Mission Statement

restricts a large sense of our self expression and general style just for entering their classroom.

Rice, according to his own words, has no malicious motives or intentions when wearing any sort of head accessory, it’s how he expresses himself, and the school rule doesn’t allow him to do that. This tends to create more of a distrust between school faculty and students, seeing as how they could feel a bit restricted considering it’s a rule they don’t know the reason for. We think that it’s because situations like this make the rule a bit redundant.

Coal Hernadez ‘26 said, ”The hat rule has to be changed and is seen as disrespectful and seen as a distraction to teachers, but to a student can just be seen as a fashion piece, not even seen as that.”

Continued on. . . thecougarpress.org

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AVID fundraises for Syria and Turkey

According to World Vision, a global Christian relief and development agency, on Feb. 6, 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and a series of strong tremors and aftershocks devastated the southeast of Turkey near its border with Syria. Then again, on Feb. 20, southern

Turkey was hit with another 6.3 magnitude earthquake. The death toll from these earthquakes and aftershocks has surpassed 47,000 and continues to rise. Hundreds of thousands of people are left injured and displaced across Turkey. Reports from World Vision have indicated that over 47,000 buildings have been destroyed or damaged.

On Feb. 28, Ventura High School teacher Terri

To use purses or backpacks?

Withers-Schroeder and her period two AVID class decided to take action. They were devastated to hear about the events that occurred and found that it would be best for them to fundraise for Doctors Without Borders. According to the Doctors Without Borders website, they aim to bring humanitarian medical assistance to victims of conflict, natural disasters, epidemics and health care exclusion.

Lorena Alvarez ‘23, an AVID student, said, “The AVID program decided to fundraise with Doctors Without Borders. Before we agreed to collaborate with the organization, we did our research and assured our donations would go directly towards supporting earthquake victims.”

Doctors Without Borders is a non-profit organization that has been providing food, water and healthcare around the globe for the past fifty years. The organization takes donations in order to save lives and expand its care in crisis areas.

From approximately Feb. 24 to March 10, AVID went to all period two classes to ask for donations.

Withers-Schroeder said, “I have a student who’s

AVID’s QR code above is still active to send donations though the class no longer accepts cash donations. Graphic by: Kendall Garcia from Syria and I just literally watched her heartbreak when we were talking about the earthquake and just the overwhelming unfairness that that part of the world had to face. They’ve been hit so hard with so many things, they’re already having a refugee crisis, been in civil war and then these giant earthquakes like four really big ones but then lots of aftershocks too and we just felt so bad that we thought how can we do something.”

AVID made the fundraising a competition for all period two classes. The class that raised the most money won a breakfast party. The class that won the breakfast party was Cathy Solis’ special academic instruction class, room 86. Although AVID made the goal to raise $7,000, they are yet to hit this goal. The competition for period two classes is closed, but people can still donate online through AVID’s link. Withers-Schroeder said, “Because we decided to go with Doctors Without Borders our link is still active and you can still donate, you just can’t donate cash anymore. We would love it if people would continue to donate.”

Kids have brought backpacks to school with them since the late 1940s, are they still just as popular today? In a Time article “A Brief History of the Modern Backpack,” between the 1930s and 1960s, students began to carry canvas or leather bags that were singlestrapped, more commonly referred to now as purses. It has grown in popularity for students at VHS to use purses rather than carrying backpacks. Usually, the purse is carried with a binder or Chromebook in hand, or sometimes just all by itself. It leaves some speculation as to where the rest of their school supplies go and why they don’t just carry a backpack. How do they carry their things, and what is the appeal of using purses and shoulder bags?

Penelope De Soto ‘24 said, “I alternate notebooks and notepads based on my block periods, so I have a notebook for two four six [days] and then one three five [days].”

Since VHS has implemented the block schedule, lots of students don’t feel the need to carry all of their supplies every day, so they have a lighter load. Being able to carry only a few books for a few classes per day as opposed to six or seven classes a day gives students more liberty to choose how they’ll carry their things. People enjoy backpacks because of the diversity of their styles, colors and shapes. Purses offer the same amount of diversity and can be unique to each person that

Ruvalcaba has been using a purse for about two years. She said, “I just carry [my books] in my hands, you know?” Graphic by: Julian Martinez wears them too. Although at school they serve the same purpose, for school supply storage, purses usually are immensely smaller.

“[My purse] is very cute and I don’t have to carry much around,” said Jocelyn Matehuala ‘26.

In NBC News’ article “Why Our Bags are Wrecking Our Backs,” Vivian Manning-Schaffel dives deep into the negatives of both the backpack and one strapped purse on our backs, but they say the main reason is that most are overstuffing them. The very reason some students use one-strap bags besides backpacks at school is because of the lack of pain they experience.

Andrea Ruvalcaba ‘23 said, “Backpacks hurt my back and [my purse] is lighter. I have no back pain with a purse.”

“[I’ve been using a tote bag] for two years now. I think I experience less back pain, only because of the way I alternate my books,” said De Soto.