In September of 2007, Jazna Stannard started a project called the “Soap and Towel Campaign” with the help of student council kids at Hanover High School. The charity drive collected things like shampoo, conditioner, soap, towels, mouthwash, toothpaste, deodorant and other toiletries for people who are homeless. Although it all started in our little old town, it has since expanded across the whole state of Massachusetts as well as many areas throughout the country. Now known as “A Fresh Start,” this nonprofit organization is a huge success and seems to be expanding every day. Its partners include universities, hotels, corporations and ordinary people like us.

Many of us in Hanover (especially us teenagers) take for granted the things that we have, and never worry about not having soap, or toothpaste or towels. We may never think about how truly grateful we are to have these things because we are just so accustomed to having them at our fingertips whenever we need them. There are thousands and thousands of people all over the globe who aren’t even privileged enough to have even  a bar of soap, and that is where it is our job to work with organizations like “A Fresh Start.”

Because it all started right here at Hanover High School, we have made sure our school collects bins of toiletries every year. Some teachers like Mrs. Fay even offer their students extra credit for bringing in items to donate. This year, Callie Hoadley and I are committee heads of this campaign through Student Council. We have a donation box in the office, and flyers all over the walls, but nobody can benefit without YOUR donation. Please bring in any toiletries and towels and drop them off in the office. These small actions we take create big movements throughout the world.

To learn more about the national campaign, visit http://www.afreshstartcampaign.org/

Eighty-seven years ago this Friday, one of the country’s most influential civil rights activists and leaders was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Baptist minister and leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1950s and 1960s who helped prompt the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2016, we remember King’s influence in rallying support for the end of segregation and associate him predominantly with his “I Have a Dream” speech. But beyond the main points we learn in school, how much do we really know about the life of this American hero whose legacy we celebrate this upcoming Monday, January 18?

Growing up, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a superior student, skipping ninth-and eleventh-grade. In 1948, King earned a sociology degree from Morehouse College and began learning ministry at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. As student body president and class valedictorian at the seminary, King was already making himself a distinguished leader. Perhaps most influential to King’s later life was his instruction from Morehouse College President Benjamin E. Mays, who saw Christianity as a way to bring about racial equality.

At just 25 years old, King earned a Ph.D. and became pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama. He was also on his way to becoming a major civil rights activist. On the December night in 1955 when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat for a white man, King was chosen during an NAACP meeting to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott. King’s strong education and intelligence enlivened the boycott, and he eloquently gathered support for the cause. Eventually, Montgomery would get rid of the law requiring segregated public transportation.

In 1957, King helped to establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (the SCLC), which helped him to gain influence in the South and in the nation. King focused on nonviolent methods of activism, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. King had great success with the SCLC in the Birmingham Campaign, where economic and civil segregation were boycotted. In the end, Jim Crow laws were removed and public facilities became more open to blacks.
In 1964, four years before his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his numerous accomplishments and contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. King’s leadership was a symbol of nonviolent approach, and the award promoted the effectiveness of using peaceful action to obtain equity.

King’s contributions to the Civil Rights Movement were monumental, and our country is certainly a more peaceful and accepting place because of them. It is crucial to remember nonviolent leaders who provided voices of reason, and King is at the front of that group.

This Friday, let us all remember this determined and compassionate man who made the United States more of a truly united nation.

Citations
“Martin Luther King Jr. Biography.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 08 Jan. 2016.
Features, Vidette. “Top 5 Martin Luther King Jr. Achievements.” Videtteonline.com. N.p., 14 Jan. 2015. Web. 08 Jan. 2016.

By Kristen Plahn and Chris Acampora

Fun Fact: Sylvester School opened as a high school in 1927. It next became a junior high school, then a middle school for grades 5 and 6. The building then housed fourth graders and half of the fifth grade, before finally becoming what we have now: a school for third and fourth graders. With Center School teaching k-2 and Cedar School set up as k-4, Sylvester completed Hanover’s elementary school system.

With the aging Sylvester School becoming unfit for students, school officials had a tough decision in front of them: how to reorganize the elementary schools to best meet the needs of students. In late October, Hanover Superintendent of Schools Matt Ferron announced the new plan. In an email to parents, Mr. Ferron explained that for the next few years Center School will house grades 2-4 for the entire town while also undergoing renovations. Pre-K through first grade will be moved to Cedar.

The biggest question raised by this email is the future of the Sylvester School. “We will be working as a community in the future to determine a repurposing plan for this historic building,” said Ferron.

The switch between schools might seem complicated now, but it will benefit all parts of Hanover in the years to come.

Once a year, after a long day of stuffing your face with food, watching football with your family, and being thankful for everything you already have, people all over America head to the mall to trample strangers for sales on things they don’t need. This day is what we all know to be BLACK FRIDAY. Malls and stores prepare months and weeks in advance for this one day of craziness.

Shopping malls, department stores, and plazas unlock their doors in the wee hours to let in crowds of people hyped up on coffee and Red Bull. Although most of the stores and malls don’t open until midnight or even 1 in the morning, that doesn’t stop people from heading to the mall halfway through Thanksgiving day. Some people bring tents, sleeping bags, food, and anything else they might need just so they can go early and be the first in line for a store.

Jarvis Johnson from Arizona has camped out for Black Friday sales every year for the past eight years, but this year took it to extreme when he basically set up a temporary house next to a Best Buy. He began waiting in line for post-Thanksgiving sales the Sunday before Thanksgiving day. He was on Fox 10 News as the “Black Friday Shopper getting an early start”  and he gave them a brief tour of his crib. Right outside the door to Best Buy was his huge tent with a heater, a large flat screen TV, a microwave, a full-size bed, and a refrigerator.

You might think he’s crazy, but more than six people in Los Angeles also stood outside of Best Buy nearly a week before Black Friday. These people may make you wonder exactly how good the deals and sales must be. However, studies have shown that nearly a third of items “on sale” on Black Friday are actually more expensive than usual. So if you still wish to shop in the hustle and bustle of black Friday, so be it. Just keep in mind that maybe not everything is as good a deal as you may think.

Former Boston Celtics player Chris Herren spoke to a gym packed with HHS students on Nov. 18 about how his addiction to drugs almost cost him everything he loved.

Earlier in the week, we watched a video in PE about Herren’s story. He talked about starting to use drugs at 18 and how it almost ruined his family and basketball career. Before the video I thought, “Just another ‘drugs are bad’ speech, we’ve already had DARE.” I was stunned when, in the video, Herren admitted saying the same thing in high school, never paying attention during this kind of speech. The video also emphasized that, despite having all he had ever wanted — a career with his favorite basketball team, a wife and kids — he couldn’t be happy because of his dependence on drugs.

In person, his message was even stronger! He started by saying that after his basketball career, he found a new passion. That passion was helping school children with talks like these. During one presentation, Herren recalled, a girl alone in the back of the bleachers raised her hand to ask a question. Everyone around her was laughing, urging him not to call on her. She eventually said that she didn’t want to ask her question since she thought nobody cared at school anyway. Herren said that girl later emailed him, revealing she has family problems due to alcohol, and that to escape from it, she cut herself. She told him that after his speech, she went to a table where all the people who bullied her sat and showed them the scars on her arms, telling them their teasing had caused those scars. Standing up for herself improved her life, Herren added; people began saying hello to her in the hallways for the first time in a long time. Herren said he was proud to hear that even one person’s life was impacted by his speech, and that even helping one person is worth it.

His talk would go on to cover many important topics like how drugs and alcohol can ruin families, relationships, and friendships. The talk took a surprising turn when someone brought up marijuana being legalized. Herren said he thought it was an awful law, exposing many people to drugs and making drugs seem acceptable.

Students seemed to take the presentation very seriously. Freshman Abby Bulman said, “I thought that speech was not only inspiring, but shows what good a person can imbue society with.”

