L one Star Dispatch
The
James Bowie High School
INSIDE
Athletics Burns’s fencing frenzy
Commentary
Transgender Bathroom Law
Junior strives with passion in her sport See page B1
Government decision on unisex bathrooms See page A6
4103 W. Slaughter Lane Austin, TX 78749
www.thelonestaronline.com
Photo Essay Cave exploration begins
APES and Cave Club are first to enter See page A8
Friday Nov. 11, 2016
Vol. 29
Issue 2
News A2-3 In-Depth A4-5 Commentary A6-7 Photo Essay A8 Athletics B1-2 Reviews B3 Entertainment B4-5 Feature B6-7 Photo Essay B8
UT announces new program
“MicroMajors” to come next year Violet Glenewinkel Editor-in-Chief
Receiving Feedback: Newspaper staff take in suggestions at a judging session from LaJuana Hale who teaches at Marcus High School. The critiqued first issue won honorable mention in the TAJE newspaper category. Photo by Mia Barbosa
Journalism travels to TAJE San Antonio trip Fuaad Ajaz Managing Editor The newspaper and yearbook programs traveled to San Antonio late last month to attend and compete in the state journalism convention hosted by Texas Association of Journalism Educators (TAJE). The convention took place over the course of three days filled with photography, writing, and exploring the city of San Antonio. For sophomore newspaper staff member Reagan Wallace this was her first year going to TAJE. Wallace along with two other newspaper staff members joined the intensive writing workshop where they worked with some of the nation’s best journalistic writing coaches. “The workshop was shockingly really fun, I was thinking we were just gonna be in the room listening to someone talk for three hours and taking notes,” Wallace
said, “But the leaders of the workshop were literally some of the best people because they were making it where we would not only learn how to improve our writing but also make us enjoy writing and what we do.” One of the most popular contest at the convention is the on-site photography contest in which photographers have to go around the city and photograph things from a list of categories they have. “I had to submit five photos in five different categories that ranged from person under five or over 50 to circles,” junior Sarah Baber said. “I got a honorable mention and a award of excellence and those are equivalent to third and first place.” Newspaper editor-in-chief Violet Glenewinkel enjoyed getting to bond with the newspaper staff throughout the trip.
See page 2 for more
Campus unites for Pride week in support of LGBT Jolie Francis Staff Writer Pride and unity has always been a big part of Bowie High School. The students take pride in their openness. But this year, Bowie took their pride to a new level. Pride Week was a week in October that was recognized throughout all AISD schools. At Bowie High School, each day there was a new theme to support pride. The last day of the week, all the teachers dressed up and created a rainbow, a large symbol of pride. Students and teachers alike expressed their
support for the week and what it represented. “Pride Week is definitely something Bowie needed,” senior Caleb Newton said. “Despite all the perceived progress undertaken by our country, acceptance and equality for transgender individuals still has a long way to go, and other identifications are continuously under attack. So, by creating little things like pride week to recognize those who fight for equality, we are able to slowly chip away at the blatant discrimination that still occurs.” According to senior Ciara Cera, pride week was comforting to not only her
This coming year of 2017-2018, Bowie will be one of the three pilot schools that will offer a new University of Texas program, MicroMajors, which will encourage and enhance more dual-credit courses. These MicroMajors and classes that come with it will only be offered to juniors and seniors. According to UT News, it will do more than what an average AP class does. “[MicroMajors] are a new initiative to help high school students become better prepared for success at leading universities,” according to a UT press article. “This unique opportunity will help students become more competitive for admission and success at UT Austin or other selective colleges and universities.” Instead of a regular AP class, the MicroMajor program will take dual-credit classes and make it even more specific. “It’s in conjunction with UT and there’s going to be more opportunity to study more specific works I believe,” Rhetoric and English teacher Matt Flick said. “It gives a more specific direction to a student’s high school experience.” UT is attempting to create new programs, to try and make high school experiences different from past ones. “The MicroMajor program builds on UT Austin’s leadership in working with school districts, educators and students across the state to bridge gaps between traditional high school courses and the expectations of colleges and universities,” the UT press release said. The program aims to not only make students more prepared for college, but with admissions and getting into their college of choice as well. “This unique opportunity will help students become more competitive for admission and success at UT Austin or other selective colleges,” according to UT press. To earn a MicroMajor through the program, UT requires several courses to be taken. “Students must take at least two courses from an approved list of UT Austin dual-credit, dual-enrollment or on-line offerings,” according to UT press release. “They may take up to two other approved Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, or college courses for a total of four courses.”
“The biggest concern that I have in courses like APUSH is that all those students have to take the STAAR tests,” APUSH teacher Ruth Widner said. “College professors are generally not informed about what’s going to be on the STAAR tests so the risk is our students won’t be prepared for the test which is required for graduation.” The instruction from professors in dual-credit classes are not guaranteed to be the best suit for students also which has Widner concerned. “If you take APUSH [at Bowie], we have to be credited by the college board and all of our teachers are trained,” Widner said. “We do everything the same so that there is some accountability for the teachers and that doesn’t really exist in those dual-credit programs.” There is a positive outlook from the large AP classes though with this new program. “We get the same number of teachers while kids are in classes with other professors which means our classes can get smaller,” Widner said. According to Widner, it’s somewhat of a risk for students to take dual-credit classes for the micro-major program outside of Bowie. “The other problem is you don’t have necessarily any guarantee or continuity about the quality for the instruction,” Widner said. “You have teachers that are great, you lucked out, but if they’re bad, you don’t know until you are in the middle of it.” On the other hand, Flick thinks there is more of an advantage than anything when taking dual-credit rather than AP. “Dual-credit is more aligned with current college expectations in terms of the level of writing they have to produce in order to pass the class,” Flick said. “For example, timed writing has gone the way of the dinosaur because colleges realize that if professional writers and collegiate professors have time to work on their stuff, why can’t students?” And when comparing the skills learned from AP and dual-credit, the latter will drive more towards a modern college style that universities are looking for. “In terms of the dual enrollment course I teach through UT, skills will be more aligned with 21st century collegiate expectations rather than some of the more archaic testing structures that you see in AP classes,” Flick said.
but to the rest of the LGBT community in the school. “Pride Week was important to me because it showed me that all the teachers and staff were very supportive and that it was something of Ms. Leos’ interests,” senior Ciara Cera said. “I got to see that all the students also dressed up and it made me feel like I was important.” The GSA club (GayStraight Alliance) at Bowie was responsible for the planning of the week, and explained the purpose and history of AISD Pride Week over morning announcements.
See page 3 for more
Art by Abby Ong