2727 Fuller Road Ann Arbor, MI 48105
The Emery
Volume 4 Issue 3 November 2018
The Student Publication of Huron High School
INSIDE: Peter Collins, crossword celebrity, reveals trade secrets
ONLINE: Admin prohibits blankets
LEAD CRISIS
Lead concentrations in water above federal action level throughout district — except at Huron Julie Heng | Staff Editor The Environmental Protection Agency has a federal action level on lead levels above 15 parts per billion (ppb). The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality recommends, and the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) has instated, remediation for levels above 5 ppb. At Burns Park Elementary, one of Huron’s feeder schools through Tappan, a 2017 First Draw Sample revealed results of 320 ppb. The 250mL of definitively brown water, from a faucet in room 304, was a definite outlier in the AAPS water tests. After procedural flushings, however, Repeat First Draw Tests revealed significantly lower lead levels at 15 and 10 ppb, respectively. Huron, which recently installed water bottle stations with lead filters in 2016, was the only building of 33 tested that did not have detectable amounts of lead. Similar cases have prompted concerns throughout the district after water test-
ing began voluntarily in 2016. According to the Center for Disease Control, symptoms of short-term lead overexposure include abdominal pain, constipation, headaches, irritability, memory loss and weakness. Prolonged exposure puts people at risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney disease, and reduced fertility. The 2018-19 water testing cycle is currently underway, with Phase 1 results recently released. Out of the 10 buildings tested, an average of just over 2 locations per school were contaminated above the AAPS rule. In other words, 1% of the 456 locations tested contained water samples flagged above the AAPS and EPA action level. The district has proposed the following steps to address lead contamination above 5 ppb: 1. Install water bottle filling stations with NSF certified lead filters. 2. Continue the flushing of all water systems following extended school breaks. Complete See more | Page 2 Graphic by Sonali Narayan.
ONLINE: Huron alumnus subject to deportation
ONLINE: Crimes of Grindelwald review
Huron’s Coffee Shop: student group practices job skills Sami Ruud | Staff Editor When most students get to school in the morning, they go to class, sit at their desks, and listen while the teacher talks to them all day. However, in one class, the students get to experience what it is like in a real-life job. The students in the life skills class run a coffee shop right in their classroom. The class is completely student run, and the teens have different roles that are equivalent to the roles that workers at coffee shops would have. “The students interview just like they would for a job, and there is a manager, a student who records orders, two baristas, and two delivery students,” said Nicole Pilkins, teacher of the Life Skills class. Every morning a Google form is sent out to all staff, and the staff is
able to fill out the form if they want coffee. That form is also pulled up on a computer in the Life Skills classroom, and when teachers fill it out, the information can then be recorded onto a slip of paper by Mackenzie Pryor-Bell. “When the order pops up on the sheet on the computer, I write it down on a slip of paper and give it to the baristas, or if we have a walk-in order I would do the same,” Pryor-Bell said. Once the order has been given to the baristas, they start to make the order. One barista, Hunter Ward, said that making the coffee helps teach him skills that he could use in a real job. “When you have work like at McDonalds in the morning when someone asks for a cappuccino coffee, you See more | Page 2
Senior Aref Abdeljaber delivers a coffee to Sara-Beth Badalamente during first hour. The coffee is only available to teachers. The coffee shop helps the students practice skills that they will be able to implement in a real job setting after high school. Photo by Sami Ruud.
26 Huron musicians selected for annual MSBOA All-State band and orchestra Austin Aldrich | Staff Writer
Juniors Tom Zhang and Zeke Zhao practice in preparation for the annual multi-cultural show in December. The club, which meets every Thursday during 8th hour, welcomes anyone who is interested in Chinese culture. Photo by Louise Depa.
Chinese Club takes the stage for the first time Louise Depa | Staff Writer For the first time, Huron’s Chinese Club is joining the annual performance-based Multi Cultural Show, which will take place Dec. 21. Every year for the show, there are dance performances from multiple clubs, and now, this includes one from Chinese Club. “We have three groups right now: one is doing a traditional lion dance, another is a duo group doing a breakdance, and another is just a group dance for anyone who wants to do it,” said junior Selina Liu, one of the dance leaders of the club. Performance and dancing are
new things for Chinese Club, as their usual focus is on language, traditional Chinese games, and local community outreach. The reason they decided to do something new and join the assembly this year is because they want to bring more aspects of traditional Chinese culture, like the famous lion dance, into Huron for the audience to see. “We never had the lion dance before, so I hope it will be interesting for the audience to see something new,” Liu said. “Since that represents China, we will be representing a big part of the school.” Even though this See more | Page 2
All-State. To most, this is the insurance company with the hands. To some, it is one of the most important musical events of the year. Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association (MSBOA), AllState ensembles, are groups of select high school musicians who meet for a long weekend at the start of every calendar year. Auditions were held for spots in these ensembles in mid-October, and results have just come out. “The performances by these students will be a showcase of what is happening in our Michigan schools bands and orchestras,” said MSBOA Executive Director, Charles Bullard in a letter that accompanied the audition results of the All-State ensembles. “The Directors are to be recognized as well for their dedication to bring their students enrolled in instrumental music to this high level of achievement.” With this level of prestige given to students by a director of MS-
BOA, it is very competitive for a spot. This year, 2,700 students statewide auditioned for 387 spots in five different ensembles. The math on this works out to a 14 percent acceptance rate which is equivalent to the admissions rate for Northwestern University. 50 out of the 387 spots were filled with students from Ann Arbor and even more impressively, 26 out of those 50 were from Huron High School. “There is a sense of pride associated with making All-State,” said junior Jake Lee, who has made All-State five times so far in his musical career. “It’ll be good to get back to Grand Rapids. I look forward to seeing all the friends I’ve made there in the past.” Sophomore Anders Ruiter-Feenstra is the bass section leader of the MSBOA All-State Orchestra. “The audition was hard,” Ruiter-Feenstra said. “I practiced a lot so I was comfortable going into the audition. In the end, it all came down to one
Upcoming instrumental concerts
Orchestra: Dec. 3 at 7:30p.m. in Meyers Auditorium Band: Dec. 17 at 7:30p.m. in Meyers Auditorium All-State: Jan. 26, 2019 in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Visit our new website at thehuronemery.com and follow us on
2019 All-State members from Huron Band (16) Harley Graves, Audrey Wu, Brian Song, James Xiu, Dave Kim, Marissa Redding, Felicia Sang, Alexis Joslin, Daniel Hou, Scott Knudsen, Koen van Nieuwstadt, Benjamin Zhang, Dawson Hartman, Johnson He, Sophie Smit, Alexandra Kukucka Orchestra (7) Bryce Yung, Young Seo Lee, Lief Lin, Juan Oh, Sebastian Berofsky, Rhea Cong, Anders Ruiter-Feenstra Jazz Band (3) Jake Lee, Tim Kohn, Austin Aldrich recording.” MSBOA All-State is a way to showcase the best high school musicians that Michigan has to offer. These selected musicians meet in Grand Rapids at the start of the year to play in various ensembles and perform for one another. Huron has 26 student musicians who were selected for this honor and that is a majority of the musicians from Ann Arbor who were selected.
@thehuronemery