The Lowell Newsmagazine February 2022

February 2022

Editors-in-Chief | Sarah Liu • Rae Wymer News Editors | Layla Wallerstein • Walker Whalen • Rae Wymer Opinion Editors | Karis Kotschnig • Sarah Liu Columns Editors | Issac Fukumura-White • Madeleine Johnston Sports Editor | Brandon Ng Multimedia Editors | Jaxi Cohen • Marlena Rohde

LIBBY BOWIE

GIRLS’ VARSITY SOCCER CRUSHES GALILEO, 6-0

By Libby Bowie

INCREASE IN CORONAVIRUS CASES WORRY LOWELLITES

Art Manager | Mella Bettag Reporters | Ava Alberts • Angela Chen • Darren Chin • Chloe Chon • Sasha Fuetsch Roman Fong • Ashley Glancy • Brooke Laur • Kelcie Lee • Ruby Shaw • Isaac Olson • Dylan Twyman • Aaliyah Español-Rivas • Sierra Sun • Victoria Pan • Maya Law Photographers | Libby Bowie • Jaxi Cohen • Lauren Kim • Abigail Lin • Kimi Norway • Marlena Rohde • Yeshi-Wangmu Sherpa • Ryson Sun • Reina Lee Illustrators | Mella Bettag • Elise Muchowski • Nicole Wong • Denis Yabut • Raymond Yuan • Darixa Varela Medrano • Charon Kong • Daniela Lopez • Kaixu Yu Business Managers | Yi Luo • Primo Pelczynski Web Managers | Audrey Lau • Joanne Zeng

By Chloe Chon and Kelcie Lee

Social Media Managers | Sasha Fuetsch • Erin Guo • Gianna Ou • Madeleine Johnston MELLA BETTAG

Researcher | Saw Nwe Advisor | Eric Gustafson

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Feature

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Opinion

The struggle of navigating the 504 process

What "Try Harder!" gets wrong about Lowell

By Ashley Glancy and Brooke Laur

By Sarah Liu

2018 NSPA Print Pacemaker Finalist, 2014 NSPA Online Pacemaker, 2012 NSPA Print Pacemaker, 2011 NSPA AllAmerican, 2011 NSPA Online Pacemaker, 2009 NSPA First Class Honors, 2007 NSPA Web Pacemaker, 2007 CSPA Gold Crown, 2007 NSPA All-American

@THELOWELL

SPREAD DESIGN BY ISSAC FUKUMURA-WHITE

Accolades

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

SPREAD DEESIGN BY MELLA BETTAG, ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE WONG, PHOTOS BY JAXI COHEN, LIBBY BOWIE AND YESHI-WANGMU SHERPA

DARIXA VARELA MEDRANO

DARIXA VARELA MEDRANO

CHINESE AND I, CONNECTED REDEFINING MY IDENTITY

By Kelcie Lee

By Aaliyah Español-Rivas

LOWELL IN PROTEST

By Libby Bowie and Abigail Lin LIBBY BOWIE

CONTENT 2

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Editorial

Cover

Queer students deserve an inclusive curriculum

Demanding a difference

By Angela Chen and Madeleine Johnston

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Multimedia

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Column

Expression without expectations

Korean beyond a trend

By Libby Bowie, Jaxi Cohen, Elise Muchowski, and Marlena Rohde

By Chloe Chon

EDITORIAL

Queer students deserve an inclusive curriculum

L

0000000owell’s current standard U.S. History textbook, 0000000published in 2006, has 963 pages. The word “gay” 0000000appears on one of them. Exactly two events are mentioned: the 1969 Stonewall Riots and the AIDS epidemic, 00 which was responsible for the deaths of 330,000 Americans, most of them gay men. Our textbook doesn’t mention that number, or how attempts to address the epidemic were consistently underfunded by the government. It doesn’t tell you that homosexuality was criminalized in some states until 2003 and gay Americans were regularly imprisoned, harassed, and denied civil rights due to their sexuality. And the textbook doesn’t mention transgender, gender non-comforming, or any other queer Americans at all.

This isn’t an isolated issue: despite efforts to the contrary, queer students are still consistently underrepresented in SFUSD curriculum. It’s true that San Francisco’s high schools have made some progress in representation of LGBTQ students. SFUSD schools are prohibited from discriminating against LGBTQ students, must respect student’s preferred gender, and are obligated to protect queer students from harasment by their peers. Initiatives have been taken by education officials to update the curriculum as well. For example, since the passage of the FAIR Education Act in 2011, California has been one of a handful of states that mandates the inclusion of LGBTQ people in social studies.

We believe that administrators and teachers district-wide need to make an immediate effort to include in school curriculum the experiences, the rich history, and the challenges the LGBTQ community faces today. Much of the curriculum content is set at the state level, but the district and even individual schools and teachers have the autonomy to adjust lesson plans to make them more inclusive.

The importance of doing so can’t be understated. According to a recent survey from Gallup, 15.9 percent of Gen Z identifies as queer in some form. These students have the right to an education that includes them. Administrators at Lowell and SFUSD have expressed a desire to create environments safe for students of all identities, but as long as the education they provide does not properly meet the needs of queer students, they aren’t living up to their promises. How they decide to address LGBTQ issues directly impacts the lives of their students.

According to the Trevor Project, 42 percent of LGBTQ teens 0000

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self-reported having considered suicide in the previous year. But in schools where the curriculum included LGBTQ content, that number dropped by up to 25 percent. If our schools want to protect their students, then such changes need to be made.

High school is the time when people begin to question themselves, when they start to experiment with their sexuality and their identity. For students who come from families where sexuality and gender identity aren’t openly discussed, school might be the only place they can learn about these topics; education can change these students’ lives. For one, it can lessen homophobic additudes from straight students. Data from the California Safe Schools Coalition shows that in schools that addressed LGBTQ issues in curriculum, queer students were less likely to report bullying or harrasment because of their sexuality.

