7:50 8/12 3:15
MEET THE STAFF
EDITORIAL BOARD
REPORTERS
EVE PAI • KIM HUANG • STELLA PITZER
EMILY COLE • FARAH ARSHAD • GEMMA FERGUSON
LOUISE LAWHEAD • MIA FRIEDMAN • RUBA ELABIAD
ADDIE PHILLIPS • LYLA FURLONG • MAYRA ARSHAD
ARTISTS/PHOTOGRAPHERS
MARY ELIZABETH AUTRY • MARGARET FORE • JILLIAN DOBBINS
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS
ELLA TOWNSEND • BELLA CONNELL • CALLA HENTON
TABLE OF CONTENTS
editorial
IT’S TIME - page 3
opinion
5 TIPS TO WORK FASTER - page 4
THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT - page 5
news
LEARNING AT 2X SPEED - page 6-7
TIME TO LET GO - page 8-9
features
TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR EVERONE’S
FAVORITE TIME WASTER - page 10-11
WAKE UP! - page 12-15
A DAY IN THE LIFE - page 16-17
sports
RACING AGAINST THE CLOCK - page 18-19
games
ST. MARY’S FLASHBACK - page 20
WEBSITE INSTAGRAM
MISSION STATEMENT
Tatler is a student-run news publication dedicated to sharing school, local and national news with the St. Mary’s Upper School with integrity, honesty and accountability. We work to deliver unbiased and impartial information. For any questions related to our policies, please contact the email below.
CONTACT US
Connect with our Editor-in-Chief, Wallis Rogin, and the Tatler advisor, Margaret Robertson, at wrogin@stmarysmemphis.net and mrobertson@stmarysschool.org.
COVER ART BY TRACY ZHANG
WALLIS ROGIN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MC HITT MANAGING EDITOR
TRACY ZHANG ART EDITOR
LILY MIRZA STAFF EDITOR
WOLFKILL STAFF EDITOR
IT’S TIME
WE NEED TO START TALKING ABOUT WHEN OUR SCHOOL STARTS
EDITORIAL BOARD
Twenty years ago, St. Mary’s dramatically changed how we operate.
The 2005-06 school year was the first to see a schedule familiar to the one we live every day. Before that, St. Mary’s students’ days featured long chapel periods, fixed classes, no school-wide frees and an 8:15 a.m. start time.
In this system, rotating schedules didn’t exist. If a student had math first period, she had math first period for the entire school year. If she frequently had to leave school early for sports, she would always miss her last-period class. Students also had every class every single day, so they had to prepare for all of their classes every single night.
The worst part? ALAPPs and O periods were just some random letters with no meaning. There was no universal built-in free time for students during the day. The spare time that did exist for publications and clubs was after school on Wednesdays (interestingly, students got out of school at 2:15 p.m. back then).
Daily chapel was also longer and more involved than our current tradition.
Unsurprisingly, this did not work for students. Lee Avant, the former St. Mary’s registrar, remembers how the schedule before 2005 worked against them.
“Student stress was a huge issue,” she wrote. “Parents frequently complained that their daughters got little to no sleep.”
So, the school adjusted and adopted a new rotating schedule, one that solved many of these issues.
“A committee was formed and, with the aid of a consultant, we came up with [a new] schedule,” Avant wrote.
This shift is when ALAPP – which stands for advising, language, APs and publications – was introduced to dedicate time to those activities. They also created the biweekly O period, during which no classes are scheduled Overall, this schedule was a huge step in the right direction.
But there was a downside: students had to be in class by 7:50 a.m. instead of 8:15 a.m. This change is one that many students complain about to this day.
Over the years, slightly different versions have existed to meet the the needs of the community at that time, but the basics remained the same: 7:50 a.m. start, ALAPPs and O periods.
Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the changes made to keep students safe didn’t radically change those core elements.
Today, we live a schedule that closely
multiple studies that take another look at student sleep and health. In 2009, the National Institute of Health found that teenagers naturally tend to fall sleep later and wake up later because of their internal clocks. In 2017, they also determined that the ideal wake-up time for high school students is 8:00 a.m. In 2021, the CDC found an association between insufficient sleep and mental health.
mirrors the previous ones.
Each time the schedule was tweaked, it was in response to a community need.
But now, our community needs a bigger change.
This time it’s not just a small adjustment that changes the number of fixed periods or when O period is. Instead, we need a restructuring similar to the level of the 2005 scheduling shift, and the priority should be a later start time.
This time, the time needs time.
And here’s why. We know more now than we did then.
Since 2005, researchers have conducted
Since 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics’s official recommendation has been that “high schools should aim for a starting time of no earlier than 8:30 a.m.”
Today, start times are being discussed on a national level. Currently, 13 states have legislation pending to take a look at their schools’ start times and 10 states have passed laws that address student health and sleep.
St. Mary’s is in the minority when it comes to start times locally. Compared to our peer schools, we have the earliest start. Memphis University School starts at 8:20 a.m., Hutchison School, St. Agnes
Academy and St. George’s Independent School all start at 8:30 a.m. and Lausanne Collegiate School starts even later at 8:50 a.m.
It’s no surprise that our students are tired. Only 4% of students that responded to a survey Tatler conducted get the recommended amount of sleep, and 75% percent said they “only sometimes” or “rarely” feel rested at school.
A later start time should be part of the solution. Ninety-five percent of upper school students said that their ideal start time would be later than our current start.
Science says start later. Students say start later. To their credit, administrators are listening.
Albert Throckmorton, St. Mary’s head of school, has said he has a lot of questions about how to make a later start time work, including logistics relating to parent schedules, chapel, lunch, athletics and free periods. Administrators are starting to talk, and that’s good. But it’s not enough. The whole community needs to keep the conversation going to make real change. It is easy to continue to live with the current, outdated schedule and complain about being tired, but we should want more.
Each member of the St. Mary’s community, including students, faculty, staff, parents and administrators, need to keep talking about the benefits, obstacles, examples, solutions, history and science of school start times.
Let’s exhaust the subject.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Tatler welcomes letters to the editor from members of the St. Mary’s community in response to published stories or to the news of the day. Letters to the editor must be respectful, signed with an accurate full name and no longer than 300 words. Letters may be lightly edited for clarity.
WALLIS ROGIN I EDITOR -IN-CHIEF
St. Mary’s students’ school day starts at 7:50 a.m., but an 8:30 a.m. start would prioritize student health.
