I’m one of you. My wife Jane makes my sandwiches and does my tax returns; I’m just like you poor under-dog Americans trying to make a living.

We’re more of a grassroots movement than real grass, and we need to stand up and say enough is enough!

Take down the billionahs!

One last hurrah!

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THINKCONTRA.COM (CLINTON) AND POLITICO (SANDERS)

Inside Out of the Presidential Election It turns out these five presidential candidates are just the five emotions inside the mind of a little girl

By AVI GOLDSTEIN

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After First Two Years, Students and Teachers Reflect on Block Days

SURVEY, FROM FRONT assumed to indicate indifference and five indicated strong agreement.

A poll that paralleled the administration’s student survey gauged 111 teacher opinions on block days.

They, too, reacted to statements regarding extended periods on a one to five scale.

Results of the student survey showed a greater percentage of students who now feel less interested during periods of longer class time versus periods of regular length than that in the fall of 2014. The recent survey also revealed students’ favorability toward fewer class periods and transitions, as well as a consensus that teachers teach differently on block days.

Results from the faculty survey illustrated teachers’ apparent difficulty in covering the required curricula with the block days integrated into the school’s schedule.

They also unveiled mixed feelings about whether block days provide a unique opportunity for students to enhance their understanding of course material.

Data collected by The Globe after the initial implementation of the extended periods in fall of 2014 suggested that 35.5 percent of students felt more engaged during classes on block days than they did in classes on regular days. However, this year’s survey showed a fall from that figure, with only 27.3 percent of students reporting that they agree or “strongly agree” with the statement that block day classes are more “eng aging” than those on normal days. About 46 percent of current students said they disagree or “strongly disagree” with the statement.

When prompted with the statement, “I learn more on X/Y days,” students gave an average an-

swer of 2.8 out of five with only 27.6 percent of students agreeing or “strongly agreeing” with the statement.

Despite the fall in engagement, 56.8 percent of students answered with a four or five to the statement, “I like having fewer class periods and transitions during the course of the day.”

There was also notable agreement on the subject of stress as it relates to the block day system. Nearly 46 percent of students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “X/Y days reduce my stress.” Around 30 percent of surveyed students disagreed with the claim, however, and 23.8 percent said they were indifferent.

This more positive consensus on the issues of stress and classto-class transitions is not dissimilar to more broad results collected in 2014. Then, 76 percent of surveyed students said they support the decision to include block days in the MHS schedule.

O n the subject of their teachers’ lesson plans, surveyed students expressed a general opinion that teaching methods on block days differed from those on regular days. The statement “Teachers teach differently on block days” was met with 49.9 percent agreement, 23.6 percent disagreement and 26.5 percent indifference.

In contrast, results from the faculty poll yielded only 31.8 percent agreement to the statement, “I teach differently on block days,” while 30.9 percent said they disagree with the claim and 27.3 percent said they were indifferent.

As written in an article accompanying The Globe’s October 2014 poll, “A major concern over the block scheduling was how teachers would use the extra time.”

When the block schedule was enacted, teachers were required to submit their lesson plans to the administration for review. That requirement was lifted this year.

Some of the most decisive results from the teacher survey were also, perhaps, some of the most concerning. About 45 percent of teachers surveyed disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement “X/Y days provide enough time to cover course curricula.” Thirty percent responded indifferently. Just under a quarter of those surveyed agreed or “strongly agreed” that block days provide enough time to cover their courses’ material.

Still, a notable 44.9 percent of responding teachers agreed or strongly agreed that “X/Y days allow me to delve deeper into concepts,” and 36.9 percent agreed that “X/Y days provide students with an oppor tunity to enhance their learning and understanding of a concept.”

Yet in both cases, the majority of teachers surveyed answered either indifferently or in disagreement—raising a question with which administrators had to grapple in reviewing the survey’s results: is indifference a call for change?

They concluded that it was not. In a statement to The Globe, Principal Elizabeth Clain informed of the Scheduling Committee’s decision to maintain the same schedule over the next school year.

“While there were mixed responses to specific questions, there were a lot of middle of the road responses” she wrote, “Thus the committee drew the conclusion to keep a steady course and maintain our current schedule.”

ANALYSIS, FROM FRONT create unique educational oportunities, the data hardly demonstrate any success in this respect; only 27.3 percent of students expressed that they agree or strongly agree that classes on block days are more engaging than those on typical school days, a decline when compared to earlier polling conducted by The Globe in October 2014.

In the 2014-2015 school year, teachers were required to submit lesson plans for the longer periods to Principal Elizabeth Clain to have their activities approved and banned from administering tests.

These regulations were scrapped this year, loosening the pressure on teachers to create innovative or unusual lesson plans. This could very well explain the drop in engagement compared to last year.

(The Globe reports that multiple teachers have given exams on X/Y days, including in upper-level math and science classes.)

