Issue 7 24-25

P ROSPECTOR THE

Prospect press wins big

KnightMedia wins journalism state for the frst time in school history

SARAH GEORGE Copy Editor

Editor’s Note: We want to start of by saying that we know how weird this is. We don’t normally, actually, ever, cover ourselves, but the state of Illinois left us no choice but to give our championship team some recognition. So, enjoy a KnightMedia story about KnightMedia!

KnightMedia adviser and English teacher Jason Block looked around proudly at his students as he thought about the hectic weekend ahead of him. While nervous, Block knew deep down that his journalism team had the talent and creativity to do well at state.

frst place titles. Seniors KnightVoices Executive Producer Amelia Maslowski and KnightTV Live Executive Producers Ben Mitchell and Kenny Munao worked together for their competition, winning frst place in the TV News category. Junior Stella Palm took frst for Newspaper Design, coming back from a second place title last year in the same category. Finally, junior Kyle Struzik, editor of Prospect’s Crest yearbook, won in his competition: Yearbook Caption Writing.

“I knew I did my best and I did as well as I could, but it was still such a surreal moment when they called my name for frst place,” Struzik said.

Damasky took second place in Infographics, while sisters Charlotte (freshman) and Chelsea (junior) McGowan received ffth place for their teamwork in the Yearbook Theme Development category.

“I remember just squeezing onto Amanda’s arm so hard while they were announcing the winners,” Palm said. “I was just so exhilarated. It was defnitely one of the most exciting moments of my life.”

The bond that the students have is just like a sports team; as expressed by the students, though, it may be even stronger. They spend many hours a week communicating through nu-

merous emails, group chats and in class, creating print news (newspapers that come out about once every month), online stories, broadcasts, podcasts and a 300 page yearbook that will be distributed on May 20 for seniors and May 21-23 for underclassmen.

“Of course we love the awards,” yearbook advisor Nicole Stoltz said. “But our priority is creating a book that tells the story of the students, school and community.”

Another aspect of advising the journalism program that Block appreciates is the love KnightMedia gets from the students’ parents. When the state bus got back to school after their weekend, the competitor’s parents were waiting for them with big signs, confetti cannons, hugs and blaring music.

Stoltz was not able to accompany her students to state, but was ready to celebrate as soon as the mini bus of champions rolled into Prospect’s parking lot.

“It killed me not to be [able to go to] state,” Stoltz said. “But watching those students get of the bus with their medals and the smiles on their faces made up for it.”

This wasn’t KnightMedia’s frst trip of the year. Every year, diferent feld trips are created and carefully planned by Block, Stoltz and other multimedia advisors in the district. Each fall, the

Kulieke revealed to be member of fringe eugenicist religious group

Kulieke Theater. This title has been drilled into the theater’s stone wall for years. According to the 1973 Arlington Heights Daily Herald, it’s been the theater name for even longer — ever since the District 214 (D214) Board named it in frst Prospect principal Alvin Kulieke’s honor after his death.

adelphia, Pennsylvania, where the team spent the

ual competitions at the end of the trip. At night, they walked around the city, taking in the scenery

Media] would have to be the conventions,” Maslowski said. “Boston and Philly were so fun, and I just loved being my friends doing what

Soaking up their last months of high school, the seniors were beyond excited

The Herald ran Kulieke’s obituary in an earlier issue that year. They described his extensive academic acumen – “a B.A. degree from the University of Chicago and a M. Ed. degree from Northwestern University” – and his 31 years in the feld of education. They paid respects to his surviving family members and gave a date and time for his funeral. In these respects, it seemed business as usual.

That is, until the reader reaches the ffth paragraph, the frst and second sentences and six seemingly innocuous words.

“Mr. Kulieke had been the principal of Prospect High School in Mount Prospect since 1957. A veteran of World War II,” the obituary states, “He was president of [the] Urantia Brotherhood.” That fnal clause, no matter how inofensive it might appear, may contribute to changing Kulieke’s legacy 52 years later. It’s one of many pieces of evidence that could lead to the renaming of Kulieke Theater — and have already sparked eforts to rework the process of naming and perhaps rename facilities themselves across D214. But what is so controversial about this small line of text? What, exactly, is the Urantia Brotherhood? It’s one facet of the Urantia Movement, a fringe “New Age” religious group about which Joseph “Lenny” Flatley knows more than most. Flatley, a Pittsburgh-based author, journalist and podcaster, investigated a Urantia Movement adjacent-cult for years and published a book, “New Age Grifter: The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia and his Cosmic Family,” in 2021. Flatley’s Neocities website describes how he used “legal documents, press accounts, academic research and untold hours of exclusive interviews to get to the corrupted core of this experimental society.”

Flatley believes the Movement’s past is very much steeped in eugenicist doctrine. The National Human Genome Research Institute defnes eugenics as “the scientifcally inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations.”

“The Urantia Book contains explicit connections to eugenics, including discussions about ‘biologic disfellowshipping’ of ‘unft’ and ‘antisocial stocks’ and warnings about the ‘folly of allowing the superior freely to procreate with the inferior,’” Flatley said in an interview with the Prospector. “These ideas likely refect the infuence of early 20th-century eugenics movements and [the founder] Dr. Sadler’s own views on racial hierarchy.” He said the movement isn’t “conventionally dangerous, but its teachings include problematic hierarchical racial classifcations and eugenic ideas that could promote harmful stereotypes. The book uses terms like ‘inferior simian tribes’ and discusses the ‘deterioration’ of ‘superior stock’ through racial mixing. These outdated concepts do have the potential to reinforce racial prejudice.”

Flatley maintains that modern Urantia Movement followers are not necessarily as eugenics-supporting as they were in the past.

SAGE

photo by Frank Mirandola

Community unites for awareness

5K

fundraiser

sheds light on traumatic brain injuries

JULIA MIODOWSKI Executive News Editor

2.8 million. That is, according to the CDC, the number of traumatic brain injuries that happen every year, which is about 11 per second. A traumatic brain injury is a wound to the brain caused by an external physical force. This can impact not only the victim’s lives, but also the lives of their family and friends.

To raise awareness for these traumatic brain wounds, Prospect organized their annual Love Your Brain 5K on Sunday, April 27, at 10 a.m., which raised money and awareness for brain injuries.

Four years ago, social science teacher Jay Heilman found inspiration to launch the 5K while watching a documentary with his Psychology I class about Kevin Pearce, a professional snowboarder who sufered a traumatic brain injury. Pearce was doing a specifc trick, a twisting double backfip, when his snowboard hit a halfpipe. He hit his head and was knocked unconscious.

Heilman’s class wanted to know more about Pearce and his injury, so they reached out to him

via Instagram. Compliant, Pearce set up a Zoom call with the students to share about his story.

It turned out, Pearce and his brother Adam founded an organization called Love Your Brain. It is an organization that helps people who have experienced brain injuries, as well as their families. They provide programs such as retreats and yoga sessions, medical care and research about brain injuries.

Heilman wanted to bring awareness of brain injuries to the Prospect community. He brainstormed with his students, sifting through various ideas, like bake sales, but the one that clicked was hosting a 5K.

“I’m a big thinker, so I’m like, let’s go big with this. Like if we’re going to do this, I want to send Love Your Brain thousands of dollars,” Heilman said.

The idea was to hold an event where people would run (or walk) a 5K, starting and ending at Prospect. A ticket was $5, which could be purchased online, sent through an email or bought on the spot, and around $23 was donated to the Love Your Brain foundation. Open to all ages, the race included professional timing and a partially closed course.

“It’s meant to be less about a competitive race and more about people coming together,” Heilman said.

He added that he loves watching people support such an important cause.

The 5K was frst hosted in 2022, and continued on in 2023, but last year it got cancelled because of a scheduling confict with the Special Olympics. This year the race was back, with 175

RACING FOR AWARENESS: Local community gets ready at the start line of the Love Your Brain 5K, a fundraiser for traumatic brain injuries. (Photo courtesy of Heilman)

participants, which according to Heilman was the largest group they’ve had yet.

Also, this year a special guest and Prospect graduate, Katianne Olson, had a stand set up at the race to tell children about traumatic brain injuries. Olson wrote a book called “The Resilient Brain” for kids to spread awareness about brain injuries, and it was available for purchase. She wrote the book after her husband and high school sweetheart Chase Olson fell of of a two story building while doing construction work, damaging his brain. The Olsons turned to Love Your Brain for help.

What she enjoyed most about the program was the yoga classes. Olson said, “It allowed me to tap into yoga as self care for me.”

Katianne says that recovery is a term used very loosely in the brain injury community because one never really fully heals, whether it is mentally or physically, from a traumatic injury like that. That being said, Chase is doing much better after such a damaging fall. Now, the family supports Prospect’s annual Love Your Brain 5K.

“It’s so great to see our local alum high school … really start building awareness and education on brain injury,” Olson said.

THEATER: School grapples with Kulieke investigation

“Very few of the Urantia [Book] readers I have spoken with believe that stuf about the races are to be taken literally,” Flatley said. “Like many [followers of] dense, large religious books, believers seem to pick and choose what aspects they want to believe and what they don’t believe.”

While Urantia Movement followers today may be more distant from the movement’s origins, Flatley contends its founder Dr. William S. Sadler, however, is a diferent story.

“He [Sadler] believed in eugenics and racial inferiority,” Flatley said, “and I’m pretty sure Sadler authored most of the [Urantia Book] himself.”