Furthermore, including LGBTQ topics in the curriculum can help queer students feel accepted. By overlooking LGBTQ students, our schools contribute to the idea that being queer isn’t normal, that non-straight students don’t belong.

Many teachers here at Lowell have taken it upon themselves to make what they teach more inclusive. U.S. History teachers Jason Tuason and Eva Moore are dedicating an entire five week unit to LGBTQ history, purchasing new textbooks for the subject. Such lessons should be standard for all classes.

Other classes should follow suit as well, especially sex education. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), gay young men and women are considerably more likely to contract HIV, syphilis and other STIs; transgender students are more likely to be victims of sexual violence. It’s critical that lessons cover the basic needs and questions of LGBTQ/questioning students. SFUSD’s current curriculum doesn’t do that. Data from the National Institute of Health and the CDC shows that basic sex ed leads to a better, safer, and healthier environment for teens. SF schools need to make sure that includes LGBTQ students as well.

If SFUSD wants to live up to the promises they’ve made to students, then education officials need to make major changes to the curriculum. On an individual level, teachers should make their lessons more inclusive. Students can talk to teachers and administration about what they’d like to see addressed in class.

The bottom line is that LGBTQ students are an integral part of our communities, and our education needs to reflect that.

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CARTOON

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FROM THE EDITORS Dear readers of The Lowell, In our first newsmagazine of the year, we decided to shed light on the issue that was the forefront of our community’s mind last semester: sexual violence. Last semester, hundreds of students walked out of their classes to protest how sexual assault has been handled in the district. Student organizers called for accountability and administrative action, and some survivors were compelled to file official reports through the Lowell administration for the first time. Now that the dust has settled, we investigated the lasting effects of the student movement. This cover story, “Demanding a Difference,” by Madeleine Johnston and Angela Chen, examines what actually happens when survivors report to the administration and how to sustain momentum around this issue.

Editors-In-Chief, Sarah Liu and Rae Wymer

The Lowell is published by the journalism classes of Lowell High School. All contents copyright Lowell High School journalism classes. All rights reserved. The Lowell strives to inform the public and to use its opinion sections as open forums for debate. All unsigned editorials are opinions of the staff. The Lowell welcomes comments on school-related issues from students, faculty and community members. Send letters to the editors to thelowellnews@gmail.com. Names will be withheld upon request. We reserve the right to edit letters before publication.

The Lowell is a student-run publication distributed to thousands of readers including students, parents, teachers and alumni. All advertisement profits fund our newsmagazine issues. To advertise online or in print, email thelowellmanagement@gmail.com.

Contact us: Lowell High School 1101 Eucalyptus Drive San Francisco, CA 94132 415-759-2730 or at thelowellnews@gmail.com

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As both members of the Lowell community and student journalists, we hope this newsmagazine is a catalyst for change. Our purpose with our coverage is, and always has been, to inform the student body from an objective perspective; to give them the tools they need so that they can ask the necessary questions to spur change in our community. As always, The Lowell’s top priority is to elevate student voices and tell the stories that matter for our community with journalistic integrity.

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The Lowell February 2022

Students have spoken out against sexual violence on campus. How much of a difference has it made?

SPREAD ARTWORK AND DEESIGN BY JAXI COHEN, PHOTOS BY LIBBY BOWIE AND YESHI-WANGMU SHERPA

By Angela Chen and Madeleine Johnston

The Lowell February 2022

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COVER

S

000000enior Vianne Huynh stands on Lowell’s football field, 000000stepping to the front of a crowd as a spotty microphone 000000calls her name. A sea of students gathers before her, clad in red clothing. It’s been three days since she took to Instagram to inform the community that she is a survivor of sexual assault and reported her experiences to Lowell’s administration. Students had been uplifting the voices of survivors on social media and venting about the lack of support from administration in private. Now, they have walked out of their fourth period classes to publicly protest the lack of response to rape culture. Supporters and survivors at the walkout have made demands and recounted stories, and now it is her turn to speak. The posts and posters — the thank yous, I believe yous, and we support yous — strengthen her resolve as she faces the sea of students. They smile and they clap and they shout her name before they hush to hear her words.

They listen. People start listening.

Posted in November of 2021, Huynh’s Instagram post was a small facet of a growing movement in support of survivors.

Throughout the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), many students were inspired to share their stories of sexual assault and rape on social media. Social media was one of several platforms used to protest the cultural and adminstrative response to sexual assault. Because of this movement, more Lowellites found themselves seeking help from Lowell’s administration, but some survivors have expressed feeling unsupported at the end of the reporting process. Despite some cultural shifts and calls for more education on the subject, no written changes have been implemented into administrative or legal practices. As student protestors and supporters continue their advocacy for survivors, many are wondering: what methods of activism are actually making a difference?

The issue of sexual assault previously gained widespread attention in June of 2020, when dozens of students shared their stories with sexual violence on social media and demanded abuser accountability from the school as well as within social circles. In the fall of 2021, the movement spread from social media platforms to school campuses, as students at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts (SOTA) walked out of class to protest the handling of sexual assault at their school. On November 2, Lowell students organized a walkout to show solidarity for SOTA’s cause. A week later, student organizers held another Lowell-specific walkout to call out injustices within the reporting process at Lowell, publically support survivors of sexual assault, and provide a platform for survivors and supporters to give share personal experiences. By December 10, students from schools across the district joined forces in another walkout, this time to City Hall.

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Students' Demands 1. The creation of a support system for survivors of sexual harassment/abuse.

