Schools across the Austin Independent School District are reinforcing a mandated state law requiring students to maintain at least 90% attendance in a class to receive credit for their transcript.
“The 90% attendance law was put in place by the state and says that if a student attends school less than 90% of the class days, they won’t receive credit for the course,” school improvement facilitator Whitney Vohl said. “Even if the student’s grade is passing, they would still lose the credit.”
The requirement for 90% attendance is a state law, but AISD has not had to enforce it during recent years. The state offered districts with waivers during the Covid years, and AISD has previously been eligible for the waiver until it was revoked this year.
“It was still the state law, but the state was supplying districts with waivers,” Vohl said. “They didn’t have to enforce the law and were able to find alternate, creative, and campus-central solutions.”
Attendance was difficult for schools to manage during Covid taking into consideration all the factors of online school, so districts began looking for different strategies to help kids still receive credit during that time.
“There were ways that schools could be creative in assisting kids to still be eligible for their credit even if they didn’t meet that 90% requirement,” Vohl said. “There was a little bit more leeway in how that could be enforced, and now it’s moving back to how it used to be pre-pandemic.”
Since this law is being enforced again, if a student falls below this
requirement, they will have to make up the missed class in attendance recovery sessions. Bowie does not currently have a plan in place for these recovery sessions, but they are in progress.
“The administration has not yet figured out how we’re going to that attendance recovery,” content interventionist Wendy Uzzle said. “Or what system we will use to help students earn that attendance credit.”
Previously, Bowie has tried multiple different methods of attendance recovery. Since the planning process is still taking place for this year’s method of recovery, administration will be looking at what’s worked in the past and what will be best for Bowie students now.
“We’ve done Saturday school before,” STEM instructional coach
Cindi Carroll said. “We've also tried after school programs as the most recent recovery plan.”
Administrators also have to take into account budgeting resources for these attendance recovery plans, as well as staff to run them.
“This also requires a budget that would allow the school to pay for staff to host those sessions outside of contract hours,” Vohl said. “And that is another challenge we’ve had in planning.”
school’s average daily attendance.
“I think it’s a bad idea for schools to receive funding based on attendance,” junior Cameron Tishgart said.
“It can force unnecessary stress onto both teachers and students.”
Schools with chronically absent students face an issue in this aspect of tying funding to attendance.
Funding for schools is also considered in the application of attendance laws. If students are present, the school receives a certain allotment of funds decided through a funding formula based off of the
Running out of space
Passes for A Lot oversold, many students are left without parking
Before the school year starts parking passes go up for sale, with seniors boasting the highest attendance getting access to them first, and then juniors gaining access. No sophomores or freshmen are eligible to buy parking passes. Many students woke up early one day this summer like senior Alyssa Lusk hoping to purchase a $50 parking pass to gain access to A-lot.
“I woke up early and went on my computer,” Lusk said. “I refreshed my tab until the parking passes became available for me to buy.” After looking further into the situation on the website Ride-In, the company that students purchase their passes on, band lot and A-lot were both listed, allowing over 180 passes to be sold. A lot’s max capacity in the fall semester is only 77. Only seniors had access to buy passes thanks to the Bowie admin team finding Ride-In’s mistake quickly.
“The admin discovered the permits had been issued improperly,” campus safety monitor Andrew Padgett said.
“Thank goodness it was during the middle of the summer and they were able to put a stop to it.” 109 students bought
A lot passes but did not gain access due to them being oversold. After going back in the purchase logs, Bowie admin gave the first 80 students who purchased a pass access to A-lot. “We wanted the correct students to receive priority and looked in the logs to give them to the first 80 people,” STEM instructional coach Cindi Carroll said. “We still wanted to compensate the affected students and decided to give these students lot B spot without an extra charge since they were inconvenienced.” These students were also given another option of a full refund. Most students who were given the option chose spots in the garage for the discounted $15. The students who purchased a pass to A lot but were unable to use them were given priority if they choose to use it when the rest of A lot opens up after marching season.
Sofia Yardonova Reporter
This year, the James Bowie administration team welcomes two new Assistant Principals, Christina Burbank and Amanda Pfieiffer. Burbank will work with the fine arts department and students with the last names Chi-Gel, while Pfieiffer will oversee the math department and students with the last names Os-Smi.
Pfieiffer spent four years as an assistant principal at Kealing Middle School, but before that she taught English at Bowie from 2006-2020. At Kealing, Pfieiffer focused on fostering Fine Arts, ELA, and Social Emotional Learning programs.
“[Being an administrator] is a way to support more students on a larger scale all the time,” Pfieiffer said. “But, being a teacher here was tremendously awesome.”
In her 22 years of education preceding her time at Bowie, Burbank focused on fine arts and athletics programs. From Hidalgo Independent School District to Crockett High School, Burbank spent time as a varsity soccer coach, a theater teacher, and a dance teacher. Most recently she worked as a Supervisor of Marketing and Events for AISD, but she remains motivated to cultivate student and teacher connection through extracurricular activities.
“The reason students come to school is being a part of something bigger than yourself, being a part of a team, being part of a community, and fine arts and athletics,” Burbank said. “This is a huge value system for me.”
As part of their efforts to encourage participation in extra-
curriculars, the new administrators have been visiting clubs and athletic meets. One of their recent visits was to the new line dancing club.
“They were hanging out with us and getting to know us a little better,” senior Emiliano Martinez said. “I feel like a couple of years ago I wouldn’t have even known their names.”
For Burbank and Pfieiffer, extracurricular activities aren’t the only way to create community. Both administrators are adamant on continuing to strengthen inclusive programs. As a teacher at Bowie, Pfieiffer worked to implement a pride week in March and intends to continue the celebrations to ensure the representation of LGBTQ+ students. Because pride month falls during summer break, this gives students an opportunity for representation that they may not have gotten otherwise.
“What you can do in the immediate is make inclusivity normal, through events, through our messaging,” Pfieiffer said. “This is basically the message: this is how we are, we love each other, and everyone can be who everyone wants to be.”
Students are excited at the prospect of further inclusivity on campus. Junior Simone Brock, a member of the Gay Straight Alliance, agrees with Pfieiffer's interpretation.
“I find Pride Week to be a great way to feel safe in who you are,” Brock said. “It’s an opportunity to be able to express yourself without feeling the shame of other people.”
In her position as a Supervisor of Marketing and Events, Burbank facilitated the expansion of commemoration of Hispanic Heritage Month, Black History
“Experience tells us that students who don’t show up for class often don’t perform well academically,” Texas State Representative James
Talerico said. “These students who don’t perform well academically generally become more costly to taxpayers over time.”
Bowie administrators made a preemptive plan to insure most students wouldn’t fall below the 90% attendance rate. This was done by applying incentives for end of year tests to student’s attendance. Before incentives, students were missing class until they fell below the 90% and were missing valuable instruction. Bowie’s incentive policy helped improve campus attendance and keep kids in class.
“In the time before incentives students would take discretionary absences, people believed they could have up to 10% absences,” Carroll said. “But by spring, if they hadn’t used them all, they would miss class to spend their absences; that was just the culture that we had.”
Some students really like being able to have incentives, but some see it as unfair to those who miss school for unforeseen circumstances and lose their incentives.
“I like the idea of incentives,” Tishgart said. “But the fact that you can only miss a few days before losing them just isn’t reasonable.”
Those who enforce the policy know some students disagree with it, but ultimately it does help to keep the campus attendance average up.
“Most of the time people are somewhat oblivious to the policy until they don’t earn one,” Carroll said. “The reason being they got sick, or surgery, or something very legitimate happened, and they previously are not very aware of the policy and now think it’s unfair, like something was taken from them.”
Month, and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
“If you can find that comfort, if you can find a safe space, then it’s more likely it's going to increase your attendance,” Burbank said. “It's going to increase your academic achievement, and hopefully your self esteem and your self-worth.”
While expanding inclusivity, the new administrators are excited to find their place in the Bowie community despite potential challenges. For Burbank, Bowie is constantly offering new experiences and opportunities, from club meetings to yearly events.
“What I'm finding here is that there's so much history, and the large community extends to so many people,” Burbank said. “Having conversations with people and finding those connec-
tions, I wouldn't change.”
While the enthusiasm for Bowie is mutual, Pfieiffer has a unique view of the school as a previous teacher turned administrator.
“They get everything done really, really well, and it's all very student centered,” Pfieiffer said.
“It did make me realize how impressively organized and well run Bowie is.”
The new team is excited to fully immerse themselves into Bowie culture throughout the 2024-2025 school year. Having already visited various clubs and a cross country meet, Pfieiffer is ready to immerse herself back into the Bowie traditions.
“Every year I go to the shows,” Pfieiffer said. “And so I'm excited to do all that again.”
Peyton Dorsey News Editor
STORY BY Andrew Covert
Alyssa Lusk - PHOTO BY Andrew Covert
SMILES WITH A STATEMENT: New Assistant Principals Christina Burbank and Amanda Pfieiffer are making their presence known on campus. The APs are showing their support for the student body, and paving a path of acceptance for the Bowie community. PHOTO BY Koko Badgley-Finan
ART BY Sophia Sepulveda
Fundraising for fun, Color Guard recycles
Using BOPA and shredding as a way to get the community involved in Bowie fine arts
Katie Grumet News Editor
Junior Color Guard member Gina Linasalata arrives at Bowie early in the morning. She takes her place near the exit of the band lot, and she holds up her sign.
On Saturday, Sept. 14, Color Guard hosted their annual BOPA and paper shredding fundraiser event. This is the third time that they’ve hosted this event. Students and their families are invited to bring various items that are typically hard to recycle to Bowie to get rid of them in a more environmentally friendly way.
“We are recycling batteries, oil, paint, and antifreeze, but if you don’t have any of those, we can’t recycle them. People can get rid of their junk,” Linasalata said. “Make sure that everything is sealed. We cannot recycle open oil cans and anything that is not in BOPA which stands for batteries, oil, paint and antifreeze.”
ment, so we’re like sign spinners but we hold signs and we have flags, and we’re just dancing trying to get people’s attention.”
People began to line the band parking lot with cars containing recyclables and as people drive through the lot, their recyclables get handed to a parent or color guard member which then gets placed in an available truck to be driven to the recycling center. Then the person who has just donated recyclables is asked if they would like to donate to the color guard.
Gina Linasalata
" Winter guard doesn’t get funding from the school because it's classified as a club, so we have to make up all the money ourselves and this is one of the ways we do it."
Color guard member
Early that morning morning, the Color Guard arrived at the school to set up for their recycling event. Different members of the guard set up in various corners of the lot to spin flags and hold signs to draw attention to the event. They also made sure to have multiple empty trucks with eager parents of color guard students ready to drive them to the recycling event once the trucks are full.
“We have this thing called razzle-dazzle, and it’s people who go outside with flags and spin them in the street,” Linasalata said. “It’s like an advertise-
“It’s really easy, you just pull up and drop off your items, it's completely free, and you can choose to donate,” junior Kendall Laney said. “My dad’s one of the truck drivers, so he drove a bunch of stuff to the recycling center and they disposed of it.” They also provided paper shredders so that people can shred documents that they can’t shred at home. This is the first year that they’ve added the shredder to the recycling event. Previously, people could only recycle batteries, oil, paint and antifreeze.
“This is our third year doing [BOPA]. A former Color Guard parent who heard about this idea brought it over to our organization,” advisor Daniel Riley said. “We get a lot of people that come through dropping off old stuff that they’ve had forever. BOPA is helping people cleanse that stuff and also helps the environment as well.”
BOPA is not only a recycling event but it’s also a fundraising opportunity for the color guard. The Color Guard are required to fund their budget all on their
own because they are considered a club, which means that they have to get creative with fundraising ideas.
“Winter guard doesn’t get funding from the school because it's classified as a club, so we have to make up all the money ourselves and this is one of the ways we do it,” Linasalata said. “I hope that we raise $2,000 this year. We usually do good with about 50 people showing up, so I’m hoping we can double that this year.”
There isn’t a lot of planning that has to go on to help facilitate the event each year. The biggest thing the color guard has to organize each year is making sure they have vehicles that can take the recyclables to the recycling center. Other than that, everything else stays the same from last year.
“I think it’ll benefit the community because a lot of people just have this stuff in their house and they don’t know what to do with it and now we can take it from them and we can dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way,” Laney said. “Hopefully it's a good fundraiser for us and I’m glad that we get to help people get rid of stuff.”
The group was able to raise over $5,000 within four hours. They plan to use the money for the winter guard activities. This money is extremely helpful to the guard because a lot of things needed for the winter guard are very expensive. They have to buy costumes, props and pay for transportation to competitions.
“The money raised goes towards our winter guard organization, and that's so helpful because it is so expensive,” Riley said. “It helps lower the cost for our trip to nationals at Dayton, Ohio. Since we’ve hosted BOPA for three years, it's an easy fundraiser to do.”
Other than the BOPA event, the color guard has several other fundraisers to help them gain money to fund their program. They host events throughout the year with different themes
and purposes to get the community involved and interested in donating.
“We have a winter fundraiser that’s coming up and we will also be doing a clinic for younger kids so we have a bunch of other events that happen throughout the year,” Riley said. “Considering that our season goes all the way through mid-April. We also have sponsorships that are running all year long.”
Riley hopes that students
TOUGH TURF
who help lead this fundraiser gain ideas for future fundraisers that they run and that they can make some money while at it.
Next year, members of the guard hope to improve the way they spread the word about their fundraising events and start the event later in the day to adjust to the fact that many people sleep in on the weekends.
“I think the thing we could improve [for next year] is pushing the event back an hour
later because I feel like on a Saturday people are getting up a little later and more traffic is coming in at a later part of the morning,” Riley said. “BOPA is for a good cause, and [members of the color guard] can use BOPA for ideas in the future when they have organizations that they want to work with and help make some money.”
Bowie's soccer turf causes chaos for student athletes
Athletic fields are in desperate need for a change from grass fields to synthetic materials
Marissa McGowan Review Editor
As they sprinted through the damp morning grass of the practice fields, the pothole in the distance approached closer and closer. Suddenly, they slipped on the uneven ground, scraping their knee and rolling their ankle just before the biggest game of the season.
Students and coaches at Bowie High School have complaints about the installment of turf fields being neglected. The athletic department has had a bond from 2022 that was passed to go towards school modernization, safety improvements new technologies and to install turf to replace Bowie's main field. The installment process has been postponed multiple times for many reasons including Bowie being located in the Edward's Aquifer recharge zone but girls soccer coach, Carrie Hoffman-Howell now believes the task is underway.
