Volume 110, Issue 14

Page 1

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper HUMOR

SCIENCE

Convalescent Plasma: A Potential Treatment for COVID-19 Science writer Sonya Sasson discusses the potential of convalescent plasma, which contains critical antibodies, to serve as a treatment against the coronavirus.

It’s MyTalos Now, Buddy Jasmine Wang provides a scathing critique of the new Talos interface and explains how to navigate through the new site for those who have been lost wandering in the old Talos.

see page 23

see page 18

Volume 110  No. 14

May 1, 2020

June Graduation Ceremony Cancelled for Seniors By LUCY BAO, LEXI CHEN, JENNY LIU, EVELYN MA, VEDAANT SHAH, and CHLOE TERESTCHENKO

Many seniors have expressed similar sentiments after losing most traditions and aspects of their last year at Stuyvesant, particularly their graduation. Due “[Three and a half] years of to the ongoing COVID-19 panStuy [are] filled with all-nighters, demic, the Parents’ Association moments where you just cry be- (PA) and the administration decause you can’t handle it, and a lot cided to cancel the graduation of work in hopes of spending your ceremony for seniors, which was lastsemesterwithyourbestfriends originally scheduled for June 23. The decision to cancel graduaand community before you part tionwasexpectedbymanyseways for college. Personniors given the crisis. “It ally, I’ve dreamed makes sense that about my we canceled highschool it in adprom and vance,” graduation Senior ever since I was a Caucus Cokid, and that bePresident Zeynep ing taken away Bromberg feels kind of said. like a void “ E v in my high eryone school exs o r t perience,” senior of has Khandaker Ridwan a good wrote in an e-mail sense that the world interview. “Given the Mand y Li/ [would not have] The circumstances, there’s Spec tator returned to nornot much I can say besides ‘yes, it’s fair, and I’d rather be safe and malcy by the time graduation sound.’ At the same time, I just continued on page 2 wish none of this had happened.”

stuyspec.com

DOE Announces Opt-In Grading Policy for This Semester

By MADDY ANDERSEN, TALIA KAHAN, ERIN LEE, and KAREN ZHANG

own individual grading systems. In the DOE’s press release, Chancellor Richard Carranza said, “Our adjustments to grading maintain clear expectations that acknowledge each individual student’s experience while creating a consistent, equitable system across all schools.” The DOE released a tentative plan on Friday, April 23 to student leaders and elected officials in which all high schools would use their original grading system, marking failing grades as “incomplete.” After receiving backlash, the DOE revised their policy to include the CR option in their final plan. SU President Vishwaa Sofat views the new policy as an improvement, though he also acknowledges that it is not perfect. “Compared to the original policy that we were invited to comment on on Friday, this one is certainly a much better policy. There are still issues. When you have an opt-in policy, that doesn’t take away the discrepancy or resources that are underlying and were the biggest

The Department of Education (DOE) announced an updated grading policy for the remainder of the school year on April 28. High schools will continue using their school’s current grading system. Students, however, will be given the option after the year ends to replace any of their grades from this spring term with a CR, which means that while students will receive credit for the course, the grade will not impact on their GPA. Additionally, teachers will issue “Course in Progress” (NX) in place of a failing grade, allowing students to complete said course by January 2021. The systems for elementary and middle schools are very different; elementary students will receive either a “Meets Standards” (MT) or “Needs Improvement” (N),whilemiddleschoolstudents will receive either MT, N, or NX. The DOE is not allowing schools to determine their

Slicing the Stuy Pie Chart: a Look Into Students’ Political Views

By ANGELA CAI

The Spectator distributed a political typology survey to better understand the Stuyvesant student body’s political alignment and beliefs on key topics such as race, climate change, welfare, and foreign aid. A total of 512 students responded: 141 seniors (27.5 percent), 130 juniors (25.4 percent), 122 sophomores (23.8 percent), and 199 freshmen (23.2 percent)—or roughly 16 percent of the entire student body. Here are their political stances:

At a school like Stuyvesant where a myriad of STEM clubs and classes are offered to students, the issue of gender disparity is a familiar one. The Undercurrents article “Where Are the Girls in Math Team?” written by junior Erin Lee in 2018 shined a scrutinizing spotlight on the lack of female representation in math team. Crediting some of the reasons to the abrasive behavior of boys in the classroom and girls feeling pressure to do well on competitions, the article featured a variety of girls’ experiences on the team— some negative, some positive.

Race should not be taken into account. Race should be considered among other factors. There should be a designated number of spots for minorities. Unsure / Other

75% 12.5% 6.5% 6% Democrat Republican Green Libertarian

Michael Hu / The Spectator

Despite the fact that 75 percent of students identify with the Democratic Party, around two thirds of the respondents believed that race should not be taken into account at all in college admissions. Such statistics may be the result of the fact that the Stuyvesant student body is 74 percent Asian; with the recent Harvard lawsuit and traditional images of the “model minority,” Asian students may believe they do not have the advantage that other minorities receive due to affirmative action and that the college admissions process holds them to a higher standard.

CORONAVIRUS CONTENT Still Alive! Celebrating Birthdays During Quarantine, p. 9 Elmhurst Hospital: the Unforgettable Epicenter, p. 13 Privacy During COVID-19, p. 14 It’s Okay if You’ve Done Nothing During Quarantine, p. 15 How Music Has Changed Quarantine, p. 22 What Your Quarantine Activity Says About You, p. 25 reasonspeoplewantedapass-fail policy in the first place,” he said. In a survey sent out about the students’ grading preferences—which received over 2,400 responses—80.5 percent said they would be okay with passfail, and 63 percent believed continued on page 2

“Where are the Girls in Math Team?”: An Update

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

To what extent should race play a role in college admissions?

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

Though the story was published over a year ago, the experiences of girls on math team continue to evolve, and not in a good way. “I was there when a group of non-senior boys on the senior team said that Erin’s article was ‘unreasonable’ after it was released last year,” senior and math team cocaptain Nancy Kaung said. “Instead of talking about the core issue of the article, they instead decided to point out every single minor error that they spotted just to discredit her article.” In spite of this, the coaches have tried to provide as much continued on page 10


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