By Steve terry

Not many people can claim to have met Justin Bieber, let alone to have worked with him.

But then again, not many people are like senior Olivia Simonton, whose acting abilities have brought her much more than just a conversation with a celebrity.

Simonton has been acting professionally since fourth grade, when she auditioned for The Adventures of Ociee Nash, a 2003 film di-rected by Kristen McGary. Since then, she has been in numerous performances, short films and commercials.

“Acting is my biggest dream,” Simonton said. “Not being famous, just being successful.”

At an acting camp in fourth grade, Simonton impressed agent Joy Pervis of HotShot Kids so much that she signed her as a client. Although Simonton didn’t get the part in The Adventures of Ociee Nash, the audition was important be-cause it marked the start of her professional act-ing career. From then on, Simonton took acting classes outside of school and worked to improve her skills.

Later that year, Simonton starred in the silent film Silent Treatment.

“It was great to get back into acting,” Simon-

ton said. “[Being in a silent film] was really weird and awkward though.”

In middle school, Simonton took a break from acting. She started again in eighth grade when agent Jayme Pervis, Joy Pervis’s daughter-in-law, from the JPervis Talent agency, picked her up.

Since coming to Grady in ninth grade, Si-monton has become increasingly involved in the school’s theater program. She has performed as a lead in four one-act plays and garnered respect from fellow actors. Most recently she performed in the one-act Property Rites.

“She’s very professional to a degree that I rare-ly see in high school theater,” senior actor Ethan Campbell-Taylor said. “When other students are goofing off and talking amongst themselves, she’s always focused.”

Property Rites went to the regional competi-tion for high school one-act plays on Oct. 29 and swept every award except for Best Actor. Si-monton won the Best Actress award.

“[Simonton’s role] was an insanely difficult role to play,” Campbell-Taylor said. “I think she absolutely deserved it.”

After winning the regional competition, Si-monton and her peers went to Warner Robins, Ga. for the state competition on Nov. 5. Grady

came in fifth out of eight schools. The cast was disappointed with its finish but was pleased with its performance.

“The play that won was a musical called The Spit-fire Grill,” senior actress Quameeha Grandoit said. “Musicals always score high. It’s comparing apples to oranges.”

If a dramatic play is an apple and a musical is an orange, then a com-mercial alongside pop star and teen icon Justin Bieber must be a Jupiter-sized wa-termelon. Simonton, who has auditioned for shows such as One Tree Hill, didn’t think much of the au-dition at first.

“The auditions were na-tionwide, and I didn’t think I was going to get it,” Si-monton said.

see OLIVIA, page 13

news 5

After a student discovered mold in cafeteria jelly packets, The Southerner examined students’ and teachers’ views of the school’s cafeteria food.

Senior Andrew Cleveland, a cellist for Grady’s orchestra and bassist for student band Lotus Slide, has gained attention and accolades for his musical prowess.

Orchestra and chorus members celebrated Halloween with Scream on the Screen, an annual concert in which students perform in costume.

12 thesoutherneronline.com14peoplea&e

Magic: The Gathering, a trading-card game in which players create decks of fantasy creatures, has gained popularity among Grady students.

SouthernerS I N C E 1 9 4 7

theHENRY W. GRADY HIGH SCHOOL, ATLANTA NOV. 11, 2011

thesoutherneronline.comVOLUME LXVI, NUMBER 3

By emma aBerle-GraSSe

and Olivia veira

One person will die in one hour.

That is what an anonymous caller told an intern working in Grady’s main office on Nov. 3, instigating the sec-ond lockdown in two weeks on Grady’s campus.

The frantic caller, a woman, said the school is filled with cheaters and liars, said Lieuten-ant Gary Gullatt and Investigator Collier Johnson. They tried to trace the call but were only able to find that the call came from a BellSouth carrier.

The school went into a soft lockdown because it received a threat, but since no intruder was in the building, the administra-tors did not place the school un-

der a hard lockdown, Vice Princi-pal Rodney Howard explained.

During the lockdown, which lasted from 2:16 p.m. to 3:15 p.m., police were stationed throughout the campus. One pa-trolled the parking lot, others pa-trolled the hallways and cafeteria and Howard guarded the instruc-tional suites.

“We have to take every threat seriously,” Howard said. “I know there is some concern that this is the second lockdown within two weeks. But with an open campus in this community, anyone can walk onto our school without detection.”

Overall, administrators and of-ficers seemed satisfied with how the students and staff responded to the incident.

“Students and teachers are see ANONYMOUS, page 7

Hundreds of protesters converged on Woodruff Park on Oct. 7 to protest a variety of economic and political trends. Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, they called their movement Occupy Atlanta. They remained in the park until Oct. 26. Jason Woody, an East Point business own-er, joined the movement because he related to the stories

of other protesters, many of whom, like Woody, have outstanding student loans. “[Our goal is to] make people aware of government policies [and] the unfairness of the financial system,” Woody said. “We want to wake people up.” In the above photo, Woody dispenses first aid to protesters on Oct. 16 (see related stories, pages 8-9).

SOFT LOCKDOWNS STYMIE STUDENTS

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OCCUPY ATLANTA PROTESTERS SET UP TENTS, COMMUNITY IN WOODRUFF PARK

Simonton earns acclaim on screen, stage

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Senior Olivia Simonton plays the role of Figure Three in the one-act play Property Rites. She won Best Actress at the regional one-act competition.

A high-speed chase through the parking lot.”

Lillian Tefferejunior

Editorial Board

Jasmine Burnett

molly Daniel

shaun KleBer

leJoi lane

lucy leonarD

GaBrielle sieGel

taylor allen

Managing Editors: Jasmine Burnett, Shaun KleberAssociate Managing Editors: LeJoi Lane, Lucy LeonardA&E Editors: Lindsey Leonard, Alix YoungbloodComment Editors: Taylor Allen, Gabrielle SiegelDesign Editor: Elizabeth McGlamryDoubletruck Editors: Molly Daniel, Lauren HarperNews Editors: Kenny Cochran, Nile KendallPeople Editors: Steve Terry, Lauren ScottSports Editors: Nally Kinnane, Phillip SuittsPhoto Editor: Audrey Vaughn

Advisers: Kate Carter, Dave Winter

The Southerner, a member of GSPA, SIPA, CSPA and NSPA, is a monthly student publication of: Henry W. Grady High School 929 Charles Allen Drive NEAtlanta, GA 30309

To our readers,

The Southerner welcomes submissions, which may be edited for grammar, inappropriate language and length. Please place submissions in Mr. Winter or Ms. Carter's box in the main office. Subscriptions are also available. For more information, please contact Mr. Winter, Ms. Carter or a member of the staff.

Staff: Emma Aberle-Grasse, Ollie Aberle-Grasse, Konadu Amoakuh, Mac Barrineau, Rachel Citrin, Miles Clark, Thomas Cox, Sammi Dean, Kate de Give, Anna Fuller, Jolie Jones, Tatiana Johnson, Olivia Kleinman, Troy Kleber, Joe Lavine, Ciena Leshley, Simon McLane, Lauren Ogg, Grace Power, Diana Powers, Megan Prendergast, Jordan Ross, Hunter Rust, Carson Shadwell, Will Staples, Alex Stearns-Bernhart, Isabelle Taft, Olivia Veira, Gracie White

An upbeat paper for a downtown schoolSoutherner Staff 2011-2012

Southernerthe

c o m m e n t2

The Southerner often reports the scandals and problems that seemingly always plague Grady. We also know, however, that there are countless faculty members who help make our school a great learning environment, so we want to give credit where credit is due.

There are many teachers at Grady who go above and beyond the basic responsibilities of educators. They often aren’t rewarded or respected as much as they should be.

Take John Brandhorst, for example. You can always find him running around the school, working tirelessly to beautify Grady by showcasing students’ work. He lined our stairs with quotations and painted the water fountain alcoves red. It’s an effort that takes a lot of time and energy and benefits the school and its students immensely.

But he’s not the only one. Counselors are constantly processing transcript requests and writing recommendations for college-bound seniors. Roderick Lee Pope not only directs shows for Grady but also participates in them. Enoch Gill has sponsored the International Club and accompanied the cultural group to monthly dinners on his own time. Lisa Willoughby teaches AP classes, coaches debate and works with student actors. Korri Ellis keeps the school green by planting a garden in our courtyard and running the Earth Club.

Then there are the janitors. When The Southerner staff stays late to finish issues, we are able to experience the bathrooms immediately after cleaning. And let us tell you, the immaculately clean and fresh-smelling bathrooms don’t even remotely reflect the disgusting messes that students make by the end of each day.

We know we didn’t come close to mentioning every teacher who positively impacts Grady, but it would just take up too much room. It is our job as students to show our teachers how much we appreciate all of their hard work. We should respect them and all the extra time they spend working just for our benefit. p

Every morning, students trickle into the school building through the cafeteria doors. As we walk under usually-inactive metal detectors, at least one teacher is designated to check our bags.

Grady faculty members take turns manning this morning shift. At least that is what they are supposed to be doing. Many times, teachers who are working their shift seem to be doing so grudgingly. They stand by the doorway and chat with one another while students casually walk by. Sometimes, as if to validate their reason for being there, they pat our bags, only to quickly return to their conversations.

On other occasions, teachers take a more aggressive stance and require all students to take off and open their bags. As we near them, we find ourselves hoping they don’t cause the contents of our over-stuffed bags to fall out. We shove our backpacks toward them, expecting the teachers to perform a thorough examination. After all, they are supposed to be preventing dangerous weapons from entering the building. To our dismay, however, the teachers simply glance into our bags, as if they have x-ray vision that will alert them of weapons.

Not only do teachers half-heartedly perform this morning duty, but after the bell rings, the only security protections left are the non-metal-detecting metal detectors. Doesn’t sound too comforting, does it?

Every year, the school distributes at least two handbooks that explain in detail that weapons on campus will not be tolerated, yet the procedures to prevent this from happening can only be described as pathetic. Who is a fake shakedown going to protect? If a student were planning to bring a weapon to school, getting in the door would be the least of his or her worries. We appreciate the effort to keep our school safe, but the methods currently in place are ineffective and useless. p

uestionf the month

Staff deserves credit

What’s a rumor you heard about the recent soft lockdowns?

““ A homeless person was here? I didn’t even know there was a lockdown.”

Eliza Renner sophomore

Bag checks pointless

Nov. 11, 2011

“

The Southerner misattributed a statement about how many nipples male students can show while wearing a toga to Vice Principal Rodney Howard (“Toga rules not clear,” Oct. 24, page 2). Howard said he never declared a rule regarding nipples.

Bryan Dumas’ employer was incorrect (“Alum’s road from GNN to NBC leads to twin Emmies,” Oct. 24, page 16.) He worked for NBC Sports when he worked with Bob Costas, Jerome Bettis and John Madden. While at Grady, Dumas interned for public television and worked for the television show Mind Busters.

C O R R E C T I O N S

High school is full of mile-stones: prom, first exams, voting for the first time and learning how to drive. Nothing makes you feel more mature than your first drive into the school parking lot—the feeling of taking a wide turn into an empty spot, straightening out your crooked parking job and clicking the lock

button as you walk towards first period. This experience was shattered the first time I swung

into the Grady parking lot. I circled the lot looking for a spot, only to find that even the curb spaces were taken up. I was forced to park on the street and walk through the lot like a freshman. That year, there were fewer parking spots because of stadium construction, but parking now seems to be even more of a hassle.

The parking lot is full from 8 a.m. until well after school ends. In the morning, parents are not only taking up the driving lanes but beginning to pull into the vacant spots and letting kids out there. I have spent countless minutes passing spots, thinking they were full, only to see the car pull out and leave the lot after I’ve driven by.

Most of the spots temporarily taken by parents are the coveted pull-through spots. These are the hottest commodities on campus. Students wake up early just to get a “pull-through.” Parking in a pull-through spot means you are saved the embarrassment and frustration of taking several attempts to back out of your spot after school. Take it from a student who has hit a car parked along the curb that was innocently waiting for a child. Luckily, I did not

cause any damage since I was going less than one mile per hour, and the parent was in fact laughing at my obviously rookie driving skills.

After my embarrassment waned, I became enraged. I’ve always been a parking genius! Why was it different in the Grady parking lot? With parents parking along the curb and directly behind parking spaces, drivers can hardly maneuver their cars to back out. It often takes many awkward maneuvers to finally get out of a space.

Once the school day is over and extracurricular activities and sports begin, the parking lot situation is even more exasperating. Buses from other schools take up a quarter of the lot for football games or for cross country practice in the park. Personal trainers and trainees park in the lot, leaving little room for athletes and students, for whom the lot is intended.

This year, new police officers have been brought in to direct traffic during after-school activities, but that has not created more space. It isn’t fair to students that football fans get first priority. The stadium is for all of APS, so anyone can use it. But the parking lot is for Grady.

Dear administrators, you can solve these problems. Sports spectators could park in the teacher parking lot, and the practice field where the trailers are could be used as an alternate parking lot. As for the school day, it should be enforced that parents drop their kids off at the Eighth Street entrance.

When students are pushed out of their own parking lot, they resort to the street. When we resort to the street, we often get tickets. For fellow student drivers: our parking lot is being taken over by parents and football fans—it’s time we take it back. p

Student lot conveniences all but students

administrators

molly Daniel

A bum or something with a knife trying to get onto school property.”

Henry Thomas senior

I haven’t heard of that.”

Austin Walkerfreshman

“

c o m m e n tNov. 11, 2011 3

By Alex SteArnS-BernhArt

Most of us do not realize it, but our lives are fairly undemanding. Many of our lives are like a walk in the park compared to the lives of those who came before us, the people who carved what used to be a wild frontier into a prosperous country—the first settlers.

Their journeys started off by finding suitable places to live and building their homes. Their homes were made of logs cut from the trees sur-rounding them, which was done with axes and brute strength, not chainsaws. The lucky ones might have had a crosscut saw as well, but this was an uncommon luxury. If you have ever had the pleasure of using a crosscut saw all day, you understand that it is hard work.