“We definitely are on it. We
thought we might have had [turf] by this summer, but it's coming,” Hoffman-Howell said. “They're planning on turfing one of the two fields. And once that happens, yes, that will solve a lot of problems.”
Athletes and coaches have expressed multiple issues with the current practice fields, including the improper field conditions, the inconvenient distance from the athletic locker rooms, and the impact of the weather.
The installation of turf would significantly improve these conditions.
“Obviously, we're hoping for turf, and that will help us,” Hoffman-Howell said. “ For one, that'll cut the cost of field maintenance, and we wouldn't have to mow the field so often. Turf would probably keep the snakes off the field too.”
With the field's distance from Bowie campus, athletes are forced to cross Slaughter Lane, a heavily trafficked road, which could lead to potentially dangerous interactions for both ath-
letes and coaches.
“We have to cross Slaughter Lane, that's always terrifying,” Hoffman-Howell said. “I'm mainly worried about the fast cars but luckily I'm there helping the girls cross.”
The current fields require constant maintenance and can’t withstand any harsh weather conditions. Boys soccer coach Ryan Logan explains that with soccer season coinciding with when precipitation is highest, it’s extremely inconvenient and the weather is unpredictable for practicing.
“As of now teams cannot practice outside when it rains or fields are muddy,” Logan said. “With turf, you can play in the rain, and it is never muddy, and sports would not lose days of practice waiting for it to dry out.”
The unsteady terrain of the current fields has contributed to injuries in soccer. With turf providing a consistently flat surface, and being more durable, it often helps prevent injuries across all sports and would be beneficial to preventing injuries since the current field is unstable which is a significant issue.
“I've never gotten majorly injured on the fields, but there have definitely been some scary moments with rolled ankles,” junior soccer player Cameron Alsup said. “Turf would give a flatter playing field which would help with the number of injuries."
Students have mentioned the inconvenience of there being a hill in the middle of the field, which doesn’t allow for a full-length field. This inconvenience limits athletes and coaches from completing drills and replicating game day.
“There's a hill in the middle of the soccer field, so it's not a full-length field,” Alsup said. “Which gets annoying and makes it extremely difficult to replicate a real game, also we are limited on the drills we can do, because of the terrain, space, and equipment.”
Compared to others, Bowie is one of the few schools in the area that doesn’t practice on turf. While Bowie's soccer teams still play games on turf, Bowie practices on grass, which makes it more challenging for athletes to replicate a game-like environment while practicing.
“Almost all of the teams that we
play against practice and play their games on turf,” Alsup said. “It's definitely a challenge, and feels like a little bit of a disadvantage at times, but the team does a good job of working through it.”
Although the athletes and staff have expressed their complaints about the fields, they are still grateful for what they have been given. Previously, soccer didn't have its own field and shared Bowie's' main field with various other athletic teams and clubs.
“We are lucky to have [the field],” Logan said. “Before we had to use the football practice fields and they
were being overused and were unsafe to practice on for all sports, with the lack of grass and hard dirt from over usage.”
The old turf has been an ongoing problem for the Bowie soccer teams, both coaches and athletes are eager for the installment of turf. There is no official date set for the installment yet, however there are hopes that they will start working this spring and turf could be in place by fall of 2025.
“I'm excited to get turf fields,” Alsup said. “It'll make practices more enjoyable and efficient, it would be a huge upgrade.”
REMOVING RECYCLEABLES: Senior Aiden Wettengel carries paint products from a drop-off car to be placed in a color guard parent driver truck which then will be taken to the recycling center. BOPA, a recycling event sponsored by Bowie color guard ran from 9 a.m. to
p.m. on Saturday Sept.14. PHOTO BY Sophia Dudich
KEEP YOUR GUARD: Sophomore Carter Jones defends his goal during soccer practice. Soccer students have practice every day after school. PHOTO BY Will Olenick
FALLING APART: Bowie's soccer field is worn down grass from years of use from various sports using this field to practice daily. A bond passed in 2022 would allow the school to replace the current grass with artificial turf. PHOTO BY Mara Brandt
Recapture, and its effects on schools
Savanah Riggins Politics Editor
Students sit listening attentively, fingers poised on keyboards and pens pressed against paper in apprehension to take detailed notes on what the speakers of the Texas Capitol Journalism Conference have to say as they delve into details about school funding and the system of recapture.
Recapture, also known as Robin Hood, is a system that divides schools into two categories. The first category is the districts that must spread the wealth, and the second is those that need money. These categories are determined by the price of property taxes in the district. Currently, the Austin Independent School District is paying the most when it comes to recapture amounts in Texas.
“Recapture means that property rich districts like Austin, have to surrender money to the state from their property taxes,” worksite representative for Education Austin and Bowie English teacher Jake Morgan said. “The state then reallocates money to the property poorer districts in the state.”
Property taxes are the main contributor in deciding how much a district pays in recapture amounts. Property taxes are calculated by multiplying the property's appraised value by the tax rate. The appraised value of a property is an estimate of the attributes worth at a specific point in time. Tax rate is the ratio at which people are taxed and it differs depending on where homeowners live and the local taxing authorities.
“The property taxes that we pay in Austin, which are high because of the property values, fund our education system,” Morgan said. “Places where property values aren’t so high they end up getting less mon ey. So, recapture is kind of an effort to balance that.”
Since recapture is directly affected by property taxes this is negatively impacting certain districts.
Districts with a lot of industry like hotels or oil rigs. These are high value proper ties and often times the surrounding homes do not reflect the
wealth of the businesses.
“Some of the districts that pay the highest percentage in recapture are places that have a lot of petroleum extraction and petroleum refining,” AISD Trustee Lynn Boswell said.
“Other places that pay a higher percentage are locations like Port Aransas. These places have a lot of vacation homes. Those are not communities where people have a lot of wealth. That wealth leaves the community and goes to industries like resorts and oil rigs, not to the people that go to schools.”
Recapture was created following a lawsuit. It was the Edgewood ISD v. Kirby case. This case was significant to recapture as it regarded school funding. According to texaspoltics.utexas.edu “the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed suit against commissioner of education William Kirby on May 23, 1984, in Travis County on behalf of the Edgewood Independent School District, San Antonio, citing discrimination against students in poor school districts.”
“Recapture was a system created after a lawsuit,” Boswell said. "It was created to help make sure that every district in the state had fair funding.”
Before recapture districts were funded based on their local property wealth. Which does not always correlate to the wealth of the people in the com
Center Executive Director Josh Sanderson stated that recapture does not affect district revenue.
The Texas legislature decides what every school district's funding will be each year. The recapture amount is then determined by the excess of revenue from property taxes.
“A school district is entitled by law to receive their funding every year,” Sanderson said.
“The recapture that districts like Austin pay is funding that the district has locally in property tax revenue above what they are entitled to. That is why it is important to have the legislature increase school districts entitlements so that the school district can have more funding and the recapture amount goes down.”
Recapture began as just a way to fill some gaps in funding but has now grown into one of the major contributors to school funding. Recapture has become one of the biggest generators of revenue for the whole state and a lot of recapture is collected and has reducing the share of funding that is coming from state sources.
“Recapture was intended to make sure every school had adequate funding,” Boswell said. “What has happened instead is that we have gotten to a place where no school in Texas has enough. Because the state determines how much per student funding we have in our public schools, and they have chosen to fund us in the bottom
This is impacting Austin schools because AISD pays the most when it comes to recapture amounts. This is driving up the prices of homes, businesses and goods and services.
“The local Austin community pays twice as much money to get the same amount of funding that everyone else has,” Boswell said. “We paid $698 million dollars in recapture this year. That is a lot of money and it is hard to wrap your head around. It doesn't mean we have less money in our schools. We have the same amount of inadequate funding as every other district in the state,
but what that does is make our housing more expensive, whether you buy or rent."
Homeowners aren’t the only people who pay recapture in the form of property taxes. Businesses also contribute to that fund.
“HEB pays recapture, Whataburger pays recapture and when you go get gas, the gas station is paying recapture,” Boswell said. “When you go to the bank, when you get your car washed, when you buy dog food. All of these businesses are paying recapture. So, we are paying it for everything we do.”
AISD has proposed a tax ratification election called proposition A. This proposition will appear on voters on local ballots in November and asks voters if they want more funding for the district in the form of a tax increase.
“We are asking for a nine cent tax increase,” Boswell said. “That would be about $34 per month for the average homeowner. As our taxes go up, our recapture goes up, so the same time we bring more money into our schools we will also be increasing our recapture. Overall,
right now we pay about 49% in recapture payments. If the tax ratification bill passes we would be paying about one percent in recapture.”
The district is also currently advocating for an increase in per student funding. When the per student funding goes up that will decrease the recapture amount.
“There is a legislative session coming up and we will be advocating with districts all over the state to increase that per student funding,” Boswell said. “If that funding goes up, that recapture will go down. We will also be asking the legislature to look at the impact of recapture on housing affordability.”
Schools have put procedures into place in an attempt to increase the per student funding. This is the amount of money given to the school based specifically on the attendance of its students. For example, Bowie has implemented the incentive program, which allows students who reach certain attendance standards to replace their grade on the final with their class average.
“We’re a big school,” junior
Reed Watts said. “You can see the incentive program that was put in place to make sure people are attending, because the school needs money that they get from attendance.” To combat the issues with recapture trustees, teachers, and advisors have advocated to the legislature for a change in how schools in the state of Texas are funded.
“I honestly think the main solution to how the issues with Texas’s recapture system can be solved is by reconfiguring the funding formula so we’re not losing almost a billion dollars per year,” Morgan said. “Most of all I encourage people to educate themselves on the issue and to advocate for a recapture system that is equitable and doesn't leave urban and property rich districts suffering. I think kids deserve more than that.”
Sara Fowler Dispatch reporter
A student walk through the humid hallways. Sweating as they make their way to class, due to the lack of air conditioning. This absences of AC is a result of poor school budget funding.
Facing a $119 million budget deficit, the Austin Independent School District (AISD) Board of Trustees asks Austin voters to increase their property taxes to help fund the district.
On August 19, 2024, the AISD Board of Trustees voted in approval of placing a Voter Approval Tax Ratification Election (VATRE) on Austin’s November election ballot. Bringing in additional tax revenue, a VATRE would reduce district budget cuts and increase staff compensation.
“We have one tool left,” AISD Trustee Lynn Boswell said. “We're going to be asking our voters to approve that tax increase.” The VATRE, named Proposition A
(Prop A) on the ballot, asks voters to increase AISD’s maintenance and operation tax rate, proposing an increase of 9.1 cents per $100 of taxable value in comparison to 23-24, totaling the AISD tax rate to 95.05 cents per $100 of taxable value. This would result in a $412 annual property tax increase for the average homeowner in Austin.
“We know that when we ask for an increase in tax funds, we're asking our community to do something that, for some people, is not easy,” Boswell said.
AISD’s 2024-25 budget totals $954 million in operating expenses, but currently, AISD has $834 million in funding, leaving a $119 million gap, or deficit, in the budget. Despite Austin taxpayers truly generating $1.525 billion in revenue for AISD, $691 million of that revenue is sent back to the state of Texas in the recapture program. Additionally, the Texas state per-student funding allotment has been virtually stagnant since 2019, as state lawmakers tie public school funding bills to politically controversial school vouchers, preventing them from passing in the Texas Legislature.
“It's sad to me because our state has a $30 billion surplus, so we're in a very good financial situation, but yet we want to play politics with our education system,” Business, Market and Finance teacher Mark Dawson said.
“I wish our political system wasn't so heavily involved with education funding, and it was just simply about the choices of what's right for kids and what's right for our schools.”
Passing Prop A would bring in an additional $171 million of revenue for
AISD, but $130 million of that revenue would then be sent to the state of Texas in recapture, leaving AISD with a net revenue increase of $41 million.
Meaning, that AISD would still be left facing a budget deficit of $78 million.
“Less money should be going to the problem that we're initially trying to solve, which is, money going back to the state,” senior Julia Low said.
“If this passes, it allows them to have a larger hand to continue to take money.”
Unable to incur a large amount of debt without suffering credit loss, leading to difficulty surrounding bonds and their interest rates, AISD must significantly reduce its budget deficit by tens of millions. This reduction would have to be made either through budget cuts combined with the additional revenue brought in from Prop A, or if Prop A fails to pass, solely through budget cuts.
compensation plan will not take effect, and the only pay increase for district staff would be a one-time incentive payment of $500 to regular, full-time employees.
“The surrounding schools are able to get teachers raises,” Dawson said. “Eventually people will just decide to leave. We're already seeing that. So, I hope eventually we can fix this problem.”
Lynn Boswell
Breaking down the proposed spending of the additional $41 million of revenue that would be gained from Prop A, $3.5 million would go towards additional campus resources, $17.5 million would go towards a compensation plan for staff,
"We are already at a point where budget cuts are going to cut into the quality of Education "
“We are already at a point where budget cuts are going to cut into the quality of Education,” History teacher Matthew Parente said.
AISD Trustee
Additionally, Prop A would fund a compensation plan for AISD staff, which would provide market adjustments to all employee salaries, with classified employees, such as custodians and bus drivers, receiving a minimum pay increase of 25 cents per hour. Without Prop A, the
Gabby Bochey
SPREADING KNOWLEDGE: Equity Center Executive Director, Josh Sanderson shares important information. Sanderson goes into detail about the process of recapture while being interviewed at the Texas State Capital PHOTO BY Gabby Bochey
SMILING FOR CHANGE: AISD Trustee member Lynn Boswell educates about the recapture system. She shared the districts plan for more funding. PHOTO BY Will Olenick
ENGLAND’S TOP-TWENTY
Splashing throughout the continents
Sophomore Alexander Eland has gone from country to country sailing through the water
Isabella Verette Senior Editor-in-Chief
Gliding through the water and making a splash on his way through the continents, freshman Alexander Eland made the move to the United States four months ago.
“I lived in South Africa until around the age of nine,” Eland said. “We lived in a small town called East London that was on the south coast of the country.”
Growing up in East London, on the southern coast of South Africa, Eland made lots of memories and a connection with the water.
“While South Africa is one of the most dangerous countries in the world I think it beautiful,” Eland said. “The scenery and the natural beauty. It’s just absolutely amazing.”
Eland started swimming from a young age and enjoyed the water.
“I didn’t compete much while in South Africa,” Eland said. “I was in some meets but nothing very serious.”