OPINION
Every second that passes is a second you’ll never get back. Parkinson’s law states that however much time you have to complete a task is how long it will take you. One way or another, work usually drags on to fill the time you have to complete it. Let’s say your teacher gives you 45 minutes to write a paragraph. Chances are, it’ll take you 45 minutes, more or less. But if your teacher only gives you 15 minutes, you’ll buckle down and get it done in 15. I know I’m not alone in finding this to be oh so true, especially when it comes to homework. I and other students will spend eight hours on a research paper that we could’ve crunched down to six; we’ll study for two extra days not because we need to, but because we can. Part of the reason why we do this is that we live in a culture where excessive effort is considered a virtue. Going the extra mile is great. But going the extra mile takes effort AND time, which is constantly running out. As students, one of the reasons time seems so scarce is that we tend to let assignments take up time we don’t have. If you feel like you need to work faster, but you aren’t sure how, here are five quick tips.
2
Work on whatever is due first, first. It can be tempting to get things done in order of ease, especially when you’re short on time. But it pays to work by the order of the deadline. You’ll thank yourself when you’re relaxing in bed the night before instead of cramming.
1
The simplest way to cut down on time is to set a timer and act like you HAVE to complete a set goal within that interval.
3
Setting goals is easy. Reaching them is hard. Many people crash and abandon their new goal when they start off too ambitiously. Instead, start small. If there’s a class you’d like to spend more time studying for, don’t begin by dedicating half an hour to it each night.
So much time and mental energy is spent overthinking. Should I go to the meeting tonight or stay home and get ready for the test? Should I take an extra AP class next year, or have an extra free? If you struggle with overthinking, if you feel torn between two options and if one thing isn’t obviously better, let fate decide for you! Flip a coin.
4 5
Especially when sitting down to do something you dread, giving yourself something to look forward to afterwards can create motivation that even the prospect of a good grade can’t. Promise yourself some free time to go for a walk outside, your favorite snack, or any other simple thing that makes you happy.
LILY MIRZA : STAFF EDITOR
RUBA ELABIAD : ILLUSTRATOR
LONG
QUICK HAIRSTYLES AND THE SHORT OF
Students either have a ton of free time, or so much work that they cannot get it all done. At Tatler, we know this all too well, and so we compiled a list of our favorite things to do in either situation. No matter if you have five minutes or five hours, a Tatler staffer has something to recommend to you. CALLA HENTON
FOR WHEN YOU’RE ON TIME
SHORT
QUICK BREAKFASTS
SLOW READS
Jillian Dobbins recommends a braid
Mary Elizabeth Autry recommends a simple ponytail
Emily Cole likes “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John
Lyla Furlong recommends a claw clip hairstyle
IT
Addison Phillips recommends a braided ponytail
Margaret Fore eats a blueberry bagel
Mayra Arshad likes to eat avocado toast with an egg
Zhang eats
Kim Huang eats yogurt with granola
Wallis Rogin likes “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis
Jillian Dobbins likes “Currents” by Tame Impala
Ruba Elabiad recommends “Wiped Out!” by The Neighborhood
Mia Friedman: “Onyx Storm”
Kim Huang: “Babel”
Margaret Fore: “The Hunger Games”
Mayra Arshad: “The Count of Monte Cristo”
LEARNING AT 2X SPEED
WE’RE ALL SPEEDING UP VIDEOS, BUT IS THERE A COST TO A FASTER PACE?
PAI I STAFF REPORTER
Sophomore Lauren Ehrhart speeds up videos for class to save time and even finds it helpful for understanding the content.
For Ehrhart, the faster pace not only keeps her attention in check, but also helps her manage her time both during and outside of school.
Junior Audrey Stifter is one of those students.
“I usually speed up audiobooks, because usually the audiobook people
she did not approve of her students watching her videos at 2x speed. She worried that speeding up material might result in a loss of understanding of the information.
Many students increase the playback speed on educational videos for class in order to save time.
IF I’M WITH THIS CONTENT FOR 3 MINUTES RATHER THAN 10 OR 15, DID I PROCESS IT THE SAME? I STRUGGLE TO BELIEVE THAT, AND I WONDER IF LEARNING IS AS DEEP [WHEN SPED UP].”
RAINEY SEGARS
ST. MARY’S CHAPLAIN
“If I’m with this content for 3 minutes rather than 10 or 15, did I process it the same?” she said. “I struggle to believe that, and I wonder if learning is as deep [when sped up].”
Despite this, she eventually conceded, allowing her students to watch at a quicker pace.
“[My students] claim, and they have told me and convinced me, that actually they do understand things better when it’s moving more quickly because that’s what they’re used to,” she said. “But that’s not how I grew up watching things.”
Her students may have a point. A 2022 UCLA study revealed that UCLA undergraduates watching videos at speeds up to 2x the original speed did about the same on multiple-choice question assessments as those watching them at their recorded speeds. However, students watching the videos at 2.5x speed did poorly on the assessments.
“Students can save time and learn more efficiently by watching prerecorded lectures at faster speeds if they use the time saved for additional studying, but they shouldn’t exceed double the normal playback speed,” Dillon Murphy, a doctoral student in psychology at UCLA, wrote.
Stifter knows about those limits firsthand.
“I feel like it’s probably not the best for me if it’s going super fast,” she said. “I don’t think that it would do me good to speed up videos I’m supposed to be taking notes on because sometimes I’m not paying attention when it speeds up so much.”
WHAT’S THE RUSH?
Following her students’ lead, even Segars has started to speed up some content, but only for videos she has little interest in.
“Because of the girls, I have just in the last year started to play things on 1.25[x speed],” she said. “So it’s like the one click, and that’s fast enough.”
But she said that she still cannot shake the feeling that while shifting to quicker speeds and shorter attention spans, we are leaving behind some of our best skills.
“I fear we are raising a generation of people who do not tolerate boredom and therefore don’t display the creativity and the self-regulation that being bored gives you. And it’s spidering out, it’s making us shorter-tempered, it’s making us more demanding,” she said.
According to a study conducted by Dr. Gloria Mark, a psychologist at the University of California Irvine, the average attention span on a screen went from 75 seconds in 2012 to 47 seconds in the last few years.
“[Forty seven seconds] seems to be the new normal because we seem to have reached a steady state over the last 5 or 6 years,” she wrote in her study. “I would argue [this change is] not a good thing.”
Noticing the effects of this change in herself, Ehrhart realizes how she has acclimated to a new normal in terms of speed.
I FEEL LIKE IT’S JUST HABIT TO SPEED UP EVERYTHING, RIGHT? EVEN IF IT DOESN’T NEED TO BE SPED UP.”
LAUREN EARHART
ST. MARY’S SOPHOMORE
“I feel like it’s just habit to speed up everything, right? Even if it doesn’t need to be sped up,” she said. “And then after a bit of the video, I’ll real ize, ‘oh wait, it doesn’t need to be sped up.’”
