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THE

SOURCEVolume 9 Issue 6

December 16, 2011

575 Tienken Road, Rochester Hills, MI 48306

Big Green Gig bounces back bigger for second year

With Christmas approach-ing, probably the most popu-lar adjective on people minds is “white.” White snow, white Christmas, etc. But this is not so in our Earth Advocates club. They constantly think green, but more in particular at this time of year because of the up-coming Big Green Gig on Jan. 13.

The Big Green Gig is return-ing from last year, the show’s first year, as the Earth Advo-cates Club decided to expand on the The Gig that had occurred years before.

The show itself will be full of bands, food, merchandise, and culture. The club brings in a multitude of local acts, provides food and refreshments, various merchandise, and other “earth-friendly” themed things.

The club members are all about the earth, and pop cul-ture.

“We try to incorporate a healthy earth setting with good music. It’s a fun show with a good meaning behind it” junior Courtney Bourgoin said.

The first Big Green Gig was put on for charity and raised over $2,000 for the club, all of which was do-nated to various charity founda-tions. This year the club hopes to earn much more than that, and plans to do-nate to charities once more, ac-cording to club presidents Lind-sey Diamond and Kira Bucks-baum.

This year they are looking at bringing in four solo or acoustic acts and four full band acts as well. Returning from last year will be Boys Don’t Sing and local uprising band Alive In Standby.

Alive In Standby vocalist Chris Koo loved performing last year, and is looking forward to this year as well.

“Playing in a big auditorium is a nice change of pace from most local shows. It’s really a

lot of fun,” Koo said. “Last year was a blast, and as soon as they asked us to play again this year, I was all for it.”

Besides his excitement to play, Koo noted that shows like The Big Green Gig are extreme-ly beneficial to perform at.

“Shows like this are great for local bands. They appeal to a younger fol-lowing of kids, sell a lot of mer-chandise, and get the name out through the school system, a key factor in getting known,” Koo said.

Also confirmed for this

year’s show is The Bends, the band of student teacher Kevin Briski.

Besides those three, the club is still looking around for other good local acts to fill the bill.

Senior Kira Bucksbaum, Earth Advocates President, is

busy getting bands together. “We want to even the show

out a little bit more than last year,” Bucksbaum said. “We want to start off with acoustic or solo acts, and build to the best one, then move on to full bands, and build to the best one

in that category too.” The Club is pulling the whole

show together currently, count-ing down the days until Jan. 13. With all the snow coming this month, a little green will be a nice break from the white for our Earth Advocates.

by Blake Adams

Sports Team

Teacher have mixed feelings over evaluationsby Matthew Pitlock

Editor-in-Chief

Teacher Julie Frerichs advanced into the Language Lab on Nov. 30, her troops of Advanced Placement Spanish students flanking her on each side. In tandem, each Spanish-speaking warrior took a seat opposite the enemy, typed his or her name into the log-in panel of the enemy’s screen, and pressed “enter.” The war had begun.

Already a computer screen went blank. Already freshman Miah Khan’s mouse had fallen, no longer able to click. It was a normal Wednesday in the Language Lab.

Ever since school began, these battles with the Language Lab have been an issue in the world language department.

“The problem is that the computers [in the lab] are ten years old,” Frerichs said. “That’s pretty much it.”

This computer lab, designed exclusively for world language classes, is programmed with technology and specialized software meant to engage students by giving them the chance to listen to native speakers and also to record themselves speaking.

However, because the computer lab is now ten years old, its technology, its software, and its appliances malfunction on a regular basis.

According to Frerichs, the headphones and mice of the lab do not always work, logging in is sometimes unreliable, and Sony Soloist, the listening and recording program, will no longer

convert .wav files to .mp3 files and often fails to record on some student computers.

Desai affirms Frerichs’ statements. “During the practice dialogue sessions, it

closes off on me...but when it opens back up it doesn’t save my recording,” Desai said.

In addition, according to Frerichs, this past summer brought a new Windows update to the leading computer of the lab, the teacher’s computer, but not to the student computers. This adds compatibility problems to the list of issues students face daily in the lab.

But students and teachers alike say that the daily inconveniences of the Language Lab are not the primary reason for their frustration with the technology.

“I can deal with it on a day-to-day basis with my students in class,” Frerichs said, “but when it comes to the AP, it’s not fair to the students if it’s not working.”

As the AP Language tests are held on-campus, due to speaking and listening portions, the tests are administered in the Language Lab.

Frerichs, known by her students for her determination for their success on the AP test, finds herself worrying about the setback the malfunctioning lab will bring.

“Going into the AP, I want my students to not worry about the technology and worry about what they know, so it frustrates me,” Frerichs said.

According to CollegeBoard.com, should any sort of irregularity occur “College Board may decline to score the exams of one or more students...whether or not the affected

(see Language, pg. 2)

by Lindsey Scullen / Nick Cruz

Managing Content Editor / Managing Design Editor

Language lab crumbles before APs

Juniors Emmie Ashwell and Brooklynne Garrett paint a poster to advertise for the Big Green Gig. The Earth Advocates Club has planned on mass advertising to bring more people to this years show. (Photo by Kira Bucksbaum)

Senior gets skiing sponsorship

pg. 8

Student survives car crashpg. 4 and 5

(see Teachers, pg. 2)

Every worker needs to be evaluated. Sales people have their sales figures, lawyers have their winning percentages, even athletes come with some sort of average attached to their name. It only makes sense that teachers be evaluated by data as well, doesn’t it?

This year Michigan legislatures enacted a law requiring up to 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluations to be based on data by 2014.

To comply, Rochester Community Schools and the teachers’ union developed a new teacher evaluation system that they hope the state will approve.

According to Principal Larry Goralski, the new system is much more data driven, which allows every teacher to set goals for each year that can be monitored as part of a self evaluation program. He thinks this type of system gives teachers a better understanding of how their students are performing.

“That’s the point of it all,” Goralski said. “If people actually measure what they do instead of assume that ‘I teach it well,’ and you challenge kids to do better, then they’ll eventually rise.”

The data based system is meant to be a much fairer, less subjective, process. History teacher Mark Dillon agrees that a system like this could prevent personal biases from tainting evaluation results.