2. A safe reporting process of the incident without further traumatizing and triggering the survivor.

3. No victim blaming.

4. Clarity and accessibility in terms of information about students' rights.

5. Disciplinary action and survivor protection on-site, even if abuse occurred off-site.

6. That the bathrooms remain unlocked when students are present and learning on campus.

GRAPHIC BY MELLA BETTAG A list of demands for SFUSD was written by organizers of the protest and distributed through pamphlets and speeches.

These walkouts did not go unnoticed by Lowell’s administration.

According to Principal Joe Dominguez, the administration has prioritized clarifying the process for reporting incidents of sexual assault and harassment since fall of 2021. Title IX coordinators are specifically trained administrators who carry out Title IX procedures, a law that protects students against discrimination and harassment based on sex, including sexual harassment. In August and September, one of Lowell’s Title IX co-coordinators, Kahlila Liverpool, had begun collaborating with students, department chair teachers, and other administration to define a three-step process for students to report disruptive incidents that had taken place on campus. According to Dominguez, administration immediately decided to share with students the reporting process that Liverpool had been refining after seeing the recent surge of activism.

Displays of public support spurred some survivors to report their experiences to the administration, but many felt unsatisfied with the logistics of processing their cases. Senior Rebecca Kang, a survivor who formally reported her abuser in Nov. 2021, felt unsupported by Lowell administration throughout the investigative 00

process. Kang scheduled weekly meetings with Title IX cocoordinator Cheryl Fong in November to push her case forward.

Finally, at the beginning of December, the administration told Kang that her case could no longer be considered because too much of her abuse had occurred off campus and they did not have the authority to take action against her abuser. However, according to Kang, at least four incidents of sexual assault that she reported had taken place at Lowell, with three occurring off campus, so she was surprised they would drop her case. “My report has the locations and times [of the event], and I wrote it with so much detail that multiple administrators even pointed it out and commended me…

How was it not enough?” she said. “What more did they need?”

Huynh’s experience with reporting her assault to Lowell’s administration has been similar. She provided the administration with multiple pieces of evidence like text conversations that show her abuser harassing her and referring to events that happened on campus. But her case remains at a standstill. “It’s on campus, so they have to pay attention to this,” Huynh said. “I don’t know much about what’s going on and I still don’t know what’s going to happen, and it’s been a really long time.”

“Unfortunately, it was a sort of learn-as-I-wentthrough-each-case situation.”

Cheryl Fong, co-Title IX coordinator Emma feels that administrators risk misjudging the needs of survivors and harming their mental health as they pursue investigations. By repeatedly disrupting her daily life to discuss this traumatic event, Emma’s mental health and academic capacity became strained. She stayed home from school several times to avoid meetings about the investigation. Her psychiatrist ultimately wrote an email to inform Emma’s teachers and administrators that these meetings had reactivated her trauma. Asked to file a report against her wishes and attend meetings that hurt her emotional health, Emma felt the administration should have been more aware of her needs. “I don’t think that pressure should have been put on me,” Emma said.

The administrators that currently carry out investigations and Title IX procedures are not always properly prepared to do so.

When Emma made her report, she requested her family not be notified, which Liverpool told her would be respected. However, her parents were called in to speak with administration a few days later. After many meetings with Liverpool for her investigation, she met with Dominguez about the issue and told him that she had not wanted to report and that she actually felt pressured to do so.

Dominguez apologized to her for this. While she was grateful for his understanding and desire to make things right, Emma believes the disconnect between Dominguez and Liverpool’s actions reveal conflicting procedures around investigations. Some administrators feel the same way. Fong says she did not feel that she was properly prepared to fulfill the role of Lowell’s Title IX Coordinator. People in the position receive yearly training through SFUSD’s Office of Equity, but she still felt thrown into the deep end while handling sensitive matters like sexual assault. “Unfortunately it was a sort of learn-as-I-went-through-each-case situation,” she said.

Some of the limitations of the investigative process are due to 000 000

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While some survivors like Huynh took initiative to report their abusers, others did not want to report but were pressured to do so.

Emma, a Lowell senior who was interviewed under a pseudonym, never intended to report the assault she experienced her freshman year, but felt that administrators gave her no other choice. In November, she was called into Liverpool’s office and informed that her assaulter had made a statement, which she believes was prompted by a third party reporting her assaulter’s 00000000000000

name. Liverpool told her that administrators needed a statement from her in order to proceed, or else they “wouldn’t know what to do.” According to Emma, very little has come of what she felt to be constant meetings with administration.

COVER laws that are in place to protect students, including those who are accused, and are outside of administrative control. According to Dominguez, the administration is often restricted from taking immediate action in response to abuse allegations by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which protects students’ privacy and rights to education. Dominguez wants students to understand that these laws are beyond him or other administrators’ control, and that FERPA can slow, limit, or completely block investigations. “While there might be a lot of feelings about what should happen to an individual, there’s this entitled right to a fair and free public education,” he said.

"It's very dangerous to put someone's case into social media and teens' hands."

According to Dominguez, to strip a student of their rights through a suspension or expulsion, administrators would need extensive proof that the abuse had occurred. Nuri Nursat, a Restorative Justice Manager at Ahisma Collective, believes that school administrators are limited to a very small role when trying to obtain justice for survivors. “There are laws in place that require administrators to do specific things when hearing of an assault,” she said. “I think the only real thing an administrators can do is focus on prevention.”

Despite restrictive laws, Liverpool wants to support survivors in any way possible. “We wish [that with] every single case that we interact with we could do something and fix it and make it right,” she said.

“But unfortunately our hands are tied, in particular when it’s not within our jurisdiction as to what we can do.”