TIME TO LET GO SMS
COMMUNITY RESPONDS TO NEW PHONE POLICY
MAYRA ARSHAD STAFF REPORTER
The familiar chiming and ringing of phones will echo the upper school halls for the last time as this school year comes to a close.
On Feb. 13, Head of School Albert Throckmorton announced a new phone policy for the high school. While the logistics of the enforcement of the policy are yet to be determined, the new near-total cellphone ban met with plenty of controversy among students, faculty and even alumni over the past month since its announce-
ment.
Initial reactions from many students were negative.
“I think it’s actually just gonna create more drama,” freshman Eliza Frazer said. “People who actually need their phones in class or who need their phone for a project are just gonna be annoyed, and it’s not going to work out.”
Junior Ivy Carls, who uses her phone for planning her school day and checking her classes online, said she felt there were a lot of legitimate reasons
to get into contact, it’s just gonna be really annoying.”
Freshman Ellie Kate Edwards pointed out that laptops, a requirement for all high-school students at St. Mary’s, have most of the same functions as a phone, including potentially distracting social media.
“Snapchat is online, Instagram is online [and] you just go on TikTok on your laptop,” Edwards said. “So if they’re worried about productivity, we could still do that.”
Despite student concerns, schools across the country have already implemented restrictive phone policies.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that over 77% of public schools have policies prohibiting students from having their phone during class. Thirty-eight percent of public schools prohibit phone use during free periods, meal times and extracurricular activities. Fourteen states have passed laws in K-12 classrooms on cell phone usage, but only eight states have implemented policies and executive orders that ban or limit cell phones in classrooms.
St. Mary’s aluma Shea Quraishi (‘04), who is now an educator specializing in helping teachers support children’s social and emotional well being, believes a new phone policy is needed.
RESEARCH HAS SHOWN US FOR YEARS THAT CHILDREN AND TEENS WHO SPEND TOO MUCH TIME ON SCREENS AND ON SOCIAL MEDIA ARE LESS ABLE TO SELF REGULATE
SHEA QURAISHI
ST. MARY’S CLASS OF 2004
for students to have their phones during the day.
“I use it for planning and my Notes app, [and] my calendar is on my phone,” Carls said. “I text friends asking about homework and stuff, and it’s just gonna be harder to get that information if I only have a computer.”
Students also rely on their phones for contact with their family, making the phone ban inconvenient for students like sophomore Molly Ginn.
“I text my boyfriend or my grandma,” Ginn said. “Just basically needing
“Research has shown us for years that children and teens who spend too much time on screens and on social media are less able to self regulate,” she said. “They are less able to read facial expressions. They are more prone to anxiety and depression. They’re less able to focus their attention for long periods of time.”
According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), studies have found a link between mobile phone use and adverse effects on brain activity, reaction time and sleep patterns.
But enforcing the new phone policy
TRACY ZHANG: ART EDITOR
MARGARET FORE: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Yondr pouches are one of the options administrators are considering to restrict access to phones during the day under the new policy.
raises a different set of questions.
In years past, the high school has left phone restriction to the teachers, giving them phone boxes. Teachers instruct students to place their phones in a box placed out of reach, either at the beginning of class or as they see fit.
“
SOMETIMES, THERE’S SOMETHING I NEED TO TEXT MY MOM ABOUT IT’S NOT SOMETHING I WANT TO GO INTO THE OFFICE AND CALL AND SAY WITH EVERYBODY LISTENING.”
MIA GANDY ST. MARY’S EIGHTH-GRADER
The 2024-25 school year, the middle school moved to using phone lockers. Students are required to place their phones on a locked shelf in the morning and only allowed to collect them at the end of the day.
Phone lockers are a possibility for the high school next year, too, as are cell phone pouches like those from Yondr. With the pouches, at the beginning of the school day, students would be required to place their phone in an individual bag that is locked using a magnet. Students would only be able to unlock the bags at the end of the day.
Carls said she thinks loopholes in the policy may ensure its failure.
“How are you gonna know that people are actually putting their phones into the little bags?” she said. “How do you know that that’s their actual phone and not just like an extra phone from 2011?”
But in the Middle School, enforcement of the phone lockers has been surprisingly smooth. According to Head of Middle School Katherine House, reception of the policy was much less negative than expected.
“Students don’t seem to be complaining,” she said. “I’m sure they have, but I just I feel a little bit more peaceful.”
Eighth-grader Lucy Moore agreed.
“I think it’s worked pretty well to keep people from using their phones in between class,” she said. “I think a lot of people without the urge to go grab their phone are staying in their home rooms more and completing work.”
For eighth-grader Mia Gandy, however, the inability to access her phone publicizes preferably personal conversations with parents.
“Sometimes, there’s something I need to text my mom about it’s not something I want to go into the office and call and say with everybody listening,” Gandy said.
But House said she sees a significant upside. Phone lockers have decreased the number of students breaking the rules around phones and getting themselves in trouble.
“I’m not constantly hearing that a student’s been caught in their locker on their phone, which last year, it was just constant,” House said. “[In the past], they couldn’t go to the bathroom without checking their phone, which was against the rules. That then put them in a bad position.”
Sophomore Carmen McGhee said she hopes the ban may be similarly successful in the high school, encouraging students to be more responsible with the use of their free time.
“I feel like a lot of people use their time on their phone when they shouldn’t be,” McGhee said. “Then they get mad around the teachers because they’re underprepared for a test or something, and it’s really just like they’re not using their time wisely.”
McGhee also hopes that the policy could help friends work through conflict in a healthier manner. When students don’t have access to their phones, they aren’t able to distract themselves when something needs to be resolved.
IT’LL MAKE PEOPLE ACTUALLY HAVE A STRONGER CONNECTION WITH THEIR FRIENDS, AND WHEN A CONFLICT DOES HAPPEN I FEEL LIKE IT ONLY MAKES PEOPLE TALK.”
CARMEN MCGHEE ST. MARY’S SOPHOMORE
“It’ll make people actually have a stronger connection with their friends, and when a conflict does happen I feel like it only makes people talk,” she says. “It’s worse when they have their phone [because] they can ignore it.”
Sophomore Abigail Brown said she believes the policy won’t be that drastic a change and may even have positive effects on the school environment.
“It doesn’t really impact me that much. If anything, it would be kind of nice to have that disconnect.” Brown said. “I don’t think it’ll be as bad as everyone is thinking it will be.”
Teachers generally seem to hold positive attitudes towards the policy.
Sarah Kerst, Spanish teacher and Honor Council sponsor, said she believes a policy has the potential to improve both students’ and teachers’ experiences.
