Tag: school

  • Humans of Quarantine: Chilling, Exhausted, and Not Missing the Beach

    Humans of Quarantine: Chilling, Exhausted, and Not Missing the Beach

    “Lately I have been feeling extremely exhausted and overwhelmed by not only school and distance-learning, but from my community being torn apart and all over the place from past/recent tragedies.”
    —Mahogani Sogules-Corbin

     

    “Quarantine just means I don’t have to worry as much about wearing sunscreen.”
    —Sophia DelBello
    Reymar Santos, High Life Staff Writer: “This is my Uncle Eddie, he’s been chilling and pushing through this quarantine and he said, ‘Make the most of the time spent with your family because that is all that we can do. Enjoy life that’s it.’ “
    “Life WAS like a box of chocolates, but now its as uneventful as a Kit Kat Bar from the 99¢ store.”
    —Christian Gisborne

  • The Life of An Office Aide

    Everyday in school you see an office aide walk into your class and I’m pretty sure you think it’s probably one of the most fun classes you can take on campus, but that may not be the case.

    Don’t get me wrong being an office aide does have its perks, walking around school to kill time, just chill there for a bit, walking around and delivering stuff, but most of the time you may not have something to do.

    In my experience, being an office aide in the counselor’s office, you get to take call slips, sort out the mail, and deliver things for counselors and occasionally take other things, but what do yo undo when they don’t have mail or what if the they don’t anyone to call out of class? You just sit there in the office… right in the middle of one of the busiest offices in school. Everyone, including teachers, students and staff memebers are walking in and out of a very small office.

    So yeah, it’s an easy ‘A’ and does get fun, but a lot of the times you are just sitting there. But for me I have a friend that I’ve known for a while in that class so it’s kinda just like another lunch period, and we just walk around when we don’t have any passes to hand out, but we can’t be out for too long in case they do need an aide to do something, even though there are three aides during my period.

    Personally, I would recommend being an office aide, it’s an easy ‘A’ and it’s even more fun if you take the class with a friend, because you get to pick what office you want to be in, you get to take some walks, when you don’t have anything to do you can just sit there on your phone. The cons is it can get boring waiting on stuff to do, sometimes the mail can really pile up, there’s many people walking in and out of the office, sometimes teacher don’t even wanna open their doors… and teachers can sometimes be a little bit rude, but most of them are pretty cool.

    One time a teacher asked me what the pass is for and SIS, I really don’t know, and she kept asking me, like the students name is on there and tells them where to go… I’m just the aide, the little delivery man, sister, so I don’t know why you would keep asking me, that’s between the counselor and the student.

    Sometimes I feel like the teachers don’t remember that we don’t know what they’re going there for, we’re just the delivery man (or woman).

    But at the end of the day, I do enjoy the class, I feel like it’s very easy, and a majority of the time pretty fun, especially if you have conversations with the workers in your office. So if your thinking about being an office aide, I most definitely recommend it, it’s like a free class period.

  • Choice Night

    Choice Night

    Poly pathways, sports, and clubs showed off their accomplishments so far in the year for potential incoming freshman on Wednesday, November 20 at Poly.

  • What’s Your Ride?

    Poly seniors and juniors drive to Poly in their cars each morning in 2019. Each student has a unique car, ranging from imports to American cars. The students are between 16-18 years of age, old enough to drive on their own.
    All the cars the seniors and juniors own are mostly 99% automatic transmission. This is easier on the beginners and easier to drive on a daily.
    Some seniors and juniors have learned to drive a manual, however. “It was hard at first, but as soon as you learn it, you’ll enjoy it,” said Poly student Alex Zarate. He owns a white 1991 Honda Accord in a manual transmission with a car bra on the front and lots of modifications on it. He said Hondas are one of the most reliable cars. They are good on gas, and there’s also a lot of aftermarket potential. In Kelley’s blue book website, it has 4.5 out of five stars for reliability, so it’s one of the best cars to start out with if you’re a new driver.
    Devin Martinez owns a 1996 Toyota Supra with a manual transmission like Zarate’s Honda Accord. Instead of using a four cylinder engine, it uses a 3.0 six cylinder engine. It’s a two door coupe and is classified as a sports car in Car Gurus. Many car enthusiasts like Martinez adore the Supra because of how legendary it is and the tuner potential it has. “It’s definitely my favorite car,” said Martinez. His car has aftermarket rims, coilovers, a front lip, and an aftermarket exhaust system that makes the car louder. Since it’s a Toyota, the reliability is there, Martinez said. He wouldn’t recommend it as a first car, though, because it is expensive. He paid $39,850 for his. Not too many high schoolers have that much money yet. But if you have the money to support it, the Supra is a great car to get.
    The Honda Accord and Toyota Supra cars are both imports, which tend to be better than American cars. A study in 2014 by Toyota of Murfreesboro concluded that Ford’s highest mpg was 36.8 while Toyota’s was 44.2. But at the end of the day, it’s your choice whether you want an import or an American car. Everyone has different taste, and each car will have its ups and downs.