The fondness that Eland holds for East London and South Africa as a whole remained even after he moved to England when he was nine.
“We moved to London right before Covid,” Eland said. “There just weren’t enough job opportunities in South Africa at the time, so we moved to England for more opportunities.”
While more opportunities arose for the family as a whole there was a cultural adjustment once they arrived in Barmouth, a small town on the southern coast of Wales.
“The culture is really different there than in South Africa,” Eland said. “It can be quite grumpy sometimes there, but eventually I connected to the place and the people and I really enjoyed my time there.”
Once Eland got to England and adjusted to the new environment, his love for swimming grew and he started to take the sport more seriously.
“I didn’t start to take swimming that seriously until around three years ago,” Eland said. “I had been competing for a while but I started to win county championships and was in the top-10 for most races in the region.”
Other than basic local awards Eland reached recognition in the United Kingdom as a whole.
“I‘m not sure exactly where I would be ranked right now, now that I’m in the United States,” Eland said. “But I was ranked around 20th in the country when I was in England.”
Eland, who moved here when his sister decided to go to college at the University Houston four month ago, is excited to be part of the Bowie community.
“I think it’s the best and nicest school I’ve ever been to,” Eland said. “There is a crazy gym and
weight room and equipment that I can use that I didn’t have access to before .”
While being used to being close to the coast all of his life, Austin has been a nice change.
“While it’s a change it’s not that big,” Eland said. “Austin has a lot of really cool rivers and Eland also continued his swimming journey soon after he arrived in the United States. Junior Alexa Sanders, knows him from not only the Bowie’s swim team but also their club team Whitecaps of West
“I saw him first over the summer but our team was really big and it was crazy getting everyone in lanes,” Sanders said. “When all the college kids left to go to their respective schools that’s when I to know and meet him.”
Eland not only is a skilled and talented swimmer but also extremely friendly and social.
“The first time I met him he was in my lane and he imme diately sparked up a conversa tion,” Sanders said. “He was bubbly and friendly, and it was
DRUM MAJOR
diversity and an overall positive attitude to the team,” Ellinger said. “He’s a great guy and he’s Sanders and Ellinger aren’t the only ones who share this sentiment about Eland his other teammates see “Alex always shows up to practice with 100 percent effort and with a good attitude,” senior swim team member Avery Archer said. “He never complains about the sets and is always determined to be better. His work ethic is admirable and I think he is an amazing addition to With his strong work ethic and talent Eland is ecstatic to be part of a great team, and compete with the bull-
“It feels more like a team than teams I’ve been on, in the past,” Eland said. “Instead of just working for yourself it
Senior drum major Sophie Thollander makes a bang
Capri Wyatt Dispatch Reporter
As Friday night lights shine down on the football field, senior Sophie Thollander directs the band through the halftime show with sharp movements of her hands. Being the head drum major for the 2024-25 school year means that the entire band is watching Thollander.
“After we perform it makes me so happy to hear the cheers,” Thollander said. “Especially the ones I know are from my friends in the stands and on the field.”
Thollander is following in her brother’s footsteps, Ben Thollander, who was the head drum major during the 20212022 band season. She also had another brother, Jacob Thollander, who was a section leader.
“Whenever my brother was drum major, I actually didn’t want to be drum major because I saw how much work it was,” Thollander said. “And then after he left, my directors were like, oh, you should be a drum major. And then it was more enticing after he left, because I saw the impact that I could have.”
Head drum majors in the band are expected to do many different things, ranging from starting rehearsal, getting equipment out, and leading rehearsal alongside the directors. Drum majors are a vital part of the band, and they play a significant role in the overall performance.
“We feel her impact everyday,” band teacher Tyler Jacks said. “We can depend on her to tell her what needs to happen in any given situation and she figures out a way to take care of it.” Alongside being the head drum major, Thollander balanc-
es a heavy workload with all advanced classes and other inschool commitments that take up a large portion of her time.
“Being drum major is a lot of its own, but with other things, it’s very difficult,” Thollander said. “But I love it so much
that I wouldn’t trade it for the world.” To her peers, Thollander is the perfect mix of a kind but hardworking leader. She is able to be a good mentor and friend outside of band rehearsal, while being a leader in rehearsal.
“We’ll finish rehearsal, and she’ll put on music while we’re getting ready before game days, and we’ll run around, and we’ll dance to Footloose and do the Whip and Nae Nae,” junior section leader Fiona Sobosinski said. “But then whenever
rehearsal starts, or whenever a performance starts, you can tell she’s focused.”
Though Thollander has had previous family members in leadership positions on the band, her determination and talent is what got her the position
of drum major.
“I don’t think in our process of selecting her as drum major, we were ever like, thinking about her brother and like, oh, it would be great to have this legacy situation,” Jacks said. “I think it was really just you’re doing all the things that we would want to see you doing, and that kind of checks out.” Making sure that everyone in the band is on the same page is a very important job that Thollander has, and it ensures that everything runs smoothly during football games and rehearsals.
“My biggest strength is probably my ability to communicate, because that is really important with communicating with your other drum majors, your directors, and the people that you’re leading,” Thollander said. “Just to make sure that everyone’s pushing for the same goals.”
Though being a drum major is not an easy feat, Thollander describes it as a rewarding and fulfilling experience that she will never forget.
“This experience has shaped me into the person I am,” Thollander said. “I have learned how to be confident, empathetic, and hard working, and it has truly made me into the best version of myself.”
SHARP MOVEMENTS : Senior Sophie Thollander keeps the rhythm at half time. With the Bowie bands competition seasons fast approaching drum majors take the spotlight on and off the field. PHOTOS BY Chance East (left) and Will Olenick (right)
MAKING A SPLASH: Bulldog swim team starts practices at Circle C pool for the upcoming season. Bowie Swimmer splashes into action, racing through the water. PHOTO BY Will Olenick
WINNER,WINNER: A young Alexander Eland poses with teammate after winning at a swim meet. PHOTO COURTESY OF Alexander Eland
SAY CHEESE: Eland poses with former team-mate in Wales after placing in his events. PHOTO COURTESY OF Alexander Eland
SCAN TO SEE MORE PHOTOS
SEPT. 27, 2024
WOMEN IN SPORTS
Teen gymnast vaults to great heights
Ellie Grigsby achieves gymnastic Level 10 after 12 years of hard work
Charlotte Schwarte Feature Editor
She claps her hands together, eyes downward as a plume of chalk surrounds her. A deep breath in, and out. She can feel the seconds ticking by from this one last moment to prepare, before she bends her knees slightly, and the world spins around her.
Ellie Grigsby is currently a sophomore at James Bowie High School, but outside of scholarly activities has achieved the status as a Level 10 gymnast. She has been involved in gymnastics since she was three years old, and states it was the first sport she had a strong connection with.
“It was fun,” Grigsby said. “I feel like it’s so different from a lot of other sports. I could just go to the gym, kind of flip around. It was just complete ly different from anything else I’ve ever done.”
The initial ap peal that Grigsby felt for gymnastics has led her to a lasting athletic career, in which she continues to train, twelve years later. The entirety of Grigs by’s gymnastic journey has taken place at Austin Elite Gymnastics Center, where she currently trains six days a week, Monday through Saturday.
“Some of my closest friends are through gymnastics because we spend so much time with each other,” Grigsby said. “We see all sides of each other, good, bad, ugly, so we’re all pretty close.”
Gymnastic practices typically consist of training on the different equipment, doing drills and strengthening exercises, and working on new skills.
“I feel like gymnastics taught me discipline from a young age,” Grigsby said. “Because in the sport there’s always so much going on at once, if you don’t have any self-discipline, you’re not gonna go anywhere with it.”
Gymnastic levels are based not on age, but on the progression of skill a gymnast holds. Advancements are made to the next level once a certain set of skills are able to be completed, such as a back handspring or even a cartwheel.
“After level 10 is Elite,” Grigsby said. “Which is pretty much the people who are home-schooled and want to go the Olympic route. Even girls who are the best of the best don’t go Elite. Some people just choose to stay level 10.” Most novices start at level one or two, and level four is the first of the required competitive levels.
As Grigsby is in level 10, she regularly goes to gymnastic competitions that last a total
of four hours with gymnasts competing in the four events; vault, uneven bars, beam, and floor routine.
“I’d say my gym has a pretty positive environment, but there’s also a lot of discipline,” Grigsby said. “We need to know what we’re supposed to do, and at this age, it’s really on you if you don’t. We just recently got a new head coach, so we have a lot more structure.”
Juan Jimenez is the head coach at Elite Gymnastics and has clear ideas on how to best help his students train and prepare for all gymnastic situations ahead of them.
“I have to create an environment where the girls feel comfortable failing,” Jimenez said. “I know it sounds odd, but in this sport failure is a tool. The girls fall a lot. If I can’t create an environment that is encouraging and helpful, the girls won’t want to try their best.”
One prestigious achievement Grigsby obtained was placing at the Western Championships. She is ranked first on vault in her region, which consists of six states, with nine competitive regions in the entirety of the US.
“Ellie is incredibly resilient,” Jimenez said. “This sport is not easy. At the levels that Ellie is performing in, it takes a huge toll on the athletes. Over the past eight months Ellie has pushed through a lot of progress despite some minor setbacks.”
Gymnastics is a sport with a high level of injuries, with its athletes averaging 2.6 injuries per gymnastic season, according to BMJ Journals. Despite being a younger athlete, Grigsby
has fallen prey to dislocations, concussions, and torn ligaments like any other.
“Most of my setbacks have been injuries,” Grigsby said. “When I’m hurt, I try to do as much as I can, and only stop when it’s the breaking point. Not everyone has these setbacks, and I have to make up for it.” Like many extracurriculars, gymnastics has challenges that make its participants true testaments to the sport. As practices occupy a large portion of weekends and time after school, Grigsby has settled into a routine to juggle her other commitments.
“It’s definitely hard,” Grigsby said. “I try to get as much schoolwork done as I can in school, but that doesn’t always work. I do homework in the car, on the weekends when I have time.”
Weekday practices are four hours long, and Saturday practices are typically from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“She has so much love for the sport, because of how much of a time commitment it is,” friend Vera Lee said.
Outside of gymnastics, Grigsby participates in JBHS track and field, where she advanced to the state meet for 100 Meter Hurdles last year. During the spring, her school days become sandwiched between early track mornings and after school gymnastics practices.
“She has really good time management,” Lee said. “She is really good at balancing out friends, school, and gymnastics. She’s a good friend to be around.”
MAKING THE MELODY
and dedication
Although Jimenez has only been training with Grigsby since January, he already has strong feelings about her merits as a gymnast.
“I have been the most impressed with her resiliency,” Jimenez said. “Her ability to be relentlessly dedicated to her goals. It’s incredibly admirable. It is not a very common char acteristic in people, let alone teenagers.”
Not only does her coach and peers believe she has resiliency and strong will to achieve her goals, they believe Grigsby is set to succeed and continue on with gymnastics to greater parts of life.
“My hopes for Ellie all revolve around the goals she has made for herself,” Jimenez said. “I think she is more than capable of pre dicting her future and my job is to facilitate that.”
Grigsby hopes to make it to the national competition this year and then from there her eyes are set on Division One athlet ics.
“Ellie is a natural leader, there’s a good chance she has always been like that,” Jimenez said. “Gymnastics is simply
how she chooses to show her greatness.”
Student spends summer at prestigious music program
Sydney Murphy Dispatch Reporter
Everyone has a dream, but for senior Besa Carney, her dream became a reality.
Over the summer, Carney was accepted to the Juilliard Summer Piano Composition Program in New York. The Juilliard Summer Program is exclusive and prepares pianists for success in college and future auditions.
“I have been playing since I was three years old, so about 13 years,” Carney said. “My mom put me into piano classes as a kid and I’m really thankful to have that opportunity because I really love piano and music.”
From a young age, Carney fell in love with playing piano and she has been interested in pursuing a career in music ever since.
“I am applying to Julliard, UT, Rice, Berkeley College of Music, and Harvard College of Music,” Carney said. “I really think attending the Juilliard camp will put me up there in their list to hopefully get into college.”
Carney’s love for piano has followed her throughout her childhood and she hopes to continue to make a
career of music in her adult life.
“I’m planning on being a composition major, but I’m in the middle of choosing to be a composer or a sound producer,” Carney said.
According to Carney, the process of applying for Julliard’s Piano Composition Summer Program was very detail oriented, similar to a college application.
“I was scrolling on Instagram one day and I was applying to these summer camps so I could have a good resume for college and Julliard had an ad for their summer composition program,” Carney said. “I heard back from them about one to two months later in an email that they sent that said ‘there’s an update on your status.’”
Although the process of getting into Juilliard’s Summer Program was tedious it was worth it when Carney found out that she had gotten accepted.
“I was in choir class and I had my phone on me so I opened up the website to see if I got in or not, and when I saw that I got in I started sobbing and everybody was so happy,” Carney said.
Carney’s classmates were all happy that she got accepted, but Carney’s AP music teacher Randall Cantu has been one of her biggest supporters through-
out her music career.
“This Julliard opportunity that she had over the summer is really just a combination of a lot of work that she’s done in the past three years, really since before middle school,” Cantu said.
With the support of Cantu and her family, Carney made the long journey to New York, although she wasn’t alone.
“One of my best friends got into the summer percussion program; he is
a freshman at UNT,” Carney said. “My whole family was also there separately.” Once Carney got to New York, her busy camp schedule started.
“We woke up at seven in the morning every day, then after breakfast we would have choir class so we would do that for an hour,” Carney said. “Then we would have an individual lesson with the faculty at Juilliard so we got to meet all of the composition teachers throughout the two weeks. After our
lesson we would usually have lunch and then just more seminars.”
According to Carney, she was able to meet and take lessons from influential people in the composition industry.
“We got to meet a ton of really amazing popular people in the composition world, John Mackey, John Corigliano, Aeric Whitacre, some of the biggest names in composition right now,” Carney said. “We got to have seminars with them and also have lessons with the dean of music and he was really informative and talented.” Carney really appreciated the opportunity to meet and learn from musicians that she looks up to. Carney’s musical experiences at Bowie, including classes with her jazz band teacher Jennifer Hanford helped her prepare for Juilliard camp.
“Besa is always a really naturally talented musician, and willing to step up and do things and she basically doesn’t ever say no,” Hanford said.
“She will always be willing to help other people as well, if they’re struggling with their music or anything like that, she is always just a really helpful and really nice person.”