The inconsistency in students’ and teachers’ views on whether teachers teach differently on block day classes is also troubling. (Students sensed a shift in teaching style more than faculty did.) If the administration implemented block days to promote nontraditional activities in the classroom, then it should better articulate to teachers how exactly it wants teachers to teach differently. If it doesn’t want teachers to teach differently--to experiment with different modes of learning and applications of material--then why have block days at all?

The ambiguity may also reflect a lack of uniformity in how different subjects and teachers have adapted to the block day system. Humanities classes are more naturally suited for alternative activities like Socratic Seminars and debates.

Speaking foreign language every day is more important than devot-

ing 80 minutes to one topic, however, and math teachers are often limited in their ability to create hands-on labs to enhance instruction.

This incompatibility, combined with the discarding of the lesson review requirement, has caused many X/Y day classes to regress back to conventional lessons of lectures and note-taking.

Indeed, it is not inconceivable that a similarly structured survey on the traditional schedule would net similar findings. This complacency is exactly the opposite of what block days should promote.

The survey also asks about the burden block days place on students, indicating that another purpose is to reduce student stress (which is a large concern of the administration, as shown by its newly created Social-Emotional Committee). Nearly 45 percent of students agreed or strongly agreed that X/Y days reduce stress. Indeed, the days decrease the chaos of the school day and shrink the amount of homework one must complete at night. And let’s face it: longer frees, fewer classes and less homework are generally well received by the student body.

However, the administration could meet this goal far better if it reinstated the ban on exams on X/Y days. Moreover, teachers tended to agree that the current schedule makes it more difficult to complete curricula, which could make the last few weeks of the semester more crammed and induce more anxiety--50 percent of teachers expressed concerns about covering all the material, while 33 were indifferent and 27 felt X/Y days provided enough time.

Engagement and stress reduction are not dueling premises: more intriguing activities combined with a change of pace and less homework could combine to enhance the academic, social and emotional aspects of one’s education. But the administration’s incoherent policies undermine the chances of this approach registering in a clear and decisive way.

With results such as these, one can read the data in any way one likes, and students and faculty are certainly not vehemently opposed to X/Y days. But the administration can shoot higher than “meh.” For a school so devoted to enhancing the educational experience that it experimented with block days in the first place, it can do much better in first articulating the impact it desires from the schedule and then altering its policies to maximize this impact.

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Features

Junior Balances School with Dream of Dancing Professionally

By LEAH ROFFMAN As students living in Westchester, we have grown up to a chorus of voices singing the praise and promise of college. For many of us, college is a life milestone right up there with getting married and having a family. It is simply a given, and one we see no reason to challenge.

Lily Schwendener ’17 is one of the rare people that have decided to fashion their own idea of a future. She is working to become a professional dancer, in classical ballet.

Just as it is the case with most careers in the arts, it takes incredible passion and commitment to make such a bold move against the current of expectations. And for a student of classical dance, the decision to become a professional not only means dedicating endless amounts of time to practice and training, it also means becoming fully committed to a future that’s far off the beaten path.

Schwendener described in an interview with The Globe how she was aware of the scale of the decision she had to make. “It was a constant struggle of, do I want a normal life and to go to college,

or do I want to actually be a professional?” she admitted. “But by tenth grade I was all in it emotionally and physically.”

Now, Schwendener spends every afternoon training at the School of American Ballet, taking only chemistry, US history and English at MHS every morning before taking the train into the city. Practicing classical ballet is draining and exhausting, and it’s famous for its rigorous training and difficult techniques. Even though it is nothing short of a workout, her training takes place six days a week. Dance is a whole other world of stress and hard work outside of school, and Schwendener admits that she has moments when it’s hard to stay confident in her decision. “It’s so strenuous and exhausting, and a lot of stress physically and mentally. But when it comes down to it I love ballet… When it gets hard you just have to pick yourself up.”

Only this high level of dedication can make a future out of something as competitive as the arts. According to Schwendener, the desired career for aspiring dancers consists of being employed by a “company” at 18 years old, working in a dance group, and constantly traveling, touring, and performing. Over the course of 10-15 years, apprentices can hopefully reach the position of solo or principle dancer. The life that Schwendener trains for is not exactly a forgiving one, but it is rewarding of hard work. Thankfully,

PHOTOS COURTESY OF LILY SCHWENDENER

does she hope to finally yield from her hard work a little, and to possibly finish taking some classes on the side.

But throughout it all, Schwen-

“There are thousands of dancers fighting for the same thing. It ultimately means I have to work every day as hard as I possibly can.” her attendance at the School of American Ballet gives her a position for receiving job offers.