“I think it’s gonna do wonders for mental health around the school,” she said. “I think it’ll do wonders for productivity, and for actual relationship building with each other when you don’t have your phone.”
Kerst also thinks restricting phones will limit the accessibility of AI for use on assignments and therefore reduce the number of AI-related cases being sent to the Honor Council.
“We are finding right now that there’s too much temptation,” she said. “Kids are busy. Kids are stressed. Hopefully this will help take away that temptation. Phones are a distraction and maybe it will be helpful in the day-to-day to have more time in class without distraction to actually get that work done.”
For aluma Ashley Graflund (‘21), any potential positives are outweighed by her concerns about safety.
Graflund said she worries that if students are unable to use their phones, parents and students will not be able to receive critical infor mation during emergencies. She remembers an experience when she was a student and phones were essential during a school lockdown.
“It was a situation where no one really knew what was going on. We just knew we were in a lockdown,” she said.“I was the only one in the class with my phone on me, and I was passing my phone around to other girls for them to reach out to their parents because no one knew what was happening… It’s a safety issue. I would not have wanted to be there without a phone completely.”
Quraishi worries about a different
kind of safety.
“We’re putting phones, tablets and smart watches into the mix at a stage in life when girls are developing a sense of themselves and an understanding of the world, and here they are seeing a world that is altered by AI and by filters, but that’s not always disclosed, right?” she said. “And so everything looks perfect. This is going to affect a girl’s confidence.”
But for Grafland, a complete phone restriction is going too far and is counterproductive in aiding students’ in their own management of phone use.
“I think it puts kids into a situation where they don’t know how to regulate their phone use without someone taking it away from them,” she said.
The dispute over the upcoming phone policy is not likely to end soon, but all sides agree that the students’ best interests should be prioritized.
“It’s not black and white. I see both sides at the end of the day,” Quriashi said. “I think you kind of have to go with the science and what’s best for girls long term, not just what we want short term.”
TRACY ZHANG: ART EDITOR MARGARET FORE: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
FEATURES
TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR EVERYONE’S FAVORITE
TIME WASTER TIME WASTER TIME WASTER
Time runs fast on TikTok –maybe too fast. Hours slip away as we endlessly scroll, yet for 15 hours in January, time on the app stopped entirely.
At around 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 19, 2025, TikTok shut down due to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act – a ban that lasted just 15 hours.
For junior Jocelyn Oropeza, the pause exposed just how ingrained TikTok became in our lives.
“I kept clicking on [the app] out of muscle memory, which probably just shows how bad the addiction is,” she said.
She wasn’t alone.
The U.S. ban on the wildly popular short-form video app sent shockwaves through the country, forcing its
KIM HUANG I STAFF REPORTER
around 170 million American users into a pause. How long would it last?
Was this the moment to move to Instagram Reels? Or was it time to finally step away from social media?
Various timelines and dates have been thrown around over the past five years about when the app would
eventually leave U.S. phones. In 2020, President Donald Trump signed an executive order raising his concerns over TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and its ability to collect the data of its users, bringing this topic into the spotlight. Four years later, President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act into law on March 14, 2024. The law, making it illegal for “foreign adversary controlled” apps to be maintained or distributed, was set to officially ban TikTok on Jan. 19, 2025. However, the ban was short-lived.
On Jan. 20, newly inaugurated President Trump signed another executive order, this time offering TikTok users 75 more days on the app as he calls for TikTok to be taken over by a
joint venture with its current Chinese owners and new U.S. owners, allowing TikTok to remain available to its U.S. users.
As of April 4, President Trump announced another extension to delay the ban by 75 more days.
With yet more weeks added to the countdown, the future of TikTok remains uncertain.
Sophomore Louise Cole isn’t holding her breath. She said she believes users’ time on the app should have been fully cut off after Jan. 19 because of TikTok’s negative impact on health.
“I think that [TikTok] should be banned mainly because people’s time [spent] on social media has been… significantly worse over the years,” Cole said. “People should be more focused on the world, not their phones. People
The popular entertainment app, TikTok, captures the attention of many students, but politics mean its days may be numbered.
RUBA ELABIAD: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER TRACY ZHANG: ART EDITOR
are so addicted to TikTok by this point that some people can’t even, it’s hard for them to get out in the morning, and that it’s kind of like an addiction for them. And I definitely think that addiction needs to be stopped.”
I
THINK THAT [TIKTOK] SHOULD BE BANNED MAINLY BECAUSE PEOPLE’S TIME [SPENT] ON SOCIAL MEDIA HAS BEEN… SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE OVER THE YEARS. PEOPLE SHOULD BE MORE FOCUSED ON THE WORLD, NOT THEIR PHONES.”
COLE ST. MARY’S SOPHOMORE
Senior Claudia Ribeiro also said that a permanent ban could help improve people’s lives.
“I think the ban could encourage people to spend less time on social media and therefore help with their mental health and sleep,” Ribeiro said.
Experts have been sounding the alarm as social media continues to capture the attention of a world increasingly reliant on technology. Dr. Daria Kuss and Dr. Mark Griffiths, in a 2011 study, emphasize people’s tendency to become addicted to their online activities, especially on social media.
“On the Internet, people engage in a variety of activities, some of which may potentially be addictive,” Kuss and Griffiths wrote. “Rather than becoming addicted to the medium per se, some users may develop an addiction to specific activities they carry out online.”
According to California State University, around 10% of all Americans suffer from social media addiction, with young adults, aged 16-24, averaging more than seven hours of screen time daily. This excessive use of social media has been shown to cause anxiety and depression, affecting mental health and performance in the classroom and in relationships.
Sophomore Gracie Nastasi said many people are aware of social media addiction, but do not know how to
FEATURES
shift their behaviors.
“I think that we do realize [the severity of our addiction]... but we don’t know how to [address] it,” Nastasi said. “It’s genuinely [in] so much of our lives, and we just don’t know how to stop.”
Because the scrolling feature of TikTok is designed to be seamless, Natasi said it can be hard to notice time passing, which makes it more addictive.
“I think I watch like, five TikToks, and then I look at the time, it’s been 45 minutes, and then it’s just like, wow,” she said. “I think [older generations] lived in the moment a lot more than we do, and now our living in the moment is within like 15 seconds of a TikTok.”
Oropeza has noticed that a similar side effect of this dependence on TikTok is that she can’t sit through movies or TV shows without another distraction.
“Watching a Netflix show is kind of painful,” Oropeza said. “Anytime there’s a slow part, I get out TikTok, start watching brain rot and watching two things at the same time. My attention span is really bad.”