Sadler wrote multiple books supporting eugenics, such as “Race Decadence; An Examination of the Causes of Racial Degeneracy in the United States” and “Long Heads and Round Heads; Or, What’s the Matter With Germany.” His personal writings include, among other things, the beliefs that intellectually disabled children should be sterilized nationwide and that interracial marriage is “to be deplored” because it is “biologic fact” that Black people (“the Negro [race]”) are inferior to white people.

The Book, “revealed to” Sadler sometime between 1924 and 1955, contains many racist, ableist and overall eugenicist doctrines Flatley says are inspired by Sadler’s own beliefs. These doctrines are especially present in the sections about a blue-eyed and fair-skinned alien couple who must breed out “inferior stocks” on every planet and African slavery being justifed because Africans are “the great slave race.”

Some may say that Kulieke, despite the fact that he was a consistent part of the Movement while Sadler was still alive and leading it, was like those modern Urantia Movement followers who don’t by defnition believe the eugenicist doctrine.

But Kulieke wasn’t just a follower. He was a leader.

And it can be argued he wasn’t just a leader, either. He was Sadler’s close, personal friend.

Kulieke and Sadler wrote multiple books together: Urantia Book workbooks simplifying and explaining the original. These include “The Urantia Book Workbooks — Volume II: Science,” which contains both the aforementioned passage justifying African slavery and one advocating for the “veritable slavery” of “subnormal men,” claiming they should be “kept under society’s control.” These workbooks were presumably intended to annotate and paraphrase the 2,097page original text, yet these quotes were preserved — a move some may argue signifes the two authors considered them important.

HISTORY: Alvin Kulieke speaks at a Urantia Brotherhood School summer seminar. (Photo from Urantia Book Historical Society)

DIVE INTO A PRESENTATION EXPLAINING ALVIN KULIEKE’s PASt AND THE ORIGINS OF THE URANTIA MOVEMENT

Kulieke was elected president of the school in 1967. The archive shows that some of these exams are signed with his name.

He was also pictured at multiple “Forum picnics,” the Forum being a select gathering of Urantia Movement believers, in one photo appearing next to Sadler’s son. Sadler even included Kulieke as one of two executors of his will. The other was Emma L. Christensen — Sadler’s adopted daughter.

This information reached Prospect’s administration after a KnightMedia-led February investigation unearthed Kulieke’s past with the Urantia Movement. KnightMedia believed the evidence they gathered was enough to write an editorial presenting their discoveries and arguing that knowing what they knew now, Prospect should change the name of Kulieke Theater. But after they explained their fndings to administrators to give context in requests for interviews, the school started the process of investigating a name change on its own, negating the need to advocate for one.

cilities. The procedure will establish a consistent and transparent framework, ensuring decisions align with district values and community expectations,” Mogge said in the same email to KnightMedia. “This situation [the KnightMedia Kulieke investigation] has highlighted the importance of reviewing our processes, which will help the district thoughtfully navigate any future naming discussions.”

To conduct their research, the district enlisted the help of David Beery, former Political Editor of the Daily Herald and Director of Communications for Maine Township High School District 207 and current part-time writer with D214. Mogge describes how Beery is carrying out “a detailed historical review,” combing through archived Board minutes and old newspapers to primarily focus on why individuals received the honor of having facilities named after them in the frst place. Beery is also compiling biographical information to look into these namesakes’ backgrounds.

“Once this research is complete in the coming weeks, the district administration will review the fndings to determine next steps,” Mogge said in an April 21 email. “Any new information that emerges after this process will be handled in accordance with the updated administrative procedures.”

even more so.

LISTEN TO A podcast For a conversation with the student reporter who uncovered this story

“I would love it if the name got changed,” said neurodivergent sophomore Piper Stukenberg, who has participated in theater both on the stage and behind the curtain. “Because we can’t keep honoring somebody whose name alone actively puts other people down.”

Senior Jude Ayala, who is also neurodivergent, agreed, saying, “Why are we paying respect to a man who [was] actively disrespecting my entire person?”

Quanin Brooks concurred that as a Black student, it would be especially meaningful for him if administration changes the name.

“For most people [changing] it would be like, ‘Oh, they changed the name? Whatever,’” he said. “But for me, now that I know [about Kulieke’s past], and the school’s actively taking measures to change [the name] because of how messed up it is — it means a lot to me as a person of color, especially since [we’re] a much smaller minority in the school.” According to the Illinois Report Card in 2024, 1.9% of Prospect’s student population is Black.

Brooks has been an active member of Prospect theater since freshman year, having earned a lead part in the recent musical “Disaster!” and being a part of 12 D214 productions as of this summer.

“[The results of the investigation are] defnitely really concerning,” Brooks said. “It’s stuf that didn’t afect me before I didn’t know the background, but it’s more kind of disgusting to hear about. To learn about. And I understand why the school feels the way they do, because I agree, it’s horrid.

“Prospect’s theater isn’t just what the title is,” said Brooks. “It’s so much more than that. It’s known to be much more than that.”

Flatley maintains that Urantia Movement members are a complex group who cannot be boiled down into a monolith.

Though Kulieke Theater’s name is nominally metal letters on the side of a wall, real Prospect students are invested in the outcome of the superintendent’s recommendation — especially those a part of minority groups Kulieke may have wanted excluded from the gene pool.

According to Movement timeline Urantiapedia, the two of them, with Kulieke’s brother Warren, also co-founded the Chicago-based Urantia Brotherhood School, a seminary for Urantia Movement teachings. The Movement archive devoted to Kulieke contains several science exams he wrote for this school, including questions asking students to fll in which Urantian race was “most intelligent,” which was “most belligerent” and which was “most attractive to Adamites.”

“We anticipate the Board of Education will review a recommendation [regarding Kulieke Theater’s name] from the Superintendent this summer,” D214 Community Engagement and Outreach Director Patrick Mogge said in an email to KnightMedia. “While the topic may be discussed in future meetings, any formal decision would take place in open session, consistent with the Open Meetings Act.”

Once informed about Kulieke, Prospect and D214 began an investigation into not just him, but namesakes of facilities across the District.

“The district is in the process of fnalizing an administrative procedure to guide future considerations regarding the naming or renaming of fa-

VeryWell Mind describes neurodivergence as “when someone’s brain processes, learns, and/ or behaves diferently than what is considered ‘typical.’” There is debate over whether all neurodiversities are disabilities. But many common conditions are, such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia and Tourette’s syndrome. And due to the Urantia Book’s eugenics doctrine being explicitly anti-disabled, Prospect’s neurodivergent students are particularly invested in the name change — and the neurodivergent theater-involved students

“People join the Urantia Movement for various reasons,” he told the Prospector in an email. “Some are drawn to its attempt to harmonize science, religion, and philosophy into a comprehensive understanding of God and the universe. Others appreciate its detailed cosmology and spiritual framework. Even among adherents, there are ongoing discussions about reconciling the book’s teachings on race and eugenics with contemporary values and understandings of human equality.”

When asked whether he believed the district should change the name of Kulieke Theater, he responded, “I really don’t know. That’s for your community to decide!”

Neurodivergent junior Murphy Barber, for one, has a straightforward solution. “Just call it Prospect Theater,” he said. “Call it literally anything else.” CONTINUED FROM PG. 1

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Stella Palm

MANAGING EDITORS

Xander Adkins, Jocelyn Farina, Tessa Trylovich, Alyssa Kowols

ASSOCIATE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Meg Imherr

COPY EDITORS

Sarah George, Jaylene Odjimer

Sage Gilliland

ONLINE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Noah Jahn

KNIGHT TV EXEC PRODUCER

Konstanty Romanowski

KNIGHTVOICES EXEC PRODUCER

Ella Brown

KNIGHT TV LIVE EXEC PRODUCER

Ryan Podgorny

KNIGHT TV ASSOCIATE PRODUCER

Julia Hong

KNIGHT TV LIVE ASSOCIATE PRODUCER

Sammie Kowols

PROSPECTOR EDITORS

Julia Miodowski, Chiara Stathakis, Lucas DeLuca, Henry Buelow, Cora Richer

KNIGHT TV SPORTS DIRECTOR

Jack Cloney

SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR

Kaden Chung

ASSOCIATE SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR

Jocelyn Kirshner

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Siena Mirandola

REPORTERS

Dylan Maye, Violet Sporcich, Daniel Marron, Brecken Burns, Piper Stukenberg, Vincent Poulos, Parker Connelly-McKee

ADVISER

Jason Block

MISSION STATEMENT

The purpose of the Prospect High School Prospector is to report news and explain its meaning and signifcance 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 Multimedia Communications courses.

ADVERTISING FOR INFORMATION REGARDING LETTERS TO THE EDITOR AND ADVERTISING INQUIRIES:

Parking pass reevaluation

Staff Editorial

It was an early morning for junior Maria Hristeva, as she was getting ready for one of the many activities she is involved in. Hristeva participates in cheerleading, Knights’ Way, National Honor Society (NHS), World Language National Honor Society, DECA, ASB, Spanish Club and Service Club. Some days she leaves as early as 7:00 a.m. just to get to school on time for her early club and activity meetings.

To make it even more difcult, Hristeva has to park at Fairview Elementary School, which is a couple blocks from Prospect, and walk either through the feld or around the school just to reach Prospect. This adds another 15 minutes to her commute, which can get even longer when bad weather occurs. She has to do this every morning because she wasn’t given a parking pass at the beginning of the school year, which seems unfair due to the amount of involvement she has at Prospect. Students like Hristeva should not have to be worried about how to get to school.