The role of adults extends beyond the reporting process and into the broader prevention and proper handling of sexual violence at Lowell. Senior Rodrigo Flores quit Lowell’s varsity football team this past fall in response to the way the team dealt with sexual assault allegations against team members. Danny Chan, the coach of the football team, claims to have never heard of any allegations against this season’s players. “If they don’t say anything, I don’t know anything,” Chan said.

However, Flores did say something in November of 2021. Flores told Chan that he would be quitting the team because he felt uncomfortable playing alongside multiple players with sexual 000000

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assault allegations. Chan informed Flores that despite the allegations, his football team had an open-door policy for joining and that everyone began the team with a clean slate. Flores felt that Chan’s response significantly downplayed the severity of the situation and overlooked the difficulty of being teammates with people who are accused of sexual assault. According to Chan, the character of his players is important, but as an off-campus coach, he doesn’t feel inclined to take any measures to control the actions of the players beyond the field without prior guidance from school administration. “If there is some kind of allegation, it would be nice for me to know,” he said. “But just like Elsa [of the Disney movie Frozen] said, ‘The past is in the past!’...I don’t know what these kids do, and again, they’re kids.” Among his teammates, Flores observed a culture of downplaying, joking about, and active disrespect of consent and women. “I didn’t want to be around that community,” he said. “I ultimately ended up quitting and not giving a second thought about it.”

Student activists feel that this culture of disregarding consent that Flores observed is beginning to shift as a result of the movement. Senior Reesa Tayag, a protest organizer and member of Lowell Song, has observed changes in attitudes around sexual assault in her interactions with other students. Tayag has noticed that male athletes treat her and her fellow female athletes with more care since the protests took place. These changes include maintaining physical boundaries and apologizing more often when those boundaries are crossed.

For survivors and advocates, this cultural change was a triumph that arose from widespread social media movements. However, some feel that there is significant room for things to spiral out of control when people are held accountable solely through a public 00000 ALL ILLUSTRATIONS BY DARIXA VARELA MEDRANO

Dominguez agrees that no actual written changes have been made following the protests.

As Lowell continues through the process of addressing sexual violence in the community, many people are looking towards what comes next. Dominguez wants to minimize the divide between students and administration so that the community can unite to combat the issue. “I don’t want us to continue this idea that it’s students versus admin,” he said. “I promise we are all on the same side.” It has been a few months since the last widespread protest and fewer and fewer posters are being put up. While conversations around the handling of sexual assault at Lowell have lessened, many advocates are determined to make sure that people don’t turn their heads from the issue. “We’re not done,” Baruch said. “This time we expect more.”

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SPREAD DESIGN BY BRANDON NG AND MELLA BETTAG AND RAE WYMER

trial by peers, whether it is through social media posts or word of mouth. According to Kang, when stories are shared online, the fallout can become dangerous. “I’ve seen people telling alleged abusers to kill themselves,” she said. “As well as other people condemning survivors for sharing their stories and saying they’re false.” Kang feels that students need adults to offer assistance throughout the reporting process. “When a child is sexually assaulted, teens can’t help alone,” she said. “It’s very dangerous to put someone’s case into social media and teens’ hands.” Nursat believes that forms of public shaming of those who are accused is also not always a productive way of moving forward with a situation like sexual assault. “Shame doesn’t help people heal,” she said. “We want to keep [those who are accused] accountable but not shun them from society. This helps nobody.”

The level of intensity that the fall activism reached was successful in pushing attention towards the issue, but many organizers and supporters are struggling to maintain that level of advocacy.

Sophomore Olive Girsang, an organizer of the Nov. 10 walkout, believes that the intensity of activism was necessary for drawing attention to the issue, but was also extremely draining for organizers to suddenly take on. “It was an attempt to create a safe space, which is exhausting because at the same time, you’re trying to take care of your own needs,” Gisang said. Other organizers of the Nov. 10 walkout, including Tayag and senior Aliyah Baruch, have also noticed that supporters who were less involved in the movement are having fewer and fewer conversations around the subject.

Though there have been shifts in perspective, survivors and activists feel that there have not been substantive changes in response to the protests. Baruch feels that very minimal action has 00000 000

occurred after the protests and countless conversations with administrators regarding organizers’ demands. Dominguez agrees that no actual written changes have been made following the protests. He feels that the administration has always handled sexual assault cases as best they could within the laws they are bound to.

“We would’ve handled it in the same way [without the protests], where we would investigate appropriately and we would come to an outcome,” he said.

Instead of written policy changes, students and faculty of Lowell are beginning to emphasize the need for education around consent and the rights of students for sexual wellness. According to Dominguez, in response to student demands, the Wellness Center has sought more ways of implementing sexual assault and harassment education into classrooms. Dominguez feels that the administration has emphasized the need for school-wide education on the details of reporting and handling cases of sexual assault. This manifested in a student rights and responsibilities handbook that is in the process of being made, and more posters about students’ rights under Title IX being put up. “Everyone needs to be educated better on what the process is and what is not considered Title IX,” Dominguez said. Baruch echoes the need for education on consent and legal rights and believes that the Title IX posters put up by the administration are a step in the right direction.

MULTIMEDIA

Expression without expectations

By Libby Bowie, Jaxi Cohen, Elise Muchowski, and Marlena Rohde

00000. )))))xpression without expectations" explores what it 00000 )))) means to be gender non-conforming at Lowell.

00000))) )Nicho Cheung-Solow, Ethel Demott, Adam Gooch, and Dia Saravia all share reflections on their relationship with gender and how they express themselves in and outside of Lowell's hallways.

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PHOTOS BY LIBBY BOWIE, ART BY ELISE MUCHOWSKI

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ersonally p e m , it r o F " ' o f k l c a bel, s just with a la li k e a dro p pin g of expe ct a tio n s."