As high school comes to an end, Carney is excited to continue her musical journey.
“Juilliard is one of the best music schools in the world right now,” Carney said. “I was blessed to have that opportunity and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
PHOTO ESSAY
Marching from practice to perfection
The process of band going from early morning practice to late night field performances
Ryan Zuniga
Photo Essay Editor
The marching band dedicates a large amount of their schedule to bringing an engaging and stunning show. They practice for over eight hours every week; that number doesn’t even include the time they spend during school hours. The band consists of 240 students from all grade levels and has around 15 basic instruments. The marching band’s transition from practice to performance is full of teamwork, dedication, and the exhilarating, but satisfying feeling of seeing every student come together to provide a well-done halftime performance
“We do eight hours outside of school practice a week per UIL rules, and then we have class every day,” senior Mason Mahn said. “So, it’s a bunch of rehearsals. On game days right after class is dismissed, we come over to the fine arts building, eat dinner, put our uniforms on, load the buses, and head to the game. We don’t return to Bowie until about midnight, so it’s a whole day ordeal from 7 a.m. to midnight.”
Rehearsals are more complex than just practicing the same melody on repeat. Directors have repeated drills and methods to help the band build muscle memory and execute a flawless performance. Students have designated locations on the field from which they learn the marching patterns they must follow during their performance. A lot of time is spent perfecting their marching coordination in order to present an organized and amusing show
for the audience. “I enjoy practices a lot because it’s part of the process and that’s when you’re really able to see changes and you get to spend the most time with the kids,” Band Director Jennifer Hanford said. “Contest days are really fun because you can actually see them in action and uniform. I think just getting to see everything come together is cool.”
The band has many leadership positions. There are band directors, captains, section leaders, band council, and band hall committee. The band council plans fun activities for the band and the band hall committee makes sure the band hall is clean and organized.
“Directly under us is where our drum majors are, they are the students who stand in the front and behind the band, basically the conductors of the band,” Hanford said. “Underneath them are the captains for the specific sections. We have four main sections, which are woodwinds, brass, percussion, and color guard, and there are captains in all four of those categories.”
During every varsity football game, the band plays stand tunes after touchdowns and works with the color guard and Silver Stars during halftime to provide an entertaining show for the audience. The band’s performance usually lasts around 10 minutes.
“Performances and games are all so fun, especially going down during halftime to get to perform our show and play with the Silver Stars,” Mahn said. “With all the practice we
do, seeing that project come to completion and just getting to see a 240-person project come together into something is a lot of fun to see.”
The marching band also participates in competitions. They attend Bands of America and UIL competitions. They attend five to six contests every year. During practice, they primarily practice for their halftime show. So, they learn their competition piece very slowly. They also take some time out of their practice to practice with the Silver Stars for their performance.
“I wanted to join the band in middle school and I kind of regretted it,” junior Pierre Vandervenett said. “Now I find it fun because it’s just a good group of friends, that’s mainly the best part, a good community.”
Many band students have been in the band since they first joined in 6th grade. Joining the band is a great way to become closer to school and be a part of a group where you immediately have something in common with everyone else.
“I’ve never met someone in life who has regretted being in band, and the ones who were never in band wish they would’ve been,” Hanford said. “Regardless if it’s one of those plain instruments, it’s really cool to be able to do in life. In this organization you automatically have 240 friends and people that you know and have a home you can go to every day, it’s just a fun and welcoming environment for people to be a part of and get to play fun music with cool people.”
MAKING MELODIES:
Olenick
BALANCING BAND: Senior football player Cedric Walls quickly hurries onto the field after the 2nd quarter to perform alongside the band. Walls has been in band and football since his freshman year. “After school on game days, I get dressed in my gear and go straight to football,” Walls said. “After that I come down to band to get my instrument and vipers and then I head to the game. I usually get home at around midnight.” PHOTO BY Will Olenick
DRAMATIC DANCING: Senior Aiden Wettengal begins the halftime performance with an eye-catching dance. Color guard and band rehearse together in the mornings, but the choreographers are separate. “It’s amazing being on the floor and you can just feel the presence of everyone in the crowd,” Wettengal said. “The atmosphere of being right in front of the audience and hearing all the cheers is crazy.” PHOTO BY Ryan Zuniga
E-Cigarette advertisements draw young eyes
Bright flashy colors, catchy tag-lines, and a plethora of dazzling flavors. These characteristics of many e-cigarette ads make it hard not to catch the eye of any teenager stopping by the gas station for a simple bag of chips.
Distracted by the aesthetic, fun narrative that e-cigarette companies advertise, teens get roped into an addiction that is anything but fun to quit.
When the most popular nicotine product among the youth of a generation was the standard cigarette, big companies were found guilty of marketing a harmful and addictive product to younger people, now many are recognizing and taking action against the marketing of the most popular nicotine product of today, the electronic cigarette.
“They put in flavors, which draws a kid's attention to come in with colors and flavors and all that stuff,” Bowie health teacher and baseball coac Samuel Degelia said. “So, that's what's drawing in kids now. It used to be just the commercials, now they have to go to flavors because they can't do commercials anymore,”
The bright colors, flashy flavors, and aesthetic based marketing tactics utilized by today’s e-cigarette companies, parallel the ‘fun’ narrative many remember big cigarette companies selling to their audience.
“It's kind of like the commercials of the cigarette companies,” pediatrician at Austin Regional Clinic Heidi Buschemi said. “Back when they
have the good looking women with their cigarettes, and how pretty they all looked. It was a cool thing at that time.”
The commercials depicting lavish ladies, as Buschemi described, who made smoking a cigarette something desirable, were advertised to all, including the most impressionable ages.
“Back in the 70s and 80s, when you’d drive down the road, you’d see those big billboards that used to have a Joe Camel on it, and it would have the smoking Joe. I mean, it was all out there,” Degelia said. “You don't see that anymore, so somehow it's getting out there.”
When commercials for cigarettes aired on most American TV's, teen smoking rates were significantly higher than they are today. Still, e-cigarette companies' biggest customers are aged 10-19 years, according to a research paper published by Population Medicine in 2022.
“Everybody smoked cigarettes, and it was cool to do, and it was no big deal. I think a lot of people perceive that now, maybe not quite to the extreme, because I think hopefully we're a little bit smarter, this generation,” Buschemi said.
“But I definitely think they don't see this as a big deal, and because of that, they get roped into this addiction, and then they wish they hadn't.”
of a pair of lungs who have inhaled years of the nicotine and many chemicals e-cigarettes contain.
“I don't think they understand the long term effects and what it can do,” Health teacher Elizabeth Wissel said. “In vaping or in cartridges, they put all different types of chemicals in there. We don't know if it's just nicotine. So, you don't really know what you're vaping or what's going inside of your lungs.”
An overwhelming amount of American teenagers are on at least one form of social media, where all kinds of videos are shared, including those depicting popular influencer's using nicotine products.
“If you have a vape in your hand and you're in a TikTok or something. It's almost like, oh, she's cool. She knows what she's doing,” Nixon said. “A lot of social media people, they don't ever talk about nicotine, but on TikTok specifically, there's always someone dancing with a vape in hand.”
Although no one can control the legal choices of many celebrities, influencers, artists, to use nicotine products, seeing those that they respect use products that can be harmful to their health, can lead teenagers to see these products in a different light.
all about reliability and truthfulness,” Degelia said. “Until you know somebody that's done it, or you see a picture of something, I think that's the only thing that might change their mind on it. You can tell them until they’re blue in the face, but they're going to have to make a choice about whether they’re going to do it or not.”
As a friend, family member, teacher, doctor or anyone who interacts with the young and growing minds of today’s teenagers, sometimes the best they can do is talk about it.
“Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs out there,” Buschemi said. “The majority of adults who smoke in their 30s and 40s probably wish they didn't, and giving that up is much more challenging. So, I mean, I will talk about it. I encourage quitting, because the earlier they try to quit, the easier it's going to be.”
Samuel Degelia
As a result of their advertising, E-cigarette companies, like Juul who, according to a 2023 NBC article, ‘is set to ‘pay $462 million to California, New York and other states over claims it marketed vapes to minors,’ are facing consequences on the legal level.
Today, e-cigarette companies, like Juul, Vuuse, and Elf Bar, are seen everywhere, on social media, in convenience and grocery stores, in magazines, and many other mediums consumed by teenagers.
“I feel like they are definitely marketed towards younger people,” junior Audrey Nixon said. “They're shown to be something super cool. There are bright colors involved, showing the different colors of the flavors that they have.”
Buschemi
"..
These e-cigarette companies have been examined by institutions like the World Health Organization who said in May, 2024 that ‘these products’ fruit and candy flavors, designs that appeal to children and youth and widespread social media marketing are hooking youth around the globe.’
“I feel like it's just normalized, because so many people do it. Social media stars, influencers or even artists, like Doja Cat,” Nixon said. “I feel like it's normalized, because the people that we look up to do it.”
When teens find themselves curious about something they’ve seen online or on T.V., they are most likely to look to the media they most used to research more about it.
Austin pediatrician
“I think that they just make them more cool or exciting for younger kids to do, they make it look like it's not a big deal,” Buschemi said. “They make it look like it's not dangerous by making it flavored like watermelon or strawberry.”
The World Health Organization also noted how ‘research in the United States of America found that more than 70% of youth e-cigarette users would quit if the products were only available in tobacco flavor.’
“The reason vapes came out in the first place was to be a smoking sensation to help stop smoking,” Buschemi said. “That was the whole point of E-cigs. And to that end, they didn't need to add in flavors. They didn't need to make them cute. They didn't need to make them exciting for kids to use them.”
Nicotine poses a number of harmful health effects to its users, but when teens get access to nicotine products they are far more susceptible to many of its dangers because of their growing bodies.
“The biggest concern that we have as pediatricians with using vapes and other drugs with the [young generation] is the risk of increasing addiction to a developing brain,” Buschemi said. “So, a brain that's still developing the frontal cortex all the way up until the mid 20s, is much more likely to develop addiction to the things they're exposed to than if you're older.”
The ‘fun’, ‘cool’, and ‘colorful’ presentation of e-cigarettes, are misleading to the appearance
“I think kids see things on TikTok, and they can't help themselves. I think they feel that it’s a reliable source on the internet. Because if kids truly researched what nicotine did to your body or does to your body, I think it would scare a few of them,” Wissel said.
In the world of social media, algorithms, like those utilized by popular app, TikTok, rely on confirmation bias, meaning teens using the app will see what the app thinks they want to see, creating a narrative based on their interests and interactions with certain types of content.
“I think they’ve been told, ‘there's so many chemicals in them,’ but they don't really care,” Nixon said. “I think a lot of people that do it either think it's really cool or might have some of their own insecurity that draws them to it. They don't really care if they're damaging their body.”
With access to all kinds of media that contain varieties of e-cigarette promotion and ads depicting a fun narrative, it can be hard to protect teens from everything their brains consume on the daily.
“The only thing we can do is keep teaching it. Our new health units are
"
Health Teacher
“Juul just got hit on vaping the same way the cigarette companies did because they were catering to younger people,” Degelia said. There are several corporations who are cracking down on e-cigarette companies, calling them out for their marketing, and releasing anti-vape ads on social media to combat companies at the source.
“There's a corporation called The Real Cost,” Nixon said. “I always give those ads on Snapchat. They’re very dark, very black, and they always have an actor saying something like ‘my friends told me I could do it. My friends told me I should do it, but then now I'm dead,’ or something like that, something super dramatic, and it definitely makes it seem like it's bad.”
Although there are several corporations, like The Real Cost, who are attempting to prevent teen nicotine use, and parents, teachers, and doctors who want to see American teens protected from addiction, e-cigarette companies are reaching kids in ways, that many times are out of their control.
“I don't think there's an easy fix that we could do as adults, or as friends even, because a friend probably won't listen,” Nixon said. “ I think the companies themselves would have to release all the information about how dangerous they are. The companies themselves would have to stop marketing to teenagers.”
The
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INFO- Richard G. Trefry Library
the content
Check to see whether what is being read is an opinion story or a news story, because opinion stories can influence people to agree with a certain perspective without realizing if they don’t know what they are reading is an opinion. Titles such as commentary, editorial, and review should signal that what is being read is an opinion. Also check for bias in a story, this could be bias shown through omission of information or perspectives, bias shown through source selection, and bias shown through word choice meaning the author could use more loaded words to influence how the reader feels.
INFO- Metropolitan community college
5. Check with other sources
Fact checking is a process in which someone checks the validity of the information they just received in order to determine its accuracy. Following events such as the presidential debates many news stations will do a fact check of the information the candidates claimed during the debate. There are many sites that fact check news stories, and there are tools such as the Google fact check tool. However, not all stories or media have been fact checked, so
Misinformation in modern media
The impact of social media and online culture on the spread of information in today’s world
Liberty Pittman Junior
Editor-in-Chief
One video. One video was all it took to put a teacher’s job in jeopardy. When Academic Director Kaylin Brett had it brought to her attention that there was a video of a teacher using some less than school appropriate language in class she was taken aback. However after further review of the video it became clear that it had been edited in a way meant to trick the viewer into believing the teacher had used foul language when in reality they were just teaching a lesson.
Throughout the world there are many different types of media that can help to inform people of what is going on around them; videos, photos, stories, art, graphics, a whole variety of informative media. However with information comes misinformation. There are many types of misinformation such as conspiracy theories which are ideas spread by certain groups of people who believe that there is a secret influential orga
Kaylin Brett
accountable, then you will trend towards doing them more often.”
Most social media sites have some sort of algorithm that decides what a user may want to see. According to Gordon, the more time a user spends engaging with something the more likely they are to continue receiving content on that topic, whether they want to see it or not. Gordon also believes that social media sites incentivise users to make content that gets the most viewers, engagement, and likes, which can affect the factual accuracy of the content being produced.
“The access to knowledge outweighs the misinformation, but we have to teach people how to identify misinformation”
Academic Director
nization responsible for a certain event. There is also disinformation which is purposeful misinformation spread with the intent to mislead someone.
“If someone fakes information and falsifies it, the intention is always negative, it’s never for a positive purpose,” Brett said. “I really hope that people realize we’re humans, they can really damage someone’s reputation, their livelihood, their career, their everything, if they’re willing to do that. As we continue teaching our students how to be good digital citizens, we are teaching them how to use technology as a tool, as a resource, for good, not for bad.”