“I was pretty upset [when I didn’t get a parking pass],” Hristeva said. “I know some people that got it and [that’s] great for them, but I think for me I was upset because I knew that I had to fgure out a diferent way to get to school.”

There are 500 parking spots in the parking lot, according to Dean of Students Adam Levinson, which can get lessened during football season due to the band needing the space for practice after school. While all seniors receive a pass, that leaves only about 125 left for juniors to get one. Those junior spots are decided through a lottery-based system, which is equitable for all students, according to Levinson. While the current system makes sense, it is also unfair to students who are involved in so much, like Hristeva, but still didn’t get a parking pass.

ALTERNATIVES: Students without parking

parking passes as luck rather than a privilege.

It is unfair for students who live a certain distance away and/or have other activities, jobs or carpooling after school they need to get to on time. Some students have activities that make them unable to take the bus because of inconvenient timing. They then need to fnd other ways to get transportation. There should be a separate application for juniors who need a parking pass for legitimate reasons. It should include questions about what they are involved in, their distance from Prospect and any other reason they think they should get a parking pass. While it is a longer process for both students and the administrators who have to ultimately make the fnal decisions, more students will be satisfed and more students will be safe.

1 Against Voting results of the KnightMedia staff in regards to this editorial. For

Applications open during the middle of May and close at the end of July. Students fnd out if they receive a parking pass at the beginning of August. Then, there is a mandatory class that students attend in order to secure their pass.

We, KnightMedia, believe that parking passes should be given to juniors based on merit, distance, need, attendance and involvement in school activities instead of a lottery-based system. The current system treats

The current lottery-based system does make sense for juniors to have an equal chance at getting a parking pass. Most juniors apply and it can take a lot of work to go through applications; however, if there was a diferent system that made it easier to separate need vs want, the process could be a lot smoother.

NHS already has a system like this in place because they have to fact-check applicants’ service hours. The packet students complete has questions about service hours, teacher references and an essay. In the packet, students must include contact information to the people who host the service hour opportunities they participated in. Then, NHS sponsor John Camardella contacts

those people to make sure the student adequately participated in the service activity. Camardella also contacts the teacher references and asks them if the student is “acting in accordance with the school.” For the essay, there is a NHS Executive Board, which consists of four people, who go through each essay closely. They then pass the essay along to Camardella and the school guidance counselors who also help. Camardella recognizes how the system isn’t fawless.

“It’s not foolproof, but there is enough oversight,” Camardella said.

If there was a system similar to NHS where there was some sort of “executive board” that goes over applicants, more students who are in need of a parking pass could attain one. This executive board would contain a group of teachers and administrators that would go through all of the applications and decide who should get a parking pass. The teachers could use this option as part of the teachers mandatory supervisor requirement. Usually teachers would have to chaperone a dance or help with crowd control of sports’ games; instead, they could help sift through applications over the summer. The sifting process would include contacting coaches and club sponsors to make sure students participate. While this process is time consuming, teachers will have most of summer to work on it. For NHS, it takes them a couple of weeks to go through hundreds of applications. While there is also a 95% acceptance rate, they still have to go through all of the applications.

This can be a long hard process because there are so many diferent people contacted; however, it can help some juniors feel more represented when applying for parking passes. If this board is continually going through applications all summer, they won’t stack up.

Despite many issues, digital ACT proves superior

“Wow, that was absolutely terrible!” were the frst words out of my mouth as I left school after taking the ACT for the frst time. “Terrible” wasn’t just the best word to describe how I did on the test (well, probably. I’m still way too afraid to actually check my score), it was also a great descriptor of the test experience itself.

Dead iPads, headaches from staring at a screen for hours, ten-minute “lunch” breaks, questions that make absolutely no sense and having no time to actually answer those questions that make absolutely no sense are all quirks of the ACT and SAT process. These reasons alone were more than infuential enough to make me anti-ACT. Not anti-digital testing per se, more anti-testing. Period.

XANDER ADKINS Managing Editor

Who needs college anyway, right?

Little did I know that my testing experience was actually one of the only “normal” ones in the building.

My group fnished a few minutes late, which was a luxury compared to over half the rest of the school who were all pushed back varying amounts of time due to technology issues. One group even had to retake the entire test the next day, a day usually reserved for only students with extended time.

“I did not want to come back on the day of because I planned on hanging out with my friends the night before, sleeping in, and getting a bunch of my homework done,” junior Lauren Seyer, who had her test pushed back to Wednesday, said. “I was super annoyed.”

Illinois high schools switched to the online ACT this year after success with the digital SAT the year prior, and experienced technology issues. The exact cause of the issues are unknown,

WHICH WAY, TESTING MAN: The pros/cons of digital and paper testing creates a divide between students and staff. (illustration by Sage Gilliland)

yet many staf members, such as Assessment Supervisor Laura Bernstein, believe they were primarily a result of the servers being overwhelmed from too many schools being active on them at the same time.

“There are diferent windows, so not everyone in the state was testing at the same time, [but] obviously there were a lot of schools testing on that day,” Bernstein said. “I’m not exactly sure what the issue was, but it was an ACT issue, [not] a school issue.”

Administrators are equally in the dark. The ofcial statements sent out to students and staf from Superintendent Scott Rowe and Principal Greg Minter via email on April 8 suggest a similar root.

“Things did not go as planned due to significant issues on ACT’s end,” Minter said in his email. Rowe’s email was similar, shifting accountability to the ACT website “[The ACT] experienced signifcant delays due to ongoing technical issues with the ACT testing website.”

The switch from the paper SAT to the digital version, and then to the digital ACT was a decision made by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and College Board as a result of the ISBE’s “contract with the College Board for the high school accountability assessment end[ing] June 30, 2024,” according to the ISBE website. By state procurement law, a competitive procedure for the new version of testing is issued and voted on based on three aspects: technical specifcations, commitment to diversity and price. Based on these three aspects, the ACT received the most votes overall from members of the College Board and ISBE.

As someone who actually prefers digital state testing to the paper version, even I can admit that this year’s ACT was much more noticeably hurt by the tests being hosted digitally.

These technology-exclusive problems have caused many to question whether switching to online testing was a good idea in the frst place. 60% of this year’s proctors prefer paper testing, whereas 32% prefer online and the remaining 8% would prefer some kind of a combination of the two (according to a survey of 25 proctors at Prospect).

“Given that it was our frst year with digital [testing], the instructions weren’t as, like we call it, intuitive, so it felt like it wasn’t as user-friendly,” an anonymous proctor said. “With the tech side not running smoothly, I think paper is a more sound option.”

passes park elsewhere, like Fairview Park — a mile from Prospect. (visual by Alyssa Kowols)

Art teacher retires, leaves impact

ALYSSA KOWOLS Managing Editor

Art teacher Li Christofersen decided to move back to her hometown in 2007 after teaching in Wisconsin for 10 years. She thought she had found a job opening at Wheeling High School, but when she ofcially came back, she found out that the opening had moved to Prospect. Christofersen was still interested and took the job.

While it wasn’t on purpose, she ended up teaching at the same high school that she had graduated from in 1986. She decided to teach art because of her passion for it.

“I love talking about art, I love making art and I like instilling that feeling of the power of creation and the power of being able to take something that’s in your head and make it visual and make it manifest,” Christofersen said.

She has been working at Prospect for 18 years and currently teaches fve diferent art classes: Art 1, Advanced Placement (AP) 2D Art and Design, AP Portfolio, 2 Dimensional Art 2 and Art Survey. At the end of the school year, Christoffersen is going to part ways and retire.

After she retires, Christofersen is excited to go to bed late and wake up even later. She is a night owl and is excited to be able to relax more.

“I want to not have [the] expectation of getting up [in the morning],” Christofersen said.

She would also love to do more ceramics and maybe even sell her work eventually. She has thought about getting a new job but wants to see where retirement takes her. She also wants to visit her mom in California because she doesn’t get to see her often during the school year.

going to miss Prospect, especially the friends she has made along the way. One of these friendships is with fellow art teacher Andre Poisson.

“Mr. Poisson is like my little brother and we mess with each other,” Christofersen said. “He makes me laugh every day and he’s a very good friend and a very good colleague.”

Poisson thought Christofersen was weary of him when he frst became an art teacher, but eventually he earned her trust and they became good friends. One thing Poisson loves about Christofersen is that she hasn’t slowed down with her dedication and work, even during her last year. In fact, she has added more to her curriculum.

“She is a benchmark person, and I mean she is a standard by which we should all hope to be at,” Poisson said.

Christofersen also loves to teach at Prospect. She appreciates how a lot of her students enjoy her class and want to learn. For example, she has taught pottery on the wheel and hasn’t had a student in 20 years that couldn’t make a bowl.

“That ability to see students really want to do things for themselves and really want to achieve … that’s everyday here,” Christofersen said.

Another relationship Christofersen gained during her career was with Barbara Shafer. She is a former Prospect art teacher that Christofersen worked with for 15 years and retired in 2020.

“I learned a lot from her,” Christofersen said. “A lot about how to talk to kids and how to get them to respond with what they were thinking and to not be as scared to share their goals and their dreams.”

[NOW] I AM GRADUATING FROM PROSPECT FOR THE SECOND TIME,” - Li Christoffersen, art teacher

Christofersen has invested a lot of time and efort in her 28 years of teaching. She is sad to go, but excited to enter retirement and use her free time to try new art techniques.