“They used to find anything they want to criticize you on,” Dillon said. “At least now we have something to go to and say, ‘Oh, ok, well then I’ll work on that’ and the data can be raised.”

According to Dillon the administrators were wasting their time giving teachers grades on their observations. He hopes that the new system will allow administrators to work with teachers in a more efficient way than they ever did

“As soon as they asked

us to play again this

year, I was all for it.”

Singer Chris Koo

(photoillustration by Nick Cruz)

before. “It’s way more

cooperative and it allows administrators to focus on getting people to teach better,” Dillon said. “It’s not so much a grading thing anymore as an improving and practicing thing.”

The new system also gives teachers clearly written expectations. Raising data and showing improvement can give teachers a clear representation of their strengths and weaknesses, according to math teacher Richard Koch

“When you go through and you see the different domains that they are looking at, It’s good because it forces me as an educator to constantly reflect on what I’m doing,” Koch said.

This system stresses self improvement. Koch believes this is the perfect way to run evaluations.

“I’m not just looking at my content, but also looking at teaching to different learning styles and students with different cultures and backgrounds,” Koch said.

Koch hopes that this will expand teacher’s abilities and minimize their weaknesses. He thinks that by improving teaching, it will make the learning experience more effective for students.

Some teachers do not believe in this simple system. They fear that tracking student progress is too complicated for a system that relies on a lot of data. They feel that subjects like English or the arts are nearly impossible to reflect in standardized tests.

English and history teacher Cara Laugheed thinks that one teacher can’t make or break a student’s standardized test score, so a test score shouldn’t make or break a teacher’s evaluation.

“I don’t know how they can hold one teacher accountable, when they (the teachers) are only with a student for one hour a day.”

Lougheed’s perfect evaluation system would avoid using data, but also avoid putting all of the responsibility on overworked administrators, who haven’t been in the classroom for a while.

“I would include some type of peer evaluation,” Lougheed said. “I would have a master teacher, someone who has been teaching 15 to 20 years, observe first or second year teachers.”

While the newest system remains controversial, the final say on whether it stays or it doesn’t falls upon the state.

“They will look at what we’ve created in Rochester, and either say we’re right on and we’ll keep with it or they’ll ask us to tweak it.” Goralski

THE

SOURCE SCHOOLDecember 16, 20112

Off the Record

Fun Facts about This Girl

She has a beagle •

named Minnie and had

one named Mickey

She loves to ski and go •

snow tubing up North

at there cottage

She wants to be a •

Doctor.

(photo by Charlotte Spehn)

with

Megan D’Arcy

I don’t know, but Bradley Cooper would definitely be welcome to the premier.

“

Source: In the book, “There once was an old lady who swallowed a fly” is there a strong message toward children about the dangers of binge eating?D’Arcy: Um, I don’t think any children would pick up on that message. But, there could be an underlying theme or motif of binge eating in that story. It’s possible.Source: I completely made that up.D’Arcy: Ha ha! That’s funny, though.

Source: What kind of writer are you? The kind that sits in front of the computer for 10 hours and writes three words, or the kind that writes 10 pages in three hours?D’Arcy: Oh, I’m definitely the kind that sits in front of the computer for 10 hours and writes like a paragraph. But I’m the type of person that doesn’t really do rough drafts. I do it once, and I do it really well, so that when I go back and edit it there’s not much left to do. But it’s a painful, long process.

Source: Do you plan to write more stories? For example, a series about redemption taught by a cartoon Quame Kilpatrick in a giraffe suit? Just an idea.D’Arcy: No, I definitely don’t plan to write that. Ha! I don’t plan to publish another book for maybe 10 to 20 years, if that. It would probably be a nonfiction book about whatever medicine research I’m doing. So hopefully the next thing I publish will be a research paper,.Source: Is there a writer out there (Dr. Seuss, Sophocles, Edgar Allen Poe) that you’d like to collaborate with? I just happened to pick dead guys, but they could be alive.D’Arcy: Collaborate with a writer… I’d take any famous author. Dr. Seuss, JK Rowling, or Mark Twain. I’d love to collaborate with Mark Twain because he’s hilarious. It’s fun reading his work, but I’m sure he wouldn’t want to collaborate with me.

Source: If this book was translated into a movie, who would Bradley Cooper, the sexiest man alive according to People Magazine, play?D’Arcy: Ha ha! Um… well… wait who would he play in my book?Source: I’m not sure if that was even a relevant question… D’Arcy: I don’t think that’s relevant (laughs). I don’t know but Bradley Cooper would definitely be welcome to the premier. Source: Are the characters people or animals?D’Arcy: Animals. They’re frogs.Source: Oh. Yeah that’s definitely not relevant. He could be a really attractive frog.D’Arcy: Ha. The frogs are really cutesy. My illustrator would draw like 80 frogs and email them to me. I can’t believe she took that much time. Then she’d asked me to pick the ones I liked, and then I’d say, “Oh I like number four, 24, and 38.” And then she would revise again and send it back to me. It would keep going and going until finally the book was made. It looks incredible. It was a lot of drafting, and I think the illustrations are beautiful.

While many seniors are busy filling out college applications, there is one senior doing that and more. In addition to interviewing for college and running Key Club as President, Senior Megan D’Arcy is also in the process of publishing a children’s book, for which she earned Huffington Post’s Greatest Person of the Day on Dec. 9.

The book is titled “Be Happy” and tells the story of a young frog princess who losses her father, the King, and her mother, the Queen, helps her to understand and move on from the death of her father.

“I actually wrote it when I was much younger, like 13,” D’Arcy said. “All the proceeds go to benefit Yatooma’s Foundation for the Kids, which helps kids who have lost a parent. I partnered up with this organization to publish the book so that the proceeds could help these kids in need.”

When D’Arcy gets time away from her school life, she loves nothing better than to hang out at her cottage up north, spending most of the time out boating. But now that the publishing process is drawing to a close, maybe it’s time for D’Arcy to answer a few final, light hearted, questions.

(continued from p. 1)Teachers

students caused the testing irregularities...”