SOCIAL SOURCES
The introduction of the internet changed the way people receive their information. Brett still remembers when the world wide web was first introduced to her as an elementary school student and her family bought their first computer allowing her to take her first look at what would soon revolutionize information.
“The internet is a beautiful thing, because you really can look up and learn anything you want,” Brett said. “If you’re interested in something, you can learn it. If you want to learn how to change your oil, you can watch numerous YouTube videos on how to do that. think the internet is beautiful because it provides people more knowledge, but it also does provide people with bias and misinformation. think the access to knowledge outweighs the misinformation, but we have to teach people how to identify misinformation and that’s a big step of education that we have to continue working towards.”
Since the creation of the internet, many social media platforms have become available for people to intercommunicate with one another. In the modern age of information, many people are alerted of things going on day-to-day through some form of social media.
“One of the positive things that social media is capable of is enabling regular people to speak to other regular people incredibly quickly,” AP Language teacher Matthew Gordon said. “People are not forced to wait until the end of the day for the newspaper to arrive to see what journalists downtown had to say. If there is a person in city hall when a meeting is happening, they could be live tweeting it, so the immediacy of news or any information is so much stronger now because of social media, and that’s a great thing.” People all across the world have access to social media, and according to Statista 5.45 billion people in the world have access to the internet, and of those 5.17 billion people have some form of social media. The sheer amount of people who have and utilize social media to report on events going on in their area contributes to the amount of people made aware of those events.
“Because of social media, where there used to be maybe five reporters at an event, they’d look at it, they’d write something later, and it would come out; now you could have 500 people at an event looking at it, commenting on it, and it’s way more information from way more points of view,” Gordon said. “There’s challenges to that as well, but as an asset, it’s undeniable. That kind of exposure, those amounts of eyes on people, it’s never been seen before in human history and good or bad, it’s definitely a tool that can be used.” While there are positive aspects to social media, many believe there are negative aspects as well.
Kaylin Brett
“If people are mindful, cognizant, and conscious of what they are doing, then social media is incredibly useful,” Gordon said. “They get all the benefits: immediacy, multiple perspectives, and visible exposure, but that takes work, it takes intentionality, and it takes effort. If that effort is not there, more often than not, the tool becomes misused. There are only a few right ways to use a dangerous weapon and hundreds of ways to misuse it. Social media has started to really trend away from just the tool category and into a weapon category, which means we have to be even more conscious about and careful about how we choose to interact with it.”
OPINION AND BIAS
On social media and the internet there are millions of websites and resources people can use to find information. There are two main types of stories a reporter would write: News or opinion. News story labels often include articles and briefs, opinion stories could be labeled, editorial, review, or commentary. The main focus of a news story is to present the audience with objective facts on a topic, while the main focus of an opinion story is to state and support the author’s stance on a topic.
“When someone is reading a fact, it allows them to develop their own opinion,” Brett said. “When they’re reading factual pieces, no matter what it is, when they’re reading it for themselves, then they can develop their own opinion. However, do think reading opinion pieces is important because sometimes they help to see both sides.”
According to Brett, reading opinion stories offers valuable insight from perspectives that someone may not have thought of prior to reading them.
Culby Bell
“When someone is reading an opinion piece, they can then relate to different people and realize it kind of helps them develop their opinion,” Brett said. “However, when reading opinion pieces, think it’s always very important to read both sides, because people can influence others, and if someone still doesn’t know their own personal opinion and they only read one side, they don’t have the other perspective. I think it’s so important to know the different perspectives, especially if someone is new to a topic, because then it helps them understand where their morals are and where their values are as they’re developing their opinion on that piece, too.”
recognize the potential bias of the source they view. In this case left-leaning refers to news stations with more liberal views, while right-leaning refers to stations with more conservative views.
“Politics is what our nation is built on,” junior C.J. Pelt said. “As much as sometimes we hate politics, it is our entire country. It affects the news so much, because in some way or another, all of our opinions are based on some sort of political thing that’s happening in your country. And when the news reports on that, they have to include political stuff, because it’s so ingrained into our lives.”
Personal bias can make a person purposely change the way they portray a certain news topic, however personal bias can also accidentally affect the news.
“A lot of us talk unconsciously, we speak without necessarily thinking about every single word we’re about to say,” Gordon said. “We just have thoughts and then we let the unconscious brain communicate them, so bias can unconsciously get put into everything we say.”
a way that a human being’s brain does, they can’t be relied on to find the truth.”
Apart from information and resource gathering, AI has also been developed to generate art, images, and videos using a collection of art, photo, video, and audio from the internet as reference. AI can also be used to edit existing internet content.
“AI imaging and video is what really frightens me, because there are times where people can actually alter someone’s actions,” Brett said. “That frightens me, because I feel like a lot of people always want to say, ‘well, where’s your proof? Where’s the video or photo evidence?’
Matthew Gordon AP Language Teacher
FACT CHECKING
“Until AI algorithms develop to where they actually think and comprehend in a way that a human being’s brain does, they can’t be relied on to find the truth.”
And now that AI can make that, that’s concerning. AI plays a big role in misinformation, because how can someone prove that a photo is AI versus real?”
According to Pelt, AI is still at a point where the average person can tell that an image or video is AI generated, but as the software advances there is an impending doom of AI getting to a place where it can create false information that is indiscernible from the real thing.
With the potential for every piece of information someone reads to be inaccurate or swayed by opinion, many people believe it is important to get their news from more than one source. Misinformation can be more prevalent because it is an election year, so it can be more important to stay informed in order to vote in a way that is most accurate to a person’s values. Senior Culby Bell ensures that he will not be swayed by misinformation in the election by doing his own research.
“I believe it’s important to get accurate information to create a non-biased opinion in voting or not be swayed in any direction, to formulate one’s own ideas,” Bell said. “I feel like if someone gets information from enough sources, they can come up with their own ideas and their own beliefs on everything.”
The source that a piece of information is from can help readers to determine for themselves how credible they think the information is.
“Anytime someone gets information from a different outlet or a third party source, it can have bias in it, it could have something misleading or something could be misconstrued,” Brett said. “Making sure to have the original source, the primary source, allows someone to then take it and be able to refer to it and be able to point to it and see where the information it’s actually originally written down.”
“If someone gets information from enough sources, they can come up with their own ideas and their own beliefs on everything.”
Apart from where someone is getting a piece of information from, who a person is getting information from can also be important. According to Gordon an author lends their name and credibility to their work, so every time they create anything they are putting their careers and reputation at risk if the audience does not accept or trust the information presented.
Senior
Differentiating between whether a piece of text or media is news-based or opinion-based can be a challenge for some if it is not clearly labeled as one of the two. There are some indicators that help differentiate between the two: often times opinion stories will not have as many quotes in comparison to news stories, opinion stories often used more charged verbs that clearly portray a certain tone for the work, and visually on the television news, opinions are often shared in panel in a conversation like format while news stories are often just one anchor person stating the facts of an event.
“There are always people who, during an election, are trying to get something from someone else,” Gordon said. “Most basic, it’s a vote, and to secure that vote, people will say or do whatever they are comfortable with to try to get that. For a lot of people, it is not very hard to tell a lie or to say something that they think is true but haven’t checked for themselves. Right now, in our country, there’s a lot of people saying a lot of things that if someone never double checks for themselves, can lead them into a totally separate place from the real world.”
Family is a source of trusted news for many students.
Although, according to Pelt, a person’s family can also keep them in an isolated bubble of information, and parents can subject their children to potentially biased information.
“AI is used to warp information because it can make anybody say anything, and it’s getting better and better,” Pelt. “It can make misinformation seem real. It can create new misinformation, and at the click of a button, it can perpetuate more misinformation.”
Having false or factually unjustified information can have negative effects on people.
“Misinformation today can divide families,” Gordon said. “It can allow people to see green when really there’s yellow, or to find aggression when really there’s only assertiveness. It divides and forces people into their own little worlds and as that world gets more and more separate from what others are living in, they feel alienated, they feel angry and they lash out. Misinformation causes fear, and fear causes violence.”
According to Brett, the possible negative effects of misinformation can be frightening due to the amount of misinformation in the world today.
“Misinformation is scary, because anyone can really manipulate a lot of people into thinking a certain way, and if people aren’t educated enough to question it, they’re just going to believe everything,” Brett said. “That can be really frightening, because there’s a lot of misinformation out there.”
Misinformation can have negative effects, but only when people perceive misinformation as truth. To combat the negative effects of misinformation the main thing someone can do is ensure their information is accurate.
“The ultimate way to stop misinformation is to use your own energy and intelligence to check for yourself,” Gordon said. “If you are willing, mature, and mindful enough to do that extra 15 seconds of Googling 90% of what is false in and around your life will disappear. It just takes that conscious effort, that desire to find the truth. If you’re fine with not finding the truth you’ll have a lot more free time on your hands, but you’ll be living in a fantasy world.”
“When social media started it was about connecting with people, and now it’s become such a damaging way for people to get information.”
“Social media damages the news,” Brett said. “When social media started, it was about connecting with people, and now it’s become such a damaging way for people to get information, because anyone can say anything, and anyone can generate anything. It’s a great way for people to get access to information, but is it the right information? Is it actually correct?”
Most social media sites do not require that people use their actual name or information when creating a profile. In fact, many social media safety articles recommend that people do not use their legal name when signing up for a social media site. This can make it a challenge to verify if the owner of a social media account is who they say they are. While some sites offer a verification service that allows content creators to add a little check next to their name verifying that the account authentically belongs to them, not all content creators are or want to be verified.
“Anonymity has got good and bad elements to it,” Gordon said. “The negative aspect of anonymity is it removes accountability. If someone can say whatever comes to mind without ever being held accountable to it, if they are the kind of person who relies on external forces to have a conscience, if they have to have someone there watching them in order to not steal or cheat or lie, if they can do those things without being
Academic Director
“It’s incredibly important to know when a piece is someone’s opinion versus researched fact because of perception,” Gordon said. “If someone understands that what they’re reading is someone’s perception of the world or a thing, and not the objective truth, then they can use those opinions to inform their own, but if they take someone’s opinions as truth, or if the author hides their unfounded, untruthful opinions and presents them as truth, then the audiences understanding of the world, their perception as the reader now entirely, is the authors fiction, and suddenly they’re not living in the real world anymore, they’re living in the author’s fictional world.”
Outside of explicitly written
opinion stories, people’s personal opinions can seep into news-based media due to something called bias.
According to the Cambridge dictionary the action of being biased is caused by the allowance of personal opinions to affect judgment.
“It’s very clear that news sources have bias, and that news sources are working to promote one agenda over another, and it’s really unfortunate,” Brett said. “All these news companies, they’re money makers; they’re all trying to get the most say, the most views, the most people watching or reading their news. They love to exaggerate, they love to get crazy headlines and get people to eat it up. I really get worried about the bias of the news, because if someone is only listening to one side of the news they become very close minded. That’s one thing that’s causing such polarization in our country, is because people have their blinders on, and they only look one way, and then it causes them to only think one way.”
One of the major influences of personal, and group bias is politics. There are many sites online such as AllSides
“For somebody really young, whatever news station their family has on, that’s their news,” Pelt said. “A lot of families, if they’re really strict, limit children’s access to the internet, so the child only sees what the parents want them to see. Also generally speaking, people get most of their ideas of morality and what’s right and wrong from their parents, so if the parents think something is right when the child is really young, then the child does as well. And it’s really hard to unlearn that.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI is another source of information for students, and it is growing in popularity. Artificial intelligence uses a collection of internet data to simulate human intelligence.
“Because AI, as it works right now, is never actively trying to find the truth, it can never be relied on to be truthful,” Gordon said. “AI has no understanding of what is real or not real. What is fact or what is fiction. Michael Jordan is as real to chat GPT as Jamie Lannister, because they’re both just words put into a computer for this program, AI has no sense of real or fiction unless we give it to them. Until AI algorithms develop to where they actually think and comprehend in
Bulldog cross country powerhouses
Ranked 15th in the state for their long distance skills, runners make a mark at meets
Caroline Baxter Sports Editor
Running towards the finish, the Bowie cross country team concludes another one of their long and draining races. Their hard efforts have paid off with the team being ranked 15th in the state.
One of the multiple reasons Bowie cross country is incredibly strong is due to junior captain Griffin Hummel. Hummel currently holds the Bowie record for the cross country 5k with a time of 15:38. He expresses how this achievement has made him feel and grow as a runner throughout the upcoming season.
“I feel pretty good, it just feels really cool because my freshman year, the record holder Zach Munger, was a senior, and I looked up to him a lot,” Hummel said. “I thought it would be impossible to ever get those times, but now, just a couple years later, to be able to run those times too” Hummel is incredibly proud of Bowie’s work and effort that has prevailed with them being one of the best. Hummel describes how he believes they will continue to grow and get better with experience.
times in the afternoon and then a couple times on the weekend. However, in the off season, I run a lot more with the clubs.”
Hummel isn’t the only powerhouse on the Bowie cross country team.
Junior Micah McAulay is one of the top runners for the girls varsity team.
McAulay also said she is very proud of how hard the team has been working to be one of the best in the state.
“I am always so happy about Bowie being 15th in the state,” McAulay said.
“We worked so hard and trained for it and we all used up our last bit of energy for that very moment. We left it out there on the course.”
"We worked so hard and trained for it and we all used up our last bit of energy for that moment. We left it out there on the course. "
To continue Bowie’s dominance, McAulay has to continue to run and she does because she loves the sport. She explains the feeling she gets from running everyday. “I run cross country because it always makes me feel satisfied afterwards,” McAulay said. “Even if it was a bad run I am happy to move my body and be with my friends all the time.”
Miah McAulay Cross Country Runner
McAulay is excited and ready about the season this year and would love to continue Bowie’s dominance for the next two years of her running career.
“Last season, it was the first time guys made a state and we were definitely at the bottom of that state meet,” Hummel said. “Now that our feet are wet, I feel that we have a lot more room to improve and grow. And I think a lot of teams are going to underestimate us.”
To keep up his fitness and to help propel the team forward, Hummel does a lot of training, in school and out of school. He illustrates his rigorous training schedule he goes through during and out of cross country season.
“Most of my runs are with the school, but I do run with a club after school,” Hummel said. “During the season, I usually just run a couple
Sports Brief
Coach Branyon is back to Bowie
At the end of the 2023 school year, Ty Branyon took a year off of teaching and coaching due to personal reasons. Starting this semester he is back, deciding that one year is long enough being away from the Bowie community.