THERE ARE 6 more retirees this year. read about them at prospectornow.com

Christofersen explained that she is defnitely

“I’ll miss her character, the leadership that she brings, not only to the art department, but to Prospect as a whole,” Poisson said.

scan here to read about how prospect’s culture was Affected by the closing OF arlington high school

Leaving a lasting legacy: teaching, mentoring, coaching

LUKE ROBINSON Sports Reporter

As Mike Riedy stood at the front of the room teaching his math class, refecting on his long and rewarding career, he couldn’t help but think about the countless faces he had encountered over the years — the colleagues and students whose lives he had crossed paths with. In that moment, it became clear that for Riedy, success wasn’t just measured by his achievements in volleyball and teaching, but by the legacy of inspiration he had left.

“There’s a ton of people out there in the world, and I want to believe that they pursued what they are doing because of me,” Riedy said.

Riedy started his career as a teacher at Lane Tech in 1990, but he wanted a change of scenery. He began to send out applications to schools, and he got a call back from Prospect ofering a job, which he ended up taking in 1994 and has been here for 32 years. Since then, he has been able to make a huge impact at a school he didn’t know much about initially.

“I was a little freaked out because even though I went to Hofman, I didn’t even know that Prospect existed, but I knew it was going to get me out of the city and make me more money so I was excited,” Riedy said.

GUIDANCE: Math teacher Mike Riedy explains a math problem to freshman Annie Johnson during a test. (Photo by Cora Richer)

Riedy has also assisted others at the start of their teaching careers, like his colleague Karen Kanupke, in whose teaching he has made a big diference for the 25 years she has been here, helping in her coaching and teaching.

“Twenty-fve years ago I started [at Prospect] and he was very helpful. He mentored me through teaching and coaching, which was super helpful for me,” Kanupke said.

Riedy and Kanupke have worked in the classroom for many years and one of the things they did together was write the Honors Geometry curriculum that they have used for years.

“We’ve taught geometry together for several years and he has helped me develop a new aspect of education and geometry,” Kanupke said.

With how long Riedy has been teaching at Prospect, he’s not only made bonds with his colleagues but also many memories. Some of his best memories come from his time coaching boys volleyball, where he has just achieved his 600 win, now in the top fve all-time in the state of Illinois. One of his favorite memories from coaching came during the 1997 season, his team ended up getting fourth at the state tournament.

“We had a pretty good team, and we just started beating people who we shouldn’t have beaten, and we ended up going to state,” Riedy said.

One of senior Ryan Cook’s favorite memories with Riedy is when Ryan

surprised him on staf night for volleyball. Staf night consists of players writing up a paragraph for a teacher and the teacher that they wrote for comes to hear what they wrote and watches the game. Ryan surprised Riedy by writing a paragraph for another teacher that was actually intended for him.

“Yeah it was really nice, it took everything in my power not to cry.” Riedy said. “It takes a lot to trick me and he had done a nice job of tricking me into not realizing that was going to happen and I was touched by the words he had to say.”

Riedy has created more memories than with just volleyball, though. He has also created many in the classroom. When he was in class with Kanupke, a bee snuck into his room, and it made for a crazy moment.

“There was a bee on the window and he smashed the window and it fell onto the second foor and then some kid walked in to ask for help,” Kanupke said.

Even though Riedy has some crazy

moments, he has defnitely left a signifcant impact on his fellow teachers who were his former students and have followed in his footsteps, like King and science teacher Michelle Tantillo.

“It’s always amazing how people I have had [as students] in high school have gone into what I do,” Riedy said. Riedy has not only impacted many people at Prospect — they have also impacted him. Seeing them regularly makes his day better and makes him debate whether retiring is the right move to make.

“Daily interaction with coworkers and students make it feel almost impossible to step away from this school,” Riedy said.

Senior Luke Cook has felt the impact of Riedy through his coaching, from the three years he has played with him, and he says Riedy has taught him how to become a better person.

“He’s taught me a lot about being a better person, not only on the volleyball court but also of the court, by being a better leader and holding myself to a higher standard.” Luke said.

Another way Riedy has helped out Kanupke is by working with students in her calculus classes. Even though he might not be their teacher, he goes out of his way to make sure everyone knows what they are doing, no matter what kind of situation they are in. For instance, when one of Kanupke’s students were in and out of the hospital and needed math help.

“He helped one of my students in calc because she was in and out of the hospital, but he took the time to meet with her even though she wasn’t even in his class,” Kanupke said.

With how long Riedy has been at Prospect, many will miss his contributions to the school, whether they were as a friend, teacher or coach. His longtime friends like Kanupke are going to miss him a little more than most.

“He’s probably been my best friend here for 25 years, so I think the school is going to miss his personality and all the help he has given to students,” Kanupke said.

PAINTING: Art teacher Li Christoffersen watches over sophomore Leah Butigan’s shoulder. (Photo by Jocelyn Kirshner)

Rumors overshadow true flaws

Recycling system made ineffective by contamination

CHIARA STATHAKIS Executive Features Editor

There is a widespread rumor at Prospect that recycling is a “waste” because the contents of the recycling bins end up in the garbage at the end of the night anyway. Some say they have seen custodians go around the building with only one large container to dispose of the contents of the two bins in each classroom.

Science teacher Shelby Rosin has seen the impact of this rumor on her students’ behavior when it comes to recycling.

“Students don’t separate [their recycling] because of … that understanding that things are not actually going to get recycled,” Rosin said.

However, according to Building and Grounds Supervisor Jorge Villagomez, this is largely untrue. The custodial staf does come around with only one container to collect waste, but this is because the individual trash bags are black, while the individual recycling bags are clear. This allows the trash and recycling to be sorted later, after having been retrieved from diferent spaces.

“I understand where people are coming from [with this rumor],” Villagomez said. “I know that they’re trying to be mindful of recycling, which is amazing, but we need to start with the students’ [recycling habits].”

While the custodial staf has systems set in place in an attempt to recycle as much as possible, Villagomez estimates that the contents of roughly 75% of the recycling bins are still unable to be recycled due to contaminants, like food or other non-recyclables.

Recycling can be efective, and according to the most recent data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, in 2018, the recycling and composting of trash prevented over 193 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from entering the atmosphere and furthering climate

change.

However, once recycling is contaminated, even if just by one item, the whole container must be thrown out. In fact, Prospect’s collection company, Waste Management, charges the district if material sent out for recycling is contaminated.

“[Contamination] makes me feel really frustrated, because it takes away what I’m doing by recycling or what another student is doing by recycling,” senior Isa Gaby said. “When [students] choose to use the recycling bin, it doesn’t matter, because someone is throwing in their garbage [and] everyone shares one recycling bin.”

Rosin regularly sees her students bring Starbucks drinks or energy drinks into class and dispose of them improperly.

“They really have such an opportunity to recycle because everything they’re drinking is in something that’s clearly allowed to be recycled and can be recycled easily, but then you see someone fnish a Starbucks Frappuccino and throw that in the recycling bin … with the whipped cream all over it,” Rosin said. “It’s especially disheartening in the science classrooms where I have like eight sinks in my room. You could rinse that out so easily.”

According to Villagomez, if a drink in a recyclable cup is entirely empty, then the custodial staf is allowed to recycle it, even if it has not been rinsed of. However, if there is any visible substance, like whipped cream, on it, then it could end up serving as a contaminant and preventing the recycling of the whole container.

Rosin feels as though one of the causes of recycling contamination at Prospect is that recycling is accessible to a fault.

“There’s recycling bins in every hallway, every classroom next to a garbage can, and they’ve just become so mainstream that they’ve almost lost their intended purpose of [being] intentional,” Rosin said.

Prior to working at Prospect, Rosin worked at Glenbrook North high school. In order to combat recycling contamination, Glenbrook North removed recycling cans from the classrooms and instead had only a few recycling cans that needed to be specifcally sought out in order to recycle.

TRASH: Recycling cans often contain non-recyclables, which can lead to the contents of the entire container ending up in the trash. (art by Siena Mirandola)

“Because of that intentionality and that smaller location, people were seeking out those spaces, so we knew that the things that were ending up in those recycling bins were actually meant to be there,” Rosin said.

However, being intentional about recycling does not entirely eliminate mistakes. Gaby sometimes struggles with determining what is actually recyclable.

“We have lunches that are given out on these little cardboard trays,” Gaby said. “Are they recyclable? Because food touched them … so there [are] half of them in the recycling, half in the garbage. We don’t actually know [where they go].”

Associate Principal Frank Mirandola expressed interest in having Prospect do more in regards to educating students on how to recycle efectively.

“I would love to see continued education about what recycling is to make sure that Prospect can do its part in keeping the Earth green and make sure that we’re maximizing what we can recycle as a school,” Mirandola said. “[When] we assume people know, then that’s when we’re going to fail.”

Rosin also values education about this topic, but for reasons beyond just maximizing the impact of our current recycling system.

“The students that we’re teaching are the future,” Rosin said. “They’re going to be the scientists who are creating these new ways to recycle, these new ways to reuse, these new ways to modify materials so that we can get the most use out of them and so they don’t end up in our waterways, environment and atmosphere. I think it’s important that we stress that this needs to be looked at so that the right people get their eyes

Devices distract students: Teachers stray

STELLA PALM Editor-in-Chief

AP Human Geography teacher Erik Hodges has always loved technology, so when the D214 Director of Technology in 2010 came to Hodges with the opportunity to pilot the newly-released iPads, he gladly applied. According to Hodges, the pilot was introduced as a way to reduce paper usage in classrooms, specifcally because of the environmental impact.