Since TikTok is actively used by over 40% of the U.S. population, a break from the app has the potential to eliminate one source of increasing poor mental health.
According to a Tatler survey, around 70% of St. Mary’s upper school students use TikTok and spend an average of two or more hours on the app every day.
However, around 60% of St. Mary’s high schoolers believe TikTok should not be banned.
“
I DON’T THINK IT SHOULD BE THE GOVERNMENT’S JOB TO MANAGE WHAT WE DO WITH OUR TIME-ESPECIALLY ONLINE.”
HARPER PRESCOTT ST. MARY’S SOPHOMORE
Sophomore Harper Prescott said that although she believes social media use is detrimental to mental health, it should ultimately be the user’s decision where to spend their time.
“I don’t think it should be the government’s job to manage what we do with our time, especially online,” Prescott said.
For herself, she schedules her own kind of break from the app.
“My general rule for myself is to try and have an hour from when I get home, between getting home and starting my actual work of just not being on any screen, just to kind of detox,” she said, “and then trying to do a good solid two or three hours of just my work before doing anything else. Because if you get sucked into it, the algorithm is designed to kind of get your attention pretty firmly caught.”
As the clock ticks toward the end of this next 75 day pause, conversations about mental health, freedom of speech and data security remain unresolved. For now, users keep scrolling, waiting as TikTok’s time runs out.
RELATED STORY TIKTOK
TAKES OVER
BY THE NUMBERS 170 170 170 students’ average amount of daily tiktok usage 70% 70% 70% 60% 2 HOURS 60% 60% 2 HOURS 2 HOURS 10% 10% 10%
million users in the u.s. of upper school students use tiktok of upper school students oppose the tiktok ban of americans suffer from social media addiction
LOUISE
WALLIS ROGIN I EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
The math is tricky. The school day at St. Mary’s upper school starts at 7:50 a.m. To get to school at 7:45 a.m., a student with a 15-minute commute needs to leave their house at 7:30 a.m. To make that departure time, they need to wake up at 7:00 a.m and get ready in 30 minutes. To get the recommended nine hours of sleep, they have to go to bed at 10:00 p.m.
The problem? Teenage circadian rhythms make it difficult for them to fall asleep before 11:00 p.m.
WHY YOU’RE SLEEPY
It isn’t easy for St. Mary’s students to get a good night’s sleep. Sophomore Hannah Loden encounters this struggle daily, regularly going to bed between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m.
“On school nights I probably get five hours [of sleep],” she said. “Maybe five hours, that’s good for me. On weekends, I’d say maybe eight to 10 hours.”
Getting out of bed in the morning proves hard for Loden because of her early wake-up time of 6:00 a.m.
“I set multiple alarms,” she said. “When I set my alarms, I set a timer, and so I usually end up hitting snooze like five
times. There’s probably five to six alarms, and they’re all five to 10 minutes apart. I actually usually get out of my bed at 6:30 in the morning, and then I rush to get everything done because I’m tired. It [takes] me so long to actually make myself get out of the bed.”
It is normal for teenagers to feel tired that early in the morning. According to the National Institute of Health, teenagers’ ideal wake up time is 8 a.m, but by that time, St. Mary’s students have already been in class for 10 minutes.
Unfortunately, the type of sleep that is potentially cut short in the morning is some of the most necessary for learning, according to Phyllis Payne, the implementation director at School Start Later, which encourages delayed starts.
“In the morning, the last sleep of the night that we get is the sleep that is most concentrated with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is when short-term memories are turned into long-term memories,” Payne said. “That’s basically the definition of learning. [REM] is also important for the repair of muscles and emotional response and sort of being able to be optimistic. There’s a lot of interconnected elements that happen during that portion of the night, and when you have to get up early for school, that last portion of
your sleep cycle is cut off.”
More sleep equals a better memory, an easier wake-up and better mental health. But homework, extracurricular activities and family responsibilities can pile up, making it more difficult to get to bed at an hour that would allow for a full night’s sleep.
FOUR TIMES A YEAR I’M INVOLVED IN A PRODUCTION, WHICH USUALLY TAKES UP LOTS OF MY TIME AFTER SCHOOL, ESPECIALLY DURING TECH WEEK...I END UP GETTING VERY LITTLE SLEEP BECAUSE OF THAT.”
HANNAH LODEN ST. MARY’S SOPHOMORE
For Loden, it’s theater that pushes back bedtime.
“I’m very involved in theater, and I work backstage,” Loden said. “So four times a year I’m involved in a production, which usually takes up lots of my time after
school, especially during tech week, which is the week right before a production starts. We’re usually at school until 8:00 p.m., and I end up getting very little sleep because of that.”
Those missed hours have consequences. Getting fewer than seven or eight hours of sleep per night can negatively affect physical and mental health, making it harder to complete daily tasks and perform well in academic environments. According to the CDC, people receiving inadequate sleep also have increased odds of frequent mental distress.
To complicate the issue, women on average need 11 more minutes of sleep than men, which may not seem dramatic, but it’s significant. Without adequate sleep, they’re at a higher risk of the negative impact of sleep deprivation.
These health effects are especially evident in teenagers. John Hopkins Medicine recommends at least nine hours of sleep per night for teens, but according to a survey Tatler conducted, only 4% of the 127 students who responded report regularly getting that amount. Forty-seven percent of students said they get seven to eight hours of sleep a night, and around 45% said they sleep for five to six hours.
Compared to the rest of the country, this is typical. Nationally, teenagers tend to get
WALLIS ROGIN : EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
St. Mary’s 7:50 a.m. start interferres with many students’ sleep schedules.
around seven hours per night. This low number, which is around two hours under the recommended amount, can’t be corrected by sleeping in on the weekend.
WHEN THEY START SCHOOL BEFORE YOUR BRAINS AND BODIES ARE READY TO BE AWAKE, IN EFFECT, THEY’RE SAYING IT’S OKAY, YOU CAN CATCH UP ON THE WEEKEND. SLEEP DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.
PHYLLIS PAYNE
IMPLEMENTATION DIRECTOR AT SCHOOL START LATER
“We don’t ask kids not to eat during the week because there’s not enough time for lunch and binge eat on the weekend to make up for it,” Payne said. “But when they start school before your brains and bodies are ready to be awake, in effect, they’re saying it’s okay, you can catch up on the weekend. Sleep doesn’t work that way. Our brains and bodies don’t work that way.”
Sleep functions on a 24-hour cycle. If 63 hours is the ideal amount of sleep students need per week, it has to be broken into seven days to feel effectively energized every day. Waiting until the weekend to make up the sleep deprivation caused by the school week is not an effective solution. Students receive sleep’s natural benefits only if they get the proper amount at the right time.