There is no way we can comprehend how much energy it takes to build a house single-handedly out of materials hacked from the wil-derness. Today, contractors have large crews to help them build houses and gather their materi-als by driving to the closest hardware store.

While expending all of this energy building a place the homesteaders could call home, the settlers also had to feed themselves. I know from personal experience that when you are building a cabin with hand tools, you eat a lot. I’m talk-ing two steaks per night. Because of the scarce resources and lack of food, the settlers did not eat enough, but this did not slow them down. They might not have eaten for two or three days, but they did not complain about it. They kept going because they had no choice and because that was what it took to survive.

Anyone who spends time in the backcountry knows obtaining calories is the bulk of your day. For these people, it was their reality. They were either hunting, gathering or planting things to eat in the little free time they had.

We know nothing of this lifestyle now. We put in very little work to get our food. Most of us obtain our food by going to the grocery store and picking up a packaged, pre-prepared meal.

Living in this urbanized world—as I like to call the concrete jungle—has caused us to be-come disconnected from the natural world and our natural roots. We all had ancestors who lived in the wilderness at some point in their lives.

When our ancestors were still living on home-steads and surviving off of the land, humans were a strong and powerful species. Moving from the woods to a more urbanized environ-ment has made us lazy.

Immersing ourselves in the woods can help fix this. I am not saying we should drop everything and go back to living off of the land, but I do believe that everyone should have at least one experience in the wilderness to help us appreci-ate what we have.

So the next time you feel like your life is hard, think back to the times of the settlers and what their lives were like. Maybe then you will recon-sider your complaints. p

Modern-day lifeeasy compared to homesteaders’

An eye for an eye makes the world blind, right? Not according to the people of Libya. CNN, NBC and CBS broad-casted the brutal murder of Muammar el-Qaddafi for days, feeding the feverish interest in the public beating and ultimate death of this hated Libyan dictator.

For more than 40 years, Qaddafi ruled Libya by using fear, intimidation and ma-

nipulation. Most people lived in extreme poverty and held no hope for a better life under his rule. He and his closest allies lived in ostentatious luxury without regard for the well-being of the people. He was involved in numerous terrorist actions in other parts of the world, most notably the bombing of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Now that he’s gone, the world has witnessed an angry mob drag, beat and kick Qaddafi’s bloody body through the town square in Sirte, Libya. After his attack, he was rushed to a hospi-tal in Misrata, Libya, where he died.

The following day, Qaddafi’s body was placed on display by the rebels in Misrata’s local meat market. Many felt his brutal

ways made him deserve the mistreatment of his body, but re-gardless of how he lived his life, he was still a human being. No one deserves such savagery.

Even when Osama bin Laden was assassinated in May, there did not seem to be such intense interest in the gruesome details of his killing.

For the most part, it is good that the media is able to bring us closer to what is happening globally. We become more knowl-edgeable, informed and hopefully sensitive to the plight of peo-ple around the world.

The horrendous details of Qaddafi’s death, however, displayed distastefully by the media, have haunted our kitchens and living rooms for weeks now. This desensitizes people to brutal actions and makes some lose track of how precious life is.

Qaddafi may have been responsible for the deaths of hun-dreds, if not thousands, of innocent people, but in viewing the spectacle of his death, we become somewhat guilty ourselves. It’s true that the world is better off after his death, and we should not forget the tragedy he wrought. We should focus, however, on mourning the loss of lives and the pain of families who have lost loved ones at the hands of Qaddafi. p

Successful team spikes school spirit

Nature with

ALEX

Media portrayal of Qaddafi alarming

Walk out of the Grady student parking lot toward 10th Street. Rushing traffic speeds past you. Honks, beeps and screeches fill the air. You look to the left–50 yards away is a crosswalk leading into one of the entrances of Piedmont Park. Look to the right–40 yards away is the crosswalk at the intersection of 10th Street and Monroe....(see thesoutherneronline.com for rest of story)

It’s something that every teenager experiences–being asked dozens of questions aimed and fired tirelessly until the teen who once thought she knew herself is reduced to a discouraged puddle. Where do you want to got to college? What do you want to do? Every time I hear those words, I cringe. How could I possibly answer those questions... (see thesoutherneronline.com for rest of story)

College questions create pressure, impulsive choices

EXCLUSIVELY @ theSoutherneronline.comSchool’s location causes pedestrian safety issues

lAuren hArper

I have come to a strange realization that my high school is becoming more and more like a Taylor Swift song— a place where ev-eryone is after the football players.

I’ve been at Grady for more than three years, and it’s never felt like this before. My freshman year, I felt like our downtown learning enclave was an exception to every rule. The football team wasn’t a big deal. Our cheerleaders didn’t do stunts. Our school spirit was vibrant—but different. Oh, things have changed since then.

Our homecoming game this year was an awakening for me. With the success our team has achieved over the past couple of years, I noticed a culture shift that has slowly begun to manifest itself at Grady. Maybe it began in 2010, when Damian Swann and the rest of the 2010-2011 team led the Knights to the most memorable playoff season I have experienced—possibly ever. Grady fans sac-rificed their warmth and family time the day after Thanksgiving in order to cheer on their team. Or perhaps it began this year, at our first pep rally, when the varsity cheerleaders took the field and tumbled their way into

a pyramid of perfection. Quite possibly, it stemmed from senior John Law’s speech at the Royal Luncheon preceding the St. Pius game, garnering the support of his 50 team-mates. This year, for the first time, I felt like we—the students and our football players—were really one team.

It hasn’t always been this way. I can’t recall a time when the football team sold programs filled with photos of team families, names and advertisements. I don’t remember going to games and seeing parents’ shirts adorned with buttons displaying their sons’ faces. The cheerleaders didn’t always take the mat wear-ing pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness, nor did they have such pristinely prompt moves and impressively tight tumbling.

Football has been an integral part of the American high school culture for decades. The school congratulates the team. The school stands by the team. The school sup-ports the team—win or lose. And a change is finally coming to Grady, in the air and on the field. The pomp and circumstance sur-rounding our football team is beginning to mirror that of Woodward Academy or The Westminister School, and, quite frankly, I’m all for it. If the football experience alone isn’t incentive enough to attend games, the marching band and the synchronized dance team, both more energized then ever this sea-

son, gave the Grady community a reason to believe in the joy that football can add to our high school experience.

We’re not in the suburbs. We don’t have a school bursting at its seams with 3,000-plus students, eager to reserve their Friday nights for football games. Our rivalries against other schools may not be rooted as deeply or surface as intensely as that of Grayson and Brookwood high schools. These differences, however, shouldn’t de-ter us from making football a part of our culture here at Grady.

We’re in a big city, so in many ways we blend in to everything going on around our campus. But we’ve created a high-school culture with a world-class mock trial team, a debate team that dominates on the national level and an expansive fine-arts program that features fashion, drama, dance and music. I’ve always loved those parts of Grady. But I also like the attention the football team garnered this year in particular. The cheerleading squad and the marching band are majorly responsible for unifying the school and magnifying school spirit. Let’s continue to stand by our team in the future and acknowledge the football team’s ability to make our four-year stay as memorable as it can possibly be. p

lAuren Scott

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GATHERING THE TROOPS: Senior football players crowd around head coach Ronnie Millen before the Knights take on the North Springs High School Spartans.

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Hippies! Communists! Social degenerates and the unsavory are invading your local parks! They will steal your property, hold hands and sing Kumbaya at inappropriate times.

They’re like weeds, springing up in New York City, Atlanta, Oakland and internationally, refusing to be cut down by the lawn enforcement.

The most dangerous part of this ordeal, however, has been the response of city governments. In relatively established areas like New York, there have been pepper spray attacks and arrests. In cities like Oakland, rubber bullets are buzzing through tear gas-filled streets. Even as these obscene measures are being employed, more subtle roadblocks are being put in place. As winter approaches, many people are bringing generators to New York City, and police have confiscated them as fire hazards. Even though the mayor has said the protesters are allowed to cook in the park, he’s stymieing any possible methods. The generators have recently been returned to residents since there was no legal justification for confiscating them, but they’ve still been banned from Zuccotti Park. It seems absurd to try to freeze people out of protesting when their most serious crime is probably noise pollution from drumming.

In truth, however, they are disorganized, not dangerous. Even disorganized is not the right term—they are a political configuration that makes many people confused.

The reason why this relative anarchy is necessary is because it is impossible to bribe or bury a leaderless revolution. Sovereignty over oneself is the only power they have and the only one they need. Unfortunately, it has become a scarce commodity of late. The justification for these protests is their necessity in the face of a corporatism that is exploiting 99 percent of people and even entire countries like Greece.

A recent poll published by the University of Massachusetts and the Boston Herald indicates that, of the 1,005 adults polled, 35 percent have a favorable impression of the Occupy movement. This is more than double the 16 percent with a favorable impression of the Wall Street part of the movement. It is possible that people are discouraged by the inefficiency of a consensus-based process that requires all objections to be dealt with, but that is the point. These occupations are a rejection of the dynamism of capitalism and its imperatives of efficiency and production. It is when we can evaluate others not merely as competitors or inefficient cogs in a machine that we can make decisions that are truly egalitarian. While city officials have decided these encampments violate the letter of the law, they are not the arbiters of what is just or moral. p

The 99 percent are ultimately not concerned over whether occupiers are allowed to camp out in parks across America. The 99 percent are begging for a reevaluation of a corporation’s rights, the maintenance of democratic ideals and a bridge to the income gap.

By expanding its scope, the Occupy movement can stand the test of time.

The original Occupy Atlanta protest in Woodruff Park spurned others in the metro area, like Occupy Gwinnett. Referring to Gwinnett’s new exclusive, extra-charge highway lanes,

Occupy Atlanta leader Tim Franzen claims, “The ‘hot lanes’ are the one-percent lanes.” Classifying the new lanes this way emphasizes that Occupy Atlanta’s key concerns transcend Woodruff Park.

Defining the success of Occupy Atlanta in terms of the occupation of Woodruff Park is sure to be a losing battle. With time, cold weath-er and arrests, many occupiers will go home, and many have already. Thus, the movement must be perpetuated by submovements that are more important than the physical occupation aspect.

In truth, the occupiers at Woodruff Park are mostly homeless people looking for food and shelter. The organized protesters left weeks ago. While one could argue that the homeless are disen-franchised and an important part of the 99 percent, this shift in population indicates the relatively inactive nature of Occupy Atlanta protests at Woodruff.

As Mayor Kasim Reed begins clamping down, Occupy At-lanta needs to choose its battles wisely. What could be the last

remaining energy of the movement should not be squandered on a symbolic—yet soon-to-be inconsequential—park. Rather, occupi-ers need to hone in on solutions for local problems and reach out to more people in more places.

Often criticized for its lack of direction and unity, the Occupy move-ment in Atlanta actually has too many eggs in one basket. Sooner

or later, Occupy Atlanta will leave Woodruff Park, but the movement still has time to affect local issues like rights to

civil disobedience or even “hot lanes.” Keep-ing the message of political and economic equality alive through local application of their ideas is the single best way to perpetuate the movement.

The movement cannot allow the discus-sion to focus on the park but instead must make the message clear through spin-off movements that are less ephemeral. Remov-ing Occupy Atlanta from Woodruff Park will simply accelerate the inevitable, allow pro-testers to refocus their demands and provide a better image for the movement than that of a homeless shelter. p

c o m m e n t Nov. 11, 20114

By Holden CHoi By Jenny moody

60 miles: walking for a world without breast cancerIt began with a

promise—a promise made by a younger sister to her older sis-ter to free the world of breast cancer. Nancy Brinker was the little sister of Su-san Komen, a victim

of breast cancer. In 1982, Komen died at the age of 36 from the disease. After her death, Brinker acted on her promise and created what would become the largest and most prominent breast cancer organization in the world: Susan G. Komen for the Cure. For support, the organization created The Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, a 60-mile walk in which each participant has to raise a minimum of $2,300 in order to walk.

I first heard of the 3-Day when my sister and her friends did it their junior year of high school with my mother. When I learned about their journey, I thought they were crazy. Who would walk 60 miles for an entire weekend? What was even the point? But I soon changed my mind. At the end of the three days, any-one is welcome to come and congratulate the walkers at the closing ceremony. The words

spoken at that closing ceremony are what made me want to walk those 60 miles. I don’t remember who spoke, and I can’t even recall the exact words she said. All I remember is that I wanted to be one of those thousands of people she was congratulating. So the minute I turned 16, I began preparing for the walk.

On the morning of Oct. 21, the first day of the walk, everyone arrived at Stone Mountain Park between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. The opening ceremony began at 7:30 a.m. and the 60-mile trek at 8 a.m.—in 40-degree weather, might I add.

The opening ceremony started with cheesy songs I sang in my head and couldn’t help but dance to. The spokeswoman this year was a woman named Sheri Phillips. She told her story of being diagnosed with breast cancer over three years ago and how she has been going through treatment ever since. After she told her story, the music resumed, but it wasn’t the kind that makes you want to dance. It was the kind that makes you want to cry.

One by one, women, men and even chil-dren walked onto the stage with a banner in their hands that read the name of the person they were walking for. Mothers, wives and best friends were all represented. Then, one

by one, came the survivors. Some dressed for warmth, some dressed for fun, but every sin-gle person was covered in pink with a flag that represented love, courage and hope. When I saw those banners, I fully realized why I was walking. The journey I was about to embark on was not about how many blisters you got or whether or not your back hurt. It was about fighting for what you want to see in the world. Along with 3,000 people in Atlanta, I was fighting for the cure.