The iPads signifcantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions: it would take more than seven hours of note-taking on an iPad to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than a single sheet of paper, according to the Environmental Paper Network.

Soon enough, Hodges was approved for the iPad and received a grant from the district; his classes began using the iPad 1 in class on Aug. 30, 2010. It wasn’t long before the iPads posed challenges for Hodges and his class: bad styluses and a lack of physical keyboards put things at a challeng-

ing start.

Additionally, Hodges and his students had to trial diferent apps on the iPad, such as Moodle and eBackpack.

“I hope [eBackpack] has gone out of business,” Hodges said. “It was just really awful [because] … you couldn’t grade in it. It was … a locker [for assignments], almost.”

Fortunately for Hodges, he and his students found ways to make iPad learning educational and fun. Hodges would create assignments to get the kids familiar with using the new features.

For example, after Prospector Editor Maddie Conway wrote a story about the new pilot iPads, Hodges’ students read and commented on the article, testing out the keyboard and browser system. Students shared mixed, but mostly positive feedback about iPad usage (see “From the archives: 2010 students’ opinions of iPads”).

Since the 2010s, iPad usage in the classroom has continued to develop. However, teachers are starting to pull back on iPad usage, with some removing them from the curriculum altogether.

Science teacher Michelle Tantillo,

as well as all the other Physical Science teachers, switched to only paper for the 2024-25 school year for their classes.

Regulation of iPads has become increasingly difcult for some teachers, with both Tantillo and Hodges noticing iPad management becoming worse since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“[I’m] not saying that kids weren’t distracted before, but I think [it got worse during] that time at home where kids were on a screen and there wasn’t somebody truly looking at what they were doing,” Tantillo said.

on it.”

In the meantime, students who are passionate about recycling are left to decide how to act within a fawed system. Sometimes Gaby chooses to bring recyclables home so she can be sure they will not get contaminated.

If that is not possible, Gaby still chooses to recycle, despite the knowledge that what she recycles will often become contaminated.

“I still put, for example, a plastic bottle in the recycling bin, because I don’t want to be someone who’s contributing to the problem,” Gaby said. “I always want to be someone who’s consistently making the right choice, so that if other people are able to turn this around, then I’m already a part of it.”

This was a sentiment echoed by Villagomez, who noted that recycling at Prospect is not always contaminated and can still end up making a difference.

“We go to several classrooms where it’s clean — it’s perfect,” Villagomez said. “It’s like, ‘Man, this is the way it’s supposed to be.’”

Villagomez also noted that Prospect is making some progress in terms of reducing its environmental footprint. For example, Prospect has gotten a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certifcation, meaning that it meets certain sustainability requirements.

“Maybe Prospect is not the best, but we’re trying to be,” Villagomez said. “If we can work together, I think we can do better.”

Summer at its sweetest: looking

Students make the most of local activities over summer

JOCELYN FARINA

Managing Editor

As the end of school approaches, students all across Prospect are planning out what to do with their summers. Senior Caroline Machel has traveled with her church over the past four years for mission trips to a variety of states throughout the Midwest. However, Machel still fnds that breaks from school come with their own set of challenges.

“If all my friends back at home are at the beach and I’m not there, then I just feel left out,” Machel said.

According to Milestone Marketing, summer is the peak time of social engagement online. This is primarily because people are frequently posting about their summer travels, and brands are trying their hardest to sell people on items, vacation destinations, lodging and activities.

90.4% of students at Prospect said that they travel out of Cook County during summer break, and most were traveling for a vacation or to visit family, according to a KnightMedia survey of 282 students.

In the case of sophomore Hailey Kreps-Labore, traveling over the summer is usually for vacations, but that doesn’t exempt her from the experience shared by Machel.

“Sometimes when I’m on vacation, I miss my friends and then when I see my friends traveling for vacations and stuf, I get the fear of missing out because it’s always better [to be] with your friends and do things together,” Kreps-Labore said.

Kreps-Labore also noted how summer is the perfect time to make memories with friends because everyone can be in one place, and it’s not

too expensive when you stay local. Not only does this apply to friend groups, but also for families, as the number one reason for students not traveling out of the county over the summer was due to it being too expensive, according to the KnightMedia survey.

According to NerdWallet, travel prices are up 13% when compared to those of 10 years ago. When they compared specifc travel expenses over that same time, they found that hotel prices are up 19.1%, rental car prices are up 16.8% and restaurant prices are up 48.9%.

Due to these costs, most students who do end up traveling over summer break usually only do it for a short period of time.

Staying home for the summer avoids these expenses though, and can still be enjoyable considering there are a wide variety of activities and adventures that can be had right in the Chicago area, with one of the most common ones being a day at the beach.

“When it’s sunset [and] the city is right next to the beach it is just [perfect],” Kreps-Labore said.

Sophomores Amelia Sharp and Anna Dover look to local events for fun, such as the annual Fourth of July parade and other summer festivals like Frontier Days in Arlington Heights. They also said that they fnd new activities to do all the time, like going to Puttshack in Oak Brook. Puttshack consists of a mini golf course that uses technology to enhance a normal game of mini golf by adding on fun challenges.

Sophomore James Perez’s family tends to go out of state at least once during summer for a vacation that either involves going to a beach or doing a major hiking expedition.

But vacations only last so long, and when Perez returns to the Prospect area, he still fnds himself

with time to fll. During the school year, his schedule is packed with band and speech commitments, so in the summer, he takes advantage of the slower pace to spend quality time with the people he cares about.

One of these people is his sister who attends the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). With Perez’s schedule and the distance between Mt. Prospect and UIUC, it’s hard for the siblings to see each other.

“Spending time with her over the summer is just so much better than it used to be because we actually get to have interesting stories to tell each other, given that we don’t live together anymore,” Perez said. “It just means a lot to tell those stories and to fll each other in on what’s been happening in our lives.”

One thing he does with his sister is explore what the city of Chicago has to ofer, whether it be locations or activities. Some of his favorite spots

have been the Field Museum, the Science and Industry Museum and Michigan Avenue. However, Perez also acknowledged that not everyone can go into Chicago whenever they want.

“If you can’t go somewhere far, go explore the town,” Perez said. “There’s so many hidden spots, especially in Mt. Prospect [because] it’s way bigger than even I think. Like, there’s a whole south side, and I had no idea what was down there.”

Perez specifcally pointed out that he and his friends have more activities to do like playing pickleball at Clearwater Park, which has opened a gateway for him in discovering even more things.

“It just goes to show that there’s always something for you to do with your friends if you are willing to put in a little bit of efort to explore,” Perez said. “Just by looking at your own town, you can make your summer so much more interesting.”

Photo courtesy of Amelia Maslowski

RALLY: Freshman Isabella Kowal serves the pickleball at the inaugural Associated Student Body pickleball tournament at Clearwater Park. (Photo by Alyssa Kowols)

SMILES: Seniors Ashleigh Platt (left) and Amelia Maslowski (right) enjoying the sunset at Gillson Beach.

forward to the months to come

Ice cream store, Cap’s, fosters connections in community

MEG IMHERR

Associate Editor-in-Chief

While riding his bike down one of the neighborhood streets of Mount Prospect, a young kid, appearing to be around fve-years-old, was stopped in his tracks by something that had caught his eye. He immediately got of of his bike to point to the lady standing outside one of the houses to yell to his mom, “that’s the ice cream lady!”

The “ice cream lady” was Katie Dix, who was one of the owners of Capannari Ice Cream at the time, recently renamed to Cap’s, a local ice cream shop, and her daughter remembers this to be the moment when she realized that her mom was a celebrity among the kids of Mount Prospect.

“The shop means everything to me,” said Meg Dix, the current owner of Cap’s. “I took a lot of pride in watching my parents run the show and be entrepreneurs and build something that the community loves so much, so being able to come in and do that as well … I love that I can provide that.”

Cap’s is a popular family-owned ice cream shop located in downtown Mount Prospect that can draw up to 500 to 600 families on a busy night,

especially during the summer when local families fock to grab scoops of their award winning ice cream. The store is open seasonally from March through November.

Cap’s will hit a major milestone this summer as they reach their 25th anniversary since opening. They have a big party planned on June 25 to celebrate this occasion that will include a concert in the park, giveaways and discounts.

The store was frst opened in June of 2001 by Jim and Meg Capannari and Ken and Katie Dix; Meg and Katie are sisters.

Katie and Ken’s daughter Meg Dix was sixyears-old when the shop opened and it has played a large role in her life since. She began helping out there at 12-years-old and became an employee when she turned 15.

After graduating from Prospect, Dix received a degree in Business Administration and Management from Golden West College and a Bachelor of Business Administration focused in Marketing from Concordia University Irvine. She then worked in the corporate world for a bit, but eventually decided to come back to Cap’s.

“I grew up in a small business family, and I was like, that’s the kind of lifestyle I want,” Dix said.

Cap’s was started by Mount Prospect families, for Mount Prospect families and was created with intention for the community.

park events, participate in the Mount Prospect Block Party and even have a “Pledge of allegiance day” where kids who say the Pledge of Allegiance get a free scoop of ice cream.

All of these functions bring people together and connect all diferent people from Mount Pros pect and neighboring towns.

“People just want a place that feels safe and allows them to hang out and meet other families that have kids around their age,” Dix said.