  • Oil and Instructor Changes

    The Long Beach Poly automotive classes are under new instruction, as the previous teachers have retired.
    Michael Schenkelberg is the new instructor, and this is his second year at Poly. “The class isn’t just to learn about cars, it’s a life skill,” he said.
    The class helps you learn about basic information about cars, which helps you perform work on everything to do with automotives. Daniel Castillo, a JUSTICE junior who is new to Poly this year, said, “Auto Shop is very important, and the class is helping me get my license.”
    BEACH sophomore and second-year automotive student Osvaldo Gonzalez said that the class was very beneficial. It led to him having a greater understanding of cars and how to fix them.
    The class is very useful for all types of things, not just an interest in cars. As Schenkelberg also teaches AVID at Poly, the class this year focuses more on being successful and teaching through hands on experiences. The class has helped many students with their own cars over the past two years.

  • Welcome, New Staff!

    Welcome, New Staff!

    Maria Salazar

    By Reymar Santos

    Maria Salazar, the new ASB secretary, is excited to work here at Polytechnic High School. She lives on the west side of Long Beach, but her family is originally from Mexico. She is the first generation from her family to become a citizen in the US. Her family is originally from Mexico. Her previous job was in the enrollment department at the other school. She graduated from Long Beach City College. Her first experience at Poly was such a new and thrilling experience because our school spirit in this school compared to other schools is overwhelming. She said, “The people are friendly; and communicating with students is nice.” As ASB secretary, she said she enjoys helping other students with activities and handing out school IDs.

    David Rodriguez

    By Alexander Phouma

    David Rodriguez is one of our new special education teachers here at Poly. Mr. Rodriguez was born and raised here in Long Beach, and attended Wilson High School. After graduating high school, he furthered his education and studied at UC Santa Cruz for his bachelors and is currently working on getting his masters at Cal State University and has been happily married for two and a half years now. Before working at Poly, Rodriguez was a teacher at Grant Elementary School. Like both of his parents, he became a teacher to help kids and he enjoys seeing students become a better version of themselves. Rodriguez likes to run with his wife and play board games. He has ran about 25 marathons so far. He also enjoys watching baseball, and his favorite team is the Dodgers. One of his favorite movies is The Shawshank Redemption and enjoys buffalo wings and burgers.

    John Wong

    By Briana Mendez-Padilla

    John Wong, Poly’s new MEDS counselor, transferred this year from Poly’s sister campus, PAAL, where he worked for four years. Wong regards himself as an approachable person and hopes to gain his student’s trust and be able to guide them to success in life after high school. Whether that means college or any other situation, he intends to find out what options are best for students and ensure they reach their goals. Wong said he comes prepared with community resources to assist students not only academically, but also socially and emotionally. He wants to reach out to kids and spark a positive change within them.

    Brent Lavoie

    By Sebastian Lebario

    Ever since the arrival of Brent Lavoie, Poly has been glorified as an exceptional baseball program and has also won a Moore league title. Brent Lavoie is going into his fourth year as the Poly varsity coach with high expectations to have a repeat championship season in 2020. As of this school year, he is also going to be a special education teacher. Although he has been a coach at Poly, he finally got a job to work here after a few years of working as Millikan High School’s resource specialist teacher.
    Lavoie was born in Springfield, Missouri where he played baseball collegiately at Missouri Valley in Marshall, Missouri. He then moved out to North Arkansas Junior College in Harrison, Arkansas. He is now entering his 14th year as a high school teacher overall.

    Shannon Young

    By Melissa De La Cruz

    Among the new teachers at Poly this school year, there is also a new assistant principal who works with the pathways Justice and Pace. Shannon Young has been working in the LBUSD district for 19 years now. She first started out by working as a 5th grade teacher at Burbank Elementary School. From there she moved to Franklin Middle School where she worked as an English and history teacher. Shortly before coming to Poly, she was employed as an assistant principal at Millikan High School.
    Young claims her experience here at Poly has been a good one so far. She is content with and loves the idea of working at the home of scholars and champions that not only is there a focus but an encouragement on students academically, as well as with extracurricular activities as well. “The students– they’re great, kind, respectful,” she says. She claims she enjoys working with the staff which has also been quite resourceful and left a positive impact on Young as well as “everybody has been very welcoming. They’ve been kind and helpful”.
    Compared to where she last worked, she says there are more similarities than differences. This makes things easier when transitioning from one location to another. Overall it seems like our new assistant principal has had a wonderful experience since the first day. To summarize her experience so far in a sentence is, “Poly is an inviting, encouraging place for students and staff to be.”