Before this experience, I never understood the magnitude of breast cancer and how much it affected the world around me. Throughout the day, there were two or three spots on the route called cheering sections. When I read about cheering stations, I pictured a few fam-ily members and friends of those walking, totaling maybe 30 people. Each cheering sta-tion, however, had at least 100 to 200 people. There were preschool kids, parents, grand-parents and random people who just wanted to thank us. Even people in restaurants who didn’t know what the 3-Day was until parades of women and men in pink began to pass by cheered. Semi-truck drivers and cars going in both directions saw us and honked.

The shrill sound may have been obnoxious

to the people sleeping in neighborhoods or trying to get work done, but we didn’t care. At first I was embarrassed, simply because I didn’t know how to respond to everyone cheering for me. But more and more, the feeling of accomplishment filled me up, and I became proud to be walking 60 miles for such a great cause.

Every three minutes, someone in the world dies from breast cancer, and every 69 seconds, someone else is diagnosed with the disease. This statistic is what Susan G. Komen for the Cure has set out to change, and anyone can participate by walking in the 3-Day. Women and men are fighting through breast cancer every single day. Breast cancer doesn’t stop pushing, so neither should we.

I will admit my feet felt like they could fall off by the third day, and my back ached in a way it has never ached before. But through-out the weekend, I realized this type of pain didn’t even come close to the pain felt by the victims of the disease. One out of every eight women will be or has been diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. There are 60 miles, three days and one goal: to live in a world without breast cancer, because every-one deserves a lifetime. p

Hunter rust

occupy Atlanta too dependent on park

Protest movement keeps spirits alive

Should Occupy Atlanta be removed from Woodruff Park?

STUDENTStAnCe

tHe

Education SPLOST passes again for APS

After months of uncertainty, on Nov. 9, Atlanta citizens voted to renew 1-percent sales tax for edu-cation. The SPLOST money will be used to build new schools, like Midtown Middle and North Atlan-ta Elementary, and renovate others in order to alleviate overcrowding.

Deal won’t remove APS board members

The Georgia Board of Education voted on Nov. 9 that Gov. Nathan Deal should not remove the nine members of the APS school board. The General Assembly granted the state board the power to remove the board members in July after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed APS high schools’ accreditation on probation.

Students accepted to leadership program

Eleven students from the Public Policy and Justice academy were accepted into Usher’s New Look Leadership Academy. This four-year mentoring program will take place in partnership with the Emory Univer-sity Goizueta Business School. The students will learn Usher’s four pil-lars of leadership: talent, education, career and service.

n e w sthe Southerner Nov. 11, 2011 5

Student finds mold in cafeteria jelly packsBy Jolie Jones and lauren ogg

A few weeks ago senior Marius Jackson opened up a packet of grape jelly, and was startled to find a mysterious substance inside.

Jackson came to school on the 7:30 a.m. bus and went to the cafeteria to get in line for break-fast. He ordered his usual chicken biscuit with jelly, while one of his friends ordered the same. When they opened up their jelly packets, how-ever, they were displeased with what they found. There was mold in the strawberry jelly.

“It was green and brown and gray,” Jackson said. “When we opened it, a little poof of dust came out of it.”

He said when he informed the cafeteria staff about his discovery they replied there was “noth-ing [they could] do about it.”

“It’s not the first time,” Jackson said. “All last year it was moldy and runny. I’m never going to get the jelly again.”

One of Grady’s cafeteria workers, Jean “Annie” Reed, said the substance found in Jackson’s jelly was nothing unusual.

“Jelly ferments,” Reed said. “This could hap-pen to your jelly in your own homes.”

After Grady’s Nutrition Manager Eugene Lungy was informed, the cafeteria staff pulled the jelly packets that day and a new box replaced the old.

“Someone is going to make a mistake with food; you can’t be perfect,” said literature teacher Scott Stephens.

Reed, known to Grady students as “Miss An-nie,” has worked at the school for nine years, and said that a student has never gotten sick from the cafeteria’s food. If a child ever were to get sick, the cafeteria staff has a plan to submit food to a lab to be tested.

“There’s a state inspection at least once a month, and we always get a 100 percent,” Reed said.

The only feedback Reed has ever gotten is requests from students for chicken wings to be added to the menu or more salt.

Reed says neither are healthy options, and her kitchen will only serve food that is healthy: after all, she said, she and the staff eat exactly what they serve.

Some teachers have eaten in the cafeteria for more than a decade. Among those veteran meal-

eaters is Stephens, who has been enjoying cafete-ria food since he started teaching at Grady 14 years ago. He said then, the cafeteria presented consumers with homemade meals ranging from fried chicken and Salisbury steak for the entrée and cake or pie for dessert.

Stephens said the cafeteria’s flavor fluctuates, changing every few years.

“Right now it’s pretty good,” he said. Stephens, however, does have limits and

boundaries when it comes to what he puts on his styrofoam tray.

“I won’t eat anything that I can’t identify,” he said. “With the meat, you just never know. I will not eat the chicken nuggets. I’ve probably tried everything. My favorite part is that teachers get iced tea.”

Stephens believes the cafeteria food is a healthy option for teens.

“I’m hardly ever sick, and I eat cafeteria food every day,” Stephens said.

Stephens has spread his love for cafeteria cuisine to other teachers and recruited a few newcomers, such as communications teacher Mario Herrera.

“My go-to is the fried chicken and broccoli,” Herrera said. “My least favorite is the hamburg-ers. They are not tasty and [very] bland.”

Not all teachers take advantage of the hot meals

served in Grady’s cafeteria. Journalism and litera-ture teacher Deedee Abbott is among the many teachers who bring a lunch from home. Abbott ate school lunches during her first year of teach-ing, but then began to bring her own lunches, which range from homemade vegetable soup to hummus sandwiches.

Even though she does not eat the food any-more, Abbott does have opinions on student be-havior in the cafeteria.

“[The teenagers] don’t clean up after them-selves,” Abbott said. “They don’t throw their stuff away.”

Junior Henry White has been eating cafeteria food since he entered the first grade at Mary Lin Elementary School and feels the food at Grady has much room for improvement.

“[There are] low-quality fries; they are soggy and not salty,” White said. “The pizza is the best thing there, but it’s not necessarily good.”

White did not know there was mold found in the jelly, and has never witnessed anything abnor-mal or suspicious in the food, and Herrera believes that the cafeteria is doing the best job possible.

“They serve over a thousand meals a day, and have to store that much food,” Herrera said. “It is bound to happen. It happens in restaurants and grocery stores. It only becomes a problem if it be-comes a habit or the norm.” p

Atlanta Public Schools has come under fire for a grade designation called “half-grades,” making some students ineligible to take the Georgia High School Graduation Test—a consequence certain students weren’t aware of until after their placement.

By Jasmine Burnett

When senior Arny Soejoedi entered Grady as a freshman, she was one of the youngest in her class. She had skipped the sixth grade and wanted to avoid an age gap in high school. During her sophomore year, Soejoedi found an unconventional solution to this problem: grade 10.5.

This “half-grade” placed her between 10th and 11th grades and will allow her to graduate this year with the class of 2012.

“I could have graduated with 2011 because I skipped a grade, but I felt like I should stay back,” Soejoedi said.

While she was in grade 10.5 she took classes with both sophomores and juniors, and when given the option to graduate last year, she decided against it.

“At first they had me doing 10th

lit and 11th lit, but I dropped 11th lit after a bit,” Soejoedi said. “Ms. [Sheila] Oliver was like, ‘You can double up on your classes, and you can graduate with [the class of 2011]’ but I [said], ‘No, I’m good.’”

Principal Vincent Murray said students’ promotion into half- grades is ultimately a way to keep them motivated.

“It’s because of the fact that, emotionally, those kids feel bad that they’re not in the grade that they belong,” Murray said. “So they are in a half-grade level, and they are still with their peers. It decreases the opportunity for them to be embarrassed and to feel less motivated because they want to give up. That’s why it’s done that way.”

Graduation coach Charlene Gray said half-grades are used as a designation for students who do not have enough credits to advance to the next grade level.

“[Half-grades] are classes where the students have not met the requirements to move into their correct grade level,” Gray said.

She explained that programs such as Let’s Do it Again, which

allows students to make up two classes they failed during the previous semester, online credit recovery and evening classes held at Crim High School are available to students who need to catch up.

“There’s a wealth of things put in place to get them where they need to be,” Gray said.

Gray added that students who failed electives rather than core classes may not have the opportunity to make up those credits using one of the recovery programs.

“Most times, for electives, they’re not offered in Let’s Do it Again or in online credit recovery,” Gray said. “It’s mainly the core classes, the required classes for graduation, that are offered.”

Gray said that in order for those students to satisfy the required 3.5 credits for electives, they have to take other elective classes if they do not want to retake the failed courses again.

Matt Cardoza, director of communications for the Georgia Department of Education, said the state does not recognize half-grades.

“We do not have a state policy or rule that recognizes half-grades, and in our Student Data Collections,

we do not recognize or record half grades,” he said. “If a student is in an 8.5 grade, they report the student as an eighth grader to our SDC.”

Murray explained that students in grade 10.5 with enough credits are allowed to take the GHSGT, a test required for graduation, which is normally taken by juniors.

“If you are in a 10.5 homeroom, and you have enough credits along with your electives to be a junior, then you take the exam,” Murray said. “[But] if you fail a course, you still don’t have enough credit to be promoted. You see, there’s a double-edged sword there.”

Gray said the state decides which students in grade 10.5 are eligible to take the graduation tests.

“If they are first-time test takers, their names have to be submitted to the state in order to have approval. So they will look at how many credits they have, and they have to meet certain criteria,” Gray said. “If they meet those criteria, then they will be allowed to test with the junior class. So we don’t make that decision.”

According to The Student Assessment Handbook, students who are not in 11th grade but have been enrolled in high school for three

years may take the GHSGT if they have at least nine Carnegie units, which measure the amount of time a student has been in class learning a subject. Students need 12 Carnegie units if the school is on a block schedule; otherwise, they must meet the requirement of 135 quarter hours.

In addition, they must also have not previously passed the graduation test.

The handbook also says the Georgia Department of Education may, upon request by a local system, allow students who have earned credits in a “non-traditional manner” to take the test for the first time “during a retest opportunity of the GHSGT rather than the main administration.”

Though students may take classes during the semester to attain the appropriate number of credits, Murray said students can only be placed in a half-grade at the end of a school year and that the parents of students in half-grades are notified of their child’s placement.

“What we tell parents [is] if your child fails a core course, your child will not be promoted,” Murray said. “They already know.” p

Mock trial places sixth at competition

Grady’s mock trial team placed sixth in the 2011 Empire Mock Trial competition held in New York City on Oct. 21-23. Thirty-four teams from around the world competed in several rounds of mock trial and socialized on a harbor cruise.

Students with deficit of credits caught in half-grades

DO YOU TRUST THE CAFETERIA FOOD?

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YSource: A Southerner survey of 145 boys and 161 girls

newS BriefS

By Grace Power

According to the National Center for Ed-ucation Statistics, when fourth and eighth graders in Georgia took standardized tests in reading, writing, mathematics and sci-ence in 2011, their scores ranked below the national average on the writing, mathemat-ics and science tests.

Such results are not unusual for Georgia, but efforts to improve the public-school sys-tem are often cash-strapped. The Race to the Top Fund was created by the federal gov-ernment to alleviate this problem by giving money to “states that are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implement-ing coherent, compelling and comprehensive education reform,” according to the U.S. De-partment of Education website.

There have been three rounds of compe-tition so far to win funds, and Georgia has entered all three. Georgia did not collect any money the first round, but the state col-lected $400 million in 2010 after winning the second round. This year marks a new fund opportunity with the Early Care and Development Challenge that will “focus on improving early learning and development programs for young children,” according to the U.S. DOE website.

The department has three requirements to win the challenge: enroll a higher num-ber of low-income and disadvantaged chil-dren in high-quality education, create and distribute high-quality learning programs and services and ensure that they conform with reports on early childhood by the National Research Council, a nonpartisan research organization that provides infor-mation to the government.

Jon Rogers, Georgia Department of Educa-tion communications director for the Race to the Top fund, explained that Georgia plans to use half of the money it won in the second round for grants to 26 school systems and the other half for tools and instruments, all with the goal of supporting new approaches for improving education. Changes include

new teacher and administrator evaluations and the P20 Data System, a program that will help keep track of student progress in Geor-gia from when they enter kindergarten to when they graduate high school. Information gained from this system will be used to keep track of progress on standardized tests.

“The money will be dispersed over four years according to the scope of work from the districts,” Rogers said.

Out of the $200 million set aside for the school systems, almost $40 million will go to APS, giving the system the greatest sum of money allotted to a district. According to the Georgia Department of Education website, the schools receiving money serve 41 percent of Georgia’s public school stu-dents, 46 percent of Georgia students who live in poverty and 68 percent of the state’s lowest-achieving schools.

According to the Georgia DOE’s website, the grant will help APS work toward an “in-creased pipeline of effective teachers through partnership with Teach for America” as well as implement the Annie E. Casey Foundation Grade Level Reading Initiative for ages new-born to 8. The fund will also begin state-level partnerships with APS “to significantly bolster all turnaround events,” according to the State of Georgia Scope of Work report, written by State School Superintendent John Barge.

According to the report, the APS schools being targeted for grants are Crim and Douglass High Schools, Therrell School of Law, Government and Public Policy, Therrell School of Health and Science and Harper-Archer Middle School. These schools were selected because they fall into the category of the lowest-achieving schools in the state as determined by the Georgia Board of Education.

Because Grady was not deemed a low-per-forming school, the school will not see any of the money coming from the 2010 competi-tion, and if Georgia wins the grant this year, the money will only be used on early care and development programs. Although none of

this year’s grant money can go to elementary, middle or high schools, Bentley Ponder, di-rector of research and evaluation at the Geor-gia Department of Education, believes im-proving early development will benefit higher levels of education.

“The overall goal of the grant is to improve school readiness for the state’s birth-to-five population,” Ponder said. “Research shows that many children from low-income or at-risk environments enter school behind chil-dren from more advantaged backgrounds. This is referred to as the achievement gap. We see this when children begin kindergarten, and it expands as children get older.”