Many of the high school workers have fond memories of time spent at Cap’s when they were “I would go there a lot with my family and my sisters… when it was the [coolest] school event I would always go and my teachers would scoop for me,” Schmidt said. “I just remember it being so fun for me, I

Dix says that so many high school students are drawn to this job because it is a fun job where they are interacting with a ton of customers that are a part of the community.

“I think they like it the most because they have other high school students that they are working with,” Dix said. “They have a lot of responsibility over the runnings and I think it gives them a sense of pride just being able to have ownership over something that’s kind of a legacy in Mount Prospect.” It can also be appealing because of the fexibility that it provides for busy high school students who might have sports and activities that they are obligated to be at.

*According to a KnightMedia survey of 227 students

“[Families] were looking for a space to take the kids and hang out and meet other families that are around town,” Dix said. “That wasn’t something that was available in Mount Prospect at the time, and so they [decided to] start an ice cream store.”

According to Dix, the community rallied behind the new business in support of it when it opened and in turn it fourished, becoming a welcoming spot where everyone could come to connect with others and enjoy ice cream.

Considering the community is such a large part of the identity of Cap’s, the store is constantly connecting with them by hosting numerous events, including 65 events during the 2025 summer season. Some of these events

Not only are the young kids of the com munity in volved with Cap’s, but so are the high schoolers who take on jobs there. Currently there are 35 high school students working there along with 11 college stu dents. Throughout the history of the shop over 300 high schoolers have worked there, coming from schools like St. Viator, Rolling Meadows, Hersey and Elk Grove, and with the majority of their staf being Prospect students.

Each shift consists of a manager, two or three scoopers and a runner who is there to help with tasks like washing dishes, restocking cones and keeping the store clean.

Junior Lucy Schmidt started working at Cap’s the summer after her freshman year. It was her frst job and she decided to apply because she saw job openings and thought that it sounded fun. According to Schmidt, the work environment is very welcoming, fun and everyone is very close.

“You can basically pick your own schedule, pick up whatever shifts you need,” Schmidt said.

There are not just benefts for the workers, Cap’s also benefts from some of the unique qualities of high school-

According to Dix, it is ideal for Cap’s to hire high school students because they have summers of and it’s a good job for younger people because it requires workers to be on their feet, moving a lot and talking with people.

“I was a little nervous [at frst] … because everyone likes to talk about how high school kids have attitudes and they don’t want to work, and that is not the case at all with our staf,” Dix said. “They are so hard working. They’re so nice to customers, they also just want to talk with me and have conversations.

While Dix says that it is nice to have the fagship store in Mount Prospect, she also acknowl-

Photo courtesy of Cap’s

Photo courtesy of Cap’s

In the spotlight without choice

TESSA

TRYLOVICH Managing Editor

An avid true crime watcher, sophomore Kaylin Tourtelot opened up Netfix and noticed a new docuseries that had just been released: “Bad Infuence: The Dark Side of Kidfuencing.” This three-part Netfix docuseries exposes the unsettling world of child infuencers by focusing on the rising popularity and controversies surrounding teen YouTuber Piper Rockelle and her content group known as “The Squad.”

The docuseries, which premiered on April 9, investigates the allegations of exploitation and abuse within the group, particularly involving Rockelle’s mother and manager, Tifany Smith, and Smith’s partner, Hunter Hill.

Rockelle launched her YouTube channel in 2016 when she was just nine years old. She currently has 12.1 million subscribers on YouTube, 15.4 million followers on TikTok and 6.3 million followers on Instagram.

When Tourtelot was younger, she often watched diferent family channels on YouTube. However, she recalls that when she reached middle school, she started noticing how wrong it was that parents were posting so much about their children.

“I was shocked that all this [abuse] was happening behind the scenes,” Tourtelot said.

The docuseries sheds light on how child infuencers often don’t have the legal protections they need. It explores how parents can end up acting more like managers, which can blur the line between looking out for their child and chasing internet fame. It raises important questions about the ethics of making money of children’s online presence, and how easily that can lead to exploitation.

In January 2022, 11 former members of “The Squad” fled a $22 million lawsuit against Rock-

BEHIND THE LENS: A kidfuencer forcing a smile in front of the camera, her mom behind the scenes pressuring her. (Photo illustration by Ella Kuhlman)

elle and Smith. The infuencers, aged 10 to 16, claimed that Smith created an abusive environment involving emotional, physical and sexual misconduct, as well as exploitation and punishments for perceived wrongdoings. They also claimed they were not properly compensated for their work on Rockelle’s YouTube channel, which featured skits, pranks and challenges, according to People Magazine.

The lawsuit was settled in October 2024 for $1.85 million with no admission of wrongdoing from Smith or Hill. Smith denied all the allega-

tions and fled a $30 million countersuit against the infuencers’ mothers.

The case brought attention to the lack of regulation in the child infuencer industry. At the height of her career, Piper was reportedly making as much as $690,000 per month. Following the lawsuit and surrounding allegations, YouTube demonetized Rockelle’s channel, leading to signifcant fnancial losses. She sufered a monthly revenue loss of approximately $300,000 to $500,000, according to Court Records.

Despite the controversy, as of May, Rockelle remains active on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. She and her mother have publicly denied the allegations about the sexual and verbal abuse. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Rockelle opens up about her deep frustration with the allegations made in the docuseries. According to Rockelle, there has been a plentiful amount of anonymous calls made to Child Protective Services, hurting her mother in the process.

“That’s something I have to worry about is people coming and trying to take away my mother because they always envied my mom and I’s relationship,” Rockelle said.

Although there are certain state laws in the United States designed to protect the fnancial interests of children appearing in family vlogging content, these protections were not always in place.

It is an updated version of the Coogan Law that now supports child infuencers along with child actors. The law states that the children are now required to receive 15% of their income into a trust fund that is released when they turn 18, but that doesn’t stop all the parents from continuing to post about them.

Psychology teacher Katherine Miles, who covers human development in her classes, explains how early experience shapes personality and behavior. She mentioned how there are a lot of theories that identity stems from the environment in which one lives as a child. If someone is constantly being flmed when they are younger, it will impact their behavior throughout their life.

tioning — learning through rewards and consequences — can lead to attention-seeking tendencies and long-term emotional harm.

“You can defnitely see in real time what psychological efects will happen for these kids down the road,” Miles said.

In the aforementioned interview, Rockelle opened up about how she felt that a lot of the former Squad members were using her for views.

“It was a competition like, ‘Who’s going to be Piper’s best friend? Who’s going to be Piper’s boyfriend?’ It made this stigma in my brain that everybody that’s ever nice to me is just trying to get close to me to have me be in their videos,” Rockelle said.

Even though Rockelle’s videos are often geared towards a younger audience, much of her content has been criticized for oversexualization.

“People defnitely have not let me grow up,” Rockelle said in the interview. “But I guess what I have to say is, if you’re looking at it in a sexual way, why are you looking at it in a sexual way?”

Rockelle and “The Squad” frequently made videos centered around “crush culture,” much of which was orchestrated behind the scenes by Smith and Hill. Hill, who often uploaded the videos and managed the group’s YouTube accounts, would intentionally use keywords such as “crush,” “crush reveal” and “kiss” in titles and descriptions to maximize engagement through YouTube’s algorithm.

Cambria Myers teaches a Media Analysis class that discusses algorithm usage in the curriculum.

“The fact that [members of ‘The Squad’] have got millions of followers ... making sure [they] include the word ‘crush’ in there, all of that fts with the platform design and where they make their money,” Myers said. “The longer you stay there, the more money they make.”

According to the docuseries, Smith often put Rockelle and “The Squad” in these awkward and uncomfortable situations to drive engagement. Former Squad members have since spoken out, saying they didn’t necessarily want to participate in the videos, but believed it was normal and that they had to “do their job.”

“At any age, people know what makes them comfortable,” Miles said. “Young kids may not have the exact wording, but they can absolutely show when they’re not comfortable.”

Miles believes that with the kind of childhood Rockelle had, the psychological efects could be signifcant. She highlighted the impact being a child infuencer has on identity development, noting the insecurity and the pressure to constantly perform. She also discussed the normalization of being flmed, the infuence of social media comments and the potential long-term efects on trust and relationships.

“Those formative years from three to about eight help form who you are when you’re a young adolescent,” Miles said. “If you’re constantly around social media or on camera, that’s going to develop your brain in a certain way.”

Miles also emphasized that many children don’t fully understand the consequences of the engagement they receive online.

“[Children often get the idea that] ‘if I act a certain way, it’s going to give me this result,’” Miles said. “Whether that result is [truly] positive, or positive in the sense that it gets [them] the views.”

Miles also pointed out how operant condi-

“Kids who experience their environment in an unhealthy way are going to absolutely [be led] down the road [of] not being able to form relationships and really struggle with that,” Miles said.

Over the years, Rockelle has had multiple “boyfriends” featured in her videos — boys who were often recruited by Smith to create new content. As a result, Miles believes Rockelle could potentially struggle to form genuine relationships, since many of her peers were “hired” to be part of her life for the sake of content creation.

When Squad members spoke up about their treatment, they were often “kicked out” and replaced with new faces, continuing a toxic cycle. On top of that, since Hill had access to their accounts, which he would often post them on numerous porn sites to skew the algorithm, making it difcult for these creators to continue their careers after leaving “The Squad,” according to the docuseries.

“I think any time that parents are trying to make money of of their kids’ behaviors, it’s toxic,” Myers said. “[A child] doesn’t have the ability to consent ... because they don’t have the brain capacity to make those decisions.”