However, the competition in the field is intense and plays a huge factor in training. She says that despite having the advantage of going to the top dance school in the country, “There are so many thousands of dancers fighting for the same thing, it ultimately means I have to work every day as hard as I can.” And since the stakes are so high, success will take everything that she can give. Next year, Schwendener will start training everyday at 10:00 in the morning—in order to graduate, she will be finishing most of her high school education online. She has to focus on securing a job offer, which is when she says she will have her dance career “set in stone.” Only after that

dener has maintained a strong passion for dance, and as a result has become close to the art form. She says, of her passion, “Dance is an art form in that I can express my feelings and emotions through movement. It’s like telling a story of what the music is trying to say.”

It is something valuable to know what you love, and Schwendener is aware of it. She has already started making a life for herself out of her passion, something that many people fantasize about, but are rarely able to make a reality.

In words of inspiration for all of us fantasizers, Schwendener says, “Once the time came for me to know what I wanted to do, the choice was not difficult for me at all. I saw that this is what I wanted to do and from then on I never gave up on it.”

“Fishing Family” Sees Huge Growth in “Offseason” Facebook Group

By LIAM KATZ The Mamaroneck High School Fishing Club (Family) has been a hot topic since the beginning of this school year. President Jack Coyne ’16 has helped grow the club’s membership from a mere 11 members last year to almost as many as 200 students today. This is one of the fastest growing clubs at MHS and the numbers keep growing. EJ Katz ’16, an admin of the club, says that around 25 percent of all boys at MHS are members of the Fishing Club., which is currently the largest club at Mamaroneck High School.

So how exactly did Coyne gain such a following in the past year?

Well, although the club is highly dedicated to the sport of fishing, in the off-season the club’s Facebook group is a friendly environment in which club members share jokes and memes and make new friends. Word spread of the group around MHS, and led to the major following it has today. Coyne’s club will forever make history at MHS. Now that the warm weather is here, fishing trips will start up once again, now with more students than ever.

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Making Cents of Inflation

By KATHERINE HEANEY Between 1776 and 2016, the United States has experienced inflation rates averaging at 1.38 per-

cent per year, which includes some periods of deflation (negative inflation rates). Here is a look at how the value of $1.00 has changed throughout America’s history.

What was the value of $1.00 of that year compared to 2016?

177 6

How much did these popular goods cost in a given year?

Year

Item*

1776 One double-barrel gun

3 British Pounds

Ten pounds of sugar 1825 Acre of land in Virginia One cow

$0.17 $2.00 $12.00

One pound of coffee 1900 General Motors Oldsmobile

1950

Monopoly Board Game Bottle of Aspirin

182

5

$22.40 19 0

$0.15 $650.00 $4.00 $0.54

19

$1.00 $168.00 $1300.00

$26.40 197

2

$8.91 016

$1.00

200 $3.98

$1.25

0

*Average cost before taxes

50

0

5

Movie ticket 1975 Microwave Oven Apple II Computer

$29.00

Cost

Take the Quiz: What Should You Do This Summer?

By HANNA YOUNG Trying to decide what to do with your summer? Take the quiz below and find out!

What is your bulletin board filled with?

A) Clip outs from magazines of hard working organizations B) Maps and pictures of faraway places you have never been C) Letters and photos of you and your friends Which of the following statements describe you the most?

A) You are incredibly helpful to others B) You need to be constantly moving and doing C) You are all about being a good friend What is your favorite activity to do on the weekend?

A) Activities that you can help out with

tried

B) Anything new you haven’t

C) Spending time with your friends What is your favorite TV show?

A) Fox News B) The Amazing Race C) Friends What clubs are you a part of ?

A) Key Club, Students for Senegal, project Epic B) None, you’re looking for a club that travels to all new places C) You are a part of several clubs that you and your friends all signed up for at the club fair What do people love about you?

A) Your empathy and how much you are willing to give back B) Your constant need for adventure C) Your loyalty What genre book do you like to read?

A) Anything Nonfiction B) Books involving adventure

and fantasy C) Realistic Fiction What accounts do you follow on instagram?

A) Accounts like Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity B) Travel bloggers C) All your friends’ accounts and their “finstas”!

Mostly As: You should volunteer!

Take a look online and find organizations you can help this summer!

Keep an eye out for community events and fundraisers you could help out with! You are already natural at helping out, why not spend the summer benefitting others and doing something you love!

Mostly B’s: You should Travel!

Whether it is Africa, California, or somewhere only a couple hours away, you should get out of the roots you are used to! Search up teen tours and ask your parents to

sign you up! It seems like it is in your blood to be moving so go out and have an adventure!

ADVICE

“Advice you can’t refuse” Dear GlobeFather, With AP exams and finals just around the corner I’m starting to feel unhealthily stressed. I don’t know how I’m going to find the time or brain capacity to memorize countless facts and formulas, let alone sleep and eat. Please help!