Ponder explained that research has shown that when children are exposed to higher quality learning in earlier stages, the achieve-ment gap will be reduced. Ponder said this grant will create a higher number of high quality early-care centers.

“This will help Georgia prepare for the demands of a 21st-century global econo-my,” he said.

One of the new programs created with the money won last year will provide more feed-back for teachers and administrators by using a new system to rate them. Rather than us-ing the simple evaluation used in the past, the new system will rate a teacher or administra-tor on a 1-4 scale in various categories, and

evaluators will have a “pass” and “fail” option. The goal is to widen the range of feedback and thus improve the quality of education.

The U.S. Department of Education web-site said the third installment offers $500 million to “states that are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive early-learning education re-form.” The states that participate will learn by Dec. 31 whether or not they have won the grant money, and Georgia is eligible for a $70 million piece of the pie.

Ponder said the money won during the third stage will be distributed across states and will implement a Quality Rating and Im-provement System which will assess, improve and communicate the quality level of child-care programs. The funds will go directly to enhance childcare programs and will be spent on the development of childcare teachers.

Winners will be selected from profiles each state sends to the government.

“With funds from the grant, the state will increase the number of high-quality environments,” Ponder said. “Therefore, the state will benefit by having more chil-dren beginning kindergarten ready to ex-cel in their schooling. This will prepare Georgia for the demands of a 21st-century global economy.” p

6 Nov. 11, 2011

Francis: 1961 ‘not about me’

n e w s

By Shaun KleBer

Today, there are 949 black students at Grady. Fifty years ago, there were two.

After Mary McMullen Francis and Lawrence Jefferson integrated Grady High School in 1961, the demograph-ics of the school shifted. Now, the school is 67 percent black, 27 percent white and 6 percent other ethnicities.

“The complexion of the school has changed a great deal,” Francis said. “It’s not the same school as it was. I do know that still, Grady has maintained its reputation as being a top school. ... I feel a sense of pride in the school because it is doing so well.”

Both Francis and Jefferson not-ed that the school now has black faculty members, which was not true when they attended.

Jefferson has researched Grady’s population and said the shift from being mostly white to mostly black stemmed from a transformation in the surrounding neighborhood.

“As time went on, the neighborhood [around Grady] changed—what they used to call ‘white flight,’” Jeffer-son said. “When black people moved into the neigh-borhoods, white people moved out … and that had a lot to do with the schools going from predominately white to predominately black.”

Betty Smith, a French teacher during and after the integration, agreed Grady’s population changed be-cause “some families were moving out, and others were moving in.”

“Grady did change,” Smith said.“But we kept up our standards. We didn’t go down the way people thought we would. I’m still proud of Grady. I think they’ve done a fantastic job through the years.”

Although Francis’ and Jefferson’s historic year changed the face of Grady forever, they were not think-

ing about making history at the time.“I didn’t look at it that way. ... I didn’t do it to get

in the newspaper and on TV,” Jefferson said. “I just thought this was an opportunity to do something that needed to be done, and I was in a position to do it.”

Francis, similarly, was not focused on fame.“It was not about me,” Francis said. “It was about all

of us being able to do what the law of the land said that we were entitled to do. ... It was our turn, black people’s turn, to be free and go to school.”

Francis was nervous about the prospect of desegregat-ing an Atlanta high school but was motivated by what others were doing at the time to fight for civil rights.

“I was resigned to do it. I never thought about saying ‘I don’t think I want to,’” Francis said. “I was looking at what others had done...

and what I had set out to do and [decided] I was going to do it.”

Dan Terry, who graduated with Francis and Jefferson, is glad he was able to take part in such a historic transition.

“I’m glad I was a part of it, because it went down peaceably in the entire city,” Terry said. “Even Presi-dent Kennedy stopped a press conference to congratu-late how the city of Atlanta handled it.”

Francis and Jefferson now lead two completely separate lives—Francis is a teacher in DeKalb County, and Jeffer-son lives in Chicago. At the age of 17, however, they both walked the halls of Henry W. Grady High School togeth-er, and they have no regrets about that experience.

“It was something that had to be done, and now I consider it a privilege, having been able to take part in it,” Francis said. “The door was opened, and that was a good thing." p

GradyINTEGRATED

Third in a series

Georgia seeks federal grant for early development

On Oct. 29, Grady’s robotics team, the Gearbox Gangstaz, competed in Atlanta’s B.E.S.T Robotics Competition at Southern Polytechnic College in Marietta. Grady came in second place for the overall B.E.S.T. Award and is now looking forward to the next round of competition in Auburn, Ala. Each team was scored on its notebook, display, spirit, sportsmanship and competition performance. The team also was awarded the “most photogenic robot” award for having a robot with the best aesthetics. In the photo above, freshman Matao Rodriguez prepares the team’s robot to compete on the show floor at the B.E.S.T. competition. For the complete story, please see thesoutherneronline.com.

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GEARED-UP GANGSTAS COMPETE AT CITYWIDE TOURNEY

- 54 percent of Georgia’s children under 5—about 444,000 children—live in low-income households.

- An estimated 14 percent of Georgia’s children under 5 are learning English as a second language.

- About 16,000 children ages 3 to 5 have individualized education plans created for them because they have

developmental delays.

EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT HURDLES

STATISTICS FROM STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION WEBSITES

Infinite Campus fails to calculate grades accurately

continued from front page

are aware of the soft lockdown procedures, so they did a very good job,” Administra-tive Assistant David Propst said. “Safety’s first. Everything was okay.”

Chemistry teacher Rachel Obeidin agreed the soft lockdown went smoothly, although she was initially startled by the announcement. She said she thought she heard the word “salt” instead of “soft” in the announcement of the lockdown and did not know what to do.

“I freaked out a little bit more than I should have,” Obeidin said.

After figuring out there was a soft lock-down, Obeidin’s worry shifted to the lo-gistics of the lockdown, she said. She was concerned for the safety of the students in the stadium, who were taking yearbook club pictures there when the lockdown began. Although the pictures were put on hold for the lockdown, students who were in the stadium had no way of getting back into the school.

“We tried to let the drama club back in [the school] because we had just taken their picture, but all the doors were locked and they weren’t letting anybody else back in,” yearbook staff member Aja Blair said.

Obeidin said administrators do not tell teachers what causes lockdowns, but she has heard rumors about what happened during this lockdown.

“Personally, it does not bother me, but I’ve heard a lot of rumors that were way worse than anything that could have hap-pened,” Obeidin said. “So if they would just come out with it, there would be less food for thought.”

After the lockdown was lifted, police continued to patrol the area in order to ensure the safety of the students.

“We had teachers and officers and coaches that stayed,” Howard said. “We have a lot of things that go on at Grady. Sometimes it seems like Grady never shuts

down.” This soft lockdown was the second on

Grady’s campus in 14 days. The first of the year occurred on Friday, Oct. 21.

It lasted from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., which was during Grady’s first lunch peri-od. Administrators and local police officers worked to keep students inside the build-ings and out of the hallways.

Charles Brown, a Grady police officer, said that, at 11:30 a.m., a man broke into a car on 10th Street. The owner of the car saw the break-in happen and chased the criminal down 10th Street and into the student parking lot.

Howard received a call from Propst informing him of the potential danger. Howard said he immediately headed to-ward the courtyard to respond to the in-truder. Because the burglar was running through the courtyard, he was concerned that the perpetrator could hurt a student. He said he instructed all students in first lunch to get inside the cafeteria to remain out of harm’s way.

“We eat outside. We are accessible to anyone who can just walk up on campus,” Howard said. “That’s why we wanted to clear everyone from the school grounds.”

While Howard secured the area, Propst and Grady police officers chased the intrud-er around the campus, beginning on 10th Street in the student parking lot and ending on Charles Allen Drive near the trailers.

To further secure the area, Grady police notified the Atlanta Police Department, who sent a helicopter to hover above the school during the lockdown.

“That’s the good thing about being in APS,” Howard said. “We have real police officers who work at school as a part-time job. So if anything happens, all they have to do is get on the radio and call for backup.”

Many rumors have been going around about the school what triggered the first soft lockdown.

“I heard that [the intruder] was home-

less, and he lived between the bushes near the gyms and that he had a knife, like a switchblade,” junior Bilal Vaughn said.

Other students said the man had a gun and fired shots at bystanders.

When it comes to the man being home-less or not, Howard said no one can know for sure.

“He just said it was a gentleman,” How-ard said. “We’re not sure if it was a home-less man or not, but, being over here in the midtown area, we have the park next door, we have a lot of homeless people, and we have a lot of theft.”

Brown said the man whose car was bro-

ken into said the burglar had a knife in his possession, but Howard said officials never saw any knife.

“The [car owner] said he saw one, so better safe than sorry,” Howard said. “We made sure that we protected the safety of the students.”

Howard believes the soft lockdown went smoothly, and it was lifted when the man ran off campus. Atlanta police were not able to catch him or discover his identity.

“I’m sure people panicked and started calling their parents,” Howard said. “So we received some phone calls, but we had everything under control.” p

ANONYMOUS threat starts second soft lockdown

70%Grade Report

By Troy KleBer and olivia veira

When Grady students received their fall midterm progress reports in October, several received incorrect grades in many classes.

Though it was unclear when this problem began, teach-ers first dis-covered the Infinite Cam-pus student data manage-ment system miscalculated grades in mid-October. The student data management system is a tool used for inputting and managing stu-dent data.

Infinite Cam-pus is a company that provides its web-based student information system in schools all over the country, man-aging data for more than 4.5 million students. Atlanta Public Schools began using it in 2008.

After teachers noticed that Infinite Cam-pus was incorrectly calculating grades, science teacher Jeff Cramer discovered the problem stemmed from the settings in Infinite Campus. Cramer said the teacher-inputted grade weights were being overridden by Infinite Campus’s de-fault settings, thereby causing a miscalculation of students’ final grades.

Many teachers make tests, quizzes and homework different percentages of a student’s final grade, and they can input the specific weight for each category in the settings of Infi-nite Campus. English teacher James Campbell

said that when calculating stu-dents’ grades, Infinite Cam-pus would i n c o r r e c t l y weight these categories since it was “not abiding by the options that the teacher en-tered.”

Campbe l l gave an exam-ple to illustrate how the grades were miscal-

culated.

If a teacher were to assign two tests, one worth 100 points and the other worth 50 points, the teacher could set the weight of the 100-point test to be worth twice the 50-point test. When posting these grades, however, Infinite Campus would disregard the teacher-assigned weights and average the two test grades equally.

“If you don’t go back and check the way you set up the original [weights], then we are going to end up giving students the wrong grades at

the end of the semesters,” Cramer said.Though Cramer did not discover the prob-

lem until after students received midterm prog-ress reports, Campbell believes the problem ex-isted before then.

Registrar Chinaester Holland denied stu-dent grades were being miscalculated and said the teachers who said there was a problem with were wrong.

Te a c h e r s m a i n t a i n , however, that they have i d e n t i f i e d grade mis-calculat ions in their own c l a s s r o o m s . Cramer said that, even now, it is pos-sible that teachers are publishing incorrect grades.

“What I was afraid of was that it was actu-ally happening with every teacher [when] they weren’t checking it, because they didn’t really bother to notice whether the grades were right or not,” Cramer said.

Cramer said the grade miscalculations so far have not resulted in major changes in grades.

“[Grades] are not off by dramatic numbers,” Cramer said. “They might be off by three or four percentage points.”

Cramer has taken steps to fix the problem. He spoke with the APS Technology Support

Office over the phone and developed a step-by-step procedure for all teachers to follow to ensure grades are correct. Grady instructional coach Brandi Sabb disseminated this procedure to all teachers.

“Ms. Sabb sent a note out to everyone in the school and asked them

to go back in and check [the grades],” Cram-

er said. “Whether everyone did or

not is another matter.”

Cramer also spoke with Principal Vin-cent Murray and said Mur-ray seemed con-cerned about the grade mis-

calculations but did not want to make the

issue a big deal until he had figured out all the details and how to address the problem.

In the meantime, Cramer worked to fix the miscalculations in his own classes. He told his students to calculate their grades and make sure their grade calculations corresponded with the grades in Infinite Campus.

“It would be terrible for me if I gave the wrong grades at the end of the semester,” Cra-mer said. “I would just be really embarrassed, but it’s bad for the students, too. If it was some-thing that I could have controlled, if I had been observant enough, then I would certainly want to be able to do that.” p

Homework 90%Classwork 90%Tests 90%

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n e w sNov. 11, 2011 7

From to

By Sammi Dean anD iSaBelle TafT

In early October, Mandie Mitchell, an artist and gallery owner, was evicted from her live-work space when she was unable to continue paying her rent. Mitchell and her daughter Mackenzie, a fifth-grader at Cook Elementary School, found themselves homeless. Instead of turning to rela-tives or a homeless shelter, the Mitchells set up a tent in Woodruff Park in downtown Atlanta, joining roughly 200 others in the protest movement called Occupy Atlanta.

Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, the protest against banks and corporations in downtown New York City, Occupy Atlanta began on Oct. 7. Hundreds of people alerted by word of mouth and a Facebook event page converged on Woodruff Park—which was renamed Troy Davis Park by the demonstrators—to express a litany of grievances aired by Occupy movements across the globe.

The protesters, along with their signs and tents, remained in the park until Oct. 25, when Mayor Kasim Reed ordered the police to evict the protesters. The police arrested more than 50 people.

Senior Holden Choi and Grady graduate James Holland, now a sophomore at Georgia State University, were among the crowd in Woodruff Park on the first night of the protest.

The demonstrators implemented protocol for speaking at their General Assembly, the nightly meeting at the park to discuss and debate the status of the protest. They then established rules for living in the park and approved a list of 11 grievances that drive the movement.

“Our system was consensus,” Holland said. “If we weren’t in complete agreement about a plan, we wouldn’t do it. It took about two hours to reach the agreement to occupy the park.”