In Myers’ Media Analysis class, students read “Stolen Focus” by Johan Hari, a book that discusses the normalization of sharing highlights on social media. Myers uses this book to helps bring awareness to what kids might be consuming as well as posting. Myers wants everyone to be aware of what they are consuming and how it afects them.

“Even if something is for entertainment, you still have to ask yourself, ‘Is this adding value to my life?’” Myers said.

‘Meme movies’ motivate mayhem

“W

e come to this place … for magic.” Or, at least that’s what senior Will Sieroslawksi thought he was getting when he went to see “A Minecraft Movie.”

Sieroslawski went into his screening with an open mind, ready to play into the fick’s silliness in the comfort of sophisticated AMC theaters. He sat through “Minecraft” with his friends and a theater full of the movie’s “target demographic”: him and people younger than him.

Coinciding with recent trends seen in other “Minecraft” showings, the atmosphere was chaotic. Audiences quoting the movie’s lines turned into yelling at the screen, which then evolved into throwing the overpriced theater food at everyone and everything.

The rowdiness came to its climax near the flm’s end when a juvenile moviegoer perched behind Sieroslawski’s group, lobbed a half-full popcorn bucket at his friend’s head, and bolted to escape from the scene. Sieroslawski, bearing witness to the assault, ran after the kid, caught up to him, and dragged the perp back to his victim so they could apologize face-to-face.

Coincidentally, a mere two doors down, I was having a similar experience with “Minecraft,” as some school’s entire football team partied so hard it nearly made me, Lucas J. DeLuca, do something I would never dream of doing: walk out of a movie theater.

People like Sierolawski and I come to the theater for magic, but said movie magic is being marbled by mayhem. This isn’t what Nicole Kidman wanted.

Movie theaters have been plagued by bad theater etiquette for a while. Unfortunately, this onslaught is back with more than just the usual talking and phone use: it’s back with popcorn-chucking, mess-making and confetti cannon-popping. But even the craziest of situations have reasons behind their happenings. In the case of this particular theater etiquette downward spiral, the reason is memes.

“Meme movies” – a term used to classify movies like “Minecraft,” “Morbius” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” – have surged in popularity post-COVID-19. They grip their humor-hungry audience with their “so bad, it’s good” quality that leaves their brains fried but their dopamine receptors on the fritz.

“Both [good and bad movies] have their purpose,” Sieroslawski said. “But seeing a ‘bad’ or ‘unserious’ movie gives me an opportunity to laugh. [I don’t] have to think too hard.”

TOSSED: A slice of the messy aftermath of the many “A Minecraft Movie” screenings. 43% of Prospect students say they’ve had bad theater experiences due to terrible movie etiquette, according to a KnightMedia survey of 283 students. (photo by Lucas DeLuca)

ions.” The only problem is that, as the “we did ___ when Gru said ___” posts got more and more popular, the content of these videos got increasingly outlandish as people tried to one-up each other’s disruptions in the theater. The one-upping got so bad that Regal Cinemas across the U.S. banned anybody dressed in formal get-ups from their theaters.

And now the same thing is happening with the “Minecraft” movie, only this go-around it’s about three times worse. I’m talking about “bringing an actual chicken into the ‘chicken jockey’ scene” bad. It’s only gonna get worse from here, folks.

But the big question my cinematic brethren are asking is not about what this means for the future of the “Gentleminions” or the “chicken jockey.” We want to know what’s going to happen to movie theaters. What will happen to the industry now that its structural integrity is being threatened by the “meme movie?”

Simple: a slow, sloppy death. They say it’s peaceful.

half-full popcorn bucket thrown at your noggin).

Plus, post-COVID-19, most people don’t see a need for movie theaters. Not only are they expensive, but people already have every movie they could ever want on their endless streaming service catalogues, and can goof of in the com fort of their own home.

Even if these hordes of teens are bringing lots of money to the recoup ing theater industry, the revenue will do nothing but fund more of these cash cows and create more problems than there were before (see “Meme Movie Money Mak ers”).

I will (begrudgingly) admit that Sieroslawski is right. Going to “bad” movies in theaters to assimilate into the hilarity can qualify as an evening of “fun” with the bros. But when the night of fun for you turns into a night of annoyance for other audience members, where do we draw the line? Where does morality stop, and where does insanity begin?

“Minions: The Rise of Gru,” widely considered to be the start of this meme movie assimilation trend, brought hordes of males to the theater dressed in suits dubbed the “Gentlemin-

“A Minecraft Movie 2” was ofcially greenlit less than 24 hours after the frst one hit screens, which just reafrmed Hollywood’s stance on bad theater etiquette: they don’t care. It’s not their business to. Why should they care about their movies’ efects on etiquette when they’re getting paid for their ignorance?

Corporations can insert their “be respectful, please!” cards before the trailers all they want. Still, they know that these movies are making money because of the theater experience people get with their overpriced cinema ticket (by “theater experience,” I mean the pleasure of having a

takeover of theater space, general audiences love ironic watches like “A Minecraft Movie,” even if their harrowing theater experience recounts suggest otherwise.

“Minecraft” director Jared Hess thinks that having a blast in the theater is more important than sticking to conduct while you’re there.

“It’s hilarious,” Hess told Entertainment Weekly, “I’ve seen so many funny videos … when people are climbing on their friends’ shoulders and standing up and cheering for those moments … I’m just glad people are making memories with their friends and families.”

Because, really, what’s the point in going to the theater if you don’t get something out of it?

But what if these fun memories for you may be akin to shell shock for other audience members?

What then? Do we go to these movies at the cost of our sanity and pick it up at the door when we walk out?

Warner Bros. announced on April 28 their run of special “Block Party” screenings of the “Minecraft” movie, in which audience members will be “encouraged to sing, meme, and talk” along with what’s onscreen. It appears that studios are taking steps not to discourage the rowdiness but to contain it. They approve of the cash fow, so long as it’s far away from the hordes of angry moviegoers who say they don’t want to be disturbed.

But here’s my take on all this: just be cordial and do what the theaters tell you to do. It’s their building you’re watching the movie in, right?

I recite AMC’s pre-show bumper every time I go to see a movie with someone:

The Cycle of Cinematic Degradation™ (copyright Lu cas DeLuca) starts like this: More rowdy people in seats equals more money going to the movie. More money for the movie equals a ge nius studio plan to recapture that movie’s lightning with repeats of that movie’s for mula, which then gets more rowdy people in seats. This is the vicious cycle of thoughtless creativity that will food the market with movies so close in stature to each other that the truly original ideas will be rare, if at all possible to fnd.

Because they know it works, from this point forward, a lot more movies in theaters will be made solely for monetary gain by luring as many ironically exuberant theatergoers into their playplace, formerly known as AMC.

But some people are fne with that! Although flm critics like me are freaking out over the

“Silence is golden, and so is a distraction-free environment. Don’t text, don’t post, don’t talk. Because when phones are turned of and the lights are turned down, the movie really shines.” That reel plays before every single movie at AMC because every single one of their audiences is under their watchful eye, including the ones in meme movies. Etiquette doesn’t just disappear depending on the movie. The same code of conduct applies to screenings of “Minions” just as it does to “Oppenheimer.” Of course, there is a best of both worlds in terms of theater etiquette. If you do see a meme movie and the theater is feeling the ironic energy, you can join in … with caution. Practice non-destructive ironic excitement: don’t make a mess and don’t ruin any less ironically-enthusiastic audience members’ experiences. They didn’t pay to see you, they paid to see “Minecraft.”

We come to this place for magic, and we all have to play our parts to keep that magic alive. Pick up your trash, don’t create problems and don’t ruin the movie. Make Nicole Kidman proud.

Track & field season snapshots

Both the boys’ and girls’ track and feld teams have enjoyed successful seasons as they head into their fnal push toward state. They competed at their sectional meets after The Prospector went to press, so be sure to check ProspectorNow.com for full coverage of their postseason runs. (Photos by Cora Richer)

Check out a podcast about the work the girls’ team is putting in to defend their state title

Senior Sophie Fransen runs the 4x800 meter relay at the 2025 MidSuburban League Girls Conference.

Junior Frank Cox leads the open 1600 meter during the 57th Annual Wanner Knights’ Invitational.

Senior Pryncess Butler cries happy tears after completing the 2000 meter relay during the Prospect Girls Relays.

Sophmore Caden Moran after high jumping 6’0 at the 57th Annual Wanner Invatational.

Junior Ella Benassi high fves sprinter coach Ian Arms after the 4x800 meter relay.

Senior Antonio Galliano handing off to junior Jackson Parrish on the third leg of the 4x200 meter relay at the 57th Annual Wanner Invitational.

Amina Hadziahmetovic leaping over one of the last hurdles of the 100 meter high hurdles at Mid-Suburban League Girls Conference.

Girls’ water polo strives for growth

HENRY BUELOW

Executive Sports Editor

For most sports, training fve days a week for months straight is just what it takes to compete against similarly trained competition. The Prospect girls’ JV water polo team does exactly this; however, competition rarely seems to exist. Sometimes going weeks without having any games, the team continues to practice almost every day.

This lack of competition can be the result of a variety of factors at these other schools and programs, including a lack of funding, participation or the pull of a strong club team. While these factors afect teams from both inside and outside of our district, Prospect has been able to build teams that are able to compete every week. With 13 players needed to make a team, some schools fnd it difcult to even build a full varsity lineup. JV coach Claire Lutz believes that it can be hard to get into a sport that people know so little about, making it that much more difcult to recruit new players.