“I got out of education, not because I was unhappy with it,” Branyon said. “I missed it every day that I was gone. I decided I had to come back.” Branyon, who is a Bowie alumni, and played football at Bowie during his high school career. He decided to come back and coach after playing for and graduating from Texas A&M.
“Football teaches us these lessons of commitment,” Branyon said. “It teaches us hard work and dedication, and I think if you give yourself a good foundation with those things, it gives you a chance to be successful,” Being a coach was something that Branyon wanted to do from an early age. His first job out of college was coaching and he has been coaching for 18 years now.
“Coach Branyon is one of the best coaches I ever had,” junior Easton Lewis said. “I admire that he really connects with the team and builds that connection with us.” Branyon coaches sports outside of football like track. He leads kids to success in many fields. While he was away Branyon was able to connect with his kids, coaching them in their preferred sports. After a long year, he has returned to do what he excels at, coaching football
“Bowie is a special place to me,” Branyon said. “It feels like home to me, I want
“I am planning on continuing the dominance for Bowie by always running my hardest,” McAulay said.
“I will also continue to train well with my team and lift spirits.”
Junior runner Willa Bock thinks Bowie cross country is not like other schools and that’s how Bowie will continue their influence on the sport. She believes that the team’s dynamic is totally different from the other cross country teams in the state.
“I think we’re more fun than other schools,” Bock said. “A lot of times they look real serious on their warm up laps, having their headphones on and look locked in. We always walk the warm up lap and joke around with one another.”
Bock believes team bonding and
the kids that go here to know how special this place is.” Branyon wants to build and rebuild relationships with his players. The impact his past coach made on him is what inspired him to pursue a career in education. Whether it’s his students, or football players he believes that building relationships with them, ultimately helps in their success.
“He is always willing to go out of his way for others,” senior Ryan Cormier said. “If a student or football player doesn’t understand something, he’ll sit down with them and talk it over until they understand how to run the right route or grasp the concept.” Whether students just met him or known him for years, Branyon tries to make a positive impact on the students and players around him. Branyon is thrilled to be a part of this fall’s football season and this spring’s track season. Coaching quarterbacks and offensive coordinator, he gives it his all to help lead the players to a victory for the ‘Dawgs just like before.
“Enjoy every minute of it,” Branyon said. “Football is a game and sometimes you can let the pressure get to you but you always have to remember it’s a game and you need to have fun and work hard.”
STORY BY Ava Weaver
chemistry is the most important component to a team’s success. She believes it brings up the hope and courage in the team and helps improve their running.
“Before the race we always huddle up and tell each other it’ll be okay and to always do our best,” Bock said. “We
always try to finish in a pack together and we encourage one another throughout the race.”
Bock likes running for Bowie cross country a lot. She explains how it is a great way to get to know new people and start to form a big group of friends and how it helps her on and off the
course. “We all suffer through the same things and it makes us stronger together,” Bock said. “When we do all the running together it makes me feel accomplished in the morning, it feels like I have a better purpose for the day.”
‘Dawgs compete in Junior Olympics
Bowie athletes excel in their respective track events
Hannah Kim Dispatch Reporter
Wind blowing, sweat dripping down, heavy panting comes from Conor Bibb and Charlie Stinson, two sophomores at Bowie High School who have qualified for the steeple chase and high jump at the Junior Olympics in the summer of 2024. The event will take place in Greensboro, North Carolina.
As time went by, the two athletes advanced to the Junior Olympics making family and friends proud.
“I started cross country in middle school because I realized I was better at it then football and one of my friends told me to join his track club so that’s why I started running,” Bibb said.
The athletes like how the coaches aren’t as strict on them. Making it easier to compete without stress and much pressure.
“The coaches are not hard on you, they’re actually really laid back when we’re in the season,” Stinson said. “The coaches are nice and they just let me do my own thing as long as I do good.”
According to the students, having support from close friends and family members makes them feel proud of themselves and even more confident.
“My dad is probably my biggest supporter,” Bibb said. “It makes me feel good knowing I have someone watching me compete and accomplish my goals.”
Bibb isn’t the only one getting support from family.
“My biggest supporters are my parents and my friends like
Marrell,” Stinson said. “Having support from loved ones help a lot, my mom motivates me a lot and she gets on me when I mess up. It’s a great feeling to do good things while having the support.”
Feeling nervous before the big run, Bibb finds a way to stay calm.
“To make my self feel less nervous, I just tell myself to have fun and not worry too much about the race,” Bibb said.
Bibb is not alone when feeling nervous before a big run.
“To make myself feel calm for Junior Olympics instead of ignoring the nervousness of a big stage I embraced it,” Stinson said. “I’ve told myself that even though it’s a huge stage, I have so many people traveling to see me and I cannot disappoint.”
Stinson’s mom, Marissa Grambley, is extremely proud of her son for making the Junior Olympics.
“I was so proud of Charlie when he qualified for the Junior Olympics. He had trained hard all summer in the heat multiple times a week,” Grambley said. “He competed at several different meets as well and it was amazing to see him improve over the summer. It is something I think we’ll remember forever.”
Making it to the Junior Olympics can put pressure on the athletes to keep making strides to almost perfection. According to researchers, athletics who thrive under pressure, focus on succeeding more.
“My goal is to just go back and race there again because I am moving up to 16-17 age group,” Bibb said.
Stinson has some big goals
in mind as well. He isn’t the only one reaching far and hav
ing big dreams.
“My
for next
RUNNING HOME: Working hard, sophomore Owen Witherspoon pushes himself to the end of the race. The Bowie Bulldogs
first at the Austin ISD invitational.
PHOTO BY Cooper Ford
Ty Branyon PHOTO BY Ava Weaver
Water polo team takes center stage
Michael Vienneau Sports Editor
Dashing and driving with strength and endurance, once an emerging idea, finally comes into fruition, Bowie High School is now home to a water polo team.
Early August marked the start of the water polo season, the team is currently led by two coaches. Head coach Jessica Langbehn has been a teacher for eight years, three at Bowie and her assistant, head swimming coach Chloe Carr, who also teaches history.
“Since I have been here the school has really been pushing me to establish a water polo club,” Carr said. “I initially kept saying no, just because I wasn’t really familiar with the sport, but when Langbehn pushed for a team, I decided that it would be something I would want to be a part of.”
Water Polo teams typically consist of six players as well as a goalie.
was affected the club’s establishment was getting enough players to join the team. With a sport that requires lots of subbing and transitions, a team of just seven or eight players would never be viable. In order to compete the team first had to get enough players who were willing to show up and participate.
“I think Coach Carr and I were expecting a team filled with primarily swimmers,” Langbehn said. “That’s kind of how it was shaking up initially, it was a small team. I think as soon as the word spread it became much more popular to people outside of swimming. I think that is something that surprised me a lot, just the variety of swimmers and non-swimmers.”
There are two separate teams for water polo, a girls and a boys team. August 28 marked the beginning of both teams’ competition schedule.
“All the seniors have really stepped up,” Langbehn said. “Having some
expected considering it’s our first year as a program.”
The girls team is six games into their competition schedule and are currently sitting at 1-5. The boys team is five games in and is currently winless. Junior right wing Mia Urbazo has been playing water polo for one week.
but they actually are. It’s in a nice area and it’s really a great facility which is something I never really would have
“I have every confidence that we can turn it around,” Urbazo said. “We are still getting used to the whole process. I think coach Langbehn and coach Carr have done a great job on making the club a lot of fun while also making us better. I think once we all get used to the rules our team will
WEIGHTS AND WALKS
Bowie girls fitness club sheds light on health and fitness
Skylar Haywood Dispatch Reporter
The courtyard is bustling with students peering from booth to booth trying to decide what the next club they want to join is going to be. Suddenly the sign of one specific booth catches a young female student’s eye, the Girls Fitness club.
The Girls Fitness club is a club focused on fitness and overall health. The club meets one to two times a month during FIT in Kimberly Wiedmyers room A125, and was founded by senior Sarah Marcus who has been leading it for a year. “I wanted to make a safe community for girls to workout and be comfortable,” Marcus said.
“There are zero requirements to join. Anyone who is wanting to join us and build a healthy lifestyle, this club is for them.” Marcus runs the club with her best friend junior Harper Tishgart. The club will be passed down to Tishgart when Marcus graduates, and it will be up to her to lead the community.
“I love being able to work with my best friend on something we are super passionate about, and I love helping girls find their community,” Marcus said.
The club is planning on hosting events outside of school to give students more opportunities to participate.
“We are planning to go to Zilker and Mount Bonnell,” Marcus said. “It will be up to Harper if she is planning on doing events in the summer.”
The club has tried to encourage other girls to join and learn more about staying healthy and working out. Junior Ella Rooney is a member of the club, and she encourages others to join.
“I would recommend joining because it helps build a healthy lifestyle and it is good to be surrounded by a safe community,” Rooney said. “I have made a lot more friends and it has motivated me to be healthy and to workout more.”
Marcus wants the legacy of the club to live on after she leaves Bowie, and hopes to get some more members before she has to leave.
“My goal for the club is to gain 30 members by the end of this year and be able to pass the club on,” Marcus said. “I think that this could be a good community for girls at Bowie.”
MAKING THE SHOT:
PLANNING AND PREPARING: Senior Sarah Marcus and junior Harper Tishgart run the girls fitness club meeting. They discussed future club plans as the school year begins. PHOTO BY Skylar Haywood
Show choir class belts a new tune
Bentlee Toland Entertainment Editor
Voices harmonize, bouncing off the walls, bright and early, as the show choir prepares to kick start their day. Show choir is an opportunity for individuals to explore their passion for singing and performing. Don’t mistake them for just another choir group. Unlike traditional choirs, this musical group allows you to belt out your favorite pop hits.
“The whole point of the show choir was an additional factor to singing and performance,” senior Bubba Infante said. “It’s a way to just sort of differentiate from choral singing. People just wanted more, they get bored of choir music, singing stuff that was made 70 years ago, and when people
sing they’d rather sing something new.”
The show choir is a zero-hour class meaning the class is before or after school in this case, it’s before school every Monday and Wednesday. Because zero hours are classes that get added to an official transcript, students receive a grade. If students join or stay in the class through your junior or senior year the grade they receive becomes weighted.
“The beauty of having a zero hour is that you don’t have to be in any choir classes during the day, and you can be in this,” Infante said. “Singing is so much fun, It makes you happy, it releases so many endorphins, it’s the best.”
The Bowie choir has had a zero-hour for a while called Silver Sound which is for the
advanced varsity singers of the choir. They compete at UIL competitions, unlike the show choir.
“My freshman year, I didn’t do Silver Sound,” junior Darby Kendrick said. “I went to the concert when Silver Sound got up and sang their songs, I was like, dang, I want to do that too, so I joined the next year.”
Choir classes can positively affect students by reducing stage fright and Improving lung function but the one that stands out the most to students in show choir how singing releases endorphins.
“It just makes my mood better I sing, like, all the time, and on days where I don’t listen to music or don’t sing, I can feel that I’m in a bad mood,” junior Abby Laine said. “So, then I go home and I sing, and I’m like,
oh I am good.”
From singing along to favorite songs in the car to performing in front of a crowd for the first time, the journey of becoming a singer can be different for everyone.
“I’ve been in choir since elementary school,” said Kendrick. “But, I’ve always sung with my mom. It’s not like the easiest thing in the world but it’s for fun, I just want to be as involved in choir as I can.”
”Students get to practice at 7:30 before school and stay for around an hour. They meet in the choir room, and Aaron Bourgeois, the choir director , is also the show choir teacher.
Bourgeois has been leading the voices of the Bowie choir for over five years.
“He is really kind,” Laine said. “He always wants us to have fun and enjoy the music, He sees our talent and tries to help us grow on our abilities.”
The show choir plans to add choreography to the singing this is not new for most of the students because of the cabaret shows that choir kids do. The Cabaret Show has been a yearly tradition since the school first opened. This show gives students a chance to perform rather than just a concert. This is how the idea started up to create a show choir.
“Show choir is kind of like our cabaret show,” Bourgeois said. “Our students are, of course, super talented with their choir singing, but when they can put that into pop music and those skills, they get a chance to shine. It’s going to be a lot more engaging overall.”
While the show choir at Bowie is new, it is popular across Texas with over 80 high school fielding a team. It is even popular for middle schools since there are over 40 of them in the state.
“We’ve had probably about a third of the choir program in the class,” Bourgeois said. “I think this is the choir that’s the
CREATIVITY ON STAFF
most different from the regular choirs that we have. So, it’s a lot more exciting in that way too”.
Art can help children explore their emotions through a creative outlet. But according to Bourgeois it can also help teachers understand how students show their inner thoughts.
“I can see kids express themselves in a way that I maybe don’t always see inherently, Bourgeois said. “So, it’s kind of a different level of enjoyment.”
Music has served as a way for artistic expression for decades. What can set music apart is that it can embrace individuals from all walks of life. Witnessing his students’ cheerful involvement in music fills Bourgeois with a sense of happiness and fulfillment.
“I think there is always something to gain from exploring any kind of music,” Bourgeois said. “I’ve had kids asking me about show choir for years. I think it is a great way to explore your love of music and your love of singing, the choir community here is a great
one to be a part of.”
Witnessing his students’ cheerful involvement in music fills Bourgeois with a sense of happiness and fulfillment.
“I think it is very special to be in fine arts,” Bourgeois said. “Because you’re able to see students express themselves you need ways to express yourself. I loved the community I had in my high school choir. I don’t have kids of my own or anything, but I care about them like they are. I feel very honored to be a part of that.”
John Flick finds an inspiring way to share his artwork
Eliza Williams Dispatch Reporter
Creativity and talent can blossom within a person at any point in life, under any circumstance, and the same can be said for Bowie’s AP literature teacher John Flickinger and his artwork. Flick, as he is affectionately know by students, dabbled in many forms of creative arts throughout his life, from doodling at a young age, taking art classes in high school, publishing novels, and running a middle school theater company. He ended up settling with visual art.
“I’ve always been creative,” Flick said. “I think that’s one of my passions in life, is just creating.”
For Flick, he had already done some work with pastels and charcoal in his 20s, but paused when he started writing. He took visual art back up during lock-down and began painting as a way to pass the time while there was nothing to do but stay inside.
“I revisited my visual artistic endeavors during Covid,” Flick said. “I taught myself to watercolor paint, I started a graphic novel and I realized I didn’t really want to do a graphic novel, I just wanted to do individual pieces.”
Five years, later, his work can be found hung up around his classroom and posted on websites like Instagram, X, and Facebook.