Many occupants at Woodruff Park said they view the movement as a way to raise awareness about economic injustice and foster discussion about possible solutions.

Protesters celebrated the community that developed in the park. Kimlee Davis, a freshman at Georgia State, said she and others forged friendships over discussions of political issues, prepa-rations for potential conflict with the police and the simple acts of daily life that became more difficult while living in a tent in downtown Atlanta.

“We’re all like a family out here,” Davis said. “We call each other brothers and sisters.”During the day, protesters offered workshops on topics such as interacting with the police and

growing vegetable gardens in pots. A medical tent offered basic first aid, while a child-care tent provided games and toys for children.

“We want to make it so people feel comfortable coming here with families,” said Maris Gill, a Georgia State junior who headed the child-care committee. “There are maybe 10 to 12 kids here right now.”

An art tent provided supplies to make protest signs to carry on demonstration marches, which happened nearly every day against targets including the Georgia-Pacific building and the Federal Reserve Bank. James Malone, director of communications for Georgia-Pacific, encountered the protesters as he left work one evening but found them peaceful and calm.

“Everybody has the right to a democratic voice,” Malone said. “Georgia-Pacific respects the

right of everyone to protest.”Occupy Atlanta received numerous donations of food, tents and clothes, which were

distributed to the protesters free of charge. “The Free Store,” set up on a folding table in the middle of the park, offered odds and ends such as a pair of Crocs, a worn copy of Goodnight Moon and a plastic dustpan.

“Everyone’s sharing their food, skills and supplies,” said Mandie Mitchell, who led a workshop on jewelry-making while she was living in the park.

Woodruff Park has long been frequented by members of Atlanta’s homeless commu-nity. Attracted by free food and shelter, many joined the movement.

“When you don’t got nowhere to sleep, and they got a tent, you’re gonna take it,” said James Crider, who has been homeless for three years. “What the media doesn’t say is that the majority of people out there are homeless.”

Many protesters, such as Occupy Atlanta spokesman Tim Franzen, stressed the im-portance of including homeless people in the movement. Choi, however, believes the presence of “crazy homeless people” increased negative perceptions of Occupy Atlanta. He noticed a definite increase in the number of homeless people from Oct. 7 to Oct. 23, the last day he went to Woodruff Park.

“Instead of being political, the movement just became ‘let’s shelter all of society’s re-jects,’” Choi said. “There’s a time and a place for that, but not when you’re trying to start a political movement.”

The colorful tents, arranged haphazardly over a large swath of grass, drew the attention of nearly all passers-by and the irritation of some.

“Some people will be like ‘Keep up the fight! I wish I could be out there!’” Davis said. “But some people throw eggs and come out with megaphones at 6 a.m. when everyone’s asleep.”

Junior Bilal Vaughn, who lives in an apartment across the street from Woodruff Park, found the protesters obnoxious and questioned whether the movement can achieve its goals.

“I don’t know much about the movement, but I think camping out in Woodruff Park is a little ridiculous,” Vaughn said. “They bang pots and pans, and they have megaphones and yell random phrases.”

Dgindi Streeter, a Georgia State sophomore who works at the Jimmy John’s restaurant across the street from Woodruff Park, said she had few problems with the protesters and even delivered a catering order to the park on the second night of the occupation.

“They’re pretty peaceful,” Streeter said. “They tried to use our bathrooms, but we tell them they have to buy something like a cookie or a water at least.”

When the protests began, Mayor Reed issued an executive order to allow the protesters to remain in the park overnight.

“The park closes every night between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., and without that special executive order he [Reed] would have been allowing law-breaking,” said Sonji Jacobs-Dade, Reed’s director of communications.

When the order expired on Oct. 17, Reed issued a new executive order to allow the protesters to remain in Woodruff Park until Nov. 7. He revoked the permit, however, after the protesters cooperated with a concert organizer to host a hip-hop concert in the park on Oct. 22.

“I think there was a moment where we thought Atlanta could be the first city in the

whole world that had a mayor that got be-hind the occupation,” Franzen said. “He kind of blew it.”

Jacobs-Dade said the concert organizer lacked a security plan. When representatives from Reed’s office, including Jacobs-Dade, went to the park to discuss the issue with members of Occupy Atlanta, protesters shouted and cursed at them.

In addition, there were concerns about the presence of a man who called himself Porch and carried an AK-47 in the park. He claimed to be in the park to protect the protesters. Franzen said Porch was not associated with Occupy Atlanta.

“If you are part of a peaceful movement, then why do you need an AK-47?” Ja-cobs-Dade said.

On the night of Oct. 25, police assembled around Woodruff Park. Many protest-ers, fearing arrest, left the park voluntarily over the course of the day. Mitchell and other parents in the park acknowledged that they were not willing to be arrested and would leave the park if ordered. Jamar Stalling, a junior at Georgia State, worried

about how an arrest would affect his future.“I’m not getting arrested,” Stalling said. “I’m going to law school. I’m a

part of this, but I have to be conscious of my decisions.”At midnight, the police entered the park and arrested protesters who refused to

leave. Fifty-two spent the night in jail. The next morning, a judge set a March 9 ar-raignment date for the protesters, who were released from jail in the afternoon. The occupants temporarily moved to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and also

spent time in a homeless shelter downtown. In early November, they briefly reoccup-pied Woodruff Park. Twenty protesters were arrested when they remained in the park

after 11 p.m.Choi expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the movement and what he saw as the gradual

loss of momentum.“By the end it was like a summer camp with nothing for people to do,” Choi said.Franzen, however, remained optimistic that Occupy Atlanta would continue to be a force for

change in the city. “We will continue the occupation in some shape or form,” he said. “No question.” p

Atlantans occupy city park; 52 spend night in jail

Demonstrators occupy major cities around nationBy elizaBeTh mcGlamry

PHILADELPHIA, WASHINGTON D.C., ATLANTA—Protest signs with messages like “STOP CORPORATE

GREED!” and “I AM THE 99%!” litter the ground. Volun-teers shout for donations, and sporadic bouts of acoustic music float through the air. Angered citizens border Atlanta’s 10th Street, eliciting honks from passers-by. Tents line Philadelphia’s City Hall, and protesters crowd Washington D.C.’s McPher-son Square. They are all there for one goal—to “Occupy.”

The Occupy movement started on Wall Street, when 1,000 protesters marched across Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district on Sept. 17. The movement grew, and Occupy protests spread to 70 U.S. cities and communities. Now, it has proliferated to more than 900 cities worldwide with a unified goal—to communicate their message: “We are the 99 percent.”

According to the Occupy Wall Street website, the 99 percent refers to the unbalanced distribution of wealth in the world, where only one percent are considered wealthy. A report by the Congressional Budget Office on Oct. 28 stated that the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans earned more combined wealth than the remaining 80 percent.

“For the past five years, I’ve watched our government be-

come more and more controlled by corporations,” Darlene Jones-Owens, a teacher from Carrollton, Ga., said. “There are fewer opportunities for Americans to get a job and make enough to survive.”

Billy Simms, an Atlanta protester, said the Occupy move-ment is open to all grievances.

“The goal of Occupy Atlanta is to act moreso as a public platform for individuals with their own personal stories to be heard,” Simms said. “Our voices are being overshadowed by money, by greed. This allows a platform for average, ordinary, working Americans to get their voices heard.”

Rhonda Trimmer, another protester, agreed with Simms.“I’m out here supporting the kids who have all of these col-

lege bills,” Trimmer said. “I’m out here protesting banks that foreclosed on families that were ripped off of the mortgages. I’m out here for the future.”

Protesters in Washington D.C. participated by holding signs and chanting across the square. Passers-by in Philadelphia were urged to donate money or volunteer to run stations. And At-lanta’s occupiers were asked to march to downtown businesses. Each protest was different. Like the website says, “the one thing they have in common is ‘we are the 99 percent.’”

But the Occupy movement asked for more than just a protest—it encouraged protesters to bring a tent or cardboard box and set up camp indefinitely. In Philadelphia, families even brought a rocking horse for their young children to play on while staking out City Hall. Stations were scattered

around the protests offering food, water, cleaning supplies and even laptops to access social media.

This “live-in” style protest sparked police retaliation in the forms of pepper spray and mass arrests. According to the As-sociated Press, dozens of protesters were arrested in Portland, Ore., 39 were arrested in Austin, Texas, and more than 50 were arrested from Occupy Atlanta—all in the past two weeks. Tim Franzen, a protester and spokesman with Occupy Atlanta, thinks the city will have a problem arresting protesters.

“Eventually the city’s going to have to address a budget is-sue,” Franzen said. “Dragging folks in the night and releasing them the next day, [the police] are just not going to be able to keep it up.”

The Occupy movement, however, has prepared for arrests. On its website is a link to a page called “How to avoid arrest during a protest.” In Philadelphia, protesters set up a volunteer table that gave protestors a number to call if arrested and a list of five steps of what to say and do in the event of an arrest.

Franzen said he doesn’t know when the protest will end or when the movement’s several demands—social and financial equity, an end to the banking crisis and a solution to homeless-ness, to name a few—will be met, but he does know that the protests aren’t going away any time soon.

“We’re in it for the long haul, just like New York,” Franzen said. “They’re going to occupy through the winter, and we will too. Whether that’s at Troy Davis Park or Task Force for the

Homeless or Piedmont Park, we’re not going away.” p

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The Occupy movement staked a claim to Atlantaon Oct. 7, brandishing signs (below), creating a tent city

at Woodruff Park downtown (left) and then rallying throughout the city, including in Midtown on Nov. 2 (right).

From to

By Sammi Dean anD iSaBelle TafT

In early October, Mandie Mitchell, an artist and gallery owner, was evicted from her live-work space when she was unable to continue paying her rent. Mitchell and her daughter Mackenzie, a fifth-grader at Cook Elementary School, found themselves homeless. Instead of turning to rela-tives or a homeless shelter, the Mitchells set up a tent in Woodruff Park in downtown Atlanta, joining roughly 200 others in the protest movement called Occupy Atlanta.

Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, the protest against banks and corporations in downtown New York City, Occupy Atlanta began on Oct. 7. Hundreds of people alerted by word of mouth and a Facebook event page converged on Woodruff Park—which was renamed Troy Davis Park by the demonstrators—to express a litany of grievances aired by Occupy movements across the globe.

The protesters, along with their signs and tents, remained in the park until Oct. 25, when Mayor Kasim Reed ordered the police to evict the protesters. The police arrested more than 50 people.

Senior Holden Choi and Grady graduate James Holland, now a sophomore at Georgia State University, were among the crowd in Woodruff Park on the first night of the protest.

The demonstrators implemented protocol for speaking at their General Assembly, the nightly meeting at the park to discuss and debate the status of the protest. They then established rules for living in the park and approved a list of 11 grievances that drive the movement.

“Our system was consensus,” Holland said. “If we weren’t in complete agreement about a plan, we wouldn’t do it. It took about two hours to reach the agreement to occupy the park.”

Many occupants at Woodruff Park said they view the movement as a way to raise awareness about economic injustice and foster discussion about possible solutions.

Protesters celebrated the community that developed in the park. Kimlee Davis, a freshman at Georgia State, said she and others forged friendships over discussions of political issues, prepa-rations for potential conflict with the police and the simple acts of daily life that became more difficult while living in a tent in downtown Atlanta.

“We’re all like a family out here,” Davis said. “We call each other brothers and sisters.”During the day, protesters offered workshops on topics such as interacting with the police and

growing vegetable gardens in pots. A medical tent offered basic first aid, while a child-care tent provided games and toys for children.

“We want to make it so people feel comfortable coming here with families,” said Maris Gill, a Georgia State junior who headed the child-care committee. “There are maybe 10 to 12 kids here right now.”

An art tent provided supplies to make protest signs to carry on demonstration marches, which happened nearly every day against targets including the Georgia-Pacific building and the Federal Reserve Bank. James Malone, director of communications for Georgia-Pacific, encountered the protesters as he left work one evening but found them peaceful and calm.

“Everybody has the right to a democratic voice,” Malone said. “Georgia-Pacific respects the

right of everyone to protest.”Occupy Atlanta received numerous donations of food, tents and clothes, which were

distributed to the protesters free of charge. “The Free Store,” set up on a folding table in the middle of the park, offered odds and ends such as a pair of Crocs, a worn copy of Goodnight Moon and a plastic dustpan.

“Everyone’s sharing their food, skills and supplies,” said Mandie Mitchell, who led a workshop on jewelry-making while she was living in the park.

Woodruff Park has long been frequented by members of Atlanta’s homeless commu-nity. Attracted by free food and shelter, many joined the movement.

“When you don’t got nowhere to sleep, and they got a tent, you’re gonna take it,” said James Crider, who has been homeless for three years. “What the media doesn’t say is that the majority of people out there are homeless.”

Many protesters, such as Occupy Atlanta spokesman Tim Franzen, stressed the im-portance of including homeless people in the movement. Choi, however, believes the presence of “crazy homeless people” increased negative perceptions of Occupy Atlanta. He noticed a definite increase in the number of homeless people from Oct. 7 to Oct. 23, the last day he went to Woodruff Park.

“Instead of being political, the movement just became ‘let’s shelter all of society’s re-jects,’” Choi said. “There’s a time and a place for that, but not when you’re trying to start a political movement.”

The colorful tents, arranged haphazardly over a large swath of grass, drew the attention of nearly all passers-by and the irritation of some.

“Some people will be like ‘Keep up the fight! I wish I could be out there!’” Davis said. “But some people throw eggs and come out with megaphones at 6 a.m. when everyone’s asleep.”

Junior Bilal Vaughn, who lives in an apartment across the street from Woodruff Park, found the protesters obnoxious and questioned whether the movement can achieve its goals.

“I don’t know much about the movement, but I think camping out in Woodruff Park is a little ridiculous,” Vaughn said. “They bang pots and pans, and they have megaphones and yell random phrases.”