“I wish that we had a better community or district water polo club,” Lutz said. “I wish that more girls could come out for that and we could make that and grow that.”

This is a hope for the future, and Lutz is fully committed to making this dream come true. Recently, she has been working with Hersey’s head coach and others to provide a strong D214 girls water polo club that could help strengthen and support all schools in the district, and allow more to feld teams at multiple levels.

One change that the girls have had to take on is the new coaches this past season, with Lutz stepping in as the new JV coach. A new coach is always a change in game play and morale, a change that Junior GG Tidy believes might have been for the better.

Tidy spoke up about new changes to the coaching lineup that could allow players to have more opportunities. Previous coaches’ beliefs such as only allowing the “best of the best” to play would lead to groups of players being stuck on the bench, possibly limiting chances from goals being reached. While a change in leadership could’ve shifted the team negatively, Tidy believes that the switch in coaches brought the team closer together. She said that the team felt

TREADING: Senior Julia Rarau prepares to launch the ball from deep waters with power and precision, aiming towards the net during a Prospect Invitational on May 2. (photo by Violet Cantu)

more controlled and focused as players were able to get the encouragement and help they needed. However, even after a shift towards improvement, there have been limits and barriers stopping them from performing at their best. In total for JV, 4 out of their 17 games this season have been unplayable due to other schools not having a JV team, including Bufalo Grove, Elk Grove, Wheeling and Rolling Meadows. Without any games to play, the JV players are encouraged to spectate the varsity games. While this can build more unity and connections between JV and varsity, it can also wear down and discourage the players.

“It’s just hard to get [the players] motivated,” Lutz said. “We had a JV tournament about two weeks ago and we haven’t been able to play a JV game since, and I think it’s hard for the girls then to keep practicing knowing that there’s nothing left.”

Boy’s water polo tells a diferent side to the story. With only two games being canceled out of their whole season, they don’t have to sit and watch varsity compete. If a JV game is “canceled” due to a lack of another team, they will instead get another school’s team to fll in for them. Junior David Popowski believes that this small step forward has allowed them to consistently compete against other teams, without going weeks in between.

“JV games haven’t been canceled enough to where so many changes had to be made,” Popowski said. “Generally from the two that have been [changed], another team has to play.”

While diferences between boys’ and girls’ water polo vary, there is another issue that girls’ water polo needs to deal with - awareness. Tidy believes that there is much more to be done within Prospect in order to promote the sport. While most advertising has to be promoted by the teams themselves, girls’ water polo rarely makes appearances in the school’s morning announcements, fiers throughout the school and any social media posts made by Prospect. The team has promoted the sport through their own social media pages, yet they continue to fall behind compared to other spring sports. With water polo being seen as one of the fastest growing sports in America according to data from the National Federation of High School Associations, many hope for more participation in the sport before the new era of junior varsity players arrives.

HIRING HIRING SUMMER

“I feel like there would be a lot more attention towards polo if anything at all was being done to get attention,” Tidy said. “We’re kind of just like our own little team of in our own bubble.”

SPORTS

Photos from the Prospect vs Hersey boys' varsity lacrosse game on April 24

Seniors help shape team culture

KADEN CHUNG

Social Media Director

As boys' volleyball spikes their way through the season, they have already surpassed their 2024 record of 22-15 as they are currently 24- 7, as of May 13. They are building on a legacy of strong traditions that have kept the team united and focused.

With a major coaching transition coming at the end of this season — varsity head coach Mike Riedy retiring and JV coach Peter King taking over — the players are determined to end this season strong, paving their place in the program before the team enters a new chapter next season. Riedy has left a lasting impact on the program while also obtaining his 600 career win on May 2.

According to Riedy, seniors and twins, Ryan and Luke Cook have been a huge contribution to the boys’ volleyball program. Ryan has been on varsity for four years and Luke for three. Both were named all-conference last year.

“It’s defnitely special that we're leaving at the same time as [Riedy].

I'm glad that we’re the team that gets to be his last season so I just think it's very special that we're all in this together at the end,” Ryan said.

Volleyball takes a lot of practice especially in the of season, just like any sport, but what makes it unique is the amount of game knowledge players gain from club season.

“Playing club in the ofseason allows us to compete at a high level while just getting extra touches on the ball. The competition in club is usually at a higher level than high school, so playing against better teams also helps build your skills,” Ryan said.

The team has been able to work with each other to make sure everyone is doing their part. The Cook brothers try to help the underclassmen by being role models for the team since they have three freshmen and one sophomore on varsity.

“We have been working with them all season and helping them adjust to the speed of the varsity level,” Ryan said. “We hope that they continue to develop and look back positively on their experiences as our teammates.”

What makes volleyball unique is the amount of people who picked up the sport as a second option or just trying it out in general. According to

Sportico.com, youth and high school volleyball participation has been steadily increasing, with boys' volleyball experiencing a 40% increase since 2017, making it the fastest-growing high school sport.

“Volleyball itself has grown so much in 20 years because it’s still a fairly new sport when you compare it to girls’ volleyball or basketball and by having the exposure in club volleyball, the exposure on television, the exposure on the Olympics, the sport continues to grow and explode because it’s now a sport people want to get in touch with,” King said. “Today, we see 10-15 players playing club; that impact has made Prospect volleyball more competitive, not only in our conference, but across the suburbs. Playing club is becoming more and more the norm.”

Junior Rique Huezo has been on varsity for one year but feels as the varsity team this year has the mindset of being winners. Their record shows that they can do great things as long as they work hard and as a team.

Since volleyball is such a fast sport, it’s very important to always be focused. The court is so jam packed with six people on each side, unlike soccer which Huezo also plays. He believes volleyball is a way faster sport because of the fast ball speed. Huezo thinks the team has been able to fx the slacking of from last season.

“The team is defnitely performing well so far this year,” Huezo said. “We have the ability to do great things this year and I believe if we just keep working hard we can go to state. People actually want to win and I feel like last season people were just kind of messing around too much, but this season we’re all focused and want to win.”

Since King helps out with varsity games, he’s been able to evaluate the team and has already made the comparison that they're doing much better this season.

“[Varsity is] competing at a high level because there's a lot of deep talent on that team,” King said.

Luke believes the team has the potential to achieve great things, thanks to the abundance of talent within the group such as the seniors Jack Fitzgerald, Luke, Ryan and Bartosz Czerwiec. He touches on how this season feels diferent from last, as they no longer have to rely on other teams' losses to secure a

conference title .

“This time around in conference last year we were really struggling to fnd a way and to be able to win the conference,” Ryan said. “We had to have other teams lose for us to be able to sneak into frst place, which we didn’t last year but this year we're undefeated in conference as of May 8, so it's really in our hands [and] we're in a much better place.”

Since volleyball is so dependent on team chemistry, the program has

started a new tradition of listening to rock. This new tradition is meant to hype them up, since the team is doing so well the rock songs keep piling up more and more. The team has also played laser tag every year. It’s a great way for them to build the team chemistry they need especially when it’s the start of the season.

“Every year we do some team [bonding] games like laser tag and it’s a really fun game because we're still working as a team just in a diferent

way,” Huezo said. “Rock has been able to pump [my team an I] up every game and it’s sort of an adrenaline rush in me because we are all feeling the music.”

Pizza is a fan favorite for most, so Riedy and King have made it a tradition to throw pizza parties for the entire team — freshman, JV, and varsity — whenever the program manages to sweep the other opposing program. It’s not just a celebratory gesture; they view it as a well-deserved reward for the players’ hard work, dedication and commitment they’ve shown to the sport and the program as a whole. The pizza parties not only act as a fun way to bond as a team but also serve as a reminder that all the efort they put in doesn’t go unnoticed such as training, practice, and competition.

“We've swept fve times so far, and the program buys pizza for everyone,” King said.

Another tradition that has made everyone connect more as a group is the Jack Gavin Tournament. Luke praises his love for that tournament that started in 2012, a JV tournament named after a student and athlete of Prospect volleyball who was killed in a car accident in 2011. Luke enjoys the tournament because he gets to make core memories even when they're not playing. It’s important to not only have a fun time running the tournament but also to remember why their JV squad is playing it.

“That tournament is so much fun to work and just watch. It's fun to cheer on the JV squad while also getting to know some of the freshman that you don’t really talk to as much because they have diferent practice times or their practicing on a diferent court, but it’s good to know I get to talk to someone I haven’t really connected with before,” Luke said.

As boys’ volleyball continues further into the season, it’s important to look upon all the memories they’ve made with their teammates. The laughter on bus rides and overcoming the hard fought challenges is something they will always think of, but also keeping in mind their coaches such as Riedy and King who’ve paved the way for high schoolers on setting a good example for their own standards.

“I’m really going to miss the moments with the team that we’ve made, even though the season is not over with, I still appreciate how volleyball has been like a second family to me,” Huezo said.

BOYS' TENNIS

As the boys' tennis team fnishes their conference meet, they look towards the sectional meet on May 23 and 24 at Glenbrook South high school. CHEck

COOKING: Senior Ryan Cook sets the ball during a scrimmage at practice. (Photo by Stella Palm)

SERVING: (From left to right) Senior Olivier Witek, junior David Colias, senior Daniel Zhang and junior Colin Hinchey take part in practice on Monday, May 12. (Photo by Jocelyn Kirshner)