Just going to bed earlier, a frequent suggestion, poses problems as well.
“The hormones that make you feel
YOUR VIEW
HOW COULD YOU GET MORE SLEEP?
FEATURES
sleepy and able to stay asleep are released later in the adolescent body, and that means it’s harder for you to fall asleep early,” Payne said. “A lot of adults will say, ‘Well, just put them to bed earlier,’ but you can be in bed in the dark and not able to sleep.”
This is something Junior Leighton Visinsky knows not only from experience, but also from having studied adolescent sleep patterns in a psychology class.
“If I get my homework done at 8:00 [p.m.], I’m not going to bed at 8:30 because it’s just not how your body works,” she said. “If I was 7 years old and I got my homework done at 8:00, I’d probably go to bed at 8:30. But because of the change in your circadian rhythm, it’s just more natu ral to go to sleep later and wake up later.”
Unfortunately, many current school times are not based on what is natural for high schoolers.
START TIMES: PAST AND PRESENT
Schools didn’t always start this early. For most of the 20th century, high schools typically started around 9:00 a.m. Earlier start times emerged in the 70s and 80s when school districts tried to cut costs and reduce the number of buses on the roads by staggering starts.
cording to St. Mary’s Historian Patti Ray, classes started at 8:15 a.m. up until 2005.
“[In 2005], we created the schedule that included ALAPP [daily free periods] and a little more time in chapel,” she wrote in an email. “Basically, the same schedule that you have now. We moved the starting time to 7:50 [a.m.] in order to accommodate ALAPP and additional time in chapel.”
With its current schedule, St. Mary’s is in the 40% of high schools in the nation that now start before 8 a.m.. But across the country things are changing as more and more schools are letting students
been taken.
If it were to be signed into law, the shift to a later start could have significant payoffs. Research conducted at the University of Washington concluded that changing school start times to nearly an hour later resulted in an average of 34 minutes of extra sleep for students and improved their grades by 4.5% on average.
Locally, many private schools have already adopted later start times. Tatler surveyed the members of the Memphis Association of Independent Schools, to which St. Mary’s belongs, and of the 23
NUMBER OF HOURS
STUDENTS SLEEP PER NIGHT
According to a recent Tatler survey, most students do not get the recommended amount of sleep.
St. Mary’s start time didn’t change for this reason, but it also used to be later. Ac
WHAT COULD YOU CHANGE?
WHAT COULD THE SCHOOL CHANGE?
I need to probably be more productive or reduce the amount of things I have to do after school.
I
[I
I would need to live closer, have less homework and/or quit extracurriculars.
[The
I would probably need to go to be earlier than 11 and put my phone away an hour before I plan on going to sleep.
The school doesn’t really need to change, it’s my own personal doings that holds me from going to sleep at a good hour.
LILLIAN BERGERON
PARKER WELLS
EMMA JOHNSON
LAUREN WATSON
SOPHIE PATTERSON
FEATURES PAGE
Albert Throckmorton, St. Mary’s head of school, said he was surprised to hear that so many local private schools had later starts, but it’s an idea with a lot of support from the student body.
Ninety-five percent of students who responded to the Tatler survey said they would support a later start time. Around 47% of students said their ideal start time would be 8:30 a.m., and around 26% of students supported a start time even later than that.
OBSTACLES TO CHANGE
But starting later would require a substantial shift in the school schedule – a shift that could jeopardize how the current school day functions.
Throckmorton pointed out that there are many considerations that go into to structuring a school day and many more questions than answers at this point.
“There are trade offs,” he said. “There are trade offs, and there are a lot of questions, so all I can give you is categories of questions. There’s working parents, chapel and lunch. Does [a later start time] affect a rotating schedule, free time in the day and our ability to schedule all the after-school and athletic times? Those are questions we’re looking at as we’re looking at student health and sleep.”
He said that at the moment the administration is working on solving another
scheduling challenge by aligning the middle and high-school schedules, which are currently different.
“We’re trying to get the middle school and the upper school on compatible schedules, so that we can share teachers,” he said. “If we were to finally have achieved that, and then to change the upper-school schedule without the middle-school schedule, we might be solving one problem by creating another.”
THERE
It gets complicated. When we think about pushing back the school’s start time, we have to think about what that means for the end time.
A later start time does not necessarily have to mean a later end time, but if it did,
that would potentially complicate many after-school activities including sports, theater and other co-curriculars. If our end time stayed the same, free time during the day might need to be reallocated. ALAPPs — the daily 45-minute advisory periods dedicated to extra AP classes, publications, meetings and homework — and O periods — biweekly free periods — might need to be shifted or eliminated.
“We intentionally build everything into the school day,” Head of Upper School Lauren Rogers said. “So at many institutions that have abbreviated school days or move the school day later, that means that they’re having student clubs and organizations meet in the morning or meet after school. The schedule that we live at St. Mary’s is one where we have an O period for your organizations to meet. We have time built in for students to manage a lot of the external demands of their lives.”
Rogers points to this free time as first on the chopping block if there were to be a revamp of the schedule.
“I think the piece that is the most fluid in our upper-school schedule is the organizational time that we’ve built,” she said. “That is a place where things could potentially look different.”
A few students who responded to the survey suggested eliminating St. Mary’s daily 30-minute chapel service as a way to gain more time for sleep. However, Rogers was quick to say that the tradition is here to stay.
“St. Mary’s Episcopal School has always done one thing, and that is chapel, daily chapel,” she said. “That’s been a cornerstone of the school’s identity, a corner piece of who we are. I think when we talk about chapel and its role in the school day, that’s a pretty set firmament.”
If the conversation about a later start time were to happen, Throckmorton said he wants to research schools with similar traditions to preserve St. Mary’s culture.
“We need to look at schools that are dedicated to their chapel because I really want to support student health, but I also want to support our school culture,” he said. “I think our school culture is very much missionally tied to chapel.”
Visinsky isn’t eager to cut any free time during the school day, either.
“I’ve actually thought about this a lot, and I think there’s not necessarily something that the school would be happy with taking out,” she said. “I don’t think you can take out chapel, I think ALAPPs are important for clubs and AP’s. O periods are important just for a break in life.”
Parents’ schedules present another complication. With a later start time, parents would have to potentially accommodate a change in drop-off times, not an easy task for working families. Payne has encountered this problem before, but believes it can be overcome.