SPREAD DESIGN BY JAXI COHEN AND MARLENA ROHDE

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n in a r o b s a w body.” t n e

Nicho Cheung-Solow they/them

"It's ju st a m id dle gro u n d, or a tr a n sitio n p oin t."

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MULTIMEDIA

b i n n a o r y n , m I'm ' I " m c e a t s i , i m e s s h e a , nd t . n " t a r I' m t a

PHOTOS BY MARLENA ROHDE, ART BY ELISE MUCHOWSKI

"I literally tel random l e e h ize very t t i b h bu o d y this: t s ar to n a n n o i e' d the opt he' " ' . , 'h er ', a n d 't h e m

Ethel Demott All pronouns

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PHOTOS BY JAXI COHEN, ART BY ELISE MUCHOWSKI

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OPINION

What Try Harder! gets wrong about Lowell

By: Sarah Liu

I

00000n February of my junior year, I 00000watched Try Harder!, a documentary Try Harder!, 00000chronicling the stress and rigor of the college application process at Lowell. When the end credits rolled, I closed my computer, demoralized. All of these seniors were so stressed; it seemed like they ate, slept, and breathed college applications. Was this what was in store for me? Was my senior year going to be consumed by a constant barrage of college essays, comparison to my peers, and fever dreams of Ivy league acceptances?

Having now submitted all of my college applications, I think Try Try Harder!

Harder exaggerates the elitist and high pressure narrative of the college application experience at Lowell. The film attempts to shine an objective light on Lowell students' attitudes during this process. Instead, its portrayal of Lowell actually perpetuates the culture of glorifying elite colleges by not representing the

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majority of Lowellites' experiences.

The first thing that Try TryHarder!

Harder misrepresents about Lowell is the students’ fixation on elite schools. The film sourced most of their student profiles from AP Physics C, one of the hardest AP classes that Lowell offers. The five students profiled are highly academically motivated, and apply primarily to the U.S. News Report’s top 20 most prestigious universities in the nation.

Sophia Wu applies exclusively to schools from this list, including all eight Ivy League schools. Nearly all of the students covet an acceptance to Stanford University, the number-one ranked college in America in 2016, the year the documentary was filmed.

But this isn’t the reality at Lowell for most students. In a January 2022 survey conducted by The Lowell of six randomly selected senior registries, 91.1 percent of seniors surveyed said they applied to 5 or less Top 20 schools.

By only representing the experiences of highly academically ambitious students striving for the Ivy League, the film implies that this is the standard approach to college applications at Lowell. Some Lowellites don’t care about getting into an Ivy League school report

— 16.2 percent of Lowell seniors surveyed reported not applying to any Top 20 schools at all. I myself only applied to one Ivy League university and two other colleges in the top 20. When talking about college with friends, we weighed other factors that influenced the schools we applied to: location, the energy of the student body, and types of campus organizations. There are so many factors that affect finding a college that suits you, and the majority of Lowellites are well aware of all factors when choosing dfd

By sending the message that prestige when select Try Harder! glosses over nuan

their school. By sending the message that Lowellites only value prestige when selecting a college, Try Harder glosses over nuances Try Harder! in Lowell culture.

There are some elements of Lowell culture that Try Try Harder!

Harder gets right: the competitiveness among students, the comparison of academic quantifiers like GPA and SAT scores, the disillusionment with your own intelligence. These are all real sds

PHOTOS BY MARLENA ROHDE

age that Lowellites only value n00 selecting a college, ver nuances in Lowell culture. time for it.” Nakasako also acknowledged that one of the misconceptions about Lowell is that all the students here are trying to get into an Ivy League college. Nakasako is right.

As such, it’s irresponsible to make that statement about Lowell culture through a profile of almost exclusively those types of Lowellites. Not every Lowell student has the academic experience and priorities of someone enrolled in AP Physics C, and to pretend adds

ILLUSTRATIONS

BY RAYMOND YUAN

narrative of the film and I felt like I wasn’t stressed enough. I was convinced that the film was an accurate representation of what my peers were doing. As a result of both the film’s narrative and already present culture of comparison at Lowell, I mimicked the behaviors I had seen on the screen. I caught myself wanting to add prestigious schools to my application list despite not knowing anything about their programs or the types of students that went to them. I justified nights of sleeping at 3 a.m., insisting on writing one more draft of a supplemental essay. The film’s inaccurate narrative isn’t harmless — it had real negative effects on my application experience.

Ultimately, the college application process is what you make of it. Apply to 00zero or all eight Ivies. Spend four 000000months perfecting your personal 000000statement or write it in one sitting.

0000000Prioritize a college that suits your 00000000000000000learning style, a college 00000000000000000000in your favorite 00000000000000000000000city, or a college wit000000000000000000000with a prestigi000000000000000000000000ous reputation.

00000000000000000000000Do what feels 000000000000000000000000right for you.

00000000000000000000000Despite the nar0000000000000000000000000row portrayal 000000000000000000000000 of Lowell 00000000000000000000000000students in 00000000000000000000000000Try Harder, Try Harder!, 00000000000000000000000know that every 0000000000000000000Lowellite is applying 00000000000000000to college in a different 000000000000000000way.

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characteristics of Lowell culture, and do affect the process of applying to college for Lowellites, just not to the extent that the film makes it out to be.

Some may say Try Harder never intended Try Harder! to represent all Lowell students’ experiences.

According to Lou Nakasako, the film’s coproducer and co-cinematographer, the crew did film students that weren’t aiming for prestigious colleges. “We actually wanted to put kids in that weren’t going for an elite school,” he said. “It’s just that there was no sdsds

pretend like they do is to distort reality.