The thing that I took with me when I left the gym after the presentation was how Herren called the people who on Friday nights can look in the mirror and be okay with themselves, and the people who feel “cool ” without having to drink,”heroes.” I left thinking how that statement is actually right–people who are comfortable in their own skin are heroes.

I think this was one of the more successful speeches about the the importance of staying away from drugs that students get the chance to hear. As Herren said, it’s more important to talk about the first days of doing drugs than the last days. When you think about it, it makes sense. It’s easy to say you’ll never be like that person in the grip of addiction, while trying not to be that person resisting the temptation at the beginning is much harder.

By: Chris Acampora and Kristen Plahn

It’s been decided by the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (try saying that five times fast…) that there will be… drumroll please… NO PARCC.

But while 8 out of 11 commissioners on the BESE voted for the discontinuance of the PARCC test, it’s not completely gone. In deciding whether to stick with MCAS or fully adopt PARCC, the state chose something in the middle: MCAS 2.0. Massachusetts will still be involved in developing PARCC, and PARCC and MCAS 2.0 will share some questions. Some questions on MCAS 2.0 will be specific to our state’s content and standards.

While PARCC was being piloted in the last couple of years, teachers, students and parents across the state raised many complaints about the test — and not just that it was hard. The test had serious flaws, such as printing errors, and a general lack of information about the rules. Many teachers were against it as  “a waste of class time,” inspiring faculty members to wear stickers reading, “MORE LEARNING, LESS TESTING” around HHS last spring. The fact that the test had problems with the scoring system didn’t help the students either, making their testing unfair, and leaving the teachers baffled. Last year’s PARCC test was also in its early stages. Right after HHS students took the English PARCC, it was shortened from three sessions.

The fact that the test was timed was also controversial. Teachers argued that students were not used to timed tests (during MCAS, using extra time was encouraged), and that taking a timed test is a skill that needs to be learned. What is most shocking is that many test-takers found that the PARCC was more tiring than MCAS, even though it was shorter (perhaps because it was timed, students felt stressed out and rushed). Another complaint from teachers was that PARCC was administered in April, too early in the school year, before all of the material on the test could possibly be covered in class.

Hanover students are still slated to take the PARCC this spring. The Freshmen class of 2019 will be the first to use the new MCAS 2.0, scheduled to take the test next year.  It’ll be curious to see what students and teachers think of the new test.

Social media is everywhere, coming at us through our computers, tablets and ever-present phones. News, and rumors, spread to countless people at the touch of a button, in the blink of an eye. Everything these days has a hashtag. How has all this social media impacted our society? Has it changed it for the better, or for the worse?

That was the topic of the Lions Club Speech Contest, held yesterday at HHS. Participants had to write a short essay and then deliver a speech on the topic in front of three judges.

Freshman Cornelius “Haraden” Bottomley was the winner, with junior Aria Duff “coming in a close second,” according to Dr. Walsh, director of Humanities for HHS. Other participants included freshmen Abby Bulman, Abby Cummings, Julia Leskow, Ben Lee and Olivia Reddish; sophomores Sierra Little-Gill, Erica Perry, Alex Linn and Heather Nash; and seniors Andrea Bilton and Macy Hohenleitner.

For Andrea Bilton, social media has had a profound impact on not just how we express ourselves, but on how we value ourselves. “We have grown to associate positive feelings with every ‘like,’ ‘favorite’ and ‘follower’ that pops up on our phones,” she said in her speech. “We go through life with underlying motives – to accumulate Facebook friends, Instagram followers, and get the most ‘likes’ we possibly can.”

The topic was a challenge to Ben Lee, who felt he couldn’t really judge the impact of social media because he’s never experienced life without it.

“In order for me, or anyone my age, to compare life with and without social media, we would have had to live ‘on both sides of the fence’ and I haven’t,” he wrote in his speech.”There really isn’t a minute in the day where I don’t have my phone or when I am not on it. … I’m sure (social media) has had an effect but I couldn’t tell you what it is.”