Dgindi Streeter, a Georgia State sophomore who works at the Jimmy John’s restaurant across the street from Woodruff Park, said she had few problems with the protesters and even delivered a catering order to the park on the second night of the occupation.

“They’re pretty peaceful,” Streeter said. “They tried to use our bathrooms, but we tell them they have to buy something like a cookie or a water at least.”

When the protests began, Mayor Reed issued an executive order to allow the protesters to remain in the park overnight.

“The park closes every night between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., and without that special executive order he [Reed] would have been allowing law-breaking,” said Sonji Jacobs-Dade, Reed’s director of communications.

When the order expired on Oct. 17, Reed issued a new executive order to allow the protesters to remain in Woodruff Park until Nov. 7. He revoked the permit, however, after the protesters cooperated with a concert organizer to host a hip-hop concert in the park on Oct. 22.

“I think there was a moment where we thought Atlanta could be the first city in the

whole world that had a mayor that got be-hind the occupation,” Franzen said. “He kind of blew it.”

Jacobs-Dade said the concert organizer lacked a security plan. When representatives from Reed’s office, including Jacobs-Dade, went to the park to discuss the issue with members of Occupy Atlanta, protesters shouted and cursed at them.

In addition, there were concerns about the presence of a man who called himself Porch and carried an AK-47 in the park. He claimed to be in the park to protect the protesters. Franzen said Porch was not associated with Occupy Atlanta.

“If you are part of a peaceful movement, then why do you need an AK-47?” Ja-cobs-Dade said.

On the night of Oct. 25, police assembled around Woodruff Park. Many protest-ers, fearing arrest, left the park voluntarily over the course of the day. Mitchell and other parents in the park acknowledged that they were not willing to be arrested and would leave the park if ordered. Jamar Stalling, a junior at Georgia State, worried

about how an arrest would affect his future.“I’m not getting arrested,” Stalling said. “I’m going to law school. I’m a

part of this, but I have to be conscious of my decisions.”At midnight, the police entered the park and arrested protesters who refused to

leave. Fifty-two spent the night in jail. The next morning, a judge set a March 9 ar-raignment date for the protesters, who were released from jail in the afternoon. The occupants temporarily moved to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and also

spent time in a homeless shelter downtown. In early November, they briefly reoccup-pied Woodruff Park. Twenty protesters were arrested when they remained in the park

after 11 p.m.Choi expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the movement and what he saw as the gradual

loss of momentum.“By the end it was like a summer camp with nothing for people to do,” Choi said.Franzen, however, remained optimistic that Occupy Atlanta would continue to be a force for

change in the city. “We will continue the occupation in some shape or form,” he said. “No question.” p

Atlantans occupy city park; 52 spend night in jail

Demonstrators occupy major cities around nationBy elizaBeTh mcGlamry

PHILADELPHIA, WASHINGTON D.C., ATLANTA—Protest signs with messages like “STOP CORPORATE

GREED!” and “I AM THE 99%!” litter the ground. Volun-teers shout for donations, and sporadic bouts of acoustic music float through the air. Angered citizens border Atlanta’s 10th Street, eliciting honks from passers-by. Tents line Philadelphia’s City Hall, and protesters crowd Washington D.C.’s McPher-son Square. They are all there for one goal—to “Occupy.”

The Occupy movement started on Wall Street, when 1,000 protesters marched across Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district on Sept. 17. The movement grew, and Occupy protests spread to 70 U.S. cities and communities. Now, it has proliferated to more than 900 cities worldwide with a unified goal—to communicate their message: “We are the 99 percent.”

According to the Occupy Wall Street website, the 99 percent refers to the unbalanced distribution of wealth in the world, where only one percent are considered wealthy. A report by the Congressional Budget Office on Oct. 28 stated that the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans earned more combined wealth than the remaining 80 percent.

“For the past five years, I’ve watched our government be-

come more and more controlled by corporations,” Darlene Jones-Owens, a teacher from Carrollton, Ga., said. “There are fewer opportunities for Americans to get a job and make enough to survive.”

Billy Simms, an Atlanta protester, said the Occupy move-ment is open to all grievances.

“The goal of Occupy Atlanta is to act moreso as a public platform for individuals with their own personal stories to be heard,” Simms said. “Our voices are being overshadowed by money, by greed. This allows a platform for average, ordinary, working Americans to get their voices heard.”

Rhonda Trimmer, another protester, agreed with Simms.“I’m out here supporting the kids who have all of these col-

lege bills,” Trimmer said. “I’m out here protesting banks that foreclosed on families that were ripped off of the mortgages. I’m out here for the future.”

Protesters in Washington D.C. participated by holding signs and chanting across the square. Passers-by in Philadelphia were urged to donate money or volunteer to run stations. And At-lanta’s occupiers were asked to march to downtown businesses. Each protest was different. Like the website says, “the one thing they have in common is ‘we are the 99 percent.’”

But the Occupy movement asked for more than just a protest—it encouraged protesters to bring a tent or cardboard box and set up camp indefinitely. In Philadelphia, families even brought a rocking horse for their young children to play on while staking out City Hall. Stations were scattered

around the protests offering food, water, cleaning supplies and even laptops to access social media.

This “live-in” style protest sparked police retaliation in the forms of pepper spray and mass arrests. According to the As-sociated Press, dozens of protesters were arrested in Portland, Ore., 39 were arrested in Austin, Texas, and more than 50 were arrested from Occupy Atlanta—all in the past two weeks. Tim Franzen, a protester and spokesman with Occupy Atlanta, thinks the city will have a problem arresting protesters.

“Eventually the city’s going to have to address a budget is-sue,” Franzen said. “Dragging folks in the night and releasing them the next day, [the police] are just not going to be able to keep it up.”

The Occupy movement, however, has prepared for arrests. On its website is a link to a page called “How to avoid arrest during a protest.” In Philadelphia, protesters set up a volunteer table that gave protestors a number to call if arrested and a list of five steps of what to say and do in the event of an arrest.

Franzen said he doesn’t know when the protest will end or when the movement’s several demands—social and financial equity, an end to the banking crisis and a solution to homeless-ness, to name a few—will be met, but he does know that the protests aren’t going away any time soon.

“We’re in it for the long haul, just like New York,” Franzen said. “They’re going to occupy through the winter, and we will too. Whether that’s at Troy Davis Park or Task Force for the

Homeless or Piedmont Park, we’re not going away.” p

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The Occupy movement staked a claim to Atlantaon Oct. 7, brandishing signs (below), creating a tent city

at Woodruff Park downtown (left) and then rallying throughout the city, including in Midtown on Nov. 2 (right).

Purchased Property Services

2009-2010: $44.8 million2010-2011: $41.3 million

Percentage reduction: 1 inch = 1 percent

Percentage reduction : 1 inch = 1 percent

2009-2010: $10.1 million2010-2011: $9.2 million

Supplies and Materials

8.4 percent reduction

7.8 percent reduction

APS Maintenance Budget Cuts

Source: APS GenerAl Fund BudGet & SPeciAl revenue BudGet

10 nov. 11, 2011

SACS lifts accreditation probation, relieves the boardBy Lauren Ogg and OLivia veira

APS was lifted off probation on nov.1, end-ing nine months of speculation and anxiety. the Atlanta Board of education met four of the “6 required Actions” mandated by the Southern Association of colleges and Schools in order to upgrade their accreditation status to “accreditation with advisement.”

Students and parents alike are relieved to find that their school is accredited and that they no longer have to worry. Sophomore Sa-lome Kakalashvili, a former Grady student, transferred to St. Pius High School shortly after the board was placed on probation. She feared she would not graduate from an accred-ited school, and thought the switch would be a better choice for her future. After attending Pius for a semester, she said she misses Grady and plans to come back since the probation has been lifted.

“i feel like i was wrong about the [accredita-tion] and that it was definitely going to come back,” Kakalashvili said. “now that the ac-creditation is back, i don’t see a risk in coming back to Grady or any APS schools.”

APS board member cecily Harsch-Kinnane is proud that the board has been taken off

probation and that students feel more secure about attending an APS school.

“i was very relieved to know that students, faculty and parents no longer have to worry about the accreditation status,” Harsch-Kin-nane said. “it was a bad thing we did, creating that worry, and i’m glad we’ve done the work needed to do to take it away.”

APS director of media relations Keith Bro-mery said the board did an exceptional job of meeting the standards created by SAcS.

“i think the important thing to remember is that throughout this process and hopefully to the end, our high schools remained accredited throughout this, which means that students are fully eligible to enroll in any universities that require full accreditation of their high schools or any other college or university,” Bromery said. “Students also remain fully eligible for any scholarships. that aspect never changed.”

the board must complete its two remain-ing goals and report completion to SAcS by Sept. 30.

the last required actions for the board to complete are community interaction and board communication. Grady parent Alka cit-rin, a member of the Step up or Step down

initiative that began to monitor and support the board as they worked to lift the probation, said the board needs to continue to work on resolving the remaining areas.

“they’ve been trying to engage the com-munity, but there are still a lot of things that are lacking in that,” citrin said. “it takes a lot of time to build that [relationship] on both sides. it takes time for the school board and the school system to genuinely seek input from the community, and it takes time for the community to become aware that they can actually have a real voice.”

Harsh-Kinnane said one of the major motivations for the board was the support from the community.

“i think [it was] the rallying of the students, community and parents to say ‘we’re going to support you in getting this done, but we’re go-ing to remind you you better get this done,” Harsch-Kinnane said.

Harsh-Kinnane said the entire board is cooperating in order to fulfill the last two re-quirements by next September. citrin said that Step up or Step down will continue to support and watch the APS board through the next year, and the board is determined to meet

the expectations of students and parents in the community.

“i think a lot of people, besides the board, really concentrated on making clear that every-body needed to get the work done,” Harsch-Kinnane said.

Apart from completing the final two re-quired actions, the board plans to continue many of the projects implemented in the past nine months, but Harsch-Kinnane said that the weekly Monday meetings will be discon-tinued. during the Monday meetings, many students and parents came to share their con-cerns, which Harsch-Kinnane said helped mo-tivate the board members to focus.

Although they are no longer holding the weekly meetings, Harsh-Kinnane and Bromery said the board does not plan to stop reaching out to the community, and specifically, high school students. A recent demographic survey conducted by APS will show the board what community members think about APS, and where the system needs to improve.

“We’re off probation, so no one needs to worry,” Harsch-Kinanne said. “But we do have to focus on sustaining the progress that we have made in the last nine months.” p

n e w s

Budget cut, facility woes grow

By KOnadu amOaKuh

the prom at AmericasMart in 2009 featured a band, disc jockey, ice sculptures, beautiful decorations and a hefty price tag. this year’s prom will return to the posh venue downtown, and faculty members have expressed concern that it will be too expensive.

Math teacher Kenneth Henderson is helping the junior prom commit-tee and feels that students should get to choose the venue, not faculty.

“i don’t budget based on adults, i budget based on what the stu-dents want,” Henderson said. “[the juniors] pretty much do every-thing. i just facilitate.”

Junior taylor thomas, a prom committee member, agreed the planning is mostly student-driven.

“it’s all students,” thomas said. “Mr. Henderson just oversees us, but for the most part, it’s strictly student input.”

the juniors voted on the location for prom, and Project Success co-ordinator Kaye Myles, who helped plan the 2009 prom, explained that Principal vincent Murray supports any venue the students choose.

Henderson explained that this year’s committee inherited $7,000 from last year’s and said AmericasMart, at $5,000, was actually the cheapest venue considered. Henderson believes the price of food, decorations and entertainment for the prom are reasonable and is confident that a prom at AmericasMart will not exhaust the bud-geted funds.

Henderson said the $85 junior dues will be used to pay for prom, which is why the planning committee consists entirely of juniors.

Myles said the prom committee spent more than usual in 2009, the last time the event was held at AmericasMart.

“it was [more expensive] because we had a band,” Myles said. “But when you came in there, you went, ‘oh.’”

Math teacher Andrew nichols said that, every year, the prom committee tries to make sure the amount of money left in the ac-count at the beginning of the year is the same amount left over at the end of the year.

“From what i can remember, i don’t think we had any money left over [after the 2009 prom],” Myles said.

though that prom was expensive, Myles said it would not neces-sarily be cheaper to have the prom at school because of the decora-tion costs. She said a lot of students want to have prom away from school because they are at school so much.

Myles feels the students who help plan the prom need to put more effort in planning the event.

“Working on a big function like that is a lot of work,” Myles said. “the students [on] the prom committee should stick to their word and help because the job has to be completed.”

thomas disagreed and said the prom committee is dedicated be-cause they want to have a good prom.

Myles said because the juniors pay for prom, they are the ones who plan prom. Seniors often want to participate in planning prom, however, because they want to make sure that their ideas are represented.

“its always been just juniors planning prom,” thomas said. “[that way] it’s a surprise. it’s like we’re giving it to them. A lot of seniors want to input their ideas because they don’t feel comfortable having prom in [the juniors’] hands, but Mr. Henderson has told them it’s strictly juniors.” p

Juniors’ decision for prom venue comes with concerns

By racheL citrin

Students run down the hall to get water for a lab in Gabangaye Gcb-asche’s chemistry class. Gcbasche says that he struggles to teach his science classes because whenever he runs wa-ter from the sinks, his room floods and leaks through the floor to the room below. He explained that he has to go down the hall and carry water from other teachers’ rooms to conduct labs making it difficult to teach. in addi-tion, one of the lights in his room has not worked for the past two years.

Many of these maintenance prob-lems can be traced to the Atlanta Pub-lic School’s cuts to the maintenance and repair budget. these budget cuts have resulted in a decrease of funding for maintenance staff and resources, overstretching Grady’s already limited resources. on June 14, the school system first stated on its website that spending was reduced by $3.5 million for the 2010-2011 school year. these budget cuts resulted in a reduction of 8.4 percent for purchased property services for repair and maintenance as well as a 7.8 percent reduction in loose supplies and materials, expendi-tures for textbooks, instructional ma-terials and maintenance.