The rules do go on to say, however, that a possibility to retest without charge does exist “when it is appropriate in the College Board’s judgment.”

As coordinator of AP testing, councilor Paul Carlin is confident that students’ scores will not be in jeopardy come time for the AP exam.

According to Carlin, if a proctor of an exam reports a problem with the technology in the lab, College Board “is going to hear that and adjust.”

Carlin is confident that the school will handle this to the best of its ability and that the students will not be affected.

“This is not something that will take away from someone’s score,” Carlin said.

Having taught using a Language Lab as a Spanish teacher at Rochester High, principal John Kelley is especially sympathetic to the

situation.According to Kelley, the

administration is working on options for “work-arounds” for the AP test. The problem, though, is that world language tests cannot be administered just anywhere as proper technology and a staff comfortable with that technology is needed.

According to Frerichs, an idea currently being toyed with is the possibility of using hand-held recorders on the AP test.

“We’re doing the best we can with what we have,” Kelley said. “If we could wave a magic wand and have a new lab with new equipment and new software, we would do that in a heartbeat for you guys.”

As much as Kelley waves his wand over the Language Lab, the magic it will continue to lack is district funding, as Carlin point out.

“What it comes down to, unfortunately, is if the district can afford to upgrade those computers,” Carlin said. “I’m not hearing good things right now, but if it’s not there, it’s not there to use for funding.”

(continued from p. 1)

Language

KLMFitness.com

Rochester Hills248-299-04562680 Rochester Rd.. (1.5 mile N of M-59)

1 5 % O f f Accessories

1 0 % O f f All Bicycles

Birmingham248-645-245333502 Woodward (at 14.5 mile)

THE

SOURCEOPINIONDecember 16, 2011 3

GRRR! PRRR! THE STAFF

THE POLICY

CONTACT

MEMBERS

College Admissions - Seniors should receive early action admission decisions from U of M and other colleges just in time for the holidays!

Ender’s Movie - Plans for a movie adaption of Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game are finally underway, to be released in 2013.

Editor-in-ChiEf:Matt PitlockManaging ContEnt Editor:Lindsey Scullen Managing dEsign Editor:Nick CruzsChool Editor:

Christiana TannersChool tEaM:

David HannaDanielle LinihanDarian RosemanCharlotte Spehnopinion Editor:

Christina Leiningeropinion tEaM:

Alexandra ZurkanlifEstylEs Editor:

Soojin ChunlifEstylEs tEaM:

Danielle BlessingCourtney BourgoinKira BucksbaumMichael MartinezBrooke MehargKristie RobinsonRachel Shuttersports Editor:

Reed Caosports tEaM:

Blake AdamsClaire EftingMatt HoughtonRakesh ReddyonlinE Editor:

Soumith InturiadvisEr:

Gayle Martin

We, the Stoney Creek Source Staff, produce this publication to accomplish the following goals: The Source will serve as a means of communication between students, teachers, and members of the community. We will respect all opinions and present them in an unbiased manner. The Source will inform and entertain readers and address trends and issues important to its audience. Although we are a student publication produced by the Writing for a Publication class, we will strive to make The Source accurate and truthful and to adhere to all standards of professional journalism. We recognize and respect the privileges given to us under the First Amendment, including the freedom of speech and of the press. The Source is a forum of student expression and we, the students of the staff, have the editorial authority to make our own content decisions. We will provide a sounding board for the student body and the community; therefore, the opinions expressed in by-lines opinion articles and letters should not be considered to be the opinions of the entire newspaper staff, the advisor, the school administration, or the student body as a whole.

LETTER POLICY:Letters to the editorand guest articlesand art may besubmitted to Mrs.Gayle Martin in RoomC285. All letters,articles, and art mustbe signed. Namesmay be withheldupon request.

The SourceStoney Creek575 Tienken Rd.Roch. Hills, 48306

E-mail: gmartin@rochester.k12.mi.us

National ScholasticPress Association

MichiganInterscholastic PressAssociation

GR

RR

PR

RRBY THE

NUMB3RSStinking Vertebrates - With Vertebrates students dissecting sharks, the science hall-way has been smelling fishy.

Drunk Driving

32%

Teacher Evaluation

Number of countries who participate in the PISA

25 rank of U.S. in math on PISA

Bullying

(complied by Courtney Bourgoin)

Sources: centralcouncil.org MADD.orgmakebeatsnotbeatdowns.org

bullyingstatistics.org

Numbers tell us a tremendous amount about the world we live in: the force required to move an object, the caloric value of an orange, the length of fence needed to build a pigpen, the gross domestic product, and so on. Math is very honest. Still, politicians can take pure, truthful data, and manipulate it to tell a lie. The Rochester School District has devised a new method to evaluate teachers—put into effect beginning with the 2011 school year. This change is made to appease Michigan legislation passed in Jan. 2011, and aims to have student improvement statistics play a more significant role in teacher evaluation. While it is probably time for a new evaluation system, the motive behind the new legislation, which calls for some drastic changes, is questionable. The United States’ seemingly inadequate ranking in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) could be a factor contributing to the push for a new teacher evaluation procedure. If a country fails to stack up academically on an international level, pressure trickles down to the states to improve student’s learning. When set beside thirty-four other countries, in the PISA, the U.S. ranked as follows: fourteenth in reading, seventeenth in science, and twenty-fifth

in math. Americans can be quite the competitive bunch, and while patriotism is certainly good, let’s make sure the test scores that light a fire under our nation’s posterior are presented in a fair light. “There are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics.” This famous line by Mark Twain appears above an article titled “PISA: It’s Poverty Not Stupid” featured on Nasspblogs.org.On his blog, the former high school principal, Mel Riddile, addresses our country’s response to the 2009 PISA results. He writes that the release of the results, “…has provided ample fodder for public school bashers and doomsayers who further their own philosophical and profit-motivated agendas by painting all public schools as failing.” Riddile points out that the PISA statistics do not accurately portray the truth. Compared to countries with similar poverty rates as our own, the U.S. has the highest PISA score. “Our lowest achieving schools are the most under-resourced schools with the highest number of disadvantaged students,” said Riddile. It is imperative that poverty rate be taken into account, since it does play a major role in education. Because these assessment results have