“Parent and adult schedules are always a complication that has to be figured out,” she said. “If your priority is adult convenience, then that’s one thing. But if your
priority is doing what’s good for kids, then [a later start time] is what you do. There ways to overcome that challenge. If there’s any opportunity to carpool with other students, [that’s a solution]. Some students [might] need to be dropped off at the time they’re being dropped off now, so ask is that possible? Could they have access to the cafeteria to eat breakfast, or the library to sit and do homework? A lot of other private schools start at 9:00 a.m., so there must be ways for parents to transport their kids.”
Throckmorton recognizes this possibility, but also acknowledges its complications.
“I mean, the bottom line here is, there is a way to [organize a] schedule,” Throckmorton said. “There’s probably a way… to schedule our day beginning at 8:30 a.m. and then we just have to say which trade offs are inconvenient, and are there any trade-offs that are are either non-negotiable or just add too many obstacles to either the teaching day or the operational day.”
ONE SCHOOL THAT MADE THE SWITCH
St. George’s Independent School, an Episcopal school in Collierville, Tenn., is one that made the shift to later start times while preserving free time and a time for chapel. In 2016, it introduced a
FEATURES
rotating block schedule that starts at 8:30 a.m. most days, ends at 3:15 p.m. and also includes a daily chapel period and an open period for clubs and meetings similar to ALAPP.
The biggest difference between their schedule and St. Mary’s is 70-minute classes compared to our 50-minute ones. Though at St. George’s classes meet only three times a week, students have 210 minutes in each class per week. In contrast, St. Mary’s students meet in each class for 200 minutes per week.
Though St. Mary’s students might balk at an extra 20 minutes in class, Emily Metz, an upper-school history teacher who used to teach at St. George’s, said the 70-minute classes have their own benefits.
“I do not think I ever actually taught bell-to-bell, 70 minutes straight of me lecturing,” she said. “Nor do I think many of my colleagues who also have taught in a 70-minute schedule taught the full 70 [minutes]. I never felt like, ‘oh my gosh, this class takes forever.’ It was more of an opportunity to be able to do multiple different things in one class period surrounding the same topic for all different kinds of learners.”
St. George’s schedule also includes a 50-minute lunch and a daily free period at the end of the day similar to ALAPP. However, unlike our schedule, St. George’s students do not have frees similar to O periods. But they do have that late start.
Sophomore Gracley Barnett, a former St. George’s student, can recall the positive
effects of her old school’s start time.
“[At] St George’s, I went to bed around the same time, but I didn’t have to wake up until 7:30 a.m.,” she said. “I got more sleep and then I wasn’t as tired for first period [at St. George’s]. I always feel like I’m really tired [at St. Mary’s].”
And she’s not the only one. According to our survey, 40% of students said they only sometimes feel well rested at school. Thirty-five percent said they rarely feel rested.
Payne said she thinks addressing the problem of student sleep should be an immediate priority for schools, even ones faced with scheduling challenges.
“In effect, [administrators are] telling you is that all of those other things are more important than your sleep, and that’s a poor position for an administration to stand on,” she said. “Student health, your mental health, your academic performance, your sports performance and your enjoyment of activities is all linked back to getting good effective sleep.”
WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW
she said. “Have a regular bedtime to set yourself up to let your body and your brain know its time to sleep.”
Finding out an ideal bedtime takes experimentation, but there are sleep calculators to help determine a bedtime and a wake-up time that will not cut off any sleep cycles.
Let’s Sleep!, an organization promoting healthy sleep, generated a database with information specifically catered to healthy sleep habits for students. They recommend against taking prolonged naps, hitting snooze in the morning and drinking caffeinated beverages too late in the day.
Rogers also recommended an additional method for prioritizing sleep – thinking ahead and planning a class schedule that takes sleep needs into account.
“When planning out academic schedules, students need to sit and think and reflect on the demands that [they’re] asking of [themselves], including rest and sleep,” she said.
St. Mary’s 7:50 a.m. start is early. That is certain. But it could be worse. Many public schools in Memphis, including our neighbor, White Station High School, start at 7:15 a.m. every single morning.
LouiseLawheadcontributedtothisstory.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
3 : 15 7 : 50p.m. a.m.
I
NATALEE OWENS (12th)
Extracurriculars: After-school job at Rotolo’s Craft and Crust in Collierville
Date: Feb. 20, 2025
“I don’t feel like my job stop[s] me from getting my schoolwork done because I bring it to work, and I do it there when it is slower. So I’m able to make my money, but also stay on top of my schoolwork too.”
3:15-3:45 p.m. Drove to work at a restaurant
3:45-5:30 p.m. Made sure tables were stocked and did homework in the kitchen
5:30-8:00 p.m. Worked as the restaurant picked up
8:00-8:30 p.m. Started closing the kitchen as the restaurant slowed down
8:30-9:00 p.m. Start other closing tasks
9:00-9:30 p.m. Restaurant officially closed
9:30-9:50 p.m. Left and drove home
9:50-10:15 p.m. Showered and did skincare
10:15-11:00 p.m. Ate dinner
11:00-midnight Finished homework and scrolled on phone
12:00-12:30 a.m. Went to bed
AMAL AHMED (10th)
Extracurriculars: No commitments in February
Date: Feb. 21, 2025
“[My schedule] gives me enough time to relax for a little while and then be productive when I need to [be]...I feel like I have a good amount [of free time], but it’s probably because I don’t do that many extracurriculars.”
3:20-4:00 p.m. Drove home
4:00-6:00 p.m. Showered, ate a snack, played on her phone, watched TV and read a book
6:00-8:00 p.m. Started her homework
8:00-9:00 p.m. Ate dinner
9:00-11:30 p.m. Completed her homework
11:30-midnight Did her nightly routine and skincare
12:00-1:00 a.m. Played on her phone and went to bed
LAUREN EHRHART (10th)
Extracurriculars: Drama
Date: Feb. 10, 2025
“There’s only 24 hours in the day. Yet, if I wanted to do everything I wanted to do, I would need at least 35 [hours]. It’s become such a regular cycle for me that I can run off of six hours of sleep. Is it healthy? Probably not. But can I do it? Yes.”
3:15-3:20 p.m. Got to the green room at the Buckman Performing and Fine Arts Center
3:20-3:45 p.m. Tried on costumes and chatted with castmates
3:45-7:00 p.m. Rehearsal for “The Drowsy Chaperone”
7:00-7:15 p.m. Drove home
7:15-7:40 p.m. Ate dinner
7:40-9:00 p.m. Started her homework
9:00-9:30 p.m. Played on her phone
9:30-10:30 p.m. Finished her homework
10:30-11:00 p.m. Showered and got ready for bed
11:00-11:15 p.m. Scrolled on her phone
11:15 p.m. Went to bed
FEATURES
SADIE DATTEL (11th)
Extracurriculars: Varsity basketball
Date: Feb. 10, 2025
“Our games are at 6:00 p.m. You think [that] you’d have time [to get homework done]. But you have to be ready [to warm up] at 5:00 p.m., which means if a game is far out, you have to leave at 4:30 p.m. and then you have to get dressed. So if you do the backtracking, then you don’t really have that much time to sit down and actually get stuff done. I feel like it’s hard to do stuff before games.”