    Ronald Scipio

    By Alexander Phouma

    Ronald Scipio is one of our new teachers here at Poly, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t sound familiar; his wife is also a teacher at the school. Scipio was born and raised in Compton, California and always knew he wanted to be a teacher while he was in high school. Before applying for the job, he was a teacher’s aide at Poly, and he previously worked at Jordan High School for five years. After our previous orchestra teacher, Mr. Osman, retired, Scipio applied for the spot and transferred from Jordan to Poly. He has two children and has been married for a total of four years. He also enjoys bike rides, working out in the gym and cooking.

    Mark Mikasa

    By Madeline Milton

    Mark Mikasa is an AP Calculus AP and Algebra II teacher at Poly. He recently taught at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights and Gabrielino High School in San Gabriel, both of which being located in California. He has had his eye on a job opportunity at Poly for awhile, as he is located in Long Beach and wanted to take a more local job.
    Being distanced from his previous schools, he missed out on a lot of school events and activities after school. “When I was in San Gabriel,” he said, “I could never really attend any games or support kids in other ways.” He is looking forward to attending games and other events at Poly.

    Dana Zapanta

    By Jailyn Lewis-Hobbs

    Dana Zapanta is the new PACE Counselor at Long Beach Poly. Originally from San Diego, Zapanta received her undergraduate at the University of California, Irvine, and went to graduate school at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Zapanta has been counseling for thirteen years, spending five years in ABC Unified and another seven years in the Clark County District. Zapanta then moved to Long Beach and began working at Long Beach Poly High School as the new Pace Counselor. When asked why she chose Poly, Zapanta said “I wanted a challenge, a new perspective. After working for a certain amount of time you want to change it up a little bit.”

    Elizabeth Baca

    By Chansochata Thon

    As many new students begin associating themselves with the pride of the Jackrabbit, so did new the Pre-Calculus and Calculus BC teacher, Elizabeth Baca. Coming to Poly allowed her to see a new dynamic where pathways allowed students to act like family. Not only was she greeted by this warm family-like dynamic, but she felt as if she had joined it.
    With the start of the fall year, Baca is eager and enthusiastic to attend football games, which not only allow her to build a stronger bond with her students and the school, but also allows her to bring her kids to share the Jackrabbit pride and love.
    Along with all the pros of a new school, the block schedule also presents a challenge to Baca. But getting used to remembering when to repeat teaching days or start a new teaching day is a struggle she is willing to conquer. Baca also is in the process of completing her Master’s Degree at CSULB to better understand the curriculum and ensuring that she will teach her students at her fullest capacity.

    Brian George

    By Kameo Mapp

    Meet Brian George, PAAL’s new assistant principal. George is originally from Long Beach, California, and has taught at Poly for 5 years and PAAL for 18. He attended USC and is a proud Trojan. George has 3 children and enjoys PAAL because of its small and very tight community. He also enjoys Dodger Blue and eating pizza.

    Teo Weiner

    By Kameo Mapp

    Specialist Teo Weiner was raised in Culver City, CA, has educated students for 18 years and spent 8 of them at Poly before moving to PAAL. He loves to eat sushi and play with his adorable pet dog. He enjoys going to festivals, watching musicals and whipping up furtadas and omelettes. He is a strong believer in a growth mindset and growing your intelligence to the fullest. He is an advocate for staying on your path to success and never allowing the possibility of failure.

    Nicole Lopez

    By Kameo Mapp

    Meet Nicole Lopez, PAAL’s new Principal of Students. Ms. Lopez is originally from North Vermont and grew up learning Spanish and French. She earned her Masters in Education at Cal State Long Beach. She enjoys the colors of nature and traveling places, especially Australia. She has one son and lots of pets who brighten her day. She likes people who break rules, take risks and do the best for themselves to create a positive outcome. She cares about her students to the highest degree and strives to bring out the best results in PAAL students.

     

  • Food Fight

    As a student, I recognize the amount of food wasted during lunch and nutrition; some food is just left on school benches. What if the food was better? How much food will be conserved and not thrown away or half-eaten?

    I think we should look into fresh and better meals for students and faculty alike. What makes it bad? I think the biggest reason why it’s so flawed with some students is that some foods that are prepared are non-nutritious or simply unappealing. We come to hear students all the time groan about school food. “Ugh I hate this,” or “I’d rather just starve and eat when I get home,” is what most students say. I think the spicy mozzarella cheese sticks and the “turkey” sandwiches are disgusting somewhat. The worst thing that they do is that they don’t prepare meals fresh, and sometimes they are left soggy and disgusting. We must look into ways for food to be prepared fresh, hot, and ready. Why don’t they hire caterers to deliver food to our school? There must be some restaurants out there willing to cater for students; which consequently will also boost and encourage people to come to their restaurants if their food is good.

  • Too Close For Comfort?

    In my opinion friendships only grow when you are close to each other, whether it may be physically or mentally. Society has made closeness an uncomfortable sanctum for friendship.

    In other words, people think that being physically and mentally close to someone means that they are bound to be together romantically, but that’s not necessarily true.

    I personally think that closeness can encompass physical actions towards one another in a friendly passion. For instance, two friends of the opposite sex or same sex can hug or cuddle without having feelings.

    Society has made people subject to thinking that close encounters with other individuals is uncomfortable or unacceptable in public.

    This could be because the media shows closeness only in the form of a relationship. I believe friends have the ability to not have feelings for one another and still be a caring and understanding person towards them. Society should be more open minded and allow closeness in public.

    The amount of people who do not accept closeness between friends in public is extremely high in my opinion. Therefore, the discomfort of society is out of control.

    Students at Poly, such as Marc Hines, a sophomore, said, “Boys sometimes believe that being close to a girl or opposite sex can make it look like [you] are together and that causes many problems.”

    I asked him why he felt as though there were problems created and he could only say that he was afraid of being questioned by his friends. If that is the reason why closeness is not accepted in society, then technically closeness is just seen as different for other people.

  • Depression Amongst Students

    Often times we are told that a depressed person is someone who is quiet, has no joy, and wears dark clothes.  They might be considered rebellious and listens to sad or loud music, but that is not always the case. How can a depressed person display that they are depressed, based merely off of appearance? Even then, if you are close to someone, sometimes it is not always apparent if they are. Signs that suggest someone might be depressed would be feeling helpless/hopeless, loss of interest in daily things, their weight either drastically goes up or down, reckless behavior, angry, and/or has insomnia. Although some of these are based on appearances, the rest are internal and can not be easily shown. These may be signs in which you can look out for, but they might not be accurate for most people. Take for example a student who has good grades, socializes with friends and classmates, and who you see is in a good mood for the most part while at school. Some would assume that their life is good and they have everything set. Well what if this same student, after coming from school, goes home and it’s all just a facade. They in fact are breaking down, overthinking everything, doubting themselves, have parents constantly criticizing them and just a completely different person. You would not know that they suffer from depression. The reasoning behind why they might put up this facade is for many reasons such as, not wanting to fail or be considered a failure. They are often pressured into keeping up with grades, or they don’t want to bring attention to themselves. People should not have to suffer alone or conceal that they are hurting. It might be hard to get help or to tell someone about everything that is going on with them, but it is better to open up, even if it’s just a little part of their life. We, as teenagers have a lot going on and even in our struggles we can find similarities and unity.  We should not have to be alone, we should reach out, create groups where we can talk to each other and be heard, and possibly talk to a trusted adult who would not judge us but instead give us advice in how we can conquer our issues.

  • Behind the Crime Scenes!

    Behind the Crime Scenes!

    When I first thought of this article,  it was because I was     curious to see what our Poly CSO’s do with their lives outside of school. Have you ever been curious as to what your teachers do in their spare time? Surely they have something they like to do aside from all that grading

    The gate worker and security guard Mike Castillo has been working for poly for the past two years. He is someone students often walk past, but seldom ever greet.

    Castillo, when he isn’t keeping poly’s campus beautiful, coaches youth basketball and youth football. “I was a jock in high school, I guess in that way, I still am.” Castillo said, smiling in remembrance of his past self.

    Nowadays, Castillo’s joy and passion comes not from sports alone, but his family. “My kids are my everything. I’m very soon to be a Grandpa, so I have that to look forward to.” he remarked with a small chuckle.

    Jeff Eyanson (the CSO pictured) has been a part of the Jackrabbit family for 28 years. During 8 of which he has been working toward receiving his doctorate. He was able to find the time to study while he worked. “I was able to work in between the cracks of time. I was able to do a lot of research while I’m at the main gate.”

    All that hard work will soon pay off for Eyanson, “I can see the end of the tunnel.” he said with a wide grin. As of now, Eyanson already teaches youth baseball and colleges courses twice a week in San Diego. He plans to remain working at poly as well as teaching online courses, “Is there anywhere else to go? I went here, stood here for 28 years. My son will go to high school here. Once a Jackrabbit, always a Jackrabbit.”

    Looking back to his years as a student here on campus, Eyanson can only remember being one thing: Busy. “I was in all kinds of clubs, student council, I was assistant coach for volleyball my senior year, and I was coach for 13 years after. We won CIF in 2000.”