been misinterpreted, our nation now looks to more statistics to counteract the accursed statistics that started it all, naturally. One factor contributing to the new teacher evaluations is value-added measures (VMA). The intention of VMA is to gauge the progress of students, supposedly illustrative of a teacher’s effectiveness. According to Mlive.com, “It’s like using an SAT score to assess a student’s academic performance, it’s valuable information, but doesn’t come close to telling the whole story.” Nevertheless, it seems as though the state plans to do with VMA, what colleges have done with the SAT—run wild with it. According to Edtrust.org, weight on student growth will rise gradually, “…increasing to 50 percent by the 2014-15 school year.” With so much ambiguity surrounding VMA, fifty percent seems like a far too generous slice of pie to set all on one plate. And all in effort to improve our public schools that, when compared justly, rank number one? While the new teacher evaluations have the potential to give teachers helpful feedback, our lawmakers need to reassess the role VMA should play.

Teacher evaluation is unjustified

The new evaluation law was based on unjust data.

Staff Vote:

THE EDITORIAL

Decrease in accidents nationally since 2001

44Percent

Anti-bullying law almost hijacked

160,000Number of students in U.S. who refuse to go to school because of bullies

of high school bullies will be convincted of a crime in later life

19teachers AP-certified at Stoney

.17

342014

targeted year for schools to start new evaluations

77%

CA

RTO

ON

Are Michigan public schools lagging behind in the race to the top? Or is biased data creating a fuss

over nothing?

Bullying: a loaded word in America, and rightfully so. The black plague of the twenty-first century, bullying has stopped short young lives and blossoming futures too often. In Lansing, the potency of its wrath was very nearly renewed.

Matt’s Safe School Law—in honor of Matt Epling, who committed suicide in 2002 after relentless bullying—was passed Nov 29 in the Michigan Senate by a vote of 35-2, signaling broad bi-partisan support.

But the law almost didn’t get passed at all and, before reworking, produced a national controversy.

The reason? Besides failing to provide protection for bullied minorities in the bill, Senate Republicans originally added an extra clause: the bill would specifically allow for lawful bullying under religious or moral convictions.

This iteration of the law met such harsh criticism from both Michigan constituents and citizens nationwide that legislators in Lansing had no choice but to remake the law without such a clause.

To that point, the signing of a worthy anti-bullying law in Michigan is a grand achievement for our students and our consciences that aligns Michigan with the rest of the nation in bullying policies. The close call of its previously malevolent language, however, is a powerful lesson to be meditated on.

Upon its earmarked passing in the Senate, Democrats unanimously rebuked the old bill as an unprecedented gateway to legal bullying. They stipulated that instead of preventing bullying, the bill would have allowed for defensible bullying of any student on any terms, if a religious or “moral” reason is conjured up to justify the bullying.

The “anti-bullying” law, with this clause, indeed created the perfect loophole to bully students for their gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation―demographics that Republican lawmakers specifically refused to protect.

It would have reached into repulsively unethical grounds by giving students with the wits to quote Bible verses the ability to bully gay students prominently, along with any other minorities

vilified in religious texts, even other religions.

Epling’s own father expressed his disgust with the law’s former language on his website, proclaiming, “This is just unconscionable. This is government-sanctioned bigotry.”

The Republican Senate’s only desperate excuse was “upholding the Constitution,” citing the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech.

Ignoring the hypocrisy of protecting freedom of speech only when it suits the party, the Constitutional–high ground stance is a trivial and disingenuous stance.

Political parties time and time again claim moral or political superiority if they are defending the Constitution. But in no era of American politics, besides the Jeffersonian age, has “defending the Constitution” been anything more than a hollow excuse to mean “defending the Constitution when the Constitution supports us.”

When any party defends the Constitution, it is no doubt that their own political convictions follow closely in suit with whatever Constitutional policy

they are defending. The Constitution has been mangled, mutilated, and abused in countless ways to justify the whims of politicians on either side of the aisle.

Arguing the semantics of its language leads nowhere. The Rule of Law and its written anchors (like the Constitution) are obviously necessary, but history has exemplified what happens when laws overrule justice, and mercy. Modern legislation should be based on modern reason, morality, and empirical evidence, instead of debates about what a static, ancient document empowers people to do. A constitution should suit the needs of society; society should not be made to suit a constitution.

Designed to protect Michigan students from bullying, the previous version of the law actually removed protection for those groups bullied most, and yielded all the weaponry possible to religion and bigotry in school. Hopefully in the future, we can be candid in this country about why we want certain policies, and get to arguing disgusting ethics, logical fallacies, and failed economic policies much more speedily.

Agree: 61.1% (11)Disagree: 16.7% (4)

Undecided: 22.2% (2)

by Michael Martinez

Lifestyles Team

of fatal car accidents are caused by alcohol

most common blood alchohol recorded when drunk driving accidents happen

93days in jail first time offending drunk driver faces

25%

of U.S. students have claimed to have been bullied in some form

56%of students in the United Statres have witnessed someone being bullied

12-17most common age of students who are bullied

Swim Season for Joy - Trudging through the snow in a wet speedo results in tragic outcomes.

Pine Knob - Pine Knob’s ski resort is open for the winter months.

Locker A La Carte - The senior locker banks mysteriously regurgitate strewn food all over their floors around lunchtime.

THE

SOURCE LIFESTYLESDecember 16, 20114

Getting MADDby David Hanna

School Team

Deadly Driving

You

only

had

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You only had one drink You won’t get caught It’s only one block away The Police won’t catch you Driving buzzed is perfectly safe

You only had one drink You won’t get caught It’s only one block away The Police won’t catch you Driving buzzed is perfectly safe

Car accidents are the leading cause of death in teenagers from 15 to 19 years old. Each year car crashes kill more people than suicided,

homicide, and disease combined

Suicide:1,513

Car Accidents:5,522

Health Issues:1,942

Homicide:1,892

=500 deaths

Student, teacher show two sides of drunk driving

Junior Scott Jones and Hart Choir Teacher Jeff Zurkan have a lot in common when it comes to the subject of drunk driving. Both in very opposite ways.