3:35-4:10 p.m. Drove home, ate snack and chilled with dogs
4:10-4:40 p.m. Got ready for a basketball game
4:40-5:00 p.m. Drove to St. Agnes Academy for the game
5:00-6:00 p.m. Warmed up
6:00-7:30 p.m. Played in the basketball game
7:30-7:45 p.m. Drove home
7:45-8:55 p.m. Ate dinner, played on her phone and talked with her parents
8:55-9:30 p.m. Showered and got ready for bed
9:30-10:30 p.m. Completed her homework
10:30-11:15 p.m. Brushed her teeth, did skincare and listened to music
11:15 p.m. Went to bed
ELIZA FRAZER (9th)
Extracurriculars: Mock trial
Date: Feb. 13, 2025
“I like having mock trial because it’s something that I like doing. I can’t be doing homework during that time, so you can think of it as a bad thing, but I like it because it’s a mandatory break to do something that I enjoy.”
3:15-6:00 p.m. Went to mock trial practice
6:00-7:00 p.m. Drove home and rested
7:00-8:00 p.m. Ate dinner and talked with family
8:00-10:00 p.m. Completed her homework 10:00-11:30 p.m. Went to bed
RACING AGAINST
THE CLOCK
5K PERSONAL RECORD: 22:00 MIN
What is your personal relationship with the struggle to reach a new time?
“I wish I could just keep getting better. But usually that’s not the case. You might PR one time, and then you might get a slower time, and then you might do even better. So you want [your time] to keep getting lower every single meet. And that usually happens if you put in the work at practice and keep working. But sometimes it’s not what happens if you get a bad night of sleep, if you’re just really not feeling good, or if it’s a really, really hot day. You just have to have grace with yourself. Sometimes I get really disappointed if I don’t get the time that I put in my head for myself, but I have to realize, as long as I try my best, that’s all I can do. Like, you can’t control everything, you know.”
What would you say is the hardest part of trying to reach a PR?
“It’s like, the region meet or the state meet. You want a PR, but if it’s really sunny or really humid, then you might not PR. And I think that’s hard – focusing on what you can control but also what you can’t control. You can’t control the weather. You can’t control the humidity. You can control how much sleep you get. [You can control] if you’re eating and drinking enough. So like, I just try to focus on what I can control and that usually helps with my PR.”
What are some of your emotions surrounding reaching a new PR?
“I feel really proud after I run. It’s really hard. I’m really tired. I’m always out of breath. I’m always sore when I go to bed. It doesn’t sound fun, but I just feel like it’s this feeling of elation like, yay. I’m so happy. I did it. All the work I put in wasn’t for nothing, like it meant some thing.”
How do you handle when you just barely missed the mark on a new PR?
“I just kind of remind myself that I gave it all I had, and I put in so much work across this season, and it’s not just about my time, it’s about everyone’s times on the whole team. So if everyone did really good and I didn’t get the exact PR I wanted, it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme.”
CAYDEN KING ‘27
“Struggling to reach a new time is definitely hard, and it’s definitely not a fun thing to be doing, but having the people around me that I do have, makes it more fun to practice and work and strive to be better.”
WESLEY MAY ‘28
“The hardest is knowing that a millisecond is good, because sometimes you think [that] I need to get a second off, but it’s like knowing I got one millisecond off, even though it’s not the best out of here, I improved… It’s just so exciting [to reach a new PR]. It’s something to celebrate as a team. … Then you can just plan for the next race like ‘how can I beat this again?’.”
MEAGAN MILLER ‘26
TRACK & XC
“So I haven’t PR’ed in a few years, which I’m a little bit disappointed about, but I think as long as I just keep working as hard as I can at every practice and always striving to do better, I’ll be happy with that, even if my time doesn’t get lower.”
CLAIRE CHAUHAN ‘25
“Swimming the 50 free, which is an event where literally everything has to be perfect or I’m not going to [have the] best time. It’s definitely frustrating. I’ve cried, I’ve screamed, I’ve been mad, all the things, because I try so hard, and then I’m not getting [the] results that I want. But at the end of the day, if you’re doing all the things you want to do, then you never have goals to keep reaching.”
AUDREY STIFTER ‘26
“My previous best time had been from last year, and I didn’t get another best time until this January. So it’s kind of like you’re just waiting the whole year, like anticipating it. We don’t have that many meets so it’s a lot of anticipation. And so obviously it can be a little bit frustrating if that doesn’t go as planned, because you don’t have that many chances.”
ISABELLE BOYD ‘28
TRACK & XC SWIMMING
“Well, my best time was regions this year. And I think that every time that I ran, I got a little bit of a faster time, even if it was like three seconds. So then region was my best [time], and I think I was just really happy. Yeah, I’m proud of myself. It kind of became a thing where I was like, ‘Oh just like, keep running a little bit faster every time’. And it just felt good, because no one was putting that pressure on me. I was putting pressure on myself.”
MARY QUAY WILSON
SWIMMING
“I always compete with myself. I don’t compete with others. … It was either last year or two years ago, I was trying to get my 50 free under a minute, and it took months to get from like 101 [seconds], to 59 [seconds]. So it just took a lot of determination. I got a little frustrated, but I eventually got there, and now I’m under 50 [seconds].”
“It’s very exciting [to PR], because all the hard work you’ve put in is paying off. Swim is an individual sport, so everything is on you. If you do well, it’s all you. If you do bad, it’s all you. So getting a new personal record is just very exciting, because everything you’ve done is work paying off.”
I would just say it’s hard to push yourself to get better every time… At the beginning of the season, I didn’t think I’d really do that well, and then I ended up going to state.”
ST. MARY’S FLASHBACK
Place the events in order by drawing a line from the event to the date. We already placed one for you. Check your answers at stmarystatler.org
St. Mary’s Episcopal School reopens after a yellow fever outbreak in Memphis.
Mary Foote Pope founded St. Mary’s Episcopal School
St. Mary’s moves locations from Downtown Memphis to 60 Perkins Ext.
St. Mary’s first school newspaper, “The Bouquet,” is published
St. Mary’s celebrates their 175 year anniversary.
The first annual Spring Fest, then known as May Day, is celebrated
1847
1866
1873
1910 2022 1953