Phil Scardina, Grady's mainte-nance manager, said it is difficult to keep Grady in good repair with a lack of staff and resources.

“right now, our [district mainte-nance] budget is cut by $2 million,” Scardina said. “it is difficult to get parts and supplies for the district.

things are put on hold until they are an absolute necessity or emergency.”

the decrease in funding for main-tenance has also affected staffing.

“there are fewer maintenance people than in the past,” APS execu-tive director of facilities services Alvah Hardy said.

the number of maintenance staff working for APS has been reduced from a total of 511 in 2010 to 425 in 2011. APS decides how to allo-cate the number of maintenance staff based on three factors. they consider whether the school is an elementary school, a middle school, or a high school. next, they factor in the en-rollment, and lastly the age of the campus. Grady would be considered 7-years-old because it was last reno-vated in 2004.

Scardina is the only person on the staff assigned to electrical and me-chanical maintenance. Besides being in charge of setting up for graduations, testing and basketball games, he has to maintain all mechanical and electrical units throughout the school and sta-dium. He says that he does about 90 percent of the work with the help of the custodial staff (outside contractors perform the other 10 percent, mainly dealing with major repairs to the elec-trical and plumbing units). due to the size of the campus and frequency of the problems that can arise in any building, maintaining the campus can be an overwhelming task.

Gcbasche is not the only teacher feeling the impact of maintenance

cuts. english teacher lisa Willoughby did not have air conditioning for the first month of school. the hot summer in Atlanta was extremely problematic and Willoughby's only alternative to sitting in the heat was to bring in a small fan.

She said that the lack of air condi-tioning “made it really difficult, espe-cially during the preplanning period. “it was hard for students to concen-trate because it was really hot,” Wil-loughby said. She said that the heat made it difficult for students to learn and that the problems were due to the lack of money in the budget to buy more supplies to fix her air-con-ditioning unit.

“She had a fan in there to keep it cool, and that was distracting.” Junior James Moy said. “the noise bothered people.”

it was still the second month of school, and in latin teacher Scott Al-len's class, students were distracted by the sound of water as it leaked into the room and dripped into a trashcan. He complained about a wasp infesta-tion problem and talked daily about killing these wasps. in addition, Allen says he thinks there is mold in the in-structional suite where he teaches.

“it is distracting,” Allen said. “Kids freak out and don’t pay attention.”

He is also worried about the health effects of exposure to mold. the leak and wasp problems were recently solved, and Allen is waiting for a visit from an inspector to search for the source of the mold smell. p

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Graph out of 10 percent

By Gracie White

As senior Andrew Cleveland slowly leans over his cello in preparation to play a piece, his face slightly tightens in concentration. He lifts the bow, and with swift, deliberate movements, slides it across the cello’s delicate strings. The first notes drift out of the door of the sound room, where he is practicing, and into the echoing music hall.

Cleveland’s musical prowess is a frequent topic of discussion in the Grady music scene, said jazz band trumpeter junior Jeffrey Cox.Born into a long line of musicians and per-formers, Cleveland was exposed to many different genres of music and artists during childhood, including Bruce Springsteen and Earth Wind and Fire. Cleveland believes this early eclecticism had a major influence on his current musical interests.

Cleveland’s maternal grandmother and pa-ternal grandfather were both musicians, and his mother, Mary Lynn Owen, is an actress and acting professor; his dad, Rob Cleveland, is a comedian and actor.

When Cleveland and his twin sister, Elo-isa, who also attends Grady, were very young, Cleveland’s parents enrolled them in Kinder-musik classes. According to his dad, Cleve-land’s musical ability surfaced in third grade when he began to play the cello. Although Cleveland plays a wide array of musical in-struments, including bass, guitar, accordion and piano, he prefers the cello. He said it’s his most important instrument because he feels he learns the most while playing it.

Senior Larson Collier, Cleveland’s longtime friend and band mate in the rock group Lotus Slide, believes the cello is Cleveland’s stron-gest instrument and that Cleveland’s musical future is bright.

“Andrew is best at cello because it’s the in-strument he puts the most time into,” Collier said. “He has so much inherent ability that no matter what instrument he chooses, he will excel.”

Though Cleveland creates many of his mu-sical compositions on his own, this Grady art-ist seldom flies solo.

In addition to his involvement in the Grady jazz band as well as 9th Street Jazz, a musi-cal group separate from school, Cleveland is committed to Lotus Slide, the band he joined in 10th grade after the former bassist quit. He is the band’s main bassist and cellist.

“No doubt Andrew has become all of Lotus Slide’s best friend,” said Jack Webster, the lead singer and a guitarist for Lotus Slide. “We got really lucky with Andrew when we chose him as our bassist. [He is a] great kid with a great personality and music taste.”

Cleveland establishes the beat of the band on stage and off. In addition to playing bass, he manages most of the band’s gigs.

As if daily solo practices, weekly band re-hearsals and the occasional weekend band performances weren’t enough, Cleveland still finds time to become involved in his own mu-sic production.

“Even though it’s really hard to do, my new musical interest is arranging and recording, by myself, rock songs for as many cellos as pos-sible,” Cleveland said.

In order to record cello-only rock music, Cleveland listens to the original song, tran-scribes the music, and records himself playing

each part. Cleveland believes that all the time he spends on his music is worth it when he hears the final result.

“I like playing music because it gives me a really awesome way to express myself,” he said. “There is no better way to bring people together than through the universal language of music.”

Cleveland has become increasingly aware of less mainstream musicians and prefers them to the technology-based popular com-posers he believes have taken over the mu-sic industry. He listed artists such as Snowy White, Jack White and Mark Knopfler as personal favorites.

“The interest and popularity of real down-to-earth musicians is gone,” Cleveland said. “It’s so depressing that anyone with a meta-phor about women plus a computer plus an uneducated audience can become a superstar. Pop music should be dead, and real music should make a comeback.”

Luckily, Cleveland is not the only fan of “old school” music.

“My inspirations are my family, my cello teacher, my girlfriend and Stevie Wonder,” Cleveland said.

Whether these influences are indirect or di-rect, each person has greatly shaped this high school student’s dream of continuing his mu-sic career into and beyond college.

“I have no ambitions academically besides making it through high school with good grades,” Cleveland said. “I never want to stop doing music, teaching, performing, directing, whatever it is.”

Although Cleveland excels academically in several subject areas, including history, litera-ture and Latin, music always takes priority.

“I can’t imagine a future for Andrew that doesn’t involve music in some way,” Eloisa Cleveland said. “He is not only super-talented but he’s also highly dedicated. When you see him play, it seems effortless.”

His friends and parents agree.“My family is incredibly supportive in ev-

erything that I do,” Cleveland said. “I’ve got-ten used to the ever-present ‘Andrew, why don’t you play us something?’ whenever we have guests or a family from out of town.”

His family encourages his progress toward a future involving music by offering him ad-vice, giving him support and even playing alongside him.

“Sometimes he plays this song on the cello called ‘Largo,’” Eloisa Cleveland said. “My mom accompanies him on the piano, and it’s really beautiful.”

Owen strongly believes Cleveland has the talent and determined mindset necessary to succeed in the music industry.

“Andrew has many strengths musically – the dexterity of his fingers on both the cello and guitar, his great ear, his ability to sight read just about anything, and to pick up just about any instrument and begin to teach him-self,” Owen said.

Through hard work and dedication, Cleve-land also has become a role model for his peers and other hopeful musicians, his friends and fellow band members said.

“I support anything and everything Andrew does with music,” Webster said. “He’s always got great input and is an awesome dude to have by you on stage.” p

Nov. 11, 2011 a & e

Design students showcase work at MODA exhibitBy Lejoi Lane

Design teacher Patricia Kendall’s students had the opportunity to showcase their products at the Museum of Design Atlanta on Oct. 21 as part of Out Reach 2, a program made possible by a partnership between Grady, the Coca-Cola Company, the Georgia Tech School of Industrial Design and the Industrial Design Society of America.

“We got the most spotlight,” said senior Hai Nguyen, who was participating in the program for the second time. “It looked really, really professional. The folks at MODA set [the products] up on these whitewash podiums, and it looked like one of those picturesque displays encased in glass.”

Kendall’s design students acted as consultants for Coca-Cola and created products for everyday life that were made from recycled Coca-Cola products. Their finished creations were put on display at MODA.

Students broke into groups of three, and each group received assistance from two Georgia Tech design students and two professionals in the design field. The professionals ranged from Auburn University professors to employees of the Decatur design firm The Big Bang.

Each group spent approximately two days brainstorming what it wanted to produce as its products.

Nguyen said his group’s idea was inspired by daily life and the desire to decrease consumption of resources and energy. One of his team members came up with the idea of improving shower rugs. The group then created the Aquafombra, a waterproof shower rug that catches and holds water until it’s full and can release the water through an outlet.

After brainstorming, groups spent approximately a week executing their ideas. They traveled to the Georgia Tech campus, where they worked with design students to further fulfill their group’s visions. Each group made prototypes, which helped them tweak glitches and look for areas in need of improvement.

Over the next few days, groups put the finishing touches on their products and prepared to present them to the Coca-Cola staff, college students, design professionals and their parents.

Nguyen said he enjoyed the presentation more than the exhibit itself, even though both were equally well done, he said. He said the presentation allowed the groups to show more of the backbone of production.

“I liked [the presentations] more because it was more personal, and the groups got to present more of the brainstorming and sketching and the prototyping and the

retrying, failing, retrying, failing again. ... which is more representative of the product than the actual product itself,” Nguyen said.

Participating students were anxious to view the finished projects of other groups and to see how everything finally came together.

“Everybody was excited to see everybody’s work in a professional setting,” Grady senior design student Marius Jackson said.

Jackson thought it was amazing to see his own work displayed and said it helped instill a sense of pride in him.

“It was intriguing and self-satisfying because you see your hard work on display, and it makes you feel important,” Jackson said. “It makes you feel certified to be a part of the design world.”

Nguyen and Jackson agree that the program changed their outlooks toward design and toward the Coca-Cola Company for the better.

Kendall agreed with her students’ assessment of the program and was proud of their work.

“I couldn’t be happier for the students to have this opportunity,” Kendall said. “We are the only high school in the country like this, but we won’t be the last.” p

Cleveland fine tunes his mastery for musical future

CHOPS ON THE CELLO: Senior Andrew Cleveland refines his cello-playing skills in a Grady music room. “I practice every day for three to four hours, ” Cleveland said. “I am bad at staying focused, but I always get things done.”

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The High Museum of Art has been the temporary home to collections from some of the world’s most renowned artists such as Monet, Dali and da Vinci. The new ex-hibit, Picasso to Warhol, has just arrived at the High and gives guests a view of inno-vative artists spanning from

the cubist to pop art movements.Picasso to Warhol showcases 14 of the 20th

century’s most innovative artists. Art from Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol are displayed in the ex-hibit, as well as works from Henri Matisse, Con-stantin Brancussi, Piet Mondrian, Fernand Leger, Joan Miro, Giorgio de Chirico, Marcel Duch-amp, Louise Bourgeois, Jackson Pollock, Alexan-der Calder, Romare Bearden and Jasper Johns.

Patrons approaching the exhibit are met by a wall describing the exhibit and its significance. The wall explains that these contemporary art-ists were selected because they are “artists whose breaks with traditions helped define the radical spirit of the modern age.”

A collection of Picasso’s works appropriately begins a visitor’s journey through the iconoclas-tic exhibit. His sketches and famous pictures such as Girl Before a Mirror are extremely rec-ognizable and exude a familiar and comfortable feeling at the start of the exhibit. This familiar-ity aided my understanding as I walked through the less well-known artists.

Many times, I found myself making notes of which artists to look up when I got home.

Bourgeois was the only female artist included in the show, and her work was distinguishable from the other 13 artists. One sculpture, Quar-antania, I, resembled five blue and white fin-gers reaching up toward the ceiling. Her pencil sketches were soft caricatures of women’s curves, and her paintings used much softer colors than those of the other artists.

Many visitors seemed to enjoy the artwork that was not from the famous artists in the show.

“One of the best pieces is on the wall there,” employee Deborah Monroy said. “It’s Miro’s painting. It’s really contemporary.”

At the end of the exhibit was the artist that I was most excited to see: Andy Warhol. His pieces were in a seperate room and featured his pop-art pictures and his Campbell-Soup-can sculptures. His artwork truly popped with color and inno-vation. It was the perfect ending to the show.

The Picasso to Warhol exhibit, which ends April 29, is high energy, high creativity and highly worth attending. There is no reason not to go see all of these fantastic artists bundled into one show. p

a & e Nov. 11, 201112

Scream on the Screen displays Grady musical talentBy Simon mcLane

The house lights fade, and a hush falls over the crowd as the opening bass line from the Doors song “People Are Strange” resonates through the Grady theater, beginning this year’s Scream on the Screen on Oct. 27.

The annual Halloween-themed show featured Grady or-chestra and chorus performances of songs ranging from The Adams Family theme song and “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” from the Marx Brothers’ movie At the Circus, to a dramatic reading accompanied by the orchestra, entitled “The House of Untold Horrors.”

“The most awesome part was definitely the chorus step dance piece,” junior violinist Cameron Richardson said. “Though my favorite piece I played was ‘The House of the Untold Horrors’ because everybody laughed at its corniness.”

At the end of the show, the audience and performers rocked out to “The Time Warp” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“The best part was that the performers and audience en-

joyed it,” orchestra teacher Sergio Rodriguez said. “Everybody was united in community. Music brings everybody together.”

This was the fourth Scream on the Screen show, a tradi-tion that Rodriguez and chorus teacher Kevin Hill launched together.

“I think the best part about the show is the atmosphere,” Hill said. “It’s kind of like DragonCon. You can be weird and just dress up.”