Try Try Harder Harder! does represent some alternatives to this narrative. One of the students profiled, Ian Wang, focuses on the holistic characteristics of a school instead of solely prestige when applying. But his experience is portrayed as an outlier instead of representative of the average Lowell student.

The film actually perpetuates the culture of elitism and stress at Lowell by exaggerating it and failing to acknowledge that it is unhealthy. Prestigious colleges are presented as the only colleges worth striving for and the ultimate indicator of a student’s future success — junior Shea Fairchild says, “I need to go to one of the top 20 colleges because otherwise I’m not gonna be doing anything significant.” Epitomizing Lowell’s culture of overachievement, the senior classes’ valedictorian enjoys a Mean GirlsMean Girls esque introduction: students rave to the viewer about his 4.7 grade point average and how he takes every AP class. He is idolized by his peers as the “perfect Lowell student” because of his academic achievements.

Other Lowellites are depicted losing sleep and cramming edits to essays with little exploration of how those decisions affect their mental health. Even if this is the reality, there needs to be an acknowledgement that this approach to college applications is unhealthy and recognition of solutions or alternative approaches.

The expectations that the film perpetuates can bleed into the experiences of Lowell students. Watching the film as a junior, I found myself dreading the college application process. I expected it to be the most stressful semester of my time in high school.

But as fall semester rolled around, I was actually nowhere as stressed as the students in the film had been.

I had internalized the

ILLUSTRATION BY MELLA BETTAG

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The Lowell February 2022

The struggle of navigating the 504 process

By Ashley Glancy and Brooke Laur For many students with disabilities, a 504 plan is the key to unlocking academic equality. However, the 504 process is not always straightforward.

SPREAD DESIGN BY JAXI COHEN

The Lowell February 2022

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FEATURE

S

000000enior Chloe Marinerstein sat in class, staring at the 000000scantron in front of her. The words swam on the page as 000000her dyslexia, triggered by the stress of an exam, worsened.

All she could hear was, tap, tap, tap. Distracted by pencils scratching on paper and the ticking clock on the wall — sounds that her attention deficit disorder (ADD) focused her attention on instead of the words before her, time had slipped by unnoticed. She looked up at the clock on the wall, realizing that she had barely 5 minutes remaining. Panicking and struggling to comprehend the questions, Marinerstein hoped for a few right answers in a battle against her brain to complete the test.

Despite Marinerstein’s dyslexia and ADD worsening her performance in the classroom, she has been unable to acquire the necessary legal accommodations to combat her disabilities, such as taking tests in a separate room and writing on a computer instead of on paper during class.

In order to gain equal access to education, students with disabilities can apply for 504 plans: specialized plans that minimize learning barriers by allowing classroom accommodations. A 504 plan can improve a student’s academic performance, but these 00000

families that have not gone through the process before,” Holowicki said. The first step in obtaining a 504 plan is for a student’s parent/guardian or teacher to reach out to that student’s school counselor. According to Holowicki, each student in this process receives a case manager, who is their academic counselor. The case manager then arranges a meeting of a Student Support Team (SST) — a group consisting of the student's00000000000000000 academic counselor, teachers, and a Wellness000000000000000000 counselor — to inform the student of 000000000000000000000000 alternative methods of support. At this 00000000000000000000 point, the family may choose to apply for 000000000000000000000 a 504 plan.

This process requires that the 00 00000000000000000000 student be given a formal assessment 0000000000000000000000 by a health professional, usually 00000000000000000000000000000 psychologist, to determine the 00000000000 0000000000000000 disability. This can be performed 0000000000000000000000000000 at school or privately. The00000000000000000000000000000000 student must also be000000000000000000000000000000000000000 interviewed by the000000000000000000000000000000000000000 CHLOE MARINERSTEIN school's 504 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 PHOTO BY LAUREN KIM

Despite Marinerstein’s dyslexia and ADD worsening her performance in the classroom, she has been unable to acquire the necessary legal accommodations to combat her disabilities. accommodations are not always guaranteed to students who need them. Obtaining a 504 plan can be difficult, leaving students confused and frustrated by the system. Once received, a 504 can be very beneficial to students. However, in some cases, students that do have such a plan are not properly given the classroom accommodations that they are entitled to. Meanwhile, Lowell teachers have sometimes struggled 0000000000000000000 with implementing the 0000000000000000000000000000000000000 the accommodations 00000000000000000000000000000000 provided by 504 plans.

On Sep. 26, 000000000000000000000000000000000000 1973, President Richard 00000000000000000000000000000 Nixon signed the Rehabilitation 00000000000000000000000000000 Act of 1973 into law, including 00000000000000000000000000000 Section 504, which guarantees 00000000000000000000000000000 certain rights to people with 00000000000000000000000000000 disabilities.

Individualized for 00000000000000000000000000000 each student, 504 plans offer 00000000000000000000000000000000000 a range of accommodations, from extra time on tests to deadline extensions for assignments. According to Lowell’s school psychologist Rachel Holowicki, 504 plans are given to “students that have true disabilities or true health conditions that really impair them from doing their best at school.”

The process of applying for a 504 plan is not necessarily an easy one. “504’s definitely can be confusing, especially for students and 00

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The Lowell February 2022

coordinator, as well as their academic counselor. Numerous forms must be filled out.

During distance learning, the process of acquiring a 504 plan became even more difficult, with all the interactions occurring online. Junior Charlotte Woo, who deals with “chronic mental health issues,” struggled to obtain a 504 plan over Zoom. Without face-to-face connection, she struggled to clearly communicate her needs with her teachers and counselor. “It was hard to schedule time to talk and I couldn’t just go up to them in school,’’ she said.

“It was a painful, long process because I’m talking to these people that I don’t really know over Zoom about all of these things that I need to fix about myself.”

