Volume 50, Issue 4
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
TheVoice of Prospect since 1960
ROSPECTOR 801 West Kensington Road, Mount Prospect, Illinois 60056
One pint at a time Students, parents donate at Service Club blood drive By Carly Evans Features Editor Senior Kathryn Lowry was always afraid of blood and needles, but recently, she has been trying to find a way to overcome her fears. When Lowry heard about the Life Source Blood Drive that Service Club was sponsoring, she thought it would be the perfect opportunity to face them. The Life Source Blood Drive took place on Saturday, Nov. 13. Four weeks prior, students began to sign up when Service Club started advertising. Service Club Coordinator David Jacobson was pleased with the number of students who signed up to donate. “[The number of students] just kept growing and growing,” Jacobson said. “First it was 20 [students], then 30 and all of a sudden, there were 70 students signed up.” After the four weeks, 75 students had already signed up online to donate, so Jacobson was unsure about how many more volunteers would show up. Many stuKathryn Lowry dents, teachers and parents were walk-in volunteers. Jacobson was very satisfied with the overall turnout for the event, considering that many students may have been nervous. When Lowry arrived for her appointment, she began to get nervous. When the nurse began to prepare her for the shot, Lowry was shaking and breathing heavily, so the nurse told her she was too nervous and went to get a new nurse. Another attempt at calming her down failed, so a third nurse came and convinced Lowry she should go home. As she began walking away, Lowry gathered the courage to tell the nurse she was OK and wanted to go back and try again. After about 15 minutes, Lowry was done donating. She was taken over to a table where she could eat and drink, and she began to feel light-headed. “It sounded like everything was echoing, and the room was moving,” Lowry said. Lowry felt better and was “discharged” about 20 minutes later. Despite having “side-effects,” Lowry said, “It was definitely worth it — I was able to get over my fear, and it was for a good cause.” Senior Ali Kitzman volunteered in various ways. She donated blood and ran the table where volunteers signed in. Kitzman said most volunteers seemed slightly nervous. “[Giving blood] is nerve-wracking,” Kitzman said, “but once they began to take blood, I felt completely comfortable.” Although a large portion of the volunteers were students, there were parents who donated as well. Service Club set up a table at parent-teacher conferences where about 15 parents signed up to donate. This year’s blood drive is not the first at Prospect. The National Honors Society had an annual blood drive until about five years ago when student involvement dropped. Now, Service Club is hoping to make this Life Source Blood Drive an annual or even a semi-annual event. “[The Life Source Blood Drive] is a great cause,” Jacobson said. “It’s especially great to get high school students in the routine of donating blood and just helping others in general.”
Prime Time Knights Junior Leaders are promoting fitness with The Biggest Winner, a weight loss competition just for Prospect. Check out... Features, page 7
Fans showed their excitement before the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I.” But too much competition among fans can ruin the enjoyment of reading the series. Check out...
Entertainment, page 10
It’s more than where we stand The only District 214 school to pass No Child Left Behind, Prospect focuses on all aspects of education, not just test scores
Photo by Ian Magnuson
By Maddie Conway and Jane Berry News Editors New Trier Township High School’s special education students had an average ACT score of 22.6 on standardized testing last spring — a score that is two points higher than the Illinois state average of all students, not just those in special education. Despite that score, the 45 and 53 students who did not meet state standards in reading and math, respectively, were enough for all of New Trier to earn a failing grade under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) because New Trier’s special education subgroup — 140 students out of 4,143 — did not improve enough to pass NCLB. Along with New Trier, 608 other Illinois public schools — about 90 percent — did not pass the federal standards of Adequate Yearly
Progress (AYP) for NCLB this past school year. However, Prospect and its 80.9 percent pass rate did meet AYP, making it the only school in District 214 and even the northwest suburbs to meet NCLB standards. A school must increase the number of students meeting state standards on standardized testing to receive a passing grade from NCLB. For high schools, the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE), which includes the ACT that juniors take in the spring, is used to measure academic success. Both the passing rate for the general population and all subgroups of minority students must meet AYP. If even one subgroup does not improve enough to meet federal standards, the entire school is deemed failing. If a school fails to meet AYP for several
HOW PROSPECT STACKS UP Although Prospect met No Child Left Behind (NCLB) standards with 80.9 percent passing the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE), a high percentage of students passing the test isn’t a guarantee that every school will pass NCLB. If a school does not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) from year to year in all subgroups, it is deemed failing. Along with Prospect, here are the Illinois high schools with the highest pass rates on the PSAE — not all of them meeting AYP — in percentage of students: 1. Northside College Prep. 2. Payton College Prep. 3. Whitney Young Magnet 4. Deerfield 5. New Trier Township 6. Jones College Prep. 7. Hinsdale Central 8. Glenbrook North
98.7 97.3 93.8 90.0 89.7 86.5 86.0 84.5
9. Lake Forest 10. Lane Technical 11. Stevenson 12. Libertyville 13. Prospect 14. Naperville North 15. Neuqua Valley
Information courtesy of The Chicago Tribune
Stress and school With demanding academics and activities filling up their time, sometimes students just need a break. For more on students’ hectic schedules and how they accommodate their stress levels, see... In-Depth, pages 8-9
84.2 83.8 82.8 82.5 80.9 80.3 80.1
consecutive years, consequences may include major restructuring to the school curriculum — as the 367 schools in the state that have missed AYP for six or more years now face. Principal Kurt Laakso said he is happy that Prospect successfully improved enough to meet federal standards — especially in special education, which is the only subgroup at Prospect that has enough students to count towards AYP — because it is “satisfying and encouraging” that Prospect is “doing the right thing.” But even with success in that subgroup and overall, Laakso also said that receiving a passing grade is not the only important achievement for Prospect, especially in light of the nature of NCLB. Although he supports the concept of making schools accountable for the education of their students, Laakso said NCLB’s method of evaluating schools is flawed. According to Laakso, the requirements for meeting federal standards are high, especially for high-achieving schools like Prospect that need to continue to improve year to year despite beginning with an already high standard. Labeling a school failing for not meeting these high standards, Laakso said, is grossly unfair. Superintendent Dr. David Schuler agreed that the NCLB standards are difficult to meet. While the law “conceptually makes sense,” he said it has created challenges for schools that can negatively affect public education. According to Laakso, while critics might claim that a success-
See NCLB, page 2 A little too holly jolly? The holiday season is a time of joy, but when companies start selling Christmas decorations in September, it starts to lose its excitement. Turn to... Opinion, page 5