“He has an Instagram,” junior Hayley Curtis said. “I think it’s cool. I think it helps him
promote what he does, and then maybe inspire other people that are starting art or want to do art with their life.”
Flick’s pieces are mostly surrealist portraiture, using watercolors and ink, but during times he’ll combine the two. He took inspiration for his pieces from many well known artists, such as Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso, among others.
More recently, though, he took inspiration from fellow Instagram artists, including an artist from Spain, who mixes the unnatural with the natural into their works; not to mention different forms of art that put emphasis on imaginative and emotional qualities.
“I’m often inspired by surrealist work,” Flick said. “But I also really like romanticism and some of the daunting figures of a lot of southern painters.”
Flick also includes, within his art, messages he wants others to glean.
“There’s beauty in the terrifying, and there’s inspiration in the surreal,” Flick said. “I think one reason that I started painting and put away the writing was because so much of my life is based on finding the deeper meaning. And sometimes I just want to paint a pretty or scary picture and look at it and have other people look at it.”
AP studio art teacher Mindy Le Jeune commented on the many aspects of his work including the painting of hands.
“Drawing hands is always really difficult,” Le Jeune said. “And he did a very good job capturing that.”
Le Jeune also notes the colors and the way his paintings come together.
“I think they are all unified very nicely with color, tones, proportion, and, of course, subject matter,” Le Jeune said.
And while gaining recognition for his art around the Bowie campus, Flick had also gained a reputation through his teaching. A reputation that reflects his love of teaching, one that can be seen through his students.
“He’s a really good teacher,” junior Hayley Curtis said. “I feel like I’m learning stuff in his class. He teaches super well and he makes sure that we all understand; and he has conferences where we can just go up and ask for help.”
His teaching reached the ears of Le Jeune as well, across campus in L hall.
“I’ve heard that he is very passionate about his classes, and he gets the students really involved in stories and writing and healthy debates,” Le Jeune said.
Like his passion for teaching, Flick holds a passion for his art that Curtis recognizes.
“I feel like he’s very passionate about what he does,” Curtis said.
When looking at his art Le Jeune also took in a feeling of how much Flick enjoys his work.
“He seems so proud about his artwork,” Le Jeune said. “That when you see an artist who is so enthusiastic about their artwork, it makes you feel happy that they’re creating something they love.”
From taking a few art classes in high school, to teaching himself to watercolor paint, Flick also reflects on his own art and the ways it has changed and evolved.
“I would look at my progression as an artist
as a form of, hopefully, inspiration for other artists,” Flick said. “Because I look back at works when I first started that I thought were cool, and I’m like ‘wow, I really have gotten a lot better!’.” There is a message Flick has
Isadora Para
LEARNING THE MUSIC: Juniors Grace Hertel and Darby Kendrick focus on learning their new sheet music, carefully reading the notes and lyrics while trying to get a feel for the rhythm. Learning music is a process, that these students take a step at a time. PHOTO BY Isadora Para
WATERCOLOR TEARS: In his watercolor portrait, Flick portrays a woman crying and pulling her mouth out. He shares work like this and many others on his public social media account. PHOTO COURTESY OF John Flick
POSING WITH THE MASTERPIECES: Flick stands proudly in front of his art work. Hung on the back wall of his classroom, all students are welcome to admire his work and add
contributions.
PHOTO BY Eliza Williams
VIDEO BY Reagan Tso
Too Good to Go, the food activist app
The food ordering app, determined to end rampant food waste
Eleanor Blue Reviews Editor
We are all affected by food waste.
It’s a prevailing issue worldwide, with around 2.5 billion tons of food wasted annually. According to Recycle Track Systems (RTS) in the U.S. alone, restaurants are responsible for around 22-33 million tons of that total.
The impact of this waste is more than just financial. Social, environmental, and ethical concerns surround this misuse of sustenance.
The cost of food in America is on a slow increase and the effects are long lasting. Many families consistently struggle to find nutritional foods at reasonable prices. A recent study by RTI Health Advance found that low-income families spend over 30% of their income on food.
The environment is also put at risk. When we waste consumable products, we also waste the natural resources like energy and water required to produce it. So, food waste is bad. That
However, serious concerns are often neglected or intentionally ignored due to their severity and complexity. With large global concerns such as food waste, it is difficult to bring attention to complicated issues without overwhelming the public by the sheer amount of work to be done. How do you gather attention before people become overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work to be done?
This month I focused on an app that is trying to inspire people to take on food waste. Too Good to Go is an organization that is paving the way for a more sustainable future. It was founded in 2015 in Denmark and now operates on a global scale, even reaching across Europe, Canada, and the U.S.
It works like this: you download the app, enter your location, and find surprise packs of food near you. The fees range from $3-$11 and saves food that otherwise would have gone to the dumpster. In the morning, restaurants post their prices and wait for customers to start buying.
online packages are gone. There are usually a few sweet options left like Shipleys or Tiff’s Treats. The limited selection could be perceived as a potential downside for those who want more options or prefer to shop later in the day.
Customers that plan ahead and order early in the day often have a much wider variety and are able to effectively supplement their standard shopping.
The sign-up process for restaurants is also very easy, the app makes it simple and clear. You can also recommend your favorite restaurants to participate through the app.
Too Good to Go partners with brands like Whole Foods, Starbucks, and Waterloo Ice House by offering you the things you love at a reduced price, giving a new life to the food that otherwise would have been wasted.
It’s also a positive experience for the restaurants and businesses involved with the app. These restaurants get the opportunity to sell food with a limited shelf life while reaching their sustainability goals.
Eve Johansson Dispatch Reporter
Crumbl Cookies was founded in September of 2017 and has grown rapidly since then, expanding all aspects of its business from the menu to new store locations.
Everything started with the dream of two cousins, Jason McGowan and Sawyer Hemsley, who sought to create the perfect chocolate chip cookie to bring people from all around the world together. They opened their first store in Logan, Utah and with their idea of an open-concept kitchen expanded them all over the U.S. and even internationally.
Out of the 1040 running across the U.S., there are two Crumbl stores in southwest Austin. One is located in Southpark Meadows on 9600 S I-35 Frontage Rd, and the other is in Sunset Valley on
Companies’ involvement with the app also shines well on them. It’s a good look to be a part of cutting global emissions and doing your part for the ongoing climate crisis.
But how does the app per-
For functionality, Too Good to Go is an almost seamless process. The app is extraordinarily uncomplicated and easy to navigate. You have the option to favorite a company or order, and the sleek color palette of the app shows cohesion and an understanding of what the buyer wants.
But what is the process itself I decided to test it.
Ordering was easy enough, you just pick a bag that interests you and plug in your information and payment type. At this time, Too Good to Go accepts PayPal, Apple Pay, or a credit or debit card.
For my first experience with Too Good to Go, I chose Tiff Treats to review both the process and quality.
Pick-up is straightforward. You let the restaurant know when you arrive and they retrieve a bag with your food from the back. Every order is a surprise so the amount changes, but I got nine different cookies. The quality was good, they tasted like the high-quality treats that Tiff’s is known for. This review is not for the cookies themselves, but rather for the app and its quality. The idea of surprise bags is quite fun, and the plan behind it is admirable.
One of the few drawbacks concerns dietary restrictions It’s impossible to navigate dietary restrictions because of the
surprise element of the bags. Anyone who is lactose intolerant or gluten-free doesn’t have the option to order a bag that aligns with their needs, which makes the app difficult to use for 20-35% of the US population with a gluten or dairy intolerance, not to mention any other dietary restrictions. They do have a filter for vegetarian or vegan options so there isn’t that restriction, but there are still ways to improve reach and accommodations.
Another factor is the amount of food. Sometimes it can be too much. Especially if you’re ordering for one, the quantity of your order can seem
daunting. This isn’t necessarily a critique of the app itself, just be prepared to share with classmates, friends, or family members. Ultimately, food in America is wasted on a massive scale and the problems with the app are far outweighed by the difference that an app like this has the potential to make. The good reviews speak for themselves, Too Good to Go is winning the hearts of consumers worldwide. The cookies I ordered were delicious and the app is easy to use. If you have the chance, check it out.
5207 Brodie Ln. They are open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and they are closed on Sunday.
As a unique way of drawing in customers, every week on Sunday around 8 p.m., Crumbl Cookies updates their menu, introducing six different cookies than what they had the week before. This creates anticipation for next week’s flavors and brings sales up since one cookie only comes on the menu a couple times a year.
A weekly rotating menu is not the only thing Crumbl does to include customers. One of the first things you see when you walk in is their open-concept kitchen. This type of kitchen allows customers to view the cookies being made and experience the steps that go into putting a Crumbl cookie together.
Walking into the store located in Sunset Valley, my first thought was that everything looked
very put together, starting with the light pink, black, and white color scheme. From the walls and minimal decor to the boxes and packaging were one or all of those three colors.
It was a small space, since Crumbl only offers pickup, delivery, or in store purchases. There’s no spot to sit down and enjoy your cookies in the actual store. The open-concept kitchen took up more than half of the front of the store, where you were able to watch Crumbl workers as you waited in line to order.
Another noticeable thing is the big TV on the side wall, which displays the week’s cookie flavors and the prices of whichever box size you plan on ordering. Laying out on the counter next to the order screen, Crumbl puts out the six cookies of the week, allowing you to see what they look like in person. I found this very helpful, since when it comes to the size of each cookie it’s hard to tell online.
I went at 7 p.m. on a Thursday evening, so it wasn’t as crowded as it normally would be on a Saturday, for example. There were only two other groups of people when I went in to order, so the line moved pretty fast.
When you order, the most common options are a single cookie, a four pack, and a six pack. Crumbl also offers other sizes, like a party box of twelve and extras like milk and gift wrap.
The week of September 2-7, the Crumbl menu consisted of four cookies, one mini cake, and one mini bread as their six items for the weekly menu. I ordered a four pack and chose three out of the four cookies and the mini-cake, which came out to be about a total of $16.80 with tax.
The semi-sweet chocolate chunk was definitely my favorite of the four I tried. I loved how the idea was simple, but the cookie itself had many different flavors that made it one of the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had. The chocolate chips and the bit of salt on the top created the perfect balance of semi-sweet.
The second of the cookie options was a mini cake inspired by the new Beetlejuice movie that came out in theaters on September 6. The cake was dark chocolate flavored with both chocolate and vanilla icing on the inside. I thought it was really cool and unique to base cookies off of upcoming events and thought the dark chocolate flavoring and green and purple sprinkles made for a good representation of the new movie.
I‘ve always loved churros. The cinnamon sugar-flavoring paired with the soft, warm bread is one of my favorite tastes. Sadly, the Crumbl churro cookie didn’t really remind me of a churro at all, it just tasted like cinnamon. However, the
cookie’s vanilla icing was deliciously smooth, and overall I thought it was a good fall staple. The triple chocolate chip cookie is definitely not for everyone, but if you love chocolate this cookie is for you. It’s a chocolate flavored cookie loaded with both milk chocolate and white chocolate chips plus extra dark chocolate chunks. In my opinion however, compared to the other cookies, it was very rich and nothing extremely special. Overall, the products were good quality and I understand why Crumbl has
BITE: The Crumbl Cookie lineup from September 2-7, 2004 included Churro, Triple Chocolate Chip, The Afterlife cake, and Semi-Sweet Chocolate chunk. New flavors were introduced, with The Afterlife cake taking inspiration from the newly released movie Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. PHOTO BY Sophia Shaw
Afterlife Cake - Two tiered chocolate cake, inspired by the movie “Beetlejuice“
ART BY Sophia Sepulveda
ART BY Eleanor Blue
INFOGRAPHIC BY Marissa McGowan
PHOTO BY Sophia Shaw
COMMENTARY
ISPATCH STAFF D
COLLEGE APPLICATIONS
Students need more college guidance
High schools should offer support to seniors applying to university
EDITORIAL
The college applications process can cause a person to experience many mixed emotions from excitement and anticipation, to anxiety and dread. High school seniors who choose to apply to college are faced with various pressures while completing this daunting process. Students who don’t receive guidance from a guardian or advisor are often left feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to begin. Without someone to rely on for advice concerning writing college essays, filling out the FAFSA, or mapping out goals for their education, students may feel less empowered to pursue a higher education.
Most high schools do provide a college and career counselor for their students. However, it can be difficult for every student to receive the assistance they need because they are one of hundreds of students in line to get the help offered by an advisor. Additionally, students need more encouragement to make appointments and meet with their advisor periodically throughout high school. To address these issues, secondary schools should provide more resources for students to receive advising during their college application process.
Giving students more assistance while they are applying to college can help make this process more equitable, especially for lower income students. While some families are able to hire a college advisor who can help with crafting an effective essay, applying for financial aid, and finding scholarship opportunities, the cost of these services often makes them inaccessible to economically disadvantaged students. That said, if high schools more actively encourage students to connect with their college counselor, they can receive support which will allow them to produce successful applications, and receive information about financial assistance which may be crucial to their ability to attend college. Furthermore, not all students are able to receive guidance from parents or guardians while completing their applications. According to The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, aspiring first generation college students often face significant obstacles while applying for college, including having limited knowledge about how to go about completing their applications and having a more difficult time getting their financial needs met because their parents have not had the experience of going through this process themselves. If students are unable to get the help they need from their school because it does not provide the level of assistance they require, this may deter some individuals from even applying to college.
Finally, making more time for college planning while a student is in high school can make a big difference in their success after they've graduated. According to The Princeton Review, an advisor can be instrumental in helping students craft competitive applications and finding schools where they will be able to pursue their future goals. High schools should start facilitating connections between college counselors and students beginning in their freshman and
years. This will give advisors a better understanding of who they are helping so they can give guidance tailored to each individual student's needs.
Some may argue that it is unnecessary to provide so much assistance to students who are on their way to becoming adults. However, according to a report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), meeting one-on-one with an advisor can double the likelihood a student will attend a four-year college.
Students who wish to attend college should not be hindered because their high school does not provide the resources they need to fulfill this aspiration. As stated in a report by the NACAC, only around 33% of public schools in the nation
provide students with a college counselor. To combat this issue, schools should be allocated more funding from state governments to offer students who wish to pursue a higher education more adequate guidance. More funding from state governments should also go towards hiring a certain number of college counselors depending on size of the student body on high school campuses to effectively meet everyone’s needs. Even in this day and age, many obstacles continue to get in the way of a student's fundamental right to education. No one should face additional barriers to the already difficult college applications process because their high school fails to provide the resources necessary for their success.