Once received, 504 plans can be a source of relief for students.

Senior Archie Carew got a 504 plan to mitigate his academic struggles stemming from his anxiety and Tourette Syndrome, both of which diminish his attentiveness and impede the pace of his work. He first acquired a 504 plan during his junior year when Lowell’s “rough and overbearing study culture,” combined with his anxiety, became “crippling,” he said. He began to fall behind in his Precalculus Honors class, and his GPA dropped significantly.

Carew’s 504 accommodations have greatly improved his performance in school. Carew feels that because he’s been given more leniency with deadlines and extra time on tests, he’s had more time to self-reflect and figure out how he learns best, instead of being overwhelmed by the pressure to achieve perfect grades.

000000

“Getting a 504 plan definitely lessened things, and now, I'm the happiest I’ve been in a long while,” Carew said.

Similarly, junior Wallace Tang views his 504 plan as a useful educational tool that he is able to rely on whenever he is struggling academically. In seventh grade, Tang was diagnosed with ADD, which hinders his ability to focus and causes him to sometimes be disruptive in class. Shortly after his diagnosis, Tang acquired a 504 plan, which allows him to sit in the front of the classroom to minimize any distractions. He felt the process was “daunting” for him and his family, but once accommodations were obtained, they made a real positive difference. “I would say that I have seen a significant difference from when I got the 504 plan from when I didn't,” Tang said. “I started focusing a lot more and I started finding interest in school, something that's really important for someone with ADD.” However, not everyone who needs a 504 plan is able to get one.

Marinerstein, who struggles with dyslexia and ADD, has been gaining support in catching up in class. When he asked for an unable to acquire a 504 plan, despite repeated attempts. extension on a particular assignment, his teacher said that there Marinerstein, who uses she/they pronouns, attributes their would be a late penalty, which went against Carew’s inability to acquire a 504 plan to their above-average grades and accommodations. Carew felt frustrated by this disregard for his 504 mild to moderate 0000000000000000000000 dyslexia. After being plan. “He just kind of glossed over the fact that I [had a 504 plan] unable to obtain 0000000000000000000000 a 504 evaluation and just saw it as a student asking for an extension,” he said. through Lowell’s 00000000000000000000000 psychologist because Additionally, some of Carew’s teachers were not informed that he of their strong GPA, 00000000000000000000 they submitted a had a 504 plan, leaving him with the responsibility of explaining it third-party diagnosis 0000000000000000000000 to the school in every time.

Nov. 2021 in hopes00000000000000000000000000 of acquiring On the other hand, teachers themselves aren’t always given clear accommodations. 000000000000000000000000 Months later, they instructions on how to implement the accommodations provided still have not heard ALL 00000000000000000000000000back.

As a ILLUSTRATIONS BY by 504 plans. Each time a student with a 504 plan enrolls in a class, consequence of their 00000000000000000000000 disorder having NICOLE WONG the teacher is supposed to receive an email notification from the been overlooked by the school district, they say they have to “work student’s case manager. However, according to social studies a lot harder than the average person to get a grade that somebody teacher Susan Lin, there have been times when she needed to ask who probably doesn’t have dyslexia could get.” the student’s counselor for the 504 plan details herself because she The counseling shortage at Lowell has also proved a problem had not been automatically informed when the student enrolled. for the 504 process. There has been a huge turnover of 00000000 00 On several occasions, Lin has also had to consult the Resource academic counselors at Lowell. And despite having a 0000000000 00000 Center or the student’s counselor to get more information student body of approximately 2,700 students, Lowell 0000000000 0000000 about how she can best support them because has only one full-time school psychologist. Woo is one 0000000000 000000000 administrative guidance was not clear or detailed of the students who have suffered the consequences 00000000000 000000000 enough. of this. After multiple meetings with her counselor, 000000000000 00000000000 The process of acquiring a needed 504 plan can be teachers, and parents, Woo believed she had obtained 0000000000 00000000000 hard to navigate for students, leading them to give up. a 504 plan. However, she later discovered that 000000000000000 0000000000000 Carew believes that 504 plans need to be made this was not the case. Woo’s new counselor 0000000000000000 e000000000000000 easier for students to obtain and that teachers informed her that there must have been a 000000000000000000 00000000000000000 need to be better informed. “I just wish that miscommunication online, and that Woo’s 0000000000000000000 0000000000000000000 students who need them were better previous counselor must have never 0000000000000000000 i000000000000000000000 informed on how to get them,” Carew actually filed it.

0000000000000000000000 said. Woo agrees that the process needs Even after students obtain a 504 plan, 000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000 to be made simpler, stating that “at a teachers do not always honor their00000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000 certain point, it was getting so difficult accommodations. Last school year, 00000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000 that it didn't seem worth it anymore.”

Carew reached out to his teacher0000000000000000000000000 ARCHIE CAREW about his 504 plan in hopes of0000000000000000000000000 PHOTO BY YESHI-WANGMU SHERPA 000000000000000000000000

The process of acquiring a needed 504 plan can be hard to navigate for students, leading them to give up.

The Lowell February 2022

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SPREAD DESIGN BY KARIS KOTSCHNIG AND LAYLA WALLERSTEIN

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COLUMN

Korean beyond a trend

BY CHLOE CHON

I

hhhhstood in the long line that meandered hhhhthrough the airport corridor, scanning hhhhthe menu. The white woman standing next to me, upon hearing that I was headed to South Korea, was still raving about Kpop singers and rice cakes, despite my increasingly obvious attempts to end the conversation. Almost as if on cue, she stopped, but my relief turned into dread when she asked her next question: “Have you ever visited North Korea?”