Fast times and living a life full of partying with no

need to worry about getting caught, was all Jones was about. But on the night of Jan. 7, his perception of partying and being carefree would all change after an arrest was made. Zurkan, on the other hand was the victim of a drunken driving accident that has affected his family emotionally.

Jones, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, attended a party where he had been drinking. Later that night, he decided to drive back to his house with his girlfriend in the passenger seat. As Jones pulled into his neighborhood, the Rochester Police pulled him over for a broken tail light.

“I was literally two minutes away from my house when I got pulled over,” Jones said. “I started panicking and didn’t know what was going to happen next.”

When the officer approached the car he immediately suspected that one of the teens had been drinking, according to Jones. When asked if they had been drinking, they both denied it, which led the officer to give them breathalyzer tests.

“As soon as he [the officer] said I had to take a breathalyzer, I knew that I was going to be in a lot of trouble and my life would be

ruined,” Jones said.After taking a breathalyzer test, Jones’s

blood alcohol content was 0.09. According to state law, the legal blood- alcohol content level while driving is 0.08, not to mention that the legal drinking age is 21. Jones was charged with a DUI and sentenced to six months of probation.

Part of Jones’s probation was to attend a Mother’s Against Drunk Driving (MADD) class and listen to their stories.

“That was the part that really changed my whole perception of my situation,” Jones said. “The fact that these mothers lost their loved ones to someone who was doing the same thing as me was pretty crazy to think about.”

The MADD program was founded in 1980 by mothers who lost their loved ones to a drunk driver. The program primarily works to aid the victims of crimes committed by individuals driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, it also works to aid the families of such victims and to increase public awareness of drinking and driving’s consequences, according to madd.org.

After joining the Board of Directors staff in 2006, Zlata Anderson has seen how the

program has affected people like Jones who have been drinking and driving.

“My favorite part of this job is seeing what a change we bring into these kid’s lives and how their whole perspective of their situation changes,” Anderson said.

The MADD program is notorious for getting its message across. It tends to use a harsher, more emotional approach when working with drunk- driving offenders, according to Anderson. Although she isn’t a victim of a drunk- driving accident, mostly all of the women have a story to tell about how a drunk driver has changed their lives.

“I don’t remember the lady’s name, but I’ll never forget her story,” Jones said, shaking his head and looking down at the ground. “The lady had

sent her son to run some errands at night. It wasn’t long after he was gone when his mom got the call saying her son was hit head on by man who had been drinking behind the wheel of a pickup truck. That killed me.”

Hearing many stories such as that one, Jones realized the nature of his wrongdoing and knew that he didn’t want to be one of those drivers to change a family’s life for the worse.

Having their lives changed for the worse is something the Zurkan family is all too familiar with. On June 21, at 10:30 pm, Zurkan and his family were driving home from Chattanooga, Tenn., when they were hit from behind at an intersection off of Interstate 75.

“The car was totaled and the back of our van was crushed,” Zurkan said, “The police said that the dirty laundry in the back of the van is what saved the lives of our kids in the back. The duffel bag full of dirty laundry absorbed a lot of the impact and without it, our two daughters in the back could have been seriously hurt, or killed.”

Although no one was seriously injured, Zurkan and his family have suffered emotionally. This incident caused a lot of stress in the family and some of the children have been traumatized to the point of not wanting to drive in the car at night, according to Zurkan.

“Just last week, one of my kids asked if it was weird that every time we come to an intersection they get freaked out, and I just say no, it’s normal,” Zurkan said.

Jones heard stories in the MADD program; and they are the stories that turned him away from the life of partying without thinking about the consequences.

“In a way I’m kind of glad I was pulled over and put through all of this,” Jones said, “because if that never happened, then I would probably be doing stupid things causing harm to myself and possibly others.”

“The fact that these mothers lost their loved ones to someone doing the same thing as me was pretty crazy to

think about.”Scott Jones

Kids who start drinking early are seven times as like-ly to be involved in an accident

December 16, 2011

LIFESTYLES THE

SOURCE 5

by Alexandra Zurkan

Lifestyles Team

It only took a second.It is 10:30 pm, and my family

has just gotten off an exit ramp. My sisters are sitting in front of me, watching some musical on our portable DVD player. I am in the back seat, pretending to pay attention, but really just daydreaming about returning home to see my boyfriend.Our mini-van of six people

is stopped at an intersection. My sisters are drowsy-eyed. I can’t stop smiling. I keep picturing his eyes, his hair, the sound of his voice. All the places he promised to take me when I got back. The walks we’d take, looking at the stars, going to the park—BANG.My body is thrust forward.

The sounds still rings in my ears, a gigantic baseball bat hitting the back of our car. In front of me, my sisters are screaming.Vrooooom!The engine revs up. The first

thought that pops into my mind is that the car will ram into us again. That I’m in some sort of twisted horror film.Instead, it zooms away. My

father opens the door and gets out of the car, as if he is going to catch the driver on foot.“BASTARD!” he yells,

shaking his fist at the Ford F150 that is almost out of sight.“Jeffrey! GET THE HELL

IN THE CAR!” my mother hollers out the window. She turns around. “We are okay. Everything is going to be okay,” she reassures us, before turning around again to yell at my father.At this point, I have just

realized that I am shaking, and that tears are streaming down the sides of my face. I hold my stuffed animal tightly to my chest. My sister Madison, who is sitting next to me, reaches out to comfort me.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” I snap. At this point I’m breaking down, completely in shock. I cradle my stuffed dog in my arms, rocking back and forth.“Alex, you are okay honey.

Everyone is okay. We are safe now,” my mother tells me. But I find it so hard to believe her.Some bystanders have

stopped to see if we are okay. They help us gather our belongings, which are strewn all over the road. Feeling the warm summer air my neck, I turn around. The back of our car is nonexistent.A few minutes later, EMS

arrives at the scene. I’m still hysterical, crying and trembling. The fire chief sees me. He tries to cheer me up by making a joke about the fire department having some sort of firemen calendar. He says I can have man I choose. Normally, I would have blushed and given him a pity laugh, but now I can only choke back tears. It seems like we are pulled

over at the side of the road for hours. Finally, with the help of a police officer, we make our way to a hotel. My sisters fall right to sleep. I just lay there, trying to put that night’s events out of my mind.And now I’m lying on my

couch in my drug-induced stupor, staring at the walls. The Xanax my doctor prescribed for my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has finally taken effect. This has become a routine

cycle for me now: become overwhelmed by something completely trivial, have a nervous breakdown, take the pills my parents give me, and act like a zombie. Something just comes over

me, this feeling of dread. I feel like the world is ending, like I might not go on living. Pulse racing, my breath turns into panting. I feel like I am on a roller coaster, suspending on top of the highest hill, awaiting the plunge.Then this anxiety, this

physical feeling of fear, becomes more than I can

take. I collapse on the ground, crying hysterically, shaking. I close my eyes and let the thoughts and feeling overwhelm me.It has been three months

since the accident, and I still am suffering from what happened that night in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We all are. At first, I didn’t quite

understand how this could be happening. I had heard of PTSD before, but in my mind it was an affliction of those in the military. I hadn’t witnessed death or anything gruesome. I was just in a drunk driving accident.I feel like a complete invalid.

I have had to drop almost all of my AP classes at school, because I just can’t handle the stress. Now I take mostly gen-eds, or worse, online classes designed for kids who fail their classes. I find it hard to concentrate, and get tired very easily. Quite often, I will just stay home from school. The hard part about this

PTSD is that I don’t have any control over it. And let’s face it, I’m kind of a control freak. Something just comes over me, and I lose it. My heart races, my face gets hot, all of the muscles in my body tighten. Lately, I have taken to banging my head against a table, or convulsing on the ground, screaming. I feel so guilty, so ashamed,

so embarrassed. But this only makes it worse. It makes the crying harder, the breathing faster, and the screaming louder. It’s hard to remember what

life was like before that accident, before July 21st. I could tolerate loud noises, conflict between other people, and the pressures of daily life. This is how one decision

made by a complete stranger has affected my life. He chose to get behind the wheel while he was intoxicated, and now my family and I must suffer the consequences of his actions.

Student plagued by PTSD after accident

You only had one drink You won’t get caught It’s only one block away The Police won’t catch you Driving buzzed is perfectly safe You only had one drink You won’t get caught It’s only one block aw

ay The Police won’t catch you D

riving buzzed is perfectly safe You only had one drink You won’t get caught It’s only one block aw

ay The Police won’t catch you

You only had one drink You won’t get caught It’s only one block away The Police won’t catch you Driving buzzed is perfectly safe

You only had one drink You won’t get caught It’s only one block away The Police won’t catch you Driving buzzed is perfectly safe You only had one drink You won’t get caught It’s only one block away Driving drunk is dangerous, no matter how you say it

There were 10,228 fatalities due to alcohol related crashes in 2010. Teenage drivers are involved in 40 percent of all

alcohol related crashes.

One third of all peo-ple will be involved in an alcohol relat-ed accident.

Turning abruptly, illegally, or with a wide radius

Driving slower than 10mph below the speed limit

Drifting or moving in a straight-line at a slight an-gle to the roadway

Slow response to traffic sig-nals (sudden stop, delayed start)

1

2

3

4

Warning Signs of a Drunk Driver

(All infographics compiled by Matt Pitlock, David Hanna, and Alexandra Zurkan).

Sources: Madd.orgNationalhighwaysafety.com

Crash Course

5

6

7

8

Forgetting to use headlights at night

Sudden stopping and starting

Using the wrong turn signal

Drifting into other lanes, or off the road

THE

SOURCE LIFESTYLESDecember 16, 20116

(Photo used with permission of the De Avilas)

Every Christmas season for the past three or four years, seniors Evie and Anton De Avila would go shopping with the hopes of really changing lives. They would go shopping to pick out items on a family’s wish list that they are hoping to buy for a needy family.

For the De Avilas, this journey started when they discovered people in church were adopting families for Christmas. They decided to see what it was all about. Ever since, the De Avilas have adopted two or three families each Christmas season.

The organization that enables the De Avila family to participate in an opportunity like this is Focus: HOPE, founded by William Cunningham and co-founded by Eleanor Josaitis with the purpose of discovering ways to solve problems, such as hunger, racism, and lack of education, according to the

Focus: HOPE webpage. This foundation has grown,

and now it is the solution to many families during the Christmas season.

Ever since the formation of Focus: HOPE, more and more people have begun to open their hearts for those less fortunate.

The De Avila family is just one of those who decided to be a major turning point in another family’s life. Last year, they adopted a family with a single mom and four kids, and are adopting the same family this year.

“I think it [adopting families for Christmas] is great,” Evie said, “because it’ll give them [the families] a chance at a Christmas that they don’t normally get to experience….and it’s good to help people out.”

However, according to Evie, the hardest part of the experience is realizing how hard some people have it.

“I’d go into neighborhoods with windows shot out.…it’s

hard to see the conditions they’re living under,” Evie said.

Evie says that the purpose of adopting a family for Christmas is to give them gifts during the season they normally wouldn’t receive.

“Most won’t get anything because their families can’t afford it,” Evie said.

Evie puts forth the money to buy the gifts, and then the family goes shopping, purchases the presents, and delivers to the families’ homes close to Christmastime.

“We go to their house and spend an hour getting to know them and asking them what they do for Christmas,” Evie said.

According to her, it’s great giving to people, and she loves the opportunity to do so.

“If you’re really changing someone’s life…it’s just a really great feeling,” Evie said.

“It gives us an opportunity to be thankful for what we have,” Anton said.

Families adopt families for the holidaysby Danielle Blessing

Lifestyles Team

Say Cheese: The De Avila family stands with the Gibsons. The Gibsons, with a single mom and four kids, are a family they’ve adopted for the past two years. (Courtesy of the De Avila Family)

Gifts to

give Scarfs and mittens

Dolls Christmas dinner itemsCoats and

other winter clothing

“Why not him? Look at his face,” teacher Michael Brunson said as he gestured to teacher Dale Coats when asked why he chose Coats’ face for his antics.

Earlier this year Brunson helped some of his students by blowing up a picture of Coats’ face so they could advertise cowboy hats on him for their project. Brunson then printed out a picture of Coats’s face for his own personal use and he attached it to a popsicle stick. Holding up the popsicle stick to disguise his face with Coats’, he left the room for the hallway.

“I was telling kids in the hallway to get to class,” Brunson said. “And it was really funny because they were in his [Coats’s] class.”

Brunson and Coats play practical jokes

on each other just like the

Teachers play at students’ level

brunSon

CoaTSby Brooke Meharg / Rachel ShutterLifestyles Team

students. The alleged prank

war between Brunson and Coats began with the provoking incident of Brunson unplugging one of Coats’ power cords one day. The practical jokes have grown into more elaborate pranks.

“I don’t have any quotes,” Coats said with a smile. “Nothing is happening; school’s for learning, not tomfooleries.”

Apparently hiding computer monitors qualifies as nothing. Coats’ computer monitor vanished one day as he walked into his classroom. He entered his room to find an empty space on his desk where the monitor used to be. Instead it was stashed in his own closet.

After denying the existence of the prank war several times, they began to reveal their jokes.

“[I’m] on the receiving end,” Coats said of their shenanigans.

Not only do they participate in

t o m f o o l e r i e s , they have a

set o f undefined rules.

Number one: The pranks are not malicious.

“[It’s] good natured fun,” Coats said.

They never destroy property or do something that could offend the other.

Number two: They don’t involve the students.

“[It is] strictly an A and B conversation,” Brunson said.

However, the students do get a kick out of pranks when they are lucky enough to observe them.

“It makes class a lot more exciting, because it’s not just a normal day of taking notes. There’s always something happening between them,” Kayla Jeske, a sophomore student in Coats’ economics class, said.

Number three: After a prank is pulled on one of them, revenge cannot commence immediately.

“[I] let him be king of the moment,” Brunson

explains. So when

C o a t s

pulls a prank on him, Brunson doesn’t start preparing a plan to reclaim his honor right away. In fact, the pranks aren’t even planned. They are completely random.

“A situation presents itself and you become opportunistic,” Brunson said of his motives before each prank.

For example, one day Coats dumped all of the hole punches in his hole puncher over Brunson’s desk.

“It snowed in here,” Brunson said. “[I] almost had to get my snow blower.”

According to Coats, it was an accident. He was just showing his hole puncher to Brunson and the fact that hundreds of hole punches fell out over Brunson’s desk, is irrelevant.

“[I] felt guilty afterward so I cleaned it up,” Coats said.

Brunson tends to be the joker and Coats seems to get the short end of the stick. But Coats

isn’t going to let Brunson walk all over him.

“He’ll get payback s o m e t i m e , ”

Coats said.

Battle Stats name: Dale Coats

Teaches: Economics, World Reli gions and World History

Pranks: Unplugging cords Visits to Brunsons’ class

Dumping hole punchers over Brunsons desk

Battle Statsname: Michael BrunsonTeaches: Economics and GovernmentPranks:Stealing monitorsStealing laptopsKnocking over chairsPrinting out Coats’ face and using it for a student poster and disguising his face with it Unplugging cords Visits to Coats’ class

Toy cars and other simple toys

Snacks, such as goldfish and

cereal (Compiled by Danielle Blessing)

“I don’t have

any quotes.

Nothing is

happening;

school’s for

learning, not

tomfooleries.”Dale Coats

“A situation presents itself

and you become

opportunistic.”Michael brunson

Naylis Facts

Naylis wins Coach of the Year for third time

She does it again.Naylis won an award at the Oakland

County League Meet after the girls swim team won the Division 1 leagues. The announcers at the League Meet announce the coach of the year for that division and this is Naylis’s third time win-ning this award.

She believes that the work put in by her swim-mers helped her to win this award.

“It’s really the girls’ hard work that pays off,” Naylis said. “Their hard work can help me help them become better swimmers.”

According to Naylis, she has now been coaching the girls swim team for 8 years. She started swim-ming at the age of 5 and carried over her swimming experiences to her coaching career.

“I really liked the competitive aspect of the sport while I was a young swimmer, and that led me into coaching for the same [feeling],” Naylis said.

According to olyswim.com, Naylis still holds records in the 100 meter and 200 meter breast-stroke. Naylis continued to swim in high school and at the University of Michigan. However, she stopped swimming in college after overuse inju-ries prevented her from swimming well. She then turned to coaching to experience the sort of excite-ment that she had as a swimmer.

With over 16 years as a swimmer, Naylis knows exactly how best to build a winning team.

“I just think she knows how to do her job,” se-nior Taylor Zuelch said. “Her experience just helps her to better understand her team and help us swim better.”

The swimmers are happy that Naylis is recog-nized for her effort that she puts into her coach-ing to strive for the League championship and be-

yond. “She’s very motivating,” senior Rachel Watton

said. “She knows how to relate to us and she never gives us any sets that she herself wouldn’t do. She really deserves the [coaching] award.”

Naylis not only coaches successfully, she also knows how to have fun.

“She always has story time before practice starts, and she sometimes has to moderate some of the stories because they’re inappropriate,” junior Rebecca Freed said. “She has the respect of the team. We all know when to work and when to have fun and rarely have conflicts.”

According to Naylis, despite the size of the girls swim team and long season, they continued to stay motivated and got through it together.

“It’s a pretty large team, so I think it is a little hard to have a ton of team unity,” Naylis said. “But I think they did a really great job and had a ton of spirit until the end.”

by Reed Cao/Soumith Inturi

Sports Editor/Online Editor-

Victory is sweet: Naylis watches as her team celebrates victory at Leagues. She later went on to win Coach of the Year for coaching the swim team that had the best record. (photo courtesy of Chris Knapp)

She’s Done it Again!

THE

SOURCESPORTSDecember 16, 2011 7

started swimming at the age of five

swam for 16 years

was a four-time high school state champion

Michigan High School Athlete fo the Year

All-American Relay Team

All-American Honorable Mention

“Let me shift it over to you, Kevin. What do you think Mike Babcock has to do to… re-jump [the Red Wings],” Fox News reporter Woody Woodruff said as he allows junior Kevin Cline to answer his question during the Fox News Win a Seat at the Round Table competition.

This competition allows finalists to win a seat at the Fox News Round Table and discuss sports with reporter Dan Miller, according to myfoxdetroit.net. Cline became involved with this competition when he watched a commercial on TV and applied for the contest. He was then selected randomly to be a participant. His friend, junior Grant Bracey, is very happy that Cline gets this opportunity.

“I think it’s really good that he got randomly picked because he’s not the luckiest person.” Bracey said.

Cline has always loved sports. In fact, this interest played a huge part in deciding to compete in the competition.

“I just like watching sports and… talking to my friends or my dad about sports and what I think about it,” Cline said.

“I entered the contest

because I really enjoy sports; it’s my life.”

Support from Cline’s family helped him do well in the competition.

“[My parents] really enjoy it because they know I really enjoy sports,” Cline said. “[They] think it’s a really good opportunity for me.”

Cline’s friends also give him support for the competition.

“I try to give him self-confidence so that he can do better when he’s on the show,” Bracey said.

Cline consistently watches sports matches and discusses them with Bracey and junior Michael McIntosh. According to both of his friends, this is one of the main reasons that he has such extensive knowledge of sports.

“[We talk about] whatever sports that are going on so now [it’s] college football and basketball,” McIntosh said. “He can’t really talk about [sports] by himself, so I guess I’m there to listen and offer my input.”

Because of Cline’s constant discussion of sports teams, he can easily bring up good points in supporting his arguments.

“He’s a Yankees fan so I’m always arguing with him and he always brings up valid points

even though I don’t support the Yankees,” Bracey said.

Cline’s ability to discuss sports pushed him to do well when he engaged in a recorded debate with Tyler Bridges, a student from Dearborn, Michigan. The debate is posted on myfoxdetroit.com where voters could view and vote on their favorite person. Voting ended Dec . 12 and the results will be released sometime during the same week.

Cline is hopeful that he performed well during the debate and believes that he has a good chance of winning the seat.

“I think I did really good job,” Cline said. “I think I have a pretty good chance to win and it would be a really cool opportunity.”

But for Cline, this will be an experience that he will learn from regardless. Though he did not think about going into the sports reporting field beforehand, Cline’s experience in the competition made him think more about being a sports reporter.

“I thought about it more as a hobby,” Cline said. “But after this experience, I really could go into [this field] because it’s such a cool field to go into.”

THE

SOURCE SPORTSDecember 16, 20118

by Reed Cao

Sports Editor

Compete for the Seat: Junior Kevin Cline competes for a seat a the Fox News Round Table. He participated in a recorded debate hosted by Fox News reporter Woody Woodruff. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Cline)

On Top Of The World

Student competes for a Seat on Fox News Detroit’s Round Table

Retailer sponsors student skier

Little did Senior Marcello Molteni know that one video would

soon take his favorite pastime to a whole new level.

Molteni, an avid skier, unknowingly prepared for a sponsorship with two renowned retailers; Go Pro and Spy Optics. After submitting a video he made in a Utah ski trip to SpyOptics.com, his favorite hobby soon landed him a place on the Spy Optics Pro Am Ski Team. Molteni also gets free gear from Spy Optics and gets discounts on cameras and other gear from Go Pro.

Molteni and his friends were apparently just skiing in Utah when they shot a few videos for fun. Molteni, however, has been unknowingly preparing for the moment his whole life. “I’ve been skiing since I was four. I’ve never taken classes or lessons; my parents are phenomenal skiers, so they have taught me throughout the years,” said Molteni.

Molteni isn’t a stranger to competition. Winning the Nastar race competition in Telluride, Colorado at the age of fourteen, he has a competition title to his name. His free style attempts in the Utah backcountry and his custom-made backyard terrain parks didn’t hurt his chances of sponsorship either. “I was skiing in Utah with my good

friends, and we went through the backcountry and found a huge powder line and we ripped that up. There was also a pretty decently sized cliff that we all go to jump, which was awesome,” said Molteni.

So after the sponsorship, was he still able to individually train? Surpris ingly yes. “The [Sponsors are] pretty flexible: it’s not a bound s p o n s o r s h i p so it’s more of what I want to do, when I can do it.” said Molteni.

So what exactly is “it”. “It” means slope style, big mountain, super pipe, and rail jam competitions in many instate and out of state resorts. M o l t e n i ’ s competed in places like Schuss Mountain and Nubs Knob, and even way out west in the Colorado Rockies. So cliff jumping and backcountry shredding are still on his to do list for his yearly visit out west.

For elite athletes such as Molteni, gear, especially skis, are vital to success. He hopes to one day trade in his Rossignol s3 skis for a pair of k2 Revivals.

According to Molteni, skis are vital to success because they directly relate to the type of skiing that’s being done. “The reason I like the k2 is because it provides for both a great park ride and big mountain ride,” said Molteni. The big mountain ride and rail jams are also Molteni’s favorite

competit ions to take part in. In an nutshell, the big mountain ride is a downward plunge of up to 3900 meters and rail jams a r e … . w e l l skiing on rails.

M o l t e n i ’ s endorsement by Spy Optics and Go Pro have also opened new pathways to his skiing career. Asides from the free gear and c o m p e t i t i o n a v a i l a b i l i t y , Molteni also

has the opportunity to become a state wide known skier, and maybe one day, a nationally recognized athlete. But, as far as he’s concerned, skiing is not a life long goal nor career for him.

“It’s just a hobby, or something I like to do with my friends. I mean it’s just a lot of fun,” said Molteni.

by Rakesh Reddy

Sports Team

“I’ve never taken classes or lessons; my

parents are phenomenal

skiers so they have taught me

throughout the years.”

Senior

The Ideal Ski Ride:Skis: K2 Revivals

Snow: Powder

Place: Alta Resort Utah, or Telluride Ski Resort in Colorado

Competition: Big Mountain Competition and Rail Jams

(Photo courtesy of Marcello Molteni)

Downhill Thrill: Molteni (middle) prepares himself for a Big Mountain competi-tion. He has been skiing for more than 13 years and won the Nastar Race Com-petition in Telluride, Colorado.