Sincerely, Stressed Out Dear Stressed Out, You are not alone in this. A majority of your grade is probably experiencing the same exact jitters and stress. There are a few things to remember through this next month that will help you immensely.

First, you must prioritize.

Make a list of what classes you believe are most important/most necessary to study for. Also, you should take into account the timeline of your exams. Note the order of your tests so that you can study the most important tests first and not feel flustered as the tests start really approaching, Next, find a way of studying that really works for you. For some people that may be taking practice tests, outlining textbooks, making flash cards or rewriting all of your notes. Whichever way works for you, find it and stick to it.

You should also make yourself a schedule. Give yourself time to study; factor in breaks; don’t burn yourself out. It’s not worth it. If you burn out by studying too much and not getting enough sleep, you will not be successful on the test. It’s counterproductive.

Last, but certainly not least, think about these tests in the larger scheme of things. Sure, it is nice and important to do well on exams, but looking at the big picture: they really don’t matter all that much in the long run. You will be happy in your life, and no test score is going to stop you from being happy.

By doing this, you will take a huge amount of pressure off of yourself, and who knows? Maybe that will even make you do better on your tests.

Yours truly,

Ask! HANNAH KAHN/THE GLOBE

Mostly C’s: Hang with your homies!

Sometimes the school year can pull you apart from your buds, so take the summer to reunite and hang out! Go to the beach, the amusement park, shopping, whatever you want just make sure it’s with your friends! Summer can be filled with no responsibilities, so spend it making memories with your friends.

The

Globefather Pick a pseudonym and slip a letter addressed to The Globefather under the door of The Globe’s office, C148A

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Sports SPECIAL REPORT

Mamaroneck’s Secret?

Attempting to explain its sporting dominance

By STEPHEN ROTHMAN

W

ith more than a month gone by since the Mamaroneck Ice Hockey team returned home from Buffalo as state champions, we’ve all had some time to reflect. Even with that time, I’ve still struggled to put into perspective what exactly is going on in Mamaroneck. Dating back to the fall of 2014, the Tigers’ sports program has won an incredible seven state championships; that takes more fingers to count than seasons played.

A few weeks ago, when I was walking through the overpass, one student remarked, “I hate when athletes miss school the day after they win a state championship.”

I didn’t realize it until a few days later, but this student had a point: athletes are constantly absent from school the Monday after winning a state title. The problem with the statement, however, is not that athletes are missing school; rather, it is the fact that it’s happened so many times in the last two years that people are noticing trends, and assertions like these are able to be made.

As strange as it sounds, there’s almost a sense of normalcy about winning state championships in Mamaroneck. We’ve all come to expect excellence.

If you were wondering why that is, you weren’t alone; I was curious, too. So, I decided to do some research and gather the opinions that really matter - the ones housed inside of those either yelling from the sideline or doing the work on the playing surface itself.

The field hockey program was responsible for bringing the winning ways to Mamaroneck in the Fall of 2014. Like many of the other sports that have recently won titles, field hockey is expensive.

When asked about the general expenses of the sport, Sophie Miller ’17, a member of both the 2014 and 2015 teams, said, “Good sticks are about $100, and you have to buy goggles, shin guards and shoes on top of that. Club teams cost a ton of money – like club teams do for all sports – and you have to play on a club team if you want to get recruited. For camps, [Coach] Miller and [Coach] Savage run a bunch of things for [the team] over the summer, before preseason, which the players have to pay for; school doesn’t support anything before preseason begins in August.” All of a sudden, three-digit totals dip into the four-digit range.

Field hockey’s counterpart, ice hockey, is even more expensive.

According to momsteam.com, ice hockey is the most expensive

youth sport. When you factor in league fees ($2500), travel expenses ($4,000), equipment ($2,000), and skate sharpening ($135), the grand total, according to KSDK.com, eclipses an astonishing $8,600 annually. Numbers like these make you realize why some Section 1 schools don’t even have ice hockey (or field hockey) teams. Other districts are forced to link up in order to have enough players for the roster. Rye Town/Harrison and Rivertown are two prime examples of this.

Cost is among the biggest challenges when it comes to youth sports, but it’s perhaps one of the

There’s almost a sense of normalcy about winning state championships in Mamaroneck. tween wealth and athletic success, the three other teams that made the state semifinals for baseball last year, Connetquot ($98,193),

“high socio-economic schools.”

When you consider the pool of talent derived from the affluent community of Mamaroneck, you begin to comprehend why sports teams are competitive year in and year out.

Good coaching is essential to success in sports. Coaching legends such as Phil Jackson, Joe Paterno, and Mike Krzyzewski have been able to get the most out of their players, and, in turn, win multiple championships. According to the Aspen Institute, there was a 95% retention rate for athletes

STEPHEN ROTHMAN/THE GLOBE

Mamaroneck Varsity Ice Hockey team poses after winning the school’s first state title in the sport

PHOTO COURTESY OF BARI SUMAN

Mamaroneck Varsity Field Hockey after defeating Ward Melville to win their second state title in a row.

reasons Mamaroneck is able to rise above the opposition. These barriers arise as early as elementary school when kids begin to get involved in travel programs; travel team parents spend an average of $2,266 each year on their child’s participation. According to the Aspen Institute, in 2015, about one in three parents (32%) from households making less than $50,000 per year told researchers that sports cost too much. According to point2homes.com, the average annual income in Mamaroneck is $161,420. To give you a broader picture of the relationship be-

Saratoga Springs ($86,757), and Orchard Park ($100,156), all have average annual incomes that are well-above the $50,000 per year threshold. Income is not the beall, end-all predictor for success in youth sports, but it can be a useful barometer.

While income determines the exposure to high-end coaching and competition, it also contributes to whether or not kids get involved at all. Studies done by the Aspen Institute show that only 24.6% of eighth graders in “low socioeconomic schools” participate in sports, compared to 36.1% in

whose coaches received training in skills and communicating effectively with kids. When athletes come through Mamaroneck High School, they have the unique opportunity to be coached by some of the best in the state, such as field hockey coach John Savage, a threetime state champion (’04, ‘14, and ‘15), and Westchester Sports Hall of Famer Mike Chiapparelli. Both have made a habit of winning, and as the years go by, all they seem to do is keep adding to their resumés.

Since 2004, Mamaroneck field hockey has played in 12 straight sectional championships, winning nine of them, nine regional cham-

pionships, winning seven of them, and seven state championship games, winning three of them; all four losses in state championships were one-goal games. When asked what has set apart the teams from the last two years, Coach Savage replied, “Since 2004, the only difference, I feel, was we got a couple of lucky bounces. The 2014 team was probably the most talented [I’ve coached], and we were clearly the best by a big margin - very little need for luck. So, the short answer is both teams worked hard, smart and together. Each group was willing to put in extra time to become the best they could be.” Although Savage is ultimately responsible for the success of the program, he deferred much of the credit to other coaches, recognizing the importance of the junior varsity coach, Tricia Miller, who has worked with him for 18 years; Kathleen Dwyer, the modified coach (15 years); and Amanda Grant, who was a starter on the 2004 championship team.

When a coach has people that he knows and trusts at his disposal, the entire process becomes easier.

While Savage might only have direct contact with players on varsity for two or three years, his philosophy is able to be taught as soon as any seventh grader with strong desire to succeed steps on the field.

His philosophy? “Be a family and care for each other on and off the field. Lift each other up on bad days and give 100% every second you practice and play in games. If you can look each other in the eyes and know you did everything humanly possible to help your team succeed, then you are perfect.”

A 1974 graduate of Mamaroneck High School, Chiapparelli decided to return to MHS as a physical education teacher; and, boy, it was a good thing that he did. Fresh off his first state title in the sport, Chiapparelli has a 437227-27 record since he took over as the head coach of the hockey team in 1986. On the diamond, “Chap” has amassed a career record of 530-229-4 since becoming the head coach in 1985, leading the program to three state titles in the last eight years (‘08, ‘09, ‘15).

“I think, [...] it was the field hockey team winning that first state championship. All the kids in the hallway were like, ‘They won a state championship? Why can’t we win a state championship?,” he responded, when asked why he thought Mamaroneck has been so good at sports recently. “Following Savage’s model, I think I was very similar. [...] The coaches start seeing that we put kids in nice uniforms, we do preseason conditioning, we SEE “REPORT” PAGE 19

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Memorable Final Night Leaves Fans Excited For the Playoffs

By GEORGE BOYLE With the culmination of the NBA regular season, the playoffs have arrived. There are several

out of Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, Bryant made the transition look easy. He is the only player in NBA history with more than 30,000 points, 6,000 assists

championship; but they will have to face some stiff competition in the Western Conference before they attempt to win their second Larry O’Brien trophy in as many

PHOTO COURTESY OF USATODAY.COM

Kobe Bryant says farewell to the Los Angeles crowd after scoring 60 points in his final game.

teams with promising outlooks coming into the playoffs, finishing strongly at the end of the regular season. But, before we shift our focus to the postseason, let’s take a look back at what’s transpired over the last few months: the fall of a great record and the end of a legendary career.

and 6,000 rebounds. Kobe Bean Bryant has had a spectacular career and will be missed by many.

The Golden State Warriors are one team that is coming into the playoffs scorching hot. They broke the NBA regular season wins record on the same day as Kobe’s finale, notching their 73rd victory.

After winning the finals last year,

NBA Playoffs 2nd Round Matchups as of May 2

Eastern Conference

Western Conference

(1) Cavaliers vs. (4) Hawks (1)Warriors vs. (5) Trail Blazers (2) Raptors vs. (3) Heat April 13, 2016 was a historic day in regular-season basketball.

There were two historic games in one day. In Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant, one of the best players of all time, played the final game of his career. People paid thousands of dollars to see the Black Mamba play his last game in a Laker uniform. Before the game, greats such as Earvin “Magic” Johnson spoke about Kobe and they played a tribute video. Then, Kobe reminded fans why he’s one of the best. The 37-year-old dropped 60 points, leading the Lakers to a win over the Utah Jazz, 101-96. This game was the icing on the cake of a great career. Coming straight

(2) Spurs vs. (3) Thunder

everyone knew there was something special about this team, but nobody expected this kind of success. The previous record was held by the ’95-’96 Chicago Bulls. Ironically, Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Warriors, played for the ’95-’96 Bulls. When asked about breaking the record, Kerr said, “I never thought in million years that record would ever be broken.” The Warriors have an amazing roster headlined by the Splash Brothers, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, and 2015 Finals MVP, Draymond Green. Looking ahead to the playoffs, Golden State is hoping to end this historic season with another

seasons.

Assuming the Warriors make it past the first two rounds, they will most likely face the San Antonio Spurs or the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals. The Spurs are undoubtedly one of the best teams in basketball; with a lineup full of veterans like Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, and younger players such as Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge, they are going to be hard to stop.

Not to be forgotten is head coach Greg Popovich who has led the Spurs to five championships in his illustrious career on the sidelines.

The Thunder are led by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, two of the best players in the league. If the duo can stay hot, who knows what could happen?

In the Eastern Conference, there are a handul of strong teams that can’t be overlooked. At the forefront of that group is the Cleveland Cavaliers who are led by the electrifying LeBron James.

After losing to the Warriors in the finals last year, they are definitely seeking revenge. After the Cavs, teams such as the Miami Heat, who many think would match up well against the Cavs, Toronto Raptors and Atlanta Hawks are vying to make an appearance in the finals.

This regular season was one that will always be remembered, and the playoffs have the potential to be memorable as well. Stay tuned…

Forsman ’16, Varsity Golf’s First Female Player, Follows in Family Footsteps

By HANNAH KAHN At the age of six, most kids are learning to read or tie their shoes. Natalie Forsman ’16 was swinging clubs on the driving range.

Born into a family of golfers, Forsman inherited a love of the sport.

“It never really occurred to me that golf was a choice; it was just something in the family.” Forsman was coached and encouraged by her Grandpa, who took her out golfing weekly. Eventually, it became a Sunday afternoon ritual. Now, Forsman has taken her talents to the high school, playing as the only girl on the Mamaroneck Varsity Golf Team.

Although she had grown up playing the sport, Forsman didn’t join the golf team right away. Not until Sophomore year did she decide to try out. “I had been on the lacrosse team, but my

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NATALIE FORSMAN

One of these guys on the team is Nolan Forsman, Natalie’s younger brother. Nolan is fresh-

“It never really occurred to me that golf was a choice; it was just something in the family.” parents had been bugging me to pick up golf at school instead,” Forsman admitted. “Since they are both spring sports I could only pick one, so finally I agreed to try out [for golf], and I made it!”

Forsman has had an excellent experience on the team, but she conceded that her first year as a tenth grader was a little intimidating, being the only girl on the completely male team, playing a predominately male sport. “I had to adjust to the atmosphere, but now I don’t really notice it,” she said of the team dynamic. Now, this is far from a problem for her. “I am not treated any differently than any of the guys on the team.”

man at Mamaroneck High School, and a key player for the golf team.

Most siblings would have difficulty playing on a sports team together, but Nolan and Natalie work well as teammates. “It’s comforting when we are out playing to know that he can give me tips,” she said of her little brother.

The Mamaroneck Varsity Golf Team has been having a great season, thanks largely to the hard work and sportsmanship of the Forsman siblings. We look forward to a great season finish from Natalie, Nolan, and the rest of the golf team.

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Tigers Baseball Faces Large Expectations

By JEREMY HOFFNER It was June 13, 2015, ten months ago, when the Mamaroneck Baseball team rushed the field in Binghamton, celebrating a Class AA NYSPHSAA championship. It would be Mamaroneck’s third Class AA championship since 2008, and the first one since 2009.

Much excitement and joy wafted through the high school in the hours and days post-championship, but the days of celebration are over. Now in the first days of May, the baseball season is already in full swing. The biggest question

surrounding Mamaroneck Baseball as the season begins is how do you manage expectations for a team that has accomplished so much over such a short period of time?

How do you balance the youthful nature of the team, not helped by the graduation of important position players, with the pressure of trying to get back to the biggest stage?

After surveying around the program, the answer seems to lie in the camaraderie of the team members. According to Matt Albert ’18, “[...] This year’s team has had a major theme of identity and closeness. The coaches do a great

Unlocking the Secrets to Mamaroneck’s Sporting Success REPORT, FROM PAGE 17

work them really hard, we play a really hard schedule, and I think it’s all come together and produced state championship-caliber players,” he added. When asked of the differences between the athletes of the past two years and the athletes before them that didn’t win state titles, Chiapparelli said, “I think the fact that the coaches go into the season saying, ‘Hey, guys, we’re playing for the league, section, state championship right now. This is what you have to do.’, [...] and I think they do it with the attitude that we can do it.”

With constantly changing rosters from year to year, “Chap” credits the athletes of the past as part of the reason the athletes of today have reached this level of success. “You know, the confidence that you can do it, by the past players having done it, helps these kids right now pursue the dreams of trying to win a state championship.”

One thing that remains constant, though, is Chiapparelli, and as he’s gained more experience, he’s become better. “I’ve lost a lot of tough games along the way, so I kind of learned how to handle the big games. I’ve learned how to take the emotion out of my coaching [...] and I try to be smarter and think [about] how to help the kids win, as opposed to willing them to win,” Chiapparelli remarked.

With experience and improvement has come the knowledge of what it takes to build a winner. “I also think I prepare the kids; I challenge my kids. We go to California playing baseball, we go upstate to play the best teams. I challenge my kids to play the best and once they play them, they’re like, ‘They’re not that good compared to us. Why can’t we beat them?’ Then they realize the mental part’s gone, now it’s just the physical part of training and producing.”

In his time at Mamaroneck, “Chap” has created a culture that has been an integral part of Mamaroneck’s accomplishments. His coaching philosophy - “work hard, play with class, win.” - is a testament to the success he’s had, and shows why kids just starting teeball can only dream of playing for him.

One intangible reason for Mamaroneck’s recent achievements that numbers can’t support is team chemistry - both on and off the ice. Two-year captain of the varsity hockey team, Jason Bienstock ‘16, described the dynamic of this past year’s team, saying, “The dynamic of our team was unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of. Regardless of who we were friends with outside of the rink, we were brothers in the locker room and on the ice.”

Growing up as a hockey player in Mamaroneck (or any sport, for that matter), it’s inevitable that you’ll be playing with the same kids throughout your childhood.

From the time a hockey player can barely walk until his or her senior year of high school, they show up to the rink seeing the same faces.

This season, those bonds were evident on the ice. “The fact that we’ve been playing together for so long has given us a lot of chemistry that was hard to stop. We knew each other’s tendencies on the ice, and we were able to react to things before they happened,” Bienstock added. As I mentioned earlier, some hockey teams from section 1 are a combination of several high schools - an obstacle that Mamaroneck isn’t forced to face.

After all the research and the interviews, nothing jumps off the page. Yes, Mamaroneck is filled with talent. Yes, Mamaroneck is a “high socio-economic school district.” Yes, Mamaroneck has some really good coaches. So what, though? Aren’t there at least 10-20 other school districts throughout the state that fit the same criteria?

Yes, there probably are. So, in my opinion, Mamaroneck stands out from the crowd by doing the little things better than everybody else.

The coaches put in more time than other coaches, the players train harder and longer than other players, and the expectations of the program exceed those of other programs. In sports, there is a slim margin for error, and, recently, it appears as though that margin has been just big enough to put Mamaroneck on the map.

job in reinforcing the ideas that one player does not win a championship and that each and every player, no matter his role, contributes to the team.” When looking at the team from afar, that statement seems to ring true. For a group of people that spends much of its school day together, as well as its own time, it never seems to lose sight of the source of the friendships and connections: baseball.

The joyfulness and laughter among team members helps to loosen the pressure and tension of a team expected to win.

The ability to manage expectations also stems from prior experience, and Mamaroneck Baseball certainly has plenty of that.

Whether or not the current team members were in Binghamton last June, last year’s championship team can offer a lot of guidance for this year’s group. According to Mark Adamo ’17, “From last year’s team I learned the importance of the small things in the game. Just when you think it is all over, one pitch or one hit can change the whole dynamic of a game or a season.” Those little things are what can propel a team in any given situation. If, as a team, you know what to expect in different situations, the whole challenging, mental side

PHOTO COURTESY OF TWITTER.COM

Truman Devitt ’17 pictured during Mamaroneck’s 4-1 win over Fox Lane on April 28. Devitt pitched a complete game, allowing 1 earmed run.

of baseball eases up. The team that has confidence in themselves, their coaches, and their knowledge of what to do in critical situations, has a leg up on whatever opponent they are facing. With Mamaroneck Baseball, last year’s championship run certainly provides this year’s team with enough in-game experience to instill this confidence.

Without it, managing extremely high expectations becomes a lot harder to handle.

The Mamaroneck Tigers baseball team is well on its way to defending its title. The team is 13-1 (as of May 2), with key games on the schedule coming up in the following weeks, such as two games

against White Plains, the first on May 7 at White Plains, and the latter on May 10 at home. Since suffering a 4-1 defeat to North Rockland on April 6, the Tigers have rattled off 11 consecutive wins (as of May 2).

If the team wants to continue the success it has experienced already, they must stay loose and have fun on the field. The most important aspect of maintaining success is that the team stays together and deals with the expectations in a positive light; with that, results are bound to come. For this team, it is those ideals that help keep them together. If that can be maintained, we might see another Tiger celebration come June.

20

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Sports Mamaroneck Athletes Receive Con-Ed Honors

By TALIA LAND Mamaroneck High School has always been known for producing some stellar athletes on the field, but recently, more student athletes have been receiving recognition for their impressive work in the classroom and the real world.

The prestigious Con-Ed award is given once a week to an athlete in the Lower Hudson valley who demonstrates a combination of tremendous academic achievements, leadership, citizenship and school and community activities.

Each week, the winner is selected by a panel of athletic directors and coaches who review ballots submitted by each athlete’s athletic director or coach. Once an athlete is selected, he or she is required to complete a phone interview, followed by a radio interview, which generally take around 15 minutes to complete. Both interviews are conducted by a representative from Lohud, and are then transcribed into an article that is released on lohud.com as well as in The Journal News. The interview is designed to provide insight into the student’s athletic and academic accomplishments in his or her community and beyond.

Last year, Mamaroneck High School ended up having six seniors receive this prestigious award —the largest number from any school. This year’s senior class has almost equaled that success. So far, Katie Devore, Lauren Chapey, Alex Ewald, Lizzie Clarke and Peter Matt have received Con-Ed honors. Devore (Penn), Chapey (Yale), Ewald (Cornell), and Matt (Penn) are set to play at Ivy League Universities next fall and Clarke (Hamilton University) will be attending a top Division Three program. Along with their impressive

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ALEX EWALD, KATIE DEVORE, PETER MATT, LAUREN CHAPEY AND LIZZIE CLARKE

Clockwise from top left, seniors Alex Ewald, Katie Devore, Lizzie Clarke, Lauren Chapey and Peter Matt have all been recognized in The Journal News as winners of the Con-Ed Award. This amount of winners is only surpassed in Mamaroneck sports history by the 2015 season, in which six seniors won the award.

academic achievements, all five have won state championships in their respective sports; two of them are even national champions.

The Globe caught up with Clarke, a field-hockey player, who said, “I was really excited when I

got the award because everyone I know who has received it before me is an amazingly talented athlete as well as student. To be given the same recognition as them was a huge honor.” When asked why she thinks so many Mamaroneck ath-

letes receive the award each year, Clarke said, “I think the amount of Con-Ed awards that Mamaroneck players have won is a huge testament to the type of athletes that compete here. Not only is there so much talent on the field, but

everyone is just as focused in the classroom.”

The Mamaroneck Con-Ed winners will be honored at an annual dinner for all the winners this year on June 1.

Softball Off to Fast Start

By EMMA GOTTSEGEN

Just last year, the Mamaroneck Varsity Softball Team went 6-15. It was not the greatest year for the Tigers, but this year has been a different story. As of April 26, the Tigers had won five games and suffered only one loss.

Composed of members of all four grades, the Girls Varsity Softball team is quite diverse and certainly full of talent. Like any team, each player brings something different to the table.

To some, Mamaroneck Girls Softball has been known as a “less exciting” sport, compared to hockey, lacrosse or soccer. Yet, this year, because of the team dynamic and an impressive start to the season, the “less exciting” sport could produce a season for the books.

PHOTO COURTESY OF HAYLEY WEISSTUCH

Mia Steinberg sets herself before fielding a ground ball and firing to first base.

Captain Mia Steinberg ’17 says, “If there is one thing about our team that I love, it would definitely be how close we are. This season has been a success so far and we’ve done so well because of all the fun we have. We are working very well together and have truly shown that on the field.”

Steinberg discussed how essential a team’s ability to get along with one another, as well as work together are while playing a sport.

The team learned that strong chemistry tends to lead to higher achievement. In addition, emphasizing team goals instead of individuality can also lead to better results. The Tigers seem to have absorbed this lesson. As long as they keep cooperating well together, they will keep winning.

Senior captain and second

“This season has been a success so far because of all the fun we have.” baseman Chelsea Rose ’16 told The Globe, “This year, we have a strong team with many young players. We play well together, we support each other, and we are expecting to do great things this season.

Our record is a strong 5-1 and we plan on adding to our wins.” For the Tigers, their objective is obvious: continue the encouragement for one another and get those wins.