Over the past few years, East Asian representation in Western media and society has progressed from very little acknowledgement to more substantial inclusion. However, cultural acceptance and appreciation as a result of the recent uptick in popularity has begun morphing into fetishization and objectification, a shift I wasn’t even aware of until I reevaluated how the relationship between Korean culture and Western media influenced my own interactions with the world around me.

Growing up, my Korean identity was never something that I expected people to notice. Because East Asian representation in Western media was so limited — if featured, Asian characters were often limited to stereotypes or small supporting roles— I had to look to non-American media to see even a glimpse of Korean people featured at all. This lack of substantial representation gave me a sense of cultural inferiority.

In more recent years, it’s been refreshing to see Korean representation in American pop culture. To many, PSY’s hit, "Gangnam Style," was just a catchy song from an obscure Asian country, but to me, it was the first big moment of recognition for Korean music that began to 00000000000

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The Lowell February 2022

ALL ILLUSTRATIONS BY DENNIS YABUT

unravel my lingering sense of obscurity.

Today, Korean pop culture is in high demand, and I’ve witnessed it get long overdue recognition. In 2021, "Minari" actress Yuh-Jung Youn was the first Korean to win an Academy Award, and BTS was the first Korean act nominated for a Grammy in its prestigious 63-year history.

These breakthroughs would have never been imaginable a few years ago.

It’s strange to witness an aspect of your identity that has distinctly shaped you since birth suddenly explode in popularity.

Hearing popular Korean songs on the radio, in the language I used to feel uncomfortable speaking in public, was a breath of fresh air, 0

that’s just the ones that were reported.

"Squid Game" did become the first topranked Korean series on Netflix, but could it really be counted as a win if my parents were afraid to go outside and walk the streets during the wave of violence?

Even then, I didn’t realize why I felt unsettled by this sudden rise in popularity until I stumbled across a "Seinfeld" skit where, after being called racist for saying he likes Chinese women, Jerry responds, “If I like their race, how can that be racist?” At first, I saw no fault in his argument. Racism was about hate, so if Jerry confessed his desire for a particular race, how could it be racist? I drew parallels to the current 000000

albeit a little surprising. Rather than being alienated from pop culture, my identity suddenly embodied it, and it seemed that Korean identities were finally being acknowledged and appreciated!

But there was something about this sudden shift that felt inauthentic. This was confirmed by the rapidly growing popularity of Korean culture coinciding with the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes. It felt like this newfound “acceptance” cherry picked the trendy parts of Korean culture and didn’t acknowledge it as a whole.

During the lockdown period of the pandemic, going on social media meant scrolling past countless videos of Asians being harassed, mocked, and degraded.

Anti-Asian hate crimes in America rose by 000000000000000076 percent in 2020, and 00

situation, where aspects of Korean culture were being popularized in the name of acceptance and inclusion.

However, the more I likened the flaws in Jerry’s argument to events I had seen in real life and on social media, the more I began to question the motives of this newfound “acceptance." At the root of some of my discomfort was the revelation that there was an extremely fine line between appreciation and fetishization, and it was being crossed often. I realized that seeing prevalent K-pop singer comparisons in any random Korean person’s social media comment section (“Wow, you look exactly like Jungkook!”) was just another, more insidious, form of racism.

Comparisons like these pushed a diverse 00group of people into one category and 00000000000forced preconceived ideas 00000000000onto them, ultimately 000000000000000erasing their diverse 0000000000000identities and personalities.

00000000000000 Consequently, I began 000000000000to pinpoint specific instances 0000000000000in my life, as well as many 00000000000000of my friends’ lives, that 00000000000000had crossed this line.

00000000000000When the woman at the 000airport saw me, she saw good food, 0000catchy music, and fun TV shows, 0000rather than a normal, multifaceted 0000

individual. Although it appeared to be admiration on the surface level, I felt just as frustrated as I had when Korean representation was at minuscule levels.

000

"There was an extremely fine line between appreciation and fetishization, and it was being crossed often."

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The Lowell February 2022

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SPREAD DESIGN BY WALKER WHALEN

Once, while reading a news article about a man who longed to become Korean after consuming K-pop music, I grew uneasy.

He wanted to embody Korean culture, despite being unaware of the rich history of struggle that has shaped South Korean society today and the issues that currently plague South Koreans, such as blatant colorism or gender inequality. When people cherry-picked elements they liked while glossing over these issues, it told me that their interest wasn’t in the actual culture, but what they wanted it to be, which further solidified my doubts about the authenticity of its current popularity.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying and embracing other cultures. In fact, I think it should be encouraged. However, I now realize that Western media’s fixation on Korean culture can have harmful side effects, such as the creation of a superficial, romanticized version of it. It leaves me feeling just as uncomfortable as the lack of representation had, although the circumstances are admittedly different. Of course, I can’t do much to change the way my culture is picked apart and portrayed in more popular spaces, but I urge everyone who’s taken interest in the culture to acknowledge and embrace Korean identities beyond pop culture.

CROSSWORD How well do you know San Francisco?

Across 14. Always 30 minutes late 15. Fire hose on a hill 17. Home of the sea lions 19. Tourist turns 22. Our friend the fog 24. Former tallest building in SF 25. The ___ ___rainbow tunnel

Down 1.Former home of red and gold 16. Two mountains; also the name 2. Original name; “good herb” of a show 3. ____ LA! 18. Bigger than Central Park 4. Toilet water fountain 20. Giants mascot 6. Al Capone’s vacation home 21. Left in San Francisco 8. Christmas ballet 23. Riveting denim 9. Newest stadium in the city 11. Eat everything including the bowl

Scan for a chance to

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1.Albino alligator 5. Brunch at the beach 7. Soft underbelly 9. National Historic Landmark on wheels 10. City by the ____ 12. Sisters since 1957 13. San Andreas’ fault