Rodriguez and Hill said the orchestra and chorus students began practicing at the beginning of the year for the show.

“Besides practicing during class, we had rehearsals every Tuesday until five,” Rodriguez said. “The whole performance is so great because it is about music at a high level.”

Before Rodriguez moved to Atlanta, he composed an or-chestral piece called “Flint River Dusk Till Dawn,” which the orchestra played at the first Scream on the Screen. The piece was inspired by a park in Albany, Ga., where he used to take his daughter, and Rodriguez plans to use the song again next year.

In the future, Rodriguez hopes to compose group pieces with students.

In Rodriguez’s first year at Grady, he approached Hill about doing a Halloween show, something Rodriguez had done with every orchestra he had conducted. Since Grady’s first Scream on the Screen show, the event has changed drastically, evolving from a film festival and concert into just a concert.

“The hardest part [of the film festival] was finding some-one to do the movie clips and getting the recordings,” Ro-driguez said. “I would love to find someone to do the video clips again.”

Hill agreed and said he would love to see the film-festival aspect added to Scream on the Screen in the future.

“I would also like to see some student-made or directed shorts added to the show as well,” Hill said.

Richardson had a different idea about should be added to the show for the future.

“Fireworks,” Richardson said. “The explosions would prob-ably make it better.” p

From Picasso to Warhol, modern artists exhibited

ciena LeShLey

The streets of Cabbagetown sel-dom host large festivals or rabble-rousing performers, but on the first Saturday of November each year, a festival fills its streets. The Chomp and Stomp Chili Festival is an annual tradition run entirely by volunteers in which teams of aspiring chili chefs compete to find out who has the most deli-

cious chili recipe. For the second year in a row, I threw my chef hat

in the ring of this culinary competition. Along with a team of people, I entered a chili recipe known as Red Eye Chili.

“This festival not only allows for our community to come together but allows us to better our community,” said Allicia Thompson, one of 12 leading volunteer co-ordinators of the festival. Her committee launched the festival in 2002. This year marked the ninth Chomp and Stomp, and it was bigger than ever.

Each patron of the festival payed $5 for a spoon, which enabled them to get unlimited chili from any booth. At the end of the day, the judges determined a winner in both the restaurant category, judged by 15 local celebrity judges, and the individual chili category, judged by approximately 50 volunteers chosen prior to the festival.

Each team can have unlimited chili cooks and is as-signed a booth. Teams can decorate their booth as they see fit. They can also bring any cooking utensils and equipment they wish to use while preparing their chili.

My team’s name and recipe were the brainchildren of junior Cole Davies, who, along with junior Patrick Wise and I, made up our team. He came up with the name because of the presence of Red Eye gravy in our recipe, as well as the gallon or so of espresso that gives the chili its distinct flavor.

Some might question the use of espresso, but we were confident that the unique flavor would make

our chili stand out. Another reason for the addition of espresso, be-

sides the spectacular flavor, of course, is that our team is affiliated with Steady Hand Pourhouse, a coffee shop in Emory Village. Davies has been a barista and friend of the employees there for nearly three years.

Last year, my team entered a venison chili and had such a blast that we decided to do it again. This year, our chili recipe and team changed dramatically. Our previ-ous teammate, junior Luke Webster, could not attend because he was out of town the weekend of the compe-tition, and prior to this year, we were not affiliated with Steady Hand Pourhouse. Our entirely new recipe blew a few minds and rocked the boat on Nov. 5.

“I had so much fun last year and was so bummed that I couldn’t serve up some chili with my pals at this year’s Chomp,” Webster said.

Last year was the first time any of us had competed. It was a learning year, a year for us to learn the system.

“The truth is, I think that last year we focused a little too much on the theme and style of the chili as opposed to making the recipe really great,” Wise said. “This year, the recipe was solid, and that’s what matters ... Also this year we used beef as opposed to venison. Let’s just say a chili storm slammed Cabbagetown on Saturday, and we brought the thunder.”

The one untouched part of our process is the tradi-tion of waking up early Saturday morning and preparing roughly 20 gallons of chili at Davies’ home and trans-porting it to the festival. Last year, the blistering cold was so intense that when chili dripped on our hands as we passed it out, we did not even notice getting burned. The harsh weather made another appearance this year, but just like last year, there was nothing holding us back from serving chili as well as we could.

We may not have won this year, but that will not stop us from entering the festival next year and trying just as hard. We plan on showing up with a plethora of new ideas and decorations, spreading the word and refining our recipe for next year’s competition.

For those interested in the Chomp and Stomp, they can visit www.chompandstomp.com and maybe give us some support or some new com-petition next year. p

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Hot chili warms Cabbagetown during chilly annual fall festival

ELIzABETH MCGLAMRY

Nov.11, 2011 13p e o p l e

By Diana Powers

After 30 minutes driving down Ga. 400 with loud country music leaking out of open windows, junior Lily Trapkin arrives at the Atlanta Junior Rowing Association boat house on the Chattahoochee River hours before sunset. She doesn’t try to hide her thrill of arriving at rowing practice, even after a tiresome day of school, and bounds around, chatting with teammates.

Following stretching and a warm-up run, Trapkin and the rest of the women’s novice team at AJRA take down the coach’s motor boats from storage. They work together to carefully lift and take their own rowing boats to the water. Each boat costs approximately $20,000 and is 65 feet long. The girls exercise extreme caution and strong teamwork to make sure they handle the equipment safely. From here, Trapkin and seven other girls from her team climb into their A-8 boat- “A” signifies that it’s the highest ranking boat, and “8” indicates the number of seats on it. The team methodically begins its regular paddling warm-ups to propel the boat swiftly down the river, gaining speed and shifting to the intense 5K practice scheduled that day.

Trapkin follows this routine five days a week, practicing for almost 12 hours every week. She gets home after sundown after practice and then begins homework and other items on her long “to-do” list. Despite the extensive hours and hard work, Trapkin speaks enthusiastically and gestures with her hands wildly as she expresses her passion for crew.

At her mother’s encouragement, Trapkin joined AJRA and began

rowing on the novice team about six months ago. Since then, rowing has become an essential part of her life. Trapkin said she despised the thought of rowing at first, but after agreeing to attend a rowing camp last summer she soon learned that she couldn’t resist the sport.

“After I took that first stroke, I knew I was hooked,” Trapkin said.

Trapkin joined AJRA immediately after attending that camp. AJRA is the main rowing club in Georgia and was founded in 1988 as a nonprofit club dedicated to providing rowing opportunities to high school students throughout metro Atlanta. The association has almost 150 rowers from middle and high schools throughout the Atlanta area. Also referred to as crew, the rowing team participates with other clubs in competitions called regattas. For the fall season, the boats begin a 5-kilometer race at staggered times, and the goal is to have the fastest time. In the spring, the boats race a 5K by sprinting against one another, where the first boat to cross the finish line wins.

“A little down the river is the St. Andrews Club, our nemesis,” Trapkin said. “It’s good to have a rival club in rowing because it’s the competitive anger that gives you that drive to push yourself further.”

This fall season, Trapkin’s team competed in the Head of the Chattanooga regatta on Oct. 8 and the Secret City regatta on Oct. 29 and brought home two gold and two silver metals. On Nov. 5, Trapkin’s boat raced in the second biggest regatta of the nation and placed seventh out of 40.

Trapkin said Grady alumna Kate Belgum, a sophomore at the

University of Georgia, ultimately convinced her to try crew. Belgum spoke enthusiastically to Trapkin about the good friends and team bonding that crew gives people and how it has developed Belgum as a person. Belgum said she was always interested in crew but never pursued it in high school, and when the team at UGA put flyers in all the freshman mailboxes, she decided to go for it.

“As my coach says: ‘Everyone likes rowing: they just don’t know it,’” Belgum said. “I really felt like Lily would benefit from crew—even though she didn’t want to at first—because she’s an athletic swimmer and loves people.”

Trapkin took these words of advice to heart and joined the AJRA team, where she now happily spends a large portion of her time.

Trapkin explained that there are three boats on her team, beginning with the highest ranked or A boat, followed by B and the C. All are eight-person boats and can be rowed with either one oar per person, called sweeping, or two, called skulling. Each boat is divided in half between the four, who sit in the front half of the boat, and the four, who sit in the back. All rowers face backwards looking at the coxsain, who is the only who can see where the boat is headed and is responsible for issuing commands and encouraging the rowers.

In her mid-20s, Anna Debban has been the AJRA women’s novice coach since 2005 and has been an active rower herself since she began in high school. Throughout practice, girls approach her with a myriad of problems. Debban said that crew is all about teamwork,

improving not only as individuals but also as a whole team.

“Lily caught on rather quickly, given that this sport isn’t the easiest to grasp,” Debban said. “It takes immense amounts of time and energy, and Lily seems like a natural athlete, so that definitely helps her.”

She said the first-year rowers who make up her novice team, including Trapkin, show determination and hard work beyond belief and feels that Trapkin is “very coachable” with immense potential. Debban requires the girls to do rigorous physical exercises in addition to the frequent paddling each day, including running 5Ks, performing body circuits with weights, abdominal strengthening workouts and working on the “erg.”

The ergometer is an on-land rowing exercise machine on which crew members practice to improve their body strength and skill. Trapkin currently holds the third fastest erg time on the team. The rowers are timed for 500 meters during a simulated 5-kilometer row. Trapkin’s best erg time is 2 minutes, 10 seconds, 7 seconds slower than the fastest record on the team.

“However much time you put on a rowing machine, strengthening skill and technique and practicing are all apparent on race day,” Belgum said. “Even though you may feel like dying after practice, it also feels really great for your body.”

Trapkin wants to continue rowing throughout college and hopefully afterwards, continuing to improve her skills and meet new people. She is already looking at schools with good crew programs, such as the University of Pennsylvania.

“It’s one of the main requirements

I’m looking for in a college,” Trapkin said. “If a school doesn’t have a rowing team, I refuse to go there.”

Debban expressed that, although crew opens doors to college admission and scholarship, the life skills it teaches are more important. She explained that every member walks away from practice with a better work ethic and dedication toward everything they do.

Trapkin said that crew has had a greater impact on her life than she ever expected, teaching her important lessons and helping her develop as a person. In addition to the skills of the sport, it has taught her to manage her time efficiently and how to work well with people. The team has to be well-disciplined and able to follow orders, because playing around could easily damage the equipment and people.

“It is the true definition of a team sport—no quitting,” Trapkin said. “When you’re on the water, you don’t just quit on yourself but every single person on your boat.”

Despite the fact that Trapkin has only been friends with her crew teammates for a few months, she’s made lifelong friends who “already feel like sisters,” Trapkin said.

“Crew is an intimately woven sport,” Debban said. “It’s smooth and beautiful on the surface, but at the same time, it’s the roughest, hardest thing.”

“Lily talks to me all the time about crew, and how it has changed her,” Belgum said. “Her mentality has changed and made her a team player but also a strong leader. She has a whole other crew life, with a crew family that has made her incredibly happy and filled her life to the brim.” p

Junior learns that value of crew lies beneath surface

JUST ROW WITH IT

ROW YOUR BOAT: Junior Lily Trapkin (center) with her crew teammates Mary Waldman (left) and Hayley Liebenow (right) from the Atlanta Junior Rowing Association, row on the Chattahoochee River in northwest Atlanta.

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Bradley adjusts to see world through different lensBy Alix youngBlood

Junior Jasper Bradley was born about the length of a Bar-bie. His due date was Aug. 20, 1995, but instead, Bradley was born three months early on May 20 of that year. Brad-ley’s mother, Elizabeth Bradley, was admitted to the hospi-tal after just five months of pregnancy and remained in the hospital for approximately one month until she gave birth to her son.

When Bradley did arrive, the doctors discovered another issue. Due to his premature birth, Bradley’s eyes had not developed fully. Using laser surgery, doctors were able to save the vision in his right eye, but they could not attach the retina in his left eye. As a result, Bradley has no vision in his left eye, and the vision in his right eye is not 20-20. Initially, he was severely near-sighted in his working eye with 20-60 vision, but his vision has since improved and is 40-60 today.

Bradley adjusted to wearing glasses at the young age of 6 months old. He rarely took them off, and learned at a young age not to misplace them. After one preliminary prescrip-tion, Bradley switched to a second, more effective prescrip-tion, and his parents were pleased with the results.

“You could really see in his face that he was seeing more,” Elizabeth Bradley said.

When Bradley was approximately 2 years old, his glasses went missing for about a week.

“He was angry a lot [when he lost his glasses], and then one day he left the room and came back wearing his glasses,” Elizabeth Bradley said. “We don’t know if he hid them or lost them or what.”

The main challenge that Bradley faces with eyesight in only one eye is a lack of depth perception. He explained that he cannot “triangulate three-dimensionally.”

Because of this inability, Bradley has had to adapt to doing a myriad of everyday tasks without depth perception. When

he was younger, Bradley’s parents remember watching him adjust to walking up and down stairs.

“He had to figure out how far down ‘down’ was,” Bradley’s father David Bradley said.

If his fondness of rock climbing and hiking is any indica-tion, he more than figured it out. The only sport that Jasper eventually decided wasn’t worth the effort was baseball.

In school, the only time that Bradley felt truly at a disad-vantage was when he was too shy to ask to be moved to the front of the classroom.

“I did get some bullying early on and a little in middle school, but it never really bothered me,” Bradley said. “It was just heckling.”

AP World History teacher George Darden, who taught Brad-ley as a sophomore, was impressed with him as a student.

“Jasper marches to the beat of his own drum,” Darden said. “He knows a great deal about subjects he finds interest-ing, whether we have covered them in school or not. … He is very unique. He is very inquisitive, and he enjoys learning.”

Darden’s wife, Kacie Darden, taught Jasper in seventh grade and would bring home stories about him as a student. After hearing her stories, George Darden looked forward to having Bradley as a student even before he met him, and Bradley did not disappoint, Darden said.

Regardless of Stalling said. what the future holds, Bradