Issue 1 2020-21

THE

PROSPECTOR

801 WEST KENSINGTON ROAD, MOUNT PROSPECT, ILLINOIS 60056

THE VOICE OF PROSPECT HIGH SCHOOL SINCE 1959

VOLUME 60, ISSUE 1

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

Mouths open, ears closed Recent social justice movement sparks teen activism

painting by Mara Nicolaie

2 NEWS

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

prospectornow.com

BLM, ‘Back the Blue’ show cultural schism BRENDAN BURKE

Associate Editor-in-Chief *name changed for confidentiality

I

t all started with a counterfeit $20.

That $20 led to a summer filled with protests, riots and — of course — aggressive political battles. On May 25, a dormant fire deep within the United States was reignited — a fire that has been unnoticed for decades. It was not reignited by a match or a lighter but rather by the death of a man named George Floyd.

Almost everyone in America knows the story. Floyd, a Black man and Minneapolis resident, was approached by police officers from the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25 after they received a call from a store owner saying that he tried to pay with a fake $20 bill. Once approached, a white officer named Derek Chauvin forced his knee onto Floyd’s neck, holding him in a chokehold that would allegedly lead to his death.

A video was shared all over the internet of the moments leading up to Floyd’s death where he was repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe,” and bystanders were yelling at the officers to get off of him. “I can’t breathe” has been a creed of the nationally growing Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement ever since the death of Eric Garner — a Black man killed at the hands of police officers in 2014. The BLM movement is demanding the United States to address its problems with racial inequity.

While most movements gain momentum by going out and protesting, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced society to adapt in all forms of ways — including how people protest.

With the power of social media, the younger generation of Americans — like Prospect student senior Monique Louis — have been spreading awareness and sharing information via these platforms. Louis, a Black woman who has been inspired by BLM ever since its beginning in 2013, finds that the pandemic has allowed people all across the country to have discussions on how to address racial inequality due to an increased number of people being on the internet. However, Louis strongly acknowledges that BLM is not the sole movement being made popular through this cultural awakening. The term “Blue Lives Matter” is a countermovement to BLM that advocates for protecting the rights of police officers in this country. Junior *David Tucker, an avid Blue Lives Matter supporter, states that social media is his favorite way to find and share information regarding his beliefs.

While Louis and Tucker are on opposite ends of this debate, they both can agree that social media has helped their causes immensely. Louis brings up all of the donations that have been raised in honor of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Jacob Blake. Floyd, Taylor and Arbery are all Black people who have been allegedly murdered by white Americans; in Taylor and Floyd’s cases, by white police officers. Blake has become more prominent recently after a white police officer from Kenosha, Wis. shot him seven times and left him paralyzed from the waist down. Although these donations are helpful for demanding justice for these individuals, Louis states that simply informing more people about BLM is great for the movement overall. On the other hand, Tucker loves using social media as a means of sharing posts “Backing the Blue.” Louis and Tucker state that not many impactful conversations have occurred between the two different movements on social media. Tucker states that everytime he direct messages (DMs) a BLM supporter or a BLM supporter DMs him, the two of them never have effective discussions on how to compromise.

“You can’t have a good conversation with the disagreeing side over a DM,” Tucker said. “I’ve tried it before and it never works.

You just end up talking in circles and never find common ground.”

Louis says that having these meaningful discussions are hard online and that real progress comes from going out in the community and protesting for change — hence why she attended two protests this summer in honor of Floyd, demanding an end to systemic racism.

Going to an Arlington Heights park for one protest and the Mount Prospect Village Hall for the other, Louis stood with a coalition of members in her community wanting justice to be served “in honor of George Floyd and all Black people in America.”

“Since sixth grade, I felt so alone because no one [around me] ever really cared about Black Lives Matter,” Louis said. “They would

FIGHT THE POWER: In honor of George Floyd, people gather in Des Plaines on June 6 protesting the American policing system. Ever since Floyd’s death on May 25, the Black Lives Matter movement has risen to national prominence with protests of police brutality. With this rise, a countermovement known as Blue Lives Matter in favor of protecting law enforcement has gained national attention. “This is the year of divison,” anonymous junior who supports Blue Lives Matter said. (photo by Alexis Esparza) say really ignorant things ... so I always felt change is to peacefully protest and feels that isolated in my opinion. But now, I am seeing a lack of action is no excuse for rioting. these protests in predominantly white neighTucker does not consider himself a racborhoods with crowds that are predominant- ist person for being against the BLM movely white, and it’s really good to not feel like ment due to the fact that he thinks “All Lives I am the only one who is upset and actually Matter” is the creed that really should be cares.” thrown on the table. Louis is not against the With the rise of BLM protests in his statement that Tucker makes, but she states neighborhood and around the country, that “all lives can’t matter until Black lives Tucker states that he clearly disagrees with truly matter.” Essentially, she is stating that the movement due to the fact that they are Black people face many more obstacles in — in his view — fighting for Marxist politlife due to their race. Louis mentions that the ical policies, but respects their constitution- fact that the Prospect student body being less al freedom to peacefully protest. However, than 2% Black along with policies like redlinhe is adamant in stating that the riots that ing and gentrification are clear indicators of have sparked from this are “acts of terror- a white supremacist society. ism against our great country” and rioters By definition, white supremacy is the beshould be given “the worst of prison sentenclief that white people are of a superior race es.” Tucker believes in “following the full ex- and therefore deserve to dominate society. tent of the law regardless of skin color” and Louis states that the core idea is that most feels that the police officers involved in the systems of society were built by white peocases of Floyd, Taylor and Blake should all ple — for white people — and therefore leave be given proper out people of trials and proscolor. ecuted accordT u c k e r ingly.

Tucker gets bothered did not want when he hears to comment on this argument whether or not made by Louis. he agrees with “ W h i t e the officers beprivilege no ing charged longer exists,” To learn more about how local enforcement has with murder.

Tucker said. responded to the Black Lives Matter movement...

Louis refutes He states statements simthis because ilar to Tucker’s he has not seen by bringing any solid proof up riots in the indicating that recent past of Black people predominantly are at large white crowds disadvanta gover the loss of es because of sports competitheir race. tions and how “By saying people paid lityou have not tle attention to seen disadvanthem. Many of tages because these riots were the color of caused by supyour skin is porters of the losing sports team that were [proof of] white privilege,” Louis said. “You angry at the loss. She states that this is yet haven’t experienced it because you’re white.” another example of how the media and peoBuilding upon his statement of not believple in power constantly look past issues for ing in white privilege, Tucker states that the people of color. situations of Floyd, Taylor Arbery and Blake Tucker believes that these sports riots “had nothing to do with skin color” and were were merely a one-time event but do prove caused by “mistakes from both sides.” that not everything is equally covered in the To this, Louis brings up topics such as media. He is against all forms of rioting due racial income inequality and racial profiling to the “unnecessary destruction it causes,” as a method of trying to refute the opinions but Louis states that these riots were a nec- of Blue Lives Matter. When it comes to the essary evil because after years of no action, debate overall, Louis strongly opposes Blue people are finally starting to pay attention.

Lives Matter because she thinks of it as a “It’s just a window,” Louis said. “The brodistraction from “real racial issues and a ken windows can be replaced, and it’s awful corrupt policing system.” Tucker strongly that it took riots to get people to notice our opposes BLM because of its “Marxist beliefs country’s problem with systemic racism.” and a want to destroy America as we know On the other hand, Tucker states that it.” In response to this, Louis likes to make rioting is a crime and that “the left cherry it clear that the BLM organization and the picks the law.” movement are two separate things and all “Riots are destructive, and I can’t support BLM supporters are in favor of “ending racthem,” Tucker said. “But the one thing you ism in America, not overthrowing the govhave to admit is that they are doing some- ernment.” The reason the BLM organization thing. Sure, it is starting a discussion on has been called Marxist is due to the fact that race, but this isn’t the right way to do it.” the original founders have self-identified as Tucker states that the right way to spark Marxists in the past. Louis likes to make it

Click here for a full broadcast

Black lives m at t e r

clear that the movement is separate and people are using the Marxist claim to cause “a distraction away from the BLM movement.”

Essentially, the Black Lives Matter Foundation is believed to have a Marxist agenda and the BLM movement simply defines protests all over the country that want police reform and an end to systemic racism. Since they share the same name, people often think of it as the same, but Louis states they are completely different.

“Yes, it is highly unfortunate and even depressing that George Floyd died,” Tucker said. “But the response to this isn’t burning down our towns and taking away law enforcement — we need law and order.”

“Law and order” is a key phrase said by Tucker and has been thrown around all over the American lexicon in recent months as President Donald Trump’s reelection creed.

Deeming himself “a law and order president,” he is basing his reelection bid on ending riots across America and supporting police officers and Blue Lives Matter in the process.

Tucker is an avid Trump supporter, and he firmly believes that “politics has everything to do with this issue.” He has been a Trump supporter since 2016, and his political beliefs are what cause him to be such a huge supporter of the police. Louis disagrees with this notion and states that her moral compass is what is driving her in support of BLM, but she is an avid supporter of former Vice President Joe Biden for President because of his understanding of racial inequity.

With both sides making their case for why they support their respective movements, something Louis and Tucker both agree on is the lack of common ground being found between the two groups. Louis says Blue Lives Matter is failing to understand the problems minorities face, and Tucker says that BLM does not understand the importance of law enforcement. With this lack of common ground, Louis states many misconceptions arise.

“The reason [Blue Lives Matter followers] support the police is because they have never been on the receiving end of a system that targets people of color,” Louis said.

For example, when Louis says she supports the statement “All Cops Are Bastards,” she is not saying that all officers are bad people, but rather the institution of policing is vile. According to Louis, police officers require much more accountability for the crimes they themselves commit and need a check to ensure people of color are no longer targeted. Louis states that these values are what “Defund the Police” truly means.

At the end of the day, Louis believes that the status quo is not working for everybody and therefore requires proper reform. According to her, that reform will come when people begin to take the struggles of Black people seriously. Tucker does agree that reform must also be made, but it will only come when people start listening.

“Whether you support Black Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter ... it seems like no one is listening,” Tucker said. “People prefer to look to the far left and far right instead of the main messages — and that’s why we’re getting nowhere as a society.”

prospectornow.com

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

NEWS 3

D214 hands tied by state, county guidlines RICK LYTLE Editor-in-Chief

S

enior Kenzie Woodland was sitting in the overflow room with about 30 other people at the District 214 board meeting on Aug. 5 to decide on a remote start to the school year. One of the first problems to arise was that no one could figure out how to set up the livestream from the main meeting room to the theater where Woodland sat.

“If they’ve got all of the District [214] IT people, and they can’t figure out how to livestream something, how do they think that e-learning is going to go smoothly for everyone?” Woodland said.

Later that day, all families in D214 received the news via email that most had been anticipating — the school year would begin entirely remotely because of COVID-19 regulations. This was a major pivot from the original announcement on July 16 that said students would have the option every day of going to school in person or doing their classes remotely. This change prompted a wide range of reactions from around the district.

“I was pretty annoyed [about the announcement],” Woodland said.

She added that announcing the original plan in July, which had students in the building up to five days a week if they chose to be, made hearing the news about the new remote learning plan harder to take.

“Having what I still think is the best plan I’ve heard and then just taking it all away … I guess it’s the same result, but it was a pretty harsh change,” Woodland said.

While the majority of families felt as Woodland did — that at least some learning should be done in-person — other students were happy to see the change. Senior Barsha Gaire was not confident that students would keep their masks on all day and would be able to take the situation seriously. She also mentioned the combination of symptoms not showing up for as long as 14 days in certain cases and the contagiousness of the virus as part of her fear.

“I know [if we go back to school in person, there will be] one kid in the class who is going to fool around and be like ‘I have to cough’ and take his mask off,” Gaire said.

The school board’s decision on whether or not to approve the remote learning plan

DECISION MAKERS: D214 Superintendent Dr. David R. Schuler (right) and Executive Assistant to the School Board and the Superintendent Rinn Knoepfle (left) are pictured at the Sept. 10 Board of Education meeting. (photo by Mara Nicolaie) was nearly unanimous with a sole vote against the plan coming from D214 Board Member Todd Younger.

“The administration made the determination that if the priority was the safety of students and staff, they had to begin the year fully remote. The board supported that decision. I am simply a lone dissenting voice,” Younger said.

“I am fully supportive of our administration and superintendent, I just simply was hopeful that we could have a model that more closely resembled the original plan versus 100% remote learning to start.”

Younger also echoed the concerns of many parents who want their kids in school.

“The schools perform a greater function than just education ... the unintended consequences of forcing people to be home could be equally as bad as the risks of COVID,” Younger said.

Despite a strong push for at least a partial reopening of schools, the administration’s hands were tied by constantly fluctuating county and state regulations. According to D214 Superintendent Dr. David R. Schuler, it is close to impossible “for any sort of large population” to go to school in person in Cook County.

The most limiting of these regulations is change in guidance from the Cook County Department of Public Health regarding

click here WATCH a broadcast on how teachers are adapting to covid-19 and remote learning

RETURN TO SCHOOL STAGES AND METRICS Stage 1 - Fully Remote - all students remote learning - very limited off-site in-person programming New cases per 100,000: >175 cases

175 Stage 2 - Mostly Remote - almost all students remote learning - small pods of specialized groups in the building (special needs students, homesless students, other specialized groups, etc.)

New cases per 100,000: 70-174 cases

Stage 3 - Hybrid

70

- students in-person learning (if they choose to be) some days and remote learning other days New cases per 100,000: 7-69 cases

Stage 4 - Original July Plan

- students choose in-person or remote each day - students in the building up to five days a week New cases per 100,000: <7 cases

7

exposure to COVID-19. At the time of the original July announcement from the district, only people who were exposed for 15 consecutive minutes to someone who tested positive for COVID-19 had to quarantine.

Cook County then changed the rule from 15 consecutive minutes to 15 cumulative minutes in a 48-hour period.

Because the number of minutes of passing periods in a day exceeds 15 minutes, and the fact that the school can’t possibly track who passes who every day in the hallway, a single positive student case would shut down the entire school for 14 days. Under the original 15 cumulative minutes guidance, only the students who had class with a student who tested positive would have to be quarantined for 14 days and the rest of the school could continue attending in-person.

The district was also planning on placing large dividers in some school’s fieldhouses, one being Prospect, so that more students could make use of the space. They planned to have five or six groups of 50 students with each group separated by dividers. The public health guidance on this changed as well between the time of the July announcement and the August school board meeting, with the new rules only allowing for 50 total people in the entire fieldhouse. This made having enough space in the school for things like lunch extremely difficult.

“If we had a small high school, it would be much easier,” Schuler said. “If you had 100 kids in a high school, 200 kids, to keep everybody separated [would be possible], but with 2,000, we just don’t have enough space.”

The district did believe they would be able to fit as many as 15 to 18 desks in a classroom separated by six feet or more, but

other requirements laid out by the state and the county just simply could not be met.

For some confused as to why many private schools in the area remain in session while all public schools remain closed, parents of students at private schools can sign a waiver “to sign off on all litigation associated with COVID,” according to Schuler. This is a luxury that public schools do not have.

While the majority of students other than special needs, homeless and other specialized groups of students will be remote learning for the foreseeable future, D214 could advance into other stages with more students in the building if certain metrics are hit.

Currently, D214 is in stage two. In stage two, most students are remote learning with a few specialized groups in the building. The next stage would be stage three, a hybrid model with students remote learning some days and in-person learning some days.

Currently, there are 112 cases per 100,000 people in suburban Cook County a week.

That number would have to fall below 70 cases per 100,000 for D214 to move into stage stage three.

Additionally, if the positivity rate in suburban Cook County fell below three percent, D214 could move into phase three, but this metric is much less likely to be met. (See edge “Return to school stages and metrics”) Schuler has not lost hope on having more students back in the building, but he is also trying to make cautious decisions.

“I want everybody back in school, but I also want people to be safe,” Schuler said.

District 214 has released metrics that determine which stage of school the district is in. The main metric is weekly new cases per 100,000 people in suburban Cook County. Below is a graph and a table with the different stages, their descriptions, and the required new cases per 100,000 people to enter to that stage.

4 NEWS

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

prospectornow.com

New renovations to impact student life CHARLIE DAHLGREN Executive News Editor

K

ara Kendrick, Associate Principal for Student Services and Operations felt hopeful as she led two members of D214’s Operations Department around Prospect halfway through last school year. They were on a mission — a mission to gather a list of all the problems that could be improved that summer during one of the largest renovations that the school has ever seen.

Founded in 1957, Prospect is the oldest high school in D214. Because of its age, the over-60-year-old school is in need of constant repairs and maintenance to keep up with the expectations of modern schooling.

This summer, the school went through an extensive remodel, including a largescale roof repair, the replacement of air conditioning and heating, replacement of the east and west curtain walls and the renovation of the nurse’s office.

Additionally, 27 different classrooms were renovated, including a sweeping furniture replacement. Overall, this is the biggest addition to affect student life at Prospect since 2003 when the KLC was constructed.

A large scale upgrade to the school requires a lot of organization from a dedicated person like Kendrick who oversaw all the construction this summer.

Kendrick has been working in D214 since 2013, but this is her third year at Prospect after moving here from The Academy at Forest View. From her first year at Prospect, Kendrick has been looking forward to these renovations.

“I was really kind of surprised when I got to Prospect,” Kendrick said. “I knew it was a 1957 building, but I didn’t expect it to not have changed since 1957.”

Kendrick met with district employees from D214’s Operations Department in the beginning of the second semester of the 201920 school year to walk around Prospect’s campus and discuss the dozens of possible improvements the school could make over the summer. They tried to assess what projects would take priority based on what was particularly taxing to the custodial staff and what was costing the school the most money annually.

After those meetings, the decision was essentially out of Kendrick’s hands. Those employees, who oversee construction for

LETTING IN THE LIGHT: The new windows are among the many improvements made over the summer aimed to improve every day student life at Prospect. For more photos of the renovations, view our online photo album.(photo album.(photo by Charlie Dahlgren) the district, are the ones to make the final decision because any sizable additions are paid for by the district’s budget instead of what is allotted in the annual school budget; which is a different amount given to each school every year.

Once the school was notified, the administration launched “operation declutter” — which consisted of purging tons of “old stuff” that the school no longer needed — to make space and prepare for new construction. Kendrick’s mantra was “less is more” as she scrambled to get teachers in the school, one at a time, to clean out their spaces.

“Construction was happening regardless,” Kendrick said. “They were going to come in and start [demolishing] the walls whether I had people’s stuff moved out or not … When we got back from quarantine, people’s coffee mugs were still sitting on their desks because they thought they were going to be back.”

After moving out all his things in May, social science teacher Jonathon Kaminsky, did not return until all the construction was completed in his room.

Kaminsky’s first impressions were that the room (128) looked amazing. He was worried that the school might just “plaster over” the flaws from the old building, but he

was happy to see that it was completely new and streamlined for the modern teaching environment.

The new design features floor to ceiling windows with a covered vent on the side to replace the old, loud, air conditioning and heating vents. The furniture in the room is also completely new and features height adjustable tables and chairs. Kaminsky currently has his room set up with low tables in the middle of the room surrounded by a perimeter of high tables.

“From just a modern standpoint, it’s a huge help because a classroom can now be so many things. Now it’s a room that not only works better for a school day, but definitely is a vast improvement over anything else it would need to be used for.”

Kaminsky is excited about the new ways he can utilize his classroom for things like mock court cases, debates and open houses. As a left-handed person, he can also appreciate the district’s transition to tables instead of desks.

Kaminsky was glad to see that his room was impacted by the curtain wall replacement. The school had struggled for years with the old windows which were unchanged since 1957. They were prone to leaks and were horribly insulated, which was costing the school incalculably when it

in Naperville, said that the safety of a restaurant depends on what protocols are in place there.

“Your chain restaurants are safer, more disciplined restaurants like Outback and Olive Garden because they have their own cleaning systems, and utilize companies like EcoSure,” Gounaris said. “EcoSure is a health inspection on steroids.”

The CDC says that it is possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object, including food or food packaging, that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose or possibly their eyes. However, there is no clear evidence at the moment to suggest that handling or consuming food is associated with contracting COVID-19.

Although, according to Fortune magazine, if contaminated with the virus, frozen food products would pose a greater risk for a person rather than things such as grains or processed items including cheese and smoked pork, since they are shipped at room temperature.

If a surface is not properly sanitized, a virus like COVID-19 could stay alive on it for up to three days, so by the time the grains are shipped, the virus should already be dead. The rule of thumb for the amount of time food can be left out at room temperature is four hours because there is not enough bacterial growth to affect a person within that period of time.

When defrosting something that is potentially hazardous, there are always three methods to thaw it: in the refrigerator overnight, over cold, running water at room temperature or microwaving and cooking it right away.

Because of the current situation, restaurants have had to make numerous changes to their protocols.

The Lucky Penny has implemented various new guidelines that include mask usage, constant hand washing, sanitation

stations in multiple places throughout the facility for both guests and team members, alarms that go off every 30 minutes for things to be sanitized and the use of all paper items for customers dining outside.

They have the option of both indoor and outdoor seating; originally, they could seat up to 100 people inside, but because of the virus, restaurants must maintain a 6 feet distance in between tables and are only allowed to seat up to 50% of their total seating.

Hardcover menus are used for indoor dining at The Lucky Penny, and each page is sanitized after use. For outdoor dining, there is no limit on seating, however the six feet rule is still applied, all supplies and menus are paper and condiments are portioned.

“Food safety is and always has been a priority,” Gounaris said. “A small business like mine, if someone were to get sick, that would probably close your business because you just can’t recover from the publicity.”

According to Gounaris, after a party leaves, it is ready for seating after the caddies are removed, and the tables, seats and benches are all sanitized.

“The cleanliness was already in place for us, it’s just super intense now,” Gounaris said.

What was difficult in the beginning for Gounaris was that she had so little guidance as she prepared to do partial dining.

“Small businesses like us need more federal, state [and] local assistance financially,” Gounaris said. “We’ve cut costs; you can only put so many people in your dining room.”

Even though sophomore Ella Mitchell has not gone out to eat a lot since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has noticed a number of restaurants doing different things now, like the Alfresco in downtown Arlington Heights, and tents in the parking lot to eat outside to minimize contact with other individuals.

came to heating and air conditioning.

Coinciding with that change came the replacement of the heating and cooling systems on the roof and the replacement of a large portion of the roof itself. Both changes will save the custodial staff a significant amount of time as they will no longer be wasting their days chasing leaks and replacing ceiling tiles.

The nurse’s office also went through a major revival this summer. Everything was torn out and replaced with new, state of the art equipment. Entire rooms were reorganized to make the best use of the space, and more importantly, to make everything compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The new office will serve as a model to the rest of D214 schools when they, too, choose to remodel their offices.

The other big change to over 20 classrooms is the 940 new pieces of furniture added to all the renovated rooms. This is part of the district’s plan to phase out desks because they no longer fit with their vision of multifunctional, flexible spaces for students and teachers.

“I think you walk into these rooms, and it looks like it’s not a 60-year-old school building,” Kaminsky said. “It looks like something that can be kept up with for a while, and it’s not just like a five year facelift.”

Kaminsky is happy with his classroom and really appreciates the collaborative efforts from the administration that allowed teachers to share what they needed to enhance the educational experience for their students.

“To have any level of input is a positive,” Kaminsky said. “I think it shows a really strong working relationship between administration and teachers.”

There is still a lot of work to do including the CTE space, field house, field house bathrooms, and a significant amount of plumbing work, but Kendrick hopes this year’s renovations come with a new energy from everyone who attends Prospect.

“My goal is to make staff and students feel proud of being part of our school,” Kendrick said. “To see our staff walk in and be incredibly excited about their spaces has just been amazing … I won’t be spending a whole lot of time in these spaces, but I certainly want the people who have to be there all day, every day to feel really good about them, and they do. That was the biggest accomplishment.”

The risk of COVID-19 when ordering food MARINA MAKROPOULOS News Editor A recent CBS News article stated that chicken wings imported from China to Brazil tested positive for COVID-19. These aren’t the only food items that have been reported to carry the coronavirus; a package of frozen shrimp from Ecuador also tested positive. The ever growing concern for the unknown has made it difficult to determine whether eating out is safe or not.

Health Inspector Dimitri Tzoraf, who works for the Cook County Department of Public Health, said that he does not think it is safe to eat out at the moment. According to the CDC, the risk of getting COVID-19 from food you cook yourself, from restaurants, takeout or drive-thru meals is thought to be very low. However, the risk, nonetheless, is still there.

“The number one way the majority of people get sick [from restaurants] is because employees are not washing their hands,” Tzoraf said. “It’s usually not the food; it’s usually the person handling the food.”

The most common way that a person gets infected is by a bacteria or virus getting absorbed through the eyes, nose or mouth.

This is why it is important for someone to wash their hands before they touch their face.

In the situation that a waiter is sweating, which would go through their mask, and down their chin and neck, they might scratch their neck to wipe off the sweat and then proceed to touch a person’s food.

This scenario, along with a waiter directly sneezing into somebody’s food right before they eat it would be instances in which the virus could be transmitted, according to Tzoraf.

Penny Gounaris, owner of The Lucky Penny Diner and Deli, a breakfast restaurant

OPENING THE WINDOW: A drivethru employee unknowingly hands contaminated food to a customer. (cartoon by Grace He) “I think that the cleanliness of [the restaurant] kind of reflects the restaurant itself whether it be where you’re eating or in the kitchen,” Mitchell said.

Tzoraf noted that going into a restaurant is like taking a gamble because it is impossible to guarantee that it is being sanitized and cleaned properly.

The reason why it is stressed that people should stay outside if they get into gatherings is because the fluid that comes out of the mouth or nose would dissipate in the atmosphere a lot quicker than the 12-24 hours it takes in a poorly insulated room.

Tzoraf is not currently conducting any routine inspections for restaurants, unless there is an emergency such as a food borne illness investigation or a complaint, when the state of Illinois decided to go into the phases of closing restaurants, which began in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, he has a number of inspection stories from the past that can entertain one for a lifetime.

“Some people will say, well, you don’t really need health inspectors,” Tzoraf said, regarding stories where he has learned of alley cats being let into the kitchen, jumping onto the tables and taking care of the rodents.

“But, if you’ve seen some of the stuff that I’ve seen, you’d understand why we still have jobs,” Tzoraf said.

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staff EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Elizabeth Keane Rick Lytle ASSOCIATE EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Brendan Burke Mara Nicolaie COPY EDITORS Alyssa Schulz Olivia Kim NEWS EDITORS Charlie Dahlgren Marina Makropoulos OPINION EDITOR Genevieve Karutz FEATURES EDITORS Rachel Zurbuch Kailie Foley ENTERTAINMENT EDITORS Joey Delahunty Kevin Lynch SPORTS EDITORS Cameron Sullivan Jake Terpins ONLINE SPORTS EDITOR Aidan Murray SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Abby McKenna VISUALS EDITORS Alexis Esparza Grace He BUSINESS MANAGER Olivia Laskarin ADVISER Jason Block MISSION STATEMENT The primary purpose of the Prospect High School Prospector is to report news and explain its meaning and significance to our readers and the community. We, The Prospector, hope to inform, entertain and provide an unrestricted exchange of ideas and opinions. The Prospector is published by students in Journalistic Writing courses.

Some material is courtesy of MCT Campus High School Newspaper Service.

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SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

OPINION 5

Food tracking causes more harm than good Staff Editorial *name changed for confidentiality

W

hen senior *Brianna Adams was a sophomore, she vividly remembers enjoying oven-baked Cheetos during lunch. Seeing as though she was exercising a lot during the height of her colorguard season that fall, Adams never felt guilty about her snacking. Such thoughts changed for her in the week that health students had to track what they were eating.

“I [didn’t] want to enjoy my Cheetos because I [could] see that it was increasing the number of calories,” Adams said.

According to Adams, tracking her food intake only made her want to consume less.

She was given a certain amount of calories that was “correct” for her body, and whenever she noticed that she was nearing that number, it made her think that she shouldn’t eat her next meal.

Following the nutrition unit in her health class, Adams noticed a significant decrease in her appetite as her depression worsened in the winter. She perceived this as a positive opportunity to lose weight.

“Obviously, that was not the healthiest line of reasoning, and I do think that part of that [mindset] is being taught that you need to watch your calories,” Adams said. “[I thought] ‘I’m getting fewer calories, so this HIDING IN HEALTH: A girl struggling with an eating disorder must be a good thing.’” sits at a desk, feeling overwhelmed. Surrounding her are triggering Health teacher Michele Burnett said that the primary goal of the nutrition unit in phrases and words that can have a negative impact on a person who health class is to make students more aware has a rocky relationship with food. (cartoon by Sarah Ryan) of what they are putting into their bodies. nutrition to teenagers is by showing them Additionally, a large portion of the unit fo- tions at all times. “[Using MyFitnessPal] has definitely af- what a healthy plate looks like and then cuses on helping students understand the six fected my relationship with food,” Matters having a very open discussion about it. This essential nutrients — protein, fat, carbohysaid. “I definitely don’t eat as much because could include talking about the fears that drates, minerals, vitamins and water. may accompany eating.

In order to achieve this goal, students I’m scared of the calories.”

When Matters thought back to her experiFor people with eating disorders, Hart track their activity levels and food intake to ence in health class, she held one disturbing said that they will sometimes use the applisee how much sugar, sodium, protein, carbomemory. While the students were going up cations Recovery Record or Rise Up + Recovhydrates, fat and calories that they are conto the teacher to show her their food logs, er in conjunction with therapy during the suming. This activity ties into a discussion some girls in the class were bragging about recovery process. Meals are still logged on about Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, their log, saying “I only ate 800 calories yesthese apps, but they have an additional feaother diseases that can come from an unterday” or “Look, I barely ate anything to- ture that connects the user with their therhealthy diet and health risks associated with day.” apist or dietitian to receive feedback and obesity.

“That really rubbed me the wrong way,” support.

Students log their food using an app called Matters said.

“It [became] a competition of We, The Prospector, feel that the use of MyFitnessPal. This app has an age require‘how little did you eat today.’”

MyFitnessPal is not appropriate for sophoment of 18, meaning that 15 and 16-year-old Matters was unaware of the age restricmore year health class. Although the health sophomores are instructed tion on the application, but teachers are not intentionally encouraging to change their birthdate she was not surprised to students to lose weight during the nutrition when they download it for hear about it — she has seen unit, the act of tracking food and counting this activity. countless TikToks where calories is enough to cause certain students Burnett is fully aware of teenagers point to MyFit- to develop eating disorder habits. As menthis age restriction and has nessPal as the cause of their tioned by Hart, tracking calories could have spoken to all of her supervieating disorder habits. a negative effect on certain students with sors about it in the past. She “Of course, everyone competitive tendencies or on any student acknowledges that the age should be the healthiest that struggles with body image. requirement is put in place they can be, but calories are With these requests, we are not implying because all aspects of the Voting results of The not equal to health,” Matters that the health curriculum or health teachapplication are not designed said. ers are promoting eating disorders.

Prospector staff in for child use.

Adams and Matters both In place of the food tracking activity, regards to this editorial.

“Telling us to change our agree that calorie countwe propose a unit on body positivity with birth year is just sort of iging and food tracking should be completely a focus on intuitive eating — making food noring the app’s reasoning for making an omitted from the health curriculum. Accord- choices without experiencing guilt, honorage requirement,” Adams said. ing to Burnett, students are able to opt out ing hunger, respecting fullness and enjoying However, Burnett feels that it is appropriof the activity if they would like to; she has the pleasure of eating. ate for sophomores to use in class because We understand that the amount of sophthey are not utilizing all facets of the app; had students with eating disorders do this in the past. omores who suffer from eating disorders they do not use the exercise feature that logs Senior *Riley Shannon, who was diagare a small percentage, but they should not calories burned while exercising or the comnosed with an eating disorder during her be obligated to disclose a very sensitive and munity feature that allows other members of junior year, knows that she would not have personal issue to a teacher in order to avoid MyFitnessPal to post to discussion forums.

Additionally, when filling out the goals been able to share this sort of information logging their food, which can facilitate damwith her health teacher. aging habits for them. Furthermore, as seen section of their profile, all students are told “I feel like I wouldn’t say anything bein Adams’ case, a student may not even be to select “maintain weight.” Burnett makes cause I’d almost be embarrassed or [feel] like aware that food tracking could have a negit very clear that they are not doing the acmy problems wouldn’t be enough to opt out ative impact on their perception of food and tivity to gain or lose weight. of the whole activity,” Shannon said. would not know to opt out beforehand.

“The sole focus is just to get [students] to Shannon struggled with logging her food Every student would benefit from a nube aware that we’re not just a person that’s trition unit that teaches nutrition without bringing in calories,” Burnett said. “I could in health class because she was not eating sacrificing mental health for numbers, and much at the time. This was around the time bring in 2000 calories worth of milkshakes in a day, and that’s not good. It’s not only just that her body dysmorphia developed and we do not feel that the current health curriculum is doing so. was greatly amplified by toxic social media. the calories we’re bringing in but what [nu“I don’t feel that [the health curriculum “My relationship with food is complicattrients] we’re getting from those calories.” is] advocating for self love,” Matters said. ed because some days it’s really easy to eat if Senior *Catherine Matters was unaware of what MyFitnessPal was until she saw I’m not thinking about it, and other days it’s “They should be, especially for teenagers.” a lot harder,” Shannon said. “I guess I just As done in the units that deal with sexher friend logging his food for health class feel like I don’t deserve food for whatever ual assault and addiction, we believe that it during the first semester of their sophomore reason.” would be very impactful for students to hear year. Matters did not have health until secMichele Hart, a psychologist who works a presentation from either an eating disorond semester, but she downloaded the applider survivor or a person who specializes in cation beforehand, hoping that it would help at Family Recovery Centers, typically works with adolescents aged 12-18. According to teaching healthy food habits such as a Be her lose weight.

Hart, eating disorder habits tend to form Body Positive Facilitator. This would proMatters has mixed feelings about caloaround middle school to a person’s early 20s. vide students with the opportunity to gain rie-counting. She has struggled with binge “We know that people who have or are a deeper understanding of themselves and eating habits — frequently consuming unmore likely to develop eating disorders tend their relationship with food and their body usually large amounts of food in one sitting and feeling that eating behavior is out of con- to be more excessive and perfectionistic, so image.

“From what I got out of [health class], trol. Matters feels that using MyFitnessPal if you give them a certain calorie count … they see it as ‘Well, I’m going to get exactly which was the calorie counting … it’s made helps her keep her binges in check. that number, or I’m going to get below that, me want to eat rice cakes and really low-calOn the other hand, tracking her food enand that’s better,’” Hart said. orie things that are not fuel for [my] body,” courages her to have a negative perception Hart believes that the best way to teach Matters said. of food and reach for the lowest calorie op-

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6 OPINION

prospectornow.com

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

Online learning is worse for community *name changed for confidentiality

T

he chances of a person dying in a motor vehicle crash is one in 103, according to the National Safety Council. The chances of a person under 18 dying of the coronavirus is one in a million, according to CDC Director Robert Redfield.

Last February, if you said this to me, I would’ve never believed it. Everyone thought I was a crazy germaphobe. I wiped every desk with sanitizing wipes. I avoided close contact in the halls.

My friend Olivia used to make fun of me for searching for gas GENEVIEVE masks on Amazon KARUTZ back then. I even Executive Opinion skipped school on March 12 — our Editor last real day of school — because I was terrified. Terrified because my mother is immunocompromised. Terrified because of the reports of a dangerous virus sweeping closer and closer towards home.

In March, none of us knew the contagiousness, death rate or effects of COVID-19.

Today, we know so much more. We know that adults over 75 and those with certain medical conditions are most likely to get sick and possibly die. The World Health Organization estimates that 80% of people who contract COVID-19 are asymptomatic. Every day, we learn more. Now that I can better assess the possible risks for me and my family, I have realized that my initial panic over the coronavirus was unnecessary.

In August, the D214 Board of Education decided in a six to one vote to support the administration’s plan to have remote learning for all students, reversing the district’s original plan to implement in-person learning with an option for students to learn remotely.

According to Superintendent Dr. David Schuler, in late July, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) updated its guidelines to state that if an individual spent just 15 cumulative minutes over 48 hours with someone who tested positive for COVID-19, they must be quarantined. This IDPH guidance makes in-person schooling incredibly difficult.

“You have one case in the building and then the entire building will have to close for 14 days.” Schuler said. D214 must follow the IDPH guidelines word for word, according to Schuler.

This news frustrated me. Though I cannot change the guidelines set by IDPH, I can state my opinion that we, the families of Prospect, deserve a choice of whether we should go back to school or not.

Many students, parents and teachers were frustrated over the decision to move to full remote learning.

“We heard from tons of students,” Schuler said. “We heard from tons of parents; 85% of them wanted in-person instruction.”

School board member Todd Younger voted against the decision to move to remote learning. Though he respects the decision of the school board, he wished that the plan could have been more similar to the original hybrid learning plan.

Younger believes that in-person learning would be better for Prospect at this time because he thinks students could suffer socially and emotionally from not being in school.

He worries about whether the lack of in-person school will lead to an increase in depression and anxiety. However, Younger believes

LEARNING FROM SIX FEET APART: Students attend school while following COVID-19 safety protocols. Many schools have implemented different plans to face the 2020-21 school year. There have been lots of mixed opinions on District 214’s decision to have all remote learning starting fall 2020-21 school year. (cartoon by Grace He) that the administration’s greatest priority is the safety of students and teachers.

I know what I will hear from those who are for online learning: “Genevieve, you clearly don’t care about the health and well being of our students and teachers. You are just being selfish about losing your senior year.”

Yes, I am angry about losing my senior year and the end of my junior year. I realize that by the time I graduate I may only have attended high school in-person for about two and a half years.

However, the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics have both issued statements that keeping students out of school will have more negative consequences than their risk of contracting the virus.

Remote learning with Zoom is terrible.

I’ve never seen a student look happy on Zoom. Prospect teacher *Alan Jones agrees that teaching through this platform can be challenging.

“There’s much more ability to read non-verbal communication in the room [with in-person schooling],” Jones said.

Jones has struggled with how to manage his class. For him, classroom management, discussions, asking questions and dealing with technical issues have become challenges.

“I was prepared for [online learning], but was I prepared to have all my lessons built around a Zoom dynamic? I definitely was not,” Jones said.

One of many adverse effects of remote learning is “Zoom fatigue,” which is the name for the exhaustion and headaches that persist after long periods on Zoom.

Though there haven’t been many studies so far on the effects of Zoom on the brain, school psychologist Dr. Jay Kyp-Johnson believes it can have some negative effects.

Kyp-Johnson believes one of the issues is that the blue light and extended periods on Zoom can make one more exhausted and lose sleep.

“There’s been study after study that

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Have you experienced “Zoom fatigue” (headaches and exhaustion) as a result of online learning?

21.1% 55.4% 23.5%

No, I have not.

Yes, I have experienced some.

Yes, I have experienced it daily or near daily.

information courtesy of a Prospector survey of 361 students [shows that] as computer time goes up, depression goes up,” Kyp-Johnson added.

There is data that supports Kyp-Johnson.

Doctors, teachers and students alike are experiencing higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts, according to the CDC. Personally, I can completely vouch that I have been more depressed the past month than I have ever been. I cry every time I drive past Prospect and avert my eyes from the building. I feel this sense of hopelessness and have nightmares about the fact that I may spend the end of my high school career at home.

Senior *Kelly Smith originally thought online learning would be less stressful. But in reality, Smith claims there is far too much homework and she is constantly stressed.

“I’m always stressing and I never have free time,” Smith said.

Personally, I don’t feel stressed over Zoom. I have been receiving less homework due to the block schedule. I think the block schedule is beneficial, and I hope Prospect retains it whenever in-person school restarts.

But, like me, Smith feels her mental health deteriorating. Her anxiety has worsened as a result of all the stress she has experienced during online school. She also has been experiencing painful headaches and experiences Zoom fatigue. Furthermore, she says most of her friends want to return to school as well.

According to Kyp-Johnson, any student suffering from problems at home can contact counselors or specialists through their email to get help. No student should feel like they are suffering alone.

Recently, the district released metrics about when it will be considered safe to fully reopen schools (See D214 hands tied by state,

county guidelines on page 3). The standards require seven weekly cases per 100,000 people in suburban Cook County. Suburban Cook County has 5.2 million people. Why would we not consider local rates instead?

Cases are rising due to increased testing, so in-person school will not be coming anytime soon. Furthermore, seven weekly cases may be unattainable, due to the number of false positives the tests give.

As much as I understand that it may be difficult to set up hybrid learning due to instances where some teachers may want to teach from home and the balance between some students doing online learning and some in-person, I do think it is possible.

Many schools around the area are doing hybrid learning successfully. One of them, Saint Viator High School, is less than three miles away from Prospect.

I think we could learn from the private schools that are open to create Prospect’s own hybrid plan. I also believe that in cases where some teachers and students wish to not return they could be in separate classes (online) and students could choose to sign up for in-person or online courses.

I have a dark realization that some random day in early March may have been my last day inside the building. I believe that if students and staff are required to wear masks, and that if students are given the option to be fully remote, Prospect will be fine.

If Saint Viator can do five days a week in person, Prospect can too.

The truth is, we don’t know when we are coming back. I fear that I won’t be walking through door 30 at 8 a.m. ever again. How we respond to COVID-19 this year could change education forever.

prospectornow.com

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

FEATURES 7

How stranger’s words, actions impact others KAILIE FOLEY Features Editor

R

osanna Woldman’s mom tried as hard as she could to push through the language barrier she had often faced because of her Italian background.

Language interpretation was not a new situation for Woldman, and she often helped her mom with English pronunciation. Everything had been familiar to her until she heard “you should go back to your own country.”

These words were directed toward Woldman’s mom from a complete stranger’s mouth. Her heart sank and was overwhelmed with a cold feeling of embarrassment. Woldman’s eyes drifted to the bitter expression upon the speaker’s face.

Woldman knew her mom did not hear the stranger’s words, but that statement echoed in her mind. At 10 years old, one single sentence said by a complete stranger was able to make Woldman immediately think twice about her identity as an Italian.

“I remember the tone of voice. It was this tone of disgust and just pure hatred; it was bizarre,” Woldman said. “Because I was so young it just ... stung so hard.”

Woldman had seen people become impatient or frustrated when her mom tried to express her thoughts in English, but these words revealed prejudice against immigrants and people with different cultures.

That statement made by the stranger lingered inside of Woldman’s mind and stayed with her throughout her life.

Woldman grew up to be a social worker at South Middle School where she often meets students who come from different countries and backgrounds. Having a moment that affected her deeply connects her to each student’s story.

“I think that moment made me feel a little more compassion for people,” Woldman said.

She understands how much one moment can change a life because one moment has

changed her life forever.

In the novel “Find Me” by André Aciman, it stresses the idea of one moment having the power to change a life through the entire book. Two main characters in the book initially have judgements and assumptions about each other until small talk shared by the two turns into a sincere life changing conversation.

Aciman writes in the novel: “The more we know someone, the more we shut the doors between us — not the other way around.”

A few years ago, Sociology teacher Kristen Ray felt the value of a small moment in her life when she was walking from the Chicago train station to a work conference.

A secluded man holding a cardboard sign which read “Vietnam Veteran” caught Ray’s eye. She gave the man some of the money she had with her and spoke with him.

Ray assumed that a lot of people probably just walk by and do not take the time to talk to him about how he is doing or who he is.

Ray explained to the man that she was a history teacher and she wanted to share what she knew about the Vietnam War with him. She began to discuss different movies about the Vietnam War, and she listened to the man’s war stories.

“It just reminded me [that] sometimes the simplest things, you know — that we don’t think about — can just make you think differently about your day,” Ray said.

Through the man’s eyes, Ray felt full of appreciation that their small conversation meant a lot to him. Ray said that she would not regularly approach every stranger, but she trusted him initially from the first time she spotted him sitting alone. She felt that his eyes and body language had shown good intent and sincerity.

Ray believes that just because she trusted the man, that it does not mean that any person should trust any stranger they meet within life.

“I think you need to teach people to be wary, but kind of go with your gut as well,” Ray said. “I think your gut sometimes tells you a lot.”

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ONE MOMENT: Many people go through life meeting strangers that impact their perspective on the world and never forget the experience they shared together, whether good or bad. (photo illustration by Mara Nicolaie and Alexis Esparza) However, school Psychologist Dr. Jay Kyp-Johnson believes that your gut often cannot be a trusted indicator around just any stranger.

Kyp-Johnson previously did federal probation counseling and post incarceration counseling at a hospital. He met drug dealers, criminals and individuals who were in and out of prison.

He explained that a lot of the people he met during the job were very deceiving, so trusting intuition when first meeting them would be a big mistake to make.

Kyp-Johnson saw the best in everyone when he was young, but after he met some people on the job, he was more aware of how desperate people can do horrible things that most people wouldn’t think of.

Some of the people he met even concocted scenarios with their lawyers to try to come up with behaviors to subvert justice.

“They’re just so good at faking every-

thing [that] sometimes they don’t even know what they really think,” Kyp-Johnson said.

Kyp-Johnson agrees with Ray on how people should be wary of strangers.

“It’s not like there’s any secret formula you can tell the good guys from the bad, because sometimes the good guys become the bad,” Kyp-Johnson said. “You just want to teach [individuals] to make their own judgements.”

Kyp-Johnson believes that when a person meets a stranger and trusts them after making their own judgements, people can receive the right meaning out of something a person says when they might really need to hear it.

“Everybody has a different experience, and so if you take the time to get to know somebody that you’ve never met before, you might learn something, or something they say might impact you,” Woldman said.

8 IN-DEPTH

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

prospectornow.com

CORONAVIRUS C Students change college commitments OLIVIA KIM Copy Editor

T

he time while schools and businesses were closing down in March because of the arrival of the coronavirus was filled with chaos for University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) junior John Donners. Many students around him, as well as himself, were concerned about their safety and how they would successfully complete the semester online.

Safety and academics were not the only issues, but so was finances for many, and having to pay full tuition for only half a semester on campus didn’t sit well with Donners and fellow students. This led Donners to start a petition to get a partial refund on tuition for the online spring semester that they did not sign up for beforehand. The petition had gained nearly 9,000 signatures.

“The value [of going to a university] is not the same,” Donners said. “Coming from a university where one of their slogans is ‘The best value for a university in Illinois,’ well, now, students don’t feel like they’re getting the best value anymore. The question is ‘Did I get a superior learning experience? Or am I just getting a certification that I went to UIC?’” UIC did end up responding with a 44% service fee decrease among other small fee reductions. There was also an expansion of emergency funds for students who were financially burdened by economic effects of the pandemic. However, Donners still feels that the change was not sufficient when the institution was able to afford to give the president of University of Illinois a 40% salary increase just three months prior.

COVID-19 has forced colleges and universities across the U.S. to make drastic changes to their fall semester. Like UIC, some schools, like Harper College, Northeastern Illinois University and DePaul University, among many others, have chosen to do nearly all remote learning. However other colleges, such as Eastern Illinois University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have chosen to allow for some face-to-face classes.

This has resulted in many Prospect graduates needing to make difficult decisions about where to attend this semester, and some are even changing where they originally com-

mitted to go.

2020 Prospect graduate Liz McKenna had originally made the decision this past spring to enroll at DePaul University. However, she instead decided to attend Harper College for the fall semester once the dorms at DePaul ended up closing.

“I was basically paying college tuition just to stay at home,” McKenna said.

McKenna made the switch in early August after concluding that since she was initially enrolled at DePaul University as undecided, she could save money by taking general education classes through Harper College and allow herself to be exposed to different paths for a major.

“I was pretty annoyed by [DePaul’s decision to not lower tuition costs] because I was really excited to go [to DePaul],” McKenna said. “I feel like tuition definitely should have been lowered [for remote learning] because more students would have been willing to go to colleges rather than choosing to go to a community college.”

College tuition has seen a 220% increase since the 1971-72 school year to the 2019-20 school year at private non-for profit four year institutions, and four year public institutions have shown a 285% increase in the same time frame, according to a study by BrokeScholar.

College costs have already seemed excessive in recent years, according to McKenna, but with COVID-19 moving schools off campus to an online environment, it has raised the question of whether or not it’s worth the cost.

“Students want an affordable opportunity and they want to find a job of their dreams,” Josh Norman, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management at Eastern Illinois University, told The Prospector. “It doesn’t

illustration by Mara Nicolaie

matter how cost sensitive I am, I am looking for the greatest value. Where am I going to have the best experience? Where am I going to get the most personal attention? Where can I have the greatest academic quality at the lowest cost? I think it’s a value conversation so far more than it is an affordability conversation.”

Many higher education institutions around the nation are expecting a dramatic decrease in revenue due to refunds on room and board, fees, partial tuition fee refunds, etc., according to Michael Hansen, CEO of Cengage, an educational resources company, in a Forbes article.

According to Hansen, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education estimates a $100 million loss from just room and board and other fees. The University of Wisconsin at Madison expects the same loss, not including the potential decrease in revenue from lower enrollment in the fall for those choosing to opt for a year at a more affordable institution or a gap year. A higher education trade group predicts a 15% decrease in enrollment across the nation, resulting in a $23 billion revenue loss, according to The New York Times.

Some establishments have large endowments which will carry them through the effects of the pandemic, but not all are so fortunate.

According to Fabby Kallas, a Freshman Admissions Counselor at Northeastern Illinois University, the institution’s tuition raised “slightly from last year,” due to an expected yearly increase.

However, the university has a Tuition Guarantee Plan that locks in students’ tuition rate for their next four years or until their Bachelor’s Degree is completed. The university does offer a new scholarship for students participating in social justice activism in their communities called the George Floyd Social Justice Scholarship. They also offer a forgiveness plan for students that might be unable to register

for classes due to financial barriers.

Harper College’s fall semester enrollment is 6% down, even though, during the summer semester, they were well up in enrollment. Robert Parzy, Interim Associate Provost of Enrollment Services and Director of Admissions at Harper College, believes that this is because many students are still undecided about what to do and where to attend this fall.

Eastern Illinois University had no tuition increase, and has a third of classes face-toface, a third hybrid and another third online, a reason that Norman thinks that enrollment has increased.

Harper College has chosen to make the fall semester nearly all on an online platform, permitting labs to be in-person.

“I have a lot of respect for what all the schools have been trying to do to help,” Parzy said. “It’s not just Harper, it’s all schools trying to help as much as they can. There are tough decisions to be made. Relying on [the] remote heavily was a tough decision to make.

But you have got to be careful [with] your students.”

Even though this fall semester will look vastly different, and will not be the same college experience that most would expect or desire, Norman and Parzy agree that students should choose to continue their education this semester.

“Many [students and families] recognize, and we recognize that a gap year just isn’t a viable solution,” Norman said. “What happens when students break up the cycle of education so often is that they don’t return to that upward trajectory of post secondary education. I think [Eastern Illinois University was] meeting a need in the market that couldn’t be found everywhere else.”

However, with the highest unemployment rate than it has been in the past 70 years, Parzy sees many students struggle with being able to afford to continue their education. In addition to more reliance on financial aid, Harper College raised funds, along with CARE funding from the federal government, was able to help over 600 students with emergency funds that were enrolled through a program put together during the spring and summer months, according to Parzy.

“We see [people struggling financially] everyday, and it’s really unfortunate that we’ve seen both … [parents loose] their jobs,” Parzy said. “We have seen students not go forward because they have to now go to work to support their families. We’ve seen everything. And it’s every single day that we hear another story.

We just try to help wherever we can.

Harper has done a great job, and the community has done a great job supporting Harper, and we are going to do everything we can … for the community. That’s just how it works.”

Harper also spent a significant amount on hotspots and laptops for the move to remote learning for students without those resources available to them.

Although this pandemic has made students and institutions rethink their plans for this fall, Norman, Parzy, Donners and McKenna all understand that it’s important to invest in yourself and know that it’s a struggle for both students and institutions.

“Most students should give a hard look at [where to attend college],” Donners said. “I think that they should give stronger consideration than they normally ... because at this point, a lot of the benefit of attending a university just isn’t there right now.”

prospectornow.com

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

IN-DEPTH 9

Campus ConCERNS Q&A Students need SAT, ACT to follow through on fall dates

with Postsecondary Counselor Diane Bourn

*name changed for confidentiality

interview by Elizabeth Keane

Q: What should seniors focus on instead of standardized test scores?

DIANE BOURN

A: “Most colleges this year are doing what they call a holistic review and so, while the transcript is the number one thing they are going to look at… essays, letters of [recommendation], activities [will also be considered]. They’ll be looking for things like your involvement as well as the depth of your involvement.”

Q: If a student has a test score already, should they still submit it to a school that has gone test-optional?

A: “The main thing that a student should be asking [themselves] is ‘is it going to enhance my application?’

If the student has a fairly high, above average GPA, but their test score comes out to below average… you would want to go test-optional and not submit it … Sometimes the admissions reps are more than willing to give you some input on whether or not you should submit your test score.”

Q: What groups of people will benefit or be hurt from the pandemic?

A: “It can be fluid [because] there may be some extra spots as a result of international students not coming in. There also may be some of those Class of 2020 graduates who decided to defer [and apply this year]. I’m not feeling like it’s going to be hugely different as far as the number of spots.”

Q: Are there benefits to opt for a gap year if colleges are going completely online?

A: “Even before the current COVID situation, I was a proponent of gap years. I think there is a lot of good that can come out of a gap year in [terms of ] being able to get a job and save up some money for college to mature more and [decide] what you want to study.”

Standardized tests travel across state lines ELIZABETH KEANE Editor-in-Chief For senior Eileen Deines, the cancellation of ACT testing in Illinois due to the pandemic did not pose a large hurdle in her college application process. She was able to take the test in Iowa, a convenient 20-minute drive from her summer family house along the Mississippi River.

For others though, such as senior Ella Orlando, her standardized testing experience included a six-hour drive to Missouri and a night spent in a hotel. Others are left wondering how they are supposed to pursue this step in their college application process if they cannot afford the money or time to do so.

“The impression is that those test scores are so important in the admission process that you feel like you have to [travel to another state], which is really unfortunate,” Postsecondary Counselor Diane Bourn said.

Bourn knew, very early on in the pandemic, that a lot of colleges would be going test-optional. This was partially due to an overwhelming push from high school college counselors who knew that providing ACT or SAT scores would be difficult for this year’s graduating class. According to Bourn, many current seniors planned on taking the ACT for the first time in April.

Fortunately for Orlando, she had already had the opportunity to take the ACT in December 2019. However, she completed a lot of preparatory work after her first test and did not want it to go to waste, so she took the test for the second time in July.

To Orlando’s surprise, her testing experience in Missouri was as if the COVID-19 pandemic did not exist — no one was wearing

a mask or practicing social distancing, the supervisors at the testing facility were not enforcing social distancing, and there were about 100 people in the room taking the test with her.

For those reasons, Orlando also chose not to wear a mask because it would have been out of the ordinary in that environment. She did not feel concerned about contracting the virus from anyone around her, and she said that the testing experience was very normal.

Deines’ testing experience was vastly different — all test takers wore masks and kept appropriate distance from each other. She took the test in the auditorium of the school with about 10 other people.

“I wasn’t too worried about [COVID-19] because we were distanced over six feet apart; everyone had their own table,” Deines said. “It was definitely safe.”

A commonality between Deines and Orlando is the fact that a majority, if not all, of the schools they are applying to are test-optional. However, both feel that they need the test score to receive more scholarship money from colleges.

“I want to take the test for more opportunities with scholarships and just to give myself a little leg up in the application and acceptance [processes],” Deines said.

This is a misconception that a lot of seniors believe, but Bourn would like to reassure all students applying to colleges that this is not the case. According to Bourn, colleges are going to be completely flexible — even the ones that have not gone test-optional — and leave the window open for seniors to reach out and explain their situations.

“The colleges fully realize that, in this admissions cycle, there will be a lot of equity issues [between] those students who were able to drive six hours [and] stay in a hotel

overnight and the ones who weren’t able to do that.”

Furthermore, Bourn recently attended a virtual Zoom conference with admissions representatives from all of the Big 10 schools.

At this conference, a prominent topic was addressing how the schools will administer scholarships with the absence of a standardized test score. “[The topic of merit scholarships] almost sounded like a broken record because so many of [the Big 10 schools] said, ‘We are test-optional for admissions and test-optional for scholarship consideration,’” Bourn said.

According to Bourn, colleges will be taking a more holistic approach to all aspects of the admissions process. If a student chooses to apply test-optional, they may be asked to write an additional essay, just to provide the school with more information on themselves.

Additionally, if a student has a test score from a previous test that may have been sent to the school already, they can still select the test-optional application, and the school will not look at any test scores from them.

For example, if a student took an ACT at an earlier point in their high school career that they were not happy with, they do not have to send the school that score. Bourn said that if the student feels that the score will hurt them, they should not submit it for the sake of providing a score.

Even for the schools that are not going test-optional, some are keeping the early action Nov. 1 deadline but accepting test scores until a later date. Though senior stress levels are running high, Bourn genuinely feels that colleges are willing to work with applicants to navigate this unprecedented era. “[Do not] stress about it,” Bourn said. “It is what it is.”

It’s no secret that in recent years, teenagers have continued to become more and more stressed. For high school seniors, much of this stress stems from the rigorous college application process that seems to add more requirements each year. In the time of COVID-19, the pressure on students is only magnified.

Due to coronavirus restrictions and regulations most SATs and ACTs in Illinois have been cancelled since April. While a majority of colleges have gone test-optional for this application cycle, many students still need to take standardized tests to boost their application and, thus, still feel pressure to take the tests.

As a high school senior, it is extremely confusing to see places like casinos able to remain open despite coronavirus restrictions, but ACT and SAT test centers continue to be closed just a week or two before students are supposed to take the test.

After a mass amount of cancellations for the April, June and July ACTs, ACT added extra test dates in RICK LYTLE September and OcEditor-in-Chief tober. In the same period that there was originally supposed to be two tests, ACT added four more dates for a total of six test dates in two months. But, these added dates didn’t make a difference because test centers continue to close, with 15 of the test centers in Illinois for the September ACTs already closed. *Peter Jefferson is a test center coordinator at one of the few schools in the area to administer the July ACT. The adjustments the school had to follow were simple and straightforward. The test center had to extend the space between the desks from the normal 3 feet (to prevent cheating) to the 6 feet required due to coronavirus. The test center was still able to fit 15 students in each room, down from the usual 25, and added six additional rooms to allow all registered students to take the test even with the new restrictions.

Additionally, they opened up a second entrance to the school to prevent students from congregating. All students wore a mask from the time they stepped into the building to the time they got to their seat and during break time, but students were permitted to remove their masks while taking the test if they felt comfortable doing so.

There was no added cost for the test center, only to the ACT for the extra moderators that were needed for the six extra rooms. All in all, 210 students were successfully and safely tested.

This simple formula for allowing students to continue to take standardized tests needs to be followed by many more test centers.

At the very least, much better communication is needed when test centers are cancelled. An ambiguous email listing a few reasons why your test may have been cancelled is simply not good enough. Students at the very least deserve to know why their test center was cancelled. If not enough moderators were willing to show up, or the test center didn’t want to bring in outsiders to their school, or if the test was cancelled for another reason, students at the very least deserve to know why the test was cancelled.

ACT, inc. did not respond to a request for comment.

High school students who rely on these tests for their college applications have been let down by both ACT and College Board.

After already making a mess of the spring and summer test dates, the very least these companies can do is pull it together and get creative to administer the tests in the fall.

10 FEATURES

prospectornow.com

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

Students, staff suffer screen time strain ALYSSA SCHULZ Copy Editor

J

unior Sophia Beauban was in seventh grade when she had her first migraine. The pain, which Beauban described as if “someone [was] grabbing the back of [her] eyes and squeezing [them],”wouldn’t go away despite any methods that she tried. Due of this, she ended up going to bed that night at 6 p.m..

Unfortunately, migraines are not uncommon for Beauban. Before this fall’s remote learning, she had migraines once or twice a month. Since online learning has started, however, she has had migraines nearly every day.

Tips to Reduce Digital Eye Strain 1. Location of computer screen

The center of the screen should be four to five inches bellow the eyes

2. Reference material

Reference materials should be located below the screen but above the keyboard

3. Lighting

Position computer screen to avoid glare

4. Rest breaks

Rest eyes for 15 minutes after two hours of computer use

5. Blinking

This decreases the chances of developing dry eyes information courtesy of Dr. Todd Cohan

Beauban tries to remedy these symptoms by drinking lots of water and taking Tylenol whenever she feels a migraine coming on, which decreases the amount of migraines she has or at least subsides the magnitude of them.

On average, Beauban spends about four to five hours doing homework while looking at a screen and three to four hours doing non-school related activities on a screen so she can have some social time where she can interact with her friends.

With the five hours of school each day, Beauban spends a total of about 12 to 14 hours on a screen. This amount of screen time leads to her feeling sick, tired and nauseous.

To combat this, Beauban has gone to an eye doctor to both help her eyes and prevent her migraines, which has helped her immensely.

Dr. Todd Cohan, an eye doctor at Foresight Vision in Long Grove, says that for people like Beauban, blue light glasses can be very helpful. According to Medical News Today, blue light glasses’ surface coatings or filtering materials on the lenses block or absorb the harmful blue light.

However, Cohan warns against ordering blue light glasses online. Prescribed blue light glasses can block around 70% of the blue light, but cheap online glasses block close to none and are often a scam.

Beauban, who has prescribed blue light glasses, has clearly felt the benefits of them.

Now, instead of getting migraines every day, she gets them only once or twice a week.

Besides causing migraines, Cohan warns that there are other effects of blue light on the eyes. Some of these effects include nearsightedness or dry eye disease later in life.

Blue light is bad for all age groups, according to Cohan, but blue light is especially bad for those under 25 years of age. This is because older people have more developed eyes and are, therefore, more able to naturally filter out blue light than younger people.

However, eyes aren’t the only aspect of a person’s physical health that is affected by remote learning. Psychology teacher Jay Heilman also feels the effects of remote

PHYSICAL FATIGUE: A student stares at a computer screen and experiences multiple negative effects on the body. This is a common experience for many, such as for psychology teacher Jay Heilman. “It is important to be in tune [with your body], if you are sitting there tired and fatigued, think back to your day, what did you do, did you do something to exhaust yourself physically,” Heilman said. (cartoon by Grace He) learning on his physical health.

“The first day [of remote learning], I was kind of like, ‘This is kind of weird’, but by the second day I was like O.K. this is not good,” Heilman said. “I could just feel myself being very sedentary and just ... not moving, and ... my shoulders were kind of collapsing down.”

Now, though, Heilman has figured out some ways to keep remote learning from taking such a toll on his physical health. For example, Heilman stands up during all of his Zoom meetings to keep him active and alert and encourages students to do the same.

“It’s important to be in tune [with your body], if you are sitting there tired and fatigued, think back on your day, what did you do, did you do something to exhaust yourself physically,” Heilman said.

Cohan agrees with this, explaining that going for a walk and giving your eyes a break can greatly increase a person’s eye health.

He added that to keep a person’s eyes healthy and to avoid the negative effects of blue light, it is important to follow the 20-20-20 rule. This rule states that every 20 minutes, when remote learning, a student should look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds to relax their eyes from staring at a screen.

“My motto is that you want to be proactive, not reactive,” Cohan said. “You don’t want to have to come in [to an eye doctor] with a problem; you want to do everything you can to prevent it.”

Both Heilman and Cohan think that the most crucial thing is to simply stay in tune with your physical health.

“These [ideas] are pretty simple, and we’ve always known them, but in this environment, it is really important to remember and go back to [them],” Heilman said.

PHS community finds expression through creative masks KEVIN LYNCH Entertainment Editor Before March, Becky Nelson worked as a teacher at Step Forward Therapy in Arlington Heights. At the time, it didn’t seem plausible that, several months later, she would find herself sewing together cloth and elastic to make masks to resist a pandemic, but that’s exactly where the coronavirus brought her.

Nelson got the idea to create and sell masks of her own in March as a way to make extra money because she was out of work and had to stay home with her kids. She partnered with her mother, who runs an Etsy store called This and That by Cathy, to make and sell handmade cloth masks. After buying some cloth and elastic and learning the basics of maskmaking, she was easily able to start producing the masks.

“I wanted people to be able to choose … what fit [their style],” Nelson said. “I knew that my kids would probably have to wear them, so I wanted to have things that appealed to them and would make them interested in wearing the masks.”

Coronavirus has changed how people live their everyday lives, and one of the greatest changes is the necessity of masks. Masks, which were once almost only seen in hospitals and certain cities, have now become a staple of life in 2020.

Illinois residents are required to wear masks inside and outside where social distancing is not possible, according to Gov. J.B. Pritzker in a press conference that took place on Aug. 12.

This, in turn, has led to a flood of personalized masks like Nelson’s that present colorful patterns and popular characters being made and sold.

As with any accessory, retailers from Target to Banana Republic have wasted no time in creating hundreds of options so that anyone who would want a mask has more options than ever thought possible.

Junior Delaney Nold feels that a variety of masks are important because they offer a way for people to connect over something that seems so mundane.

“I also think the idea of making someone smile and bringing some brightness or color is always a good thing and is always needed,” Nold said.

Nold owns several bright and colorful masks such as a pink tie dye pattern and, her personal favorite, a mask depicting Olaf from the Frozen movies.

This is partially because of her love for the Frozen movies, but also because of the joy and fun that the character represents, prompting a reaction from almost every age

MASK MASHUP: Community members showcase interesting and unique masks. After the onset of the coronavirus, many people have started creating their own masks. (photo illustration by Alexis Esparza) group. She enjoys seeing how her mask puts a smile on other people’s faces.

“If you’re going to do something that’s required by the state like wearing a mask,” Nold said, “why not make something ordinary fun?”

Nold also said that she received most of her five masks from people in the community. Large crafting chain JOANN Fabrics gave out mask-making kits at the onset of the pandemic, encouraging people to create their own masks either for personal use or for donation to medical staff. While

some hospitals said that they were unable to accept the masks because they were not FDA-approved, it gave thousands of people across the country the tools and experience they needed to enter the craft.

Etsy has become something of a hot spot for up-andcoming mask makers like Nelson, with over one and a half million different masks to buy and prices ranging from $1.50 to over $500 for special masks with valuable stones sewn in.

After roughly five months of experience in the maskmaking business, Nelson has sold about 150 masks for $5 each. It costs her $2-3 to make each mask, meaning she makes almost $3 in profit from each mask sold. Nelson said that orders have slowed since March, but she still receives some from time to time, and her colorful masks tend to appeal to all age groups, not just kids.

“It’s nice because the adults can pick their likes … and show if it’s a team that they support, you know, or if it’s a character that they like, so I feel it’s across the board that they’re buying [masks],” Nelson said.

Even Prospect Athletic Boosters have released PHSthemed masks available for purchase. The idea originally took form as a way for students to show school spirit during in-person instruction or during football games, according to Athletic Boosters co-president Tom Squillacioti. This is no longer possible, but Squillacioti says that the masks still act as a great way to represent the school and support the community.

Squillacioti estimates that Athletic Boosters has made $3,000 in profit from the masks, which goes back towards Prospect sports programs.

No matter what the design or pattern of the masks are, they all show the ways that people are turning the current world situation into something more positive.

“I think the world we’re living in right now is very uncertain, and a lot of people are looking for that hope or that glimpse of joy,” Nold said. “So if you can bring that to someone by wearing something fun and spending an extra couple of dollars to support your community, I think it’s a good thing.”

Currently on Prospectornow.com...

Korean pop band BTS releases their first song in English, “Dynamite”. The disco-pop song provides upbeat lyrics that bring positivity to each listener. Read about it here.

In a podcast in February, PHS students look back at what Prospect was like during 9/11 with interviews from PHS teachers who were PHS students during 9/11. Listen to it here.

prospectornow.com

ENTERTAINMENT 11

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

Demian: a new set of eyes for readers E

mil Sinclair throws away away from the only life he knows the landscapes and flowas a child. ers he originally paints, Hesse’s honesty reflected some and his imagination begins to of my inner thoughts that I have guide his hand. The face he starts only ever shared with myself. to portray gradually changes and When reading “Demian: The Story morphs into new faces as his subof Emil Sinclair’s Youth,” I found conscious takes control of paintmyself lost in the story more than ing.

I have ever been lost in any The clock ticks book. I had a feeling that away, and a sense the author was also making of time becomes sense of who he truly was further from Sinthrough writing each indiclair’s reach as vidual word of the book. every second passA lot of people say they es. His mind leads relate to modern writings him to paint a face because they mirror what from his dreams that world is like today, but multiple times after taking in the words without stopping.

“Demian: The Story of KAILIE FOLEY of When he finishEmil Sinclair’s Youth,” I es the final paintFeatures Editor realized the understanding ing, an ageless, between a reader and an mask-like face which seems stiff author can be timeless. Although at first glance, but is secretly alive, the book is in German, it was clear looks back directly into his eyes. to me that a different language is Within the face staring back at not a barrier regarding the underhim, he recognizes every person in standing of two people. his life that represents the rhythm In the novel, how strong a bond of his own fate. can truly be between two people Before this moment, Sinclair is shown when during Sinclair’s is unsure of the fate which lives childhood, he meets a friend inside of himself. His childhood named Max Demian who gives home provides reliability and orhim a complete new outlook on der, but he feels distant from the life. Demian is sure of himself and love he receives. Within time, Sinthis helps guide Sinclair through clair soon steps outside and is welthe world around him. Demian incomed to a world of truth. trigues Sinclair for many reasons, “Demian: The Story of Emil but the main reason is that he is Sinclair’s Youth,” was published one of the faces which represents in 1919 after World War I. The Sinclair’s destiny. author, Hermann Hesse, originalAs time passes, Sinclair obly released the novel under the serves life and takes life in for all pseudonym Emil Sinclair, but reit is. He begins to stray away from vealed himself to be the author of morality or what people tend to say the coming of age story after the causes the world to be split into novel received the Fontane Prize two; good and evil. Instead, he lisfor first novels the same year it tens to all that comes from himself was published. Hesse returned the as he goes through life which in reprize due to the book not being his turn leads him to his destiny. first written.

When growing up, Sinclair feels Between 1916 and 1917, Hesse not only distant from the part of went through a personal crisis due the world many consider as light to his father’s death, his son’s seor good, but he is ashamed that he rious illness and his wife’s schizofeels distant early on in his life. phrenia. Hesse’s own struggles led The early portion of the book him to seek psychoanalysis with when Sinclair begins to question Psychiatrist Carl Jung. reality really related to how I view The novel reflects Hesse’s path life myself. There are so many exof discovery within himself as he pectations put upon people to be a grows out of being a child and discertain version of the word good covers where he belongs. all of the time. I relate to Sinclair, “Demian: The Story of Emil because he shows that he had no Sinclair’s Youth” takes the reader idea how to be good all of the time with Sinclair on his twisted considering he is path of life until the line just trying to be between the reader’s life who he actually and Sinclair’s begins to is. blur completely. Hesse Anothwas honest to the core er person’s with himself when sense of moralwriting this book, ity can often and this is apmake people feel parent as he ashamed of who talks about they really are deep Sinclair’s feeling down. Hesse’s novof shame toward walking el is about listening

FLOWERS BLOOM IN MINDS LEAST EXPECTED TO BEAR GARDENS: “Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth” represents how the outside world can make an individual lose sight of their own ideas and destiny. The flowers blooming from the book symbolize inspiration, dark thoughts, hope, devotion, faithfulness, and delicate beauty. The vines, although sharp, do not harm the flowers or the individual ideas in bloom. An individual’s ideas are more powerful than the people trying to dispose of them. (cartoon by Grace He) to yourself instead of listening to another person’s idea of right and wrong for guidance.

I had never felt more inspired by a book to start writing and listening to myself more. It can be easy to doubt yourself in a world filled with so many other people to compare yourself to. Good comments come and go about who we are, but judgements often pile upon insecurities formed about what matters most to us.

There are so many times I have questioned if I was made to write at all, even though I feel like I belong to myself in my bones when I write. Reading about Sinclair learning to listen to himself truly made me dig deep into my heart. I began to ask myself why other people’s comments made me question if I should be doing the only thing in my life that made me understand myself to the core.

A lot of people compare their life to being what others view as impractical, and because of this their dreams are never lived. The book shows that looking inward does not only tell a person what to pursue, it simply tells a person who they are and where they are headed.

“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me,” Hesse wrote in

the novel.

Even if people hear the dream they long to pursue from within themselves, many people are scared that what they want to do with their life would never work out if they actually tried to pursue it or live the life they have always longed to.

It is hard to navigate through life sometimes, and “Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth” reveals that people often forget their way when they look outside of themselves for guidance. The novel represents living in reality through dreams; something other people may consider to be the least realistic life route. Each dream Sinclair has in the book brings him closer to finding out what he lives for and who he is.

“I live in my dreams — that’s what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own.

That’s the difference,” Hesse wrote in the novel.

Through dreams, Sinclair begins to see life in a different light and accepting who he is makes a lot of the guilt he initially felt vanish.

People often give up on a dream or lose their drive to actually be who they are. This idea is described in the book as the reason some people will never be able to truly live their reality within dreams or simply be who they are.

About the author - German-born Swiss poet, novelist and painter - Received the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature - Received the Peace Prize of the German Booksellers in 1955 - Grew up in a Swabian Pietist household -Showed signs of serious depression as early as his first year at school - Music and poetry were important in his family - Registered himself as a volunteer with the Imperial army - Protested Nazi ideology -Grew up in Calw, a town in Southern Germany

HERMANN HESSE: Author of “Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth” 1877-1962. (photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

The one moment that separates people who solely dream and people who live within dreams is actually believing in them.

A point in “Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth” describes this idea with a metaphor that tells the reader to believe in what may initially be questioned or seen as impossible.

“He gazed at the star, and his love for it flamed up within him.

And in a moment of great longing he made a spring, throwing himself into space to meet the star. But at the moment of leaping, the thought flashed through his mind: it is impossible! And so he was dashed to pieces on the rocks below. He did not know how to love. Had he had the strength of soul, at the moment of leaping, to believe in the fulfillment of his wish, he would have flown up and been united with the star,” Hesse wrote in the novel.

While reading the book, I dreamt about this quote in the book. My mind painted a scene for me in my dreams showing a moon flashing in the sky which planned to fall down upon me. As the moon met my eyes, I accepted my own fate and paid attention to the flashing lights. Dark and light colors combined in the sky represented morality.

As everything slowed down, I soon realized that simply accepting the thought of what was happening within myself saved me even though the sky was falling apart and coming down on me. I sat still and accepted where I was and who I was, and that was all I had to do to save me from everything life had to throw at me.

Hesse provides the reader with the choice to take in Sinclair’s true sense of self and possibly find a sense of self of their own from looking inside of their heart after or while reading.

“The true vocation for everyone was only to attain to self-realization. He might end as a poet or as Madman, as profit or as criminal— that was not his affair, that was of no consequence in the long run.

His business was to work out his own destiny, not any destiny, but his own, to live for that, entirely and uninterruptedly. Everything else was merely an attempt to shun his fate, to fly back to the ideals of the masses, to adapt himself to circumstances. It was fear of his own inner being,” Hesse expressed within “Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth.”

12 ENTERTAINMENT

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

prospectornow.com

Choir evolves with modern activism RACHEL ZURBUCH Executive Features Editor

O

ver the summer, choir teacher Jen Troiano was listening and trying to find ways to engage herself with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, but she didn’t know how to express her voice.

Later on that summer, Troiano was on a Zoom with all the D214 choir directors about how they can show more equity in their classes and better educate their students through music.

Troiano is friends with the choir director at Elk Grove High School who she was able to ask a few questions that she’d been wondering about since the director is both Latina and Black.

After this discussion, Troiano was told about a program called the Justice Choir.

Troiano investigated and learned that the Justice Choir is an organization that has multiple chapters throughout the U.S. that has a songbook with songs about protest, injustice, change and more.

After learning about this, Troiano was interested in introducing it to Prospect.

“Any amount of positivity that I can put in the world,” Troiano said. “It might just be a seed that’s planted, and I may never see it grow, but I planted it, and maybe that was my job.”

Every year, Troiano teaches her students songs from a songbook called “Keep America Singing” that has songs she believes everybody should know as an American.

These are songs like the national anthem, “Danny Boy,” Japanese folk songs, “Oh Suzanna” and more.

“When I saw Justice Choir, I realized that those songs are just as much about being an American as the “Keep America Singing” book I use as my warm up,” Troiano said.

Therefore, once school started, Troiano decided to introduce the Justice Choir songbook to the Prospect choirs and teach the songs to the students.

“People should know these [Justice Choir] songs,” Troiano said. “These songs are about

empowerment. ... They’re giving you a voice so you can be empowered to be a part of a movement if you so choose.”

While she knew that her students were passionate about justice and equity, she didn’t know how they were going to respond to her new ideas with the Justice Choir, but she received great feedback from them.

Sophomore Maria Anzalotti was very excited when Troiano announced that she was going to teach them the songs.

Given the past few months and the rise of the BLM movement, Anzalotti is happy that the choir is becoming more educated and finding new ways to diversify their music.

Anzalotti’s favorite song so far is “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round.” This particular song is called a zipper song, where you can replace the word ‘nobody’ with things like racism or injustice.

“It was the right decision for Troiano to give us an outlet for this important thing that’s happening right now,” Anzalotti said.

“So I was really excited because it would’ve been very easy for her to be like, ‘It’s happening outside the school; it’s not something we need to pay attention to or deal with’ because … we live in this very privileged community where it might not affect us too much.’”

Troiano talked about her idea with Assistant Principal of Student Activities Frank Mirandola over the summer, and she received great feedback from him.

“Music gives us a little bit of insight of who we are as individuals and who we are as a larger society,” Mirandola said. “Mrs. Troiano was looking for ways to evolve with her curriculum.”

Troiano wants students to be able to have these songs to express themselves and show support for different types of things, whether it’s the BLM movement or another form of injustice.

“I feel like if people had a voice or song to express their feelings [about BLM] because all of us basically love to listen to music,” Troiano said. “ … and I want my students if they are ever in a situation where they can sing in a protest or sing together as a justice group, they would have these songs under

RISE UP: Choir teacher Jen Troiano teaches the her students a new set of Black Lives Matter-related songs. After the ressurection of BLM over the summer, Troiano decided to teach the choir about the movement via music. (photo by Joyce Reyes)

Currently on Prospectornow...

Check out KnightTV’s coverage of the choir and their new culturally diverse songbook. their belt.”

While Troiano knows that Prospect is currently predominately white, she explains the importance of teaching this music to give her students more opportunities to learn and evolve.

“As a white woman, I wanted to stand next to my brothers and sisters in this world and say ‘I’m sorry you’re hurting; I want to stand with you,’ [and] I wanted to give my students the same opportunity,” Troiano said.

Troiano also explains the significance in what music can do in life for everyone.

“We understand that music is so much more than music; it’s history,” Troiano said.

Anzalotti feels similarly; she’s happy to

be learning more about different cultures.

“I think it’s really important that we include this global conservation and have exposure to global cultures, especially through art because art in itself is global,” Anzalotti said. “Because we don’t have pop music without its roots in rock, and you don’t have rock without its roots in jazz, and jazz in Motown, which goes back to blues … so I think that it’s really important we keep the global conservation and inclusion of global cultures.”

Troiano’s goal is to make a Justice Choir at Prospect. Right now, they’re in the early stages, she explains, but she hopes that one day there can be an activity outside of school where a group of kids can sing these songs at events like football games.

She is also hoping to make a D214 chapter; right now, the official Justice Choir program doesn’t have a chapter in Chicago that D214 could join, but she hopes that that will happen someday soon.

“It’s very easy to make a couple posts, generally put out the idea that you agree with the movement,” Anzalotti said. “But it’s a whole separate thing to learn the culture and celebrate it … through this, we can not only learn to support these things politically or put our names on the right side of history, but we can also learn from this. It makes life cooler to have these different points of view and different cultures.”

Fictional corporate villians reflect real life frustration “Cyberpunk 2077,” the long awaited sci-fi game by CD Projekt Red, is being released this November after years of delays.

It’s an open-world action RPG set in a futuristic city, but for those of you who don’t follow gaming news, you might JOEY know it as that game DELAHUNTY that has Keanu Reeves in it.

Executive Like most stories Entertainment in the cyberpunk subgenre, the game takes Editor place in a futuristic civilization controlled by ridiculously powerful and malicious megacorporations.

In the modern day, evil companies are a trope deeply embedded in pop culture, but the reasons why are more complicated than they seem.

Over time, lots of stories have featured corpo-

rations as their antagonists, from LexCorp in DC Comics to the Joja Corporation from “Stardew Valley.”

How “evil” they are varies, but the main requirement is they are doing something harmful to our main character, or society, or something else important.

One reason a story may feature an evil corporation is an attempt at making a political statement.

A writer who believes corporations, or capitalism at large, are harmful to society may infuse their stories with that moral.

This is common in sci-fi settings, since the genre is so often used for expressing worries about what will happen in the future. If a writer worries about corporations gaining more and more power, it makes sense for them to create a future where corporations rule everything.

For example, the entire cyberpunk subgenre was born out of trying to apply realistic, human problems to sci-fi settings, which lead to a lot of stories about corporations being too powerful or screwing over the common folk.

A lot of writers also tend to

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be left-leaning politically, which usually includes some distaste for big businesses.

Fiction has been used to try to express beliefs of the writer for about as long as stories have been told, so it makes sense that a dislike of powerful corporations would lead to stories where they are explicitly villainous.

However, that’s not the only reason that corporations are villains in fiction.

Not all evil corporations are representations of capitalism at large, but instead of urbanization and greed.

These are in fact products of capitalism, but some of these stories are more about corporations encroaching on rural areas, or taking something away from a small town, as opposed to corporations acting as a government, and being ridiculously powerful and violent. The obvious example is your classic “save the community center” ‘80s movie plot.

These stories are about the power of community and the ideals of a small town. These stories are more optimistic, as they usually stress the idea that if a community works together, they can overcome the powers of greed and evil. Small towns have a much harder time overcoming corporations in real life.

Corporations and other urban powers often have negative influences on more rural

or underdeveloped areas — the coal companies in Appalachia, for instance — so writers who come from those places would naturally not be huge fans of them.

However, some stories with evil corporations don’t actually have anything to say about real life corporations. They act as a way for the villain to have a lot of power so the hero can overcome that power.

They could just as easily be replaced by an evil government and the story would remain largely unchanged. It’s not about corporations, it’s about an average person taking on something big.

I think the best example of this is the Octan corporation/government run by President Business in “the LEGO Movie.” The main ideals of that movie are about individuality, not anti-corporation or anti-greed. You get the occasional throwaway joke about the problems with the company, but that’s about as far as it goes.

Corporations are very powerful, usually not particularly moral organizations, and that makes them an easy target to make a villain out of.

These stories are a way of expressing fear and distaste for something that has more power over the world than people would like to admit.

Corporations aren’t always the greatest for your common person, so it only makes sense the same would be true in fiction.

prospectornow.com

SPORTS 13

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

Girls’ swim and dive keep spirits high CAMERON SULLIVAN Executive Sports Editor

C

ommitted, diligent, hardworking and resilient.

Those are qualities that head coach Alfonso Lopez credited to the girls’ swim and dive team. According to Lopez, this is an extremely dedicated team, and they all care about each other.

“They want to have something to pass on,” Lopez said.

“They wanted to have a season to at least say, ‘This is what the swim team is and it will be better next year.’”

With the effects of COVID-19, this is a peculiar year for all sports. There are lots of restrictions that have been implemented for every sport to make sure everyone is as safe as can be.

These restrictions for swim and dive include wearing masks when outside the pool, limiting practice to three swimmers in a lane, no relays, not changing at the pool and temperature checked before every practice. However, these limitations have not stopped the swimmers and divers from wanting to have a successful season. “[The season] is going really well,” senior swimmer Klaudia Lagowski said. “Everyone is super excited about the season, and the fact that we get to have one; we’re all just making the most of it.”

It’s an especially interesting season for Lagowski, due

UPSIDE DOWN: Senior Kenzie Woodland takes a dive at practice. “I feel like the hardest part is trying to get back into it and do the same dives I was trying to do 10 months ago,” Woodland said. “I’m hoping muscle memory kicks back in [and I don’t] belly flop all the time.” (photo by Abby McKenna)

COMMITTED: Senior Klaudia Lagowski gets a workout in at practice in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Girls’ swim is able to practice in the building with appropriate social distancing guidelines. Lagowski struggled to get back into shape at first, but she takes advantage of extra practices whenever she can. (photo by Abby McKenna) to the fact that she didn’t swim her junior year. Lagowski is also a dancer, so when the IHSA switched sports seasons around because of the pandemic she was able to get back to swimming.

During her freshman and sophomore year, she competed on the fall dance team and swim team at the same time, and ever since her freshman year, she has also been on the water polo team.

It was tough for Lagowski to get back in shape after not having swam for a long time. However, Lopez offered up early morning practice time slots to help Lagowski and other swimmers get back in shape, which Lagowksi took advantage of.

Senior diver Kenzie Woodland would also agree that it was tough getting back into shape after quarantine. She said she usually gets her offseason practice in at summer camp, but without a camp due to the coronavirus, she wasn’t able to do that. There isn’t much a diver or swimmer can do during quarantine, due to the fact that the majority of facilities were closed.

“I feel like the hardest part is trying to get back into it and do the same dives I was trying to do 10 months ago,” Woodland said. “I’m hoping muscle memory kicks back in [and I don’t] belly flop all the time.”

Before the swimmers could worry about getting back into shape, it wasn’t certain there would even be a season.

Once they did find out about the season they were ecstatic.

Lagowski said when IHSA announced they would have a sea-

CLICK HERE To check out a story from knightv on girls’ tennis.

son, she was really excited, and it made remote learning a little easier because she knew she would have practices and meets to look forward to once the season did roll around; however, they had to deal with the many restrictions.

“I thought originally it was going to put a hiccup into how we could run practices … but the girls have been amazing,” Lopez said.

Not only are there no more relays this year, but the IHSA also bumped up the events a swimmer could participate in from two to four. They bumped this up in order to give the girls more opportunities to swim in events if some of them were cut out like relays.

Alongside this, the team’s schedule looks very different.

All of their MSL East opponents were moved to the beginning of the season, and their MSL West opponents pushed to the end of the season. They moved the schedule like this in order to crown an East or West champion early if need be, due to another outbreak or something else cancelling the rest of the season.

With those changes, all the invites got cancelled and there were seven dual meets. There is a slight possibility of a state championship but it is still up in the air as of right now. However, there is a date for the sectional meet which is Oct. 24.

Overall, the biggest goal for the team right now is to make it through the season. Everyone is just glad to have a season and get to participate in the sport they love. According to Lagowski and Woodland, they are really thankful because the girls’ swim and dive team are the only indoor sport going on as of right now.

“What we do and the example we set is really going to set the precedent for the rest of the sports seasons and if those will be allowed,” Woodland said. “We are really trying to follow all the guidelines … so that not only our season, but every sports season can have their chance.”

MLB’s season at risk for demise if precautions continue 104 players have tested positive for the coronavirus since the MLB’s restart on July 1st. This has left many fans to question whether or not the MLB would be able to last the shortened 60-game season.

While many fans are upset with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred for his handling of COVID-19 outbreaks, I believe AIDAN the MLB MURRAY hasn’t done the worst job Executive at handling virus.

Online Sports the While there Editor have been some problems, I believe with a few changes, the MLB can last all 60 games and the extended playoffs.

However, one problem that must be fixed, by either restrictions or stricter curfews, is the team breakouts. The Miami Marlins had 17 players test positive at one point, sending them into a nearly one week quarantine.

Along with the Marlins, the St. Louis Cardinals had 13 players test positive sending them into a 17 day quarantine.

While these numbers may look rough, I believe the MLB has done

a good job to quickly stop the numbers from going up.

With teams that have had players test positive missing so many games during quarantine, some teams have had to play numerous doubleheaders.

One of these teams that has to play numerous doubleheaders is the Cardinals. At first, I thought it was unfair to the Cardinals, then I realized that those players had been out past curfew at a casino.

This was a direct violation of MLB COVID-19 protocols, so they had to deal with the consequences. By the end of the season, the Cardinals will have played 11 doubleheaders.

With so many doubleheaders going on, the MLB changed each game to seven innings, instead of the normal nine-inning game.

They hope this will help preserve players’ health and safety.

I am 100% on board with teams playing seven-inning doubleheaders as it not only preserves player’s energy, but it mainly saves pitchers’ arms.

Junior Luke Compton thinks the MLB’s last minute schedule changes should be spaced out more, though.

“It comes to the point where [the games are] too scrunched and teams are going to suffer,” Compton said.

As if the MLB hasn’t made enough rule changes between the universal DH, pitchers having to face a three batter minimum, or the seven-inning doubleheaders,

the MLB has added rules for when players and staff are off the field as well.

The new curfews have been imposed for which all players have to be back into their hotel rooms by 10 p.m.

This has led to a huge controversy due to the actions of former Cleveland Indians and current San Diego Padres pitcher Mike Clevinger and Indians starting pitcher Zach Plesac, who directly violated MLB’s COVID-19 rules by staying out past 10 p.m. They both stayed out past the curfew and were optioned to alternate facilities as punishment. Clevinger and Plesac have since been reinstated.

The MLB had a right to punish them, as what these players did absolutely defeats the purpose of any rule ever made to prevent the spread.

This leads to why I feel the MLB should begin looking to invest in a bubble for the playoffs. The bubble would be a certain place that serves as a boundary for players and staff to be contained to help prevent team outbreaks.

If we want to see this season go through the playoffs, I feel it would not hurt to be safe and try to move players to California or Texas at certain facilities that would act appropriately as a bubble. This would keep all players in the same place and daily testing would assure us no players are sick.

If any league needs the bubble, it definitely is the MLB. Just look

PRESS CONFERENCE: MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has been heavily criticized for his handling of the league during the coronavirus pandemic. However, he is undeserving of this criticism. (photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

at the NBA by the time all games resumed in the bubble: there were no new cases. Compton believes that the MLB will not need a bubble unless cases rise up again.

“I don’t think it’s gotten to the point yet where we need a bubble,” Compton said. “But I think if [coronavirus] cases keep inclining fast and steadily then [Rob] Mandfred needs to step in and maybe invest in the bubble to finish off the season.”

All in all, I believe this season can be pulled off through all the

rules and safety precautions implemented for player’s safety. Also, unlike most people, I have not been that upset with the MLB and Manfred as I am happy they got through two major outbreaks so we can all watch baseball.

“I think if the players and organizations stay safe and clean they should play the full season and into the playoffs,” Compton said.

“I think all that has to be done is just more caution from the association.”

14

Currently on prospectornow.com...

Matthew Weber will be the new girls’ basketball coach when the varsity basketball season begins on Nov. 16. Weber previously coached at Wheeling High School for six years as head coach. Click on the photo to continue reading.

SPORTS SEPTEMBER 11, 2020

XC tasked with obstacles this year CAMERON SULLIVAN Executive Sports Editor

To see how the girls’ cross country team is adjusting to competing during the pandemic, click here to see knight tv’s coverage

I

n 2010, Jay Renaud started his coaching career and has been a track and field and cross country coach at Hersey, first, now Prospect. In his 11th year of coaching, he will be taking over for former boys’ cross country coach, Mike Stokes, as the new head coach at Prospect.

It’s hard to take over as a head coach, but Renaud is up for the challenge. His goal is to bring Prospect cross country back to its roots and take the MSL East this year, which they last won in 2016. The season is already off to a good start with a 28-29 win over Northridge.

Some of the top finishers in this meet were senior Jack Dechoudens, who had a time of 13:57 and placed second, junior TJ Garland, who had a time of 14:11 and placed fourth, and senior Nic Squillacioti, who had a time of 14:12 and placed fifth. This race was 2.5 miles long.

“I don’t see any difference on how anything else has changed,” Squillacioti said.

“He’s been doing a little few things differently then [Stokes], but other than that … it feels like his third or fourth year instead of his first.”

After coaching under Stokes for the last four years, Renaud has been able to pick up on some of Stokes’ coaching styles. Stokes has a family first mentality, which is a big thing that Renaud has learned from him.

Stokes’s passion for the sport is also something that Renaud has fed off of.

While the two coaches have many similarities, Renaud’s coaching style still differs from Stokes’ when it comes to the workouts.

Renaud is very consistent with aerobic workouts; he likes to do long runs and a lot of tempo workouts.

According to Squillacioti, some of the differences between Renaud and

It feels like [Renaud’s] third or fourth year [of being head coach] instead of his first”

Water Break

- Nic Squillacioti, senior

PREPARED: In order to protect themselves even more from COVID-19, the team has to warm up in pods with limited numbers of people. Click on the photo to see how the team did in their first meet on Aug. 28. (photo by Alexis Esparaza) Stokes are the fact that Stokes based all their runs off of miles but Renaud does everything off of minutes. This being said, Stokes’ runs were more focused on the distance while Renaud’s are more focused on the time it takes. “[Renaud has] been a very good coach,” sophomore runner Luke Wittenborn said. “[He’s been] very helpful; he’s really getting us prepared for our meets.”

Wittenborn said Renaud has been preparing them with more hard training than most seasons. Due to the shortened time to prepare, they’ve been doing lots of speed workouts to prepare the team for the meets.

If it wasn’t already hard enough to step in as a new head coach, this season has brought up a lot more challenges with the restrictions due to COVID-19. These restrictions include wearing masks until they’re done warming up, taking temperatures, answering a series of questions about COVID-19 symptoms and exposure and staying six feet apart.

“It’s a little bit tough [with all the restrictions], but as long as we can have a season, it’s worth it,” Wittenborn said.

In order to be extra cautious, Renaud has set up pods of runners who work out together. There are about six pods, and they are grouped based on ability and age. The groups were made to try and keep people as spaced out as possible and to limit the number of people each runner is exposed to.

One benefit for this year, however, has come with the sports seasons being moved around. Because of this, some soccer players have joined the team in order to stay in

RESTRICTED: New boys’ cross country coach Jay Renaud (right) encourages senior Nic Squillacioti (left) and junior TJ Garland (middle) during warmups for a practice.

Due to all of the COVID-19 concerns, runners need to wear masks while warming up. (photo by Alexis Esparaza) shape. Some of the soccer players include senior Gavin Kafkakis and junior Alex Rider who placed 10th and 11th in their first meet respectively.

A negative, however, is that the team lost some of their offseason training due to COVID-19. Usually the runners meet after school during the offseason and go for runs or participate in track to stay active. This lack of offseason did not stop the runners however. According to Renaud, everyone came into this season in really good shape.

The juniors and seniors have done an excellent job this season, according to Renaud.

He also said that the sophomores have really stepped up. When everyone came in, he could tell they’d been running on their own and were in good shape.

Over the offseason, while most of the runners ran on their own, Renaud did have weekly Zoom chats to check up on them. The team additionally had a conditioning camp over the summer, like most sports, where

they were able to get together and workout.

According to Squillacioti, when they do get to go on runs as a team, everyone has a lot of fun.

“People just think we go on a run, we say nothing and get it over with,” Squillacioti said. “But when we’re on our run we crack jokes, we talk a lot ... there’s [not a] run where you’re just zoning out with no talking.”

Along with the overall friendliness of the team, it is also a very competitive team, according to Wittenborn. It’s a team that doesn’t skip a day of training and are extremely hard workers.

“It’s a heartwarming, inspirational group of kids that are so motivated … I feel like they have made me a better person witnessing what they are doing on a daily basis,” Renaud said. “I even think about it, if I was in high school it would be very hard to be motivated … to do what they’re doing.”

have you adjusted to cross country with the Q: How new COVID-19 restrictions?

Adjusting has its difficulties of course, however, my is so happy to even have a season. I know A: team some sports haven’t been able to compete at all, so we are so thankful for anything we can get.

have you done during quarintine to improve Q: What your times? quarintine it’s important to keep a positive A: During mindset and remember why we love running. We

Athlete: Audrey Ginsberg, junior Sport: Girls’ Cross Country Other Info: Placed 21st at state in the 2019 season

have been making sure to run for our teammates and help each other through these new stresses.

are some of your goals heading into this Q:What season? me personally I really want to focus on having A: For a good positive attitude ... I have really focused on

photo by Mara Nicolaie (from the 2019 season), interview by Jake Terpins

having a good mindset.