Repeating theatre shows has positive effects
Starlight Theatre Company(STC) produces two to three plays about 45 minutes long each, and every other year the selection of plays are
from William Shakespeare’s large collection of work.
The last cycle of Shakespeare at Bowie was in 2022, the STC performed Macbeth, directed by Marco Bazan, and Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Matthew Humphrey. This fall, the company is doing another cycle of Shakespeare including Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and another showing of Midsummer Night's Dream, this time
directed by new theater teacher and director Kade Lasseigne. Many people are debating whether repeating Midsummer two cycles in a row is a beneficial choice for the company.
I believe repeating Midsummer Night's Dream at Bowie offers a positive experience and learning opportunities to all actors, technicians, and collaborators working on the three Shakespeare plays.
The STC is an educational theatre program, meaning the productions chosen are meant to offer students some kind of teaching opportunity. Therefore, the repetition of Midsummer should not be seen negatively, because it offers the chance to compare and contrast between productions. Personally, as an actor, having the opportunity to see the same script performed by different people under different direction is very beneficial. This allows people to think about why different actors make different choices and expand an individual's knowledge in theatre.
The most recent times the STC has performed Midsummer were set in different periods. When Matthew Humphrey directed in 2022 he set the play in the 1960s and many of the characters took inspiration from hippies, while Kade Lasseigne is taking the majority of his inspiration from the 2010s.
Though they directed the same play, the productions appear very differently, meaning anyone who saw the production of Midsummer in 2022’ could watch Lasseigne’s production and see an almost entirely different show. Especially considering that not only are the inspirations different but the script has been edited by the individual directors. This means that some moments lost in the 2022 production, the audience now has the ability to enjoy.
Additionally, the students who were in Midsummer in 22’ were
underclassmen, but those students are now upperclassmen. Students who have already been in Midsummer have more experience and opportunities to be in larger roles this year. Even though there may be students who would not want to be in the same show again, there may also be students who want another chance to play a larger role in the production.
Regarding students who had an aversion to being in Midsummer Night's Dream for a second time, the directors considered this while casting. When students signed up to audition, they were asked if they had been in Midsummer and their previous role as well. The director's consideration allows anyone to participate in fall shows and not be part of a production they may have an aversion to. This gives every actor more opportunity to work on a show they want to, therefore avoiding people feeling like they couldn’t audition for the 24’ fall shows. Even with all these positive aspects to the repetition of Midsummer Night’s Dream, it is understandable why some students might be upset. This is not only the second time Midsummer has been done by the Starlight Theatre Company. In fact, in the past ten years which would be five cycles of Shakespeare, Midsummer has been performed three times and a few more times earlier in Bowie history. Considering how large Shakespeare’s collection of plays is, many people would expect to see more variety among the productions chosen.
Still, the reasons previously listed outweigh student criticism about the recurring production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Repeating this play helps students improve as actors, technicians, and more because of the variety of opportunities provided during the process.
sophomore
THEATRE SHOWS
ART BY Alice Goss
ART BY Layne Foxcroft
Cancel culture is being abused for fun
Sam Bode Commentary Editor Questions? Concerns? Email: bowie.journalism@gmail.com
What do Ellen DeGeneres and J.K Rowling have in common? If you guessed that both their careers ended due to cancel culture, you’d be right. Cancel culture is a tool that people often use when they are hurt or feeling uncomfortable with someone else’s words or actions. This allows people to call others out on their ugly behavior, anywhere from racist or homophobic comments to rape allegations. DeGeneres was canceled for using racism and intimidation in the workplace, and J.K. Rowling was canceled for continued mis-gendering of transgender women on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Cancel culture is an extremely powerful tool that can help people that have been suffering from someone else’s actions, but if done wrong, it can turn into a weapon. If canceling someone goes to far, especially if they don’t deserve it, it can lead to detrimental mental health issues, low self-esteem, and even suicide. Cancel culture should only be used when absolutely necessary, not just as a fun activity people can participate in to fill the hours in the day.
Just because someone says something you don’t 100% like or agree with doesn't give you the right to harass them online and cover your tracks by using “cancel culture." Because of the 2024 Olympic games, there has been a lot of media coverage on Simone Biles and her husband Johnathon Owens. Because of this, a quote from almost a year ago was dug up and spread online. Back in December of 2023, Owens went on The Pivot Podcast, and when someone asked him who the catch was in his relationship, he responded "I always say that the men are the catch." I interpreted this as a poorly landed joke, but others went wild online, telling Biles to divorce him and that he’s a horrible man. Biles has repeatedly commented on the situation saying that she doesn’t care at all about what he said and that he’s a loving man. Despite this, people now tear Owens down online any chance they get and call him “Mr. Biles” in the most condescending
way imaginable. This unnecessary bandwagon hate pretending to be cancel culture takes a larger toll on the people being harassed than one might think. On the Call Her Daddy podcast, Biles said that the backlash against her husband made her break down into tears because she couldn't handle how people were talking about the man she loves. This kind of torment is harmful, especially against teenagers. According to Newport Academy, social rejection literally hurts people. It lights up the same part of the brain that reacts to physical pain.
Cancel culture doesn’t just apply to celebrities and their wrong doing. It can happen to anyone no matter the size of their online community. It’s no secret that cyberbullying is running wild in schools, but those actions can often be shrugged off if the bully claims their actions are reasonable because they are canceling someone for doing something unacceptable. They often don’t use that exact wording, but they will tie it back to the general idea that someone did something bad or that they didn’t like, so they can make fun of or hurt them with zero consequences. Impressionable teens suffer from this because they might think that they are genuinely a bad person because they haven’t pleased all of their peers or made a simple mistake. It can also teach young teens that it’s okay to humiliate people online because you don’t like what they said, even though it isn’t hurting anyone.
Calling people out online about their inexcusable behavior is important. Cancel culture has led to light being shed on victims of tragic incidents, like the #MeToo movement and the documentary film Quiet on Set. While it’s important to pull predators and cruel people to the spotlight to call them out on their actions, it’s not okay to abuse that power. If someone says that they are canceling someone online, people generally jump onto the hate train so they aren’t canceled along with them. This has led to people being canceled for things that they didn’t do. It’s important to do your own research before spreading hateful rumors that you don’t fully understand.
We want to make our online community as safe as possible, but that means minding your own business majority of the time. If someone
says or does something online that you don’t appreciate or like, finding the self control to scroll without leaving an unnecessary comment is important. Your opinion on someone else’s thoughts or beliefs is not wanted and just causes unnecessary stress for the person receiving your cheap shot through their phone screen. Keep your thoughts to yourself unless you or someone else is getting hurt. Everyone online needs to calm down. Publicly
shaming people online for expressing their beliefs and values isn’t cancel culture, it is bullying and is distressing. Canceling someone is extremely powerful, and it’s something that our society shouldn’t take lightly. Canceling someone can ruin their social status, career, and even their life. It should only be used to bring victims of verbal or physical harm to justice, not just for fun because you’re procrastinating on your work.
COMMUNICATION APPS Communication app use in schools is helpful for everyone
Kate Alexander Dispatch Reporter Questions? Concerns? Email: bowie.journalism@gmail.com
As students arrive for the first week of school, they sit and listen to eight long hours of information from teachers about the school year. Students are left with unanswered questions and concerns about the year and struggle to find an easy and accessible way to communicate with their teachers.
With the rapid rise of social media, it's become very common for their main source of communication to be through the internet and mobile technology. Many high school students have extracurricular activities, school clubs, and jobs after school limiting their time to write a formal email asking for a reminder on when an English reading guide is due. Although teachers and students may prefer different ways to communicate with each other, communication apps provide a simple yet highly beneficial way to talk about necessary assignment deadlines, upcoming events, or reminders about the upcoming classes.
With the ability of communication apps being able to be downloaded on mobile devices, notifications can go through much faster. This makes reaching teachers much easier by just messaging them through an app rather than writing an entire email and not getting a response until days later or possibly not getting a response at all. Many students and teachers only use their school devices during school hours, and block out announcements and emails sent after school hours. Because of this, announcements and emails sent on school devices are, most of the time, not even seen due to many students not getting notifications from their laptop. With communication apps, messages pop up as a notification, rather than sitting in an inbox.
The accessibility of communication apps provide a wide variety of ways to communicate with one-another. Apps like Remind
not only provide a direct message feature between teacher and student, but can also send class-wide messages or to a small group in real time. Other apps like SportsYou provide similar features but also include more features like the calendar feature, allowing teachers to add events on specific dates. Although this app is more used for school sports, the calendar feature allows coaches and
student athletes to know who is attending events like meets and races by marking if you are attending, not attending, or maybe attending.
Other benefits that come with communication apps is the ability for students and teachers to communicate across longer distances. If students are absent or aren't at school for a certain reason, having access to message teachers with a question or about an assignment is very important instead of having to wait until they return to school to talk in person. Teachers can also get in touch with absent students about an assignment being due, or a quiz that is happening the next time they see them. As students enter high school, many classes start deducting points for late work. Although some teachers may require different apps as a way to communicate about assignment deadlines, important events, and volunteer hours, communication apps give students an easily accessible way to contact their teachers when needed.
Many may argue that the internet and messaging apps have taken over the youths’ ability to have face-to-face conversations. Because of this, communication apps don’t seem like the best idea for teens as a way to speak with their teachers. Although some may think that using technology and the internet is not the best way to stay in touch, it also doesn’t mean that the only way teachers and students would be connecting with each other would be through communication apps. Students still sit in multiple classes a day for an hour and a half communicating in-person with their teachers most of the time.
As a solution, more teachers should consider using communication apps as a way to be in touch with their students. If communication apps are used more often, teachers and students would have better access to speak with each other.
As a result, communication apps provide a wide variety of benefits for both students and teachers. With the many features that are built into different apps, it allows a simple yet highly beneficial way to communicate between teachers and students about school work and sports.
Do you trust the information you find on social media?
Sometimes I do but other times I don’t because some information is just not trustworthy.
Dacee Dinwiddie Senior
PHOTOS BY Sam Bode
Junior
Oliver Gibson Freshman
ART BY Layne Foxcroft
ART BY Quinn Wilkinson
‘Dawgs show out in stars and stripes
Students
rep
Arden Ray
Essay Editor
U.S.A.
The Bowie Bulldog’s football season is in full swing, which means students get to show out for spirit days. Every game day, students and faculty are welcome to dress up according to themes created by the Bowie cheer team.
On Thursday, September 12, the ‘Dawgs faced Glenn High School in their home opener. The spirit day dress out theme was stars and stripes.
Senior Kamryn Gutshall likes to show Bowie spirit with her friends at school and in the student section.
“Stars and stripes is such a fun spirit day where I feel like everyone could dress up,” Gutshall said. “It’s as easy as wearing red white and blue which makes it very accessible for everyone.”
Along with dressing up to theme for games, students and staff are welcome to show spirit during the day at school.
Most students saved their stars and stripes for the game.
“I think the seniors this year are doing good with dressing up, but the underclassmen never dress up enough,” Gutshall said. “I feel like they’re all too scared but I’ve been trying to encourage
and school spirit at first home football game of the new season
the ones I know to get involved so that dressing up doesn’t start dying out after the class of 2025 graduates.”
Stars and Stripes is one of many spirit day themes. Throughout the football season there is a new theme every week which include pink out, western, neon, and many more.
“My favorite theme is pink out just because pink is my favorite color and this year as a senior I get to wear the pink jersey,” Gutchall said.
Prior to the season beginning, the Bowie cheer team’s spirit coordinators create and plan spirit day themes.
Junior and co-spirit coordinator Peyton York makes the spirit day themes with the help of her teammates and coaches.
“The process of what spirit days to do and when to do them usually is based off of what we think students at Bowie will enjoy and want to dress up for,” York said.
Spirit days are made to be a fun experience for all students to be able to do. All of the students dressed in a theme at the football games shows unity as well as excitement for the Bowie football team.
“I think one of the most important things about spirit days is to try to get
as much involvement from the students,” York said. “I know not everyone is going to want to dress up but I think everyone should try to be open minded and have fun.” York and her co-spirit coordinator Lillybelle Mosqueda work together to create spirit day themes. For York and Mosqueda, creating themes that students would enjoy is one of the most important factors in planning spirit days.
theme day.
“I think spirit day just shows unity and that people care,” Gonzalez said.
Kamryn Gutshall
“I have received spirit day ideas from other students before and have proposed those ideas for possible approval when sending in all of the spirit day ideas,” York said. “Mr. Robinson is the final decision maker on what spirit days are approved or disapproved.”
Among students, teachers and faculty often dress up for spirit day. English teacher Jaqueline Gonzalez goes all out with the English department for every
“It’s kind of hard to see that sometimes when we all go to our classes and the doors are shut.”
Spirit days bring the student body together to support more than just the football teams.
Some spirit day themes have a cause like the pink out game in support for breast cancer awareness.
“We’re one school that cares about a cause or cares about supporting one another,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez enjoys the benefit of themes like stars and stripes day because of the versatility. Students and staff can make the themes their own and find their own way to dress.
“I don’t always have the most patriotic things so sometimes I just go silly and wear actual stripes and star earrings or something like that,” Gonzalez said. “It’s fun and if it gets people kind
of encouraged and inspired to support the school spirit stuff.”
As the season goes on, the Bowie community looks on to the next weeks of school spirit themes. The Bowie cheer team puts together a student loved lineup of fun themes like twin day and galaxy day.
“I love twin day, or, like, dynamic duo day, because Ms. McCaffrey and I have so many matching outfits,” Gonzalez said. “It’s kind of silly, but I would love any excuse to match or, like, have, like, a fun theme like that and that’s why the English department loves to dress up in that way.” Some students have ideas of their own and requests for themes they want to see in the future. A few seniors wish to bring back spirit day themes from years prior, especially the ones that are more centered around seniors.
“I really want to bring back nerd day or senior day where you dress up as senior citizens,” Gutshall said. “These themes are so good and although I do like the ones we have now, I feel like we need some more humorous days because I love to dress up and look funny because it makes the days that much more fun.”
Photo
BY Arden
CELEBRATION: Seniors Emily Barr, Kamryn Gutshall, and Aden Hewgly raise their arms in support of the ‘Dawgs. Students brought small American flags to wave in the stands. “I already had some clothes from the Fourth of July that I was able to wear,” Gutshall said. “I went to
BY Arden Ray
FLYING THE FLAG: Senior Daniel Soto waves an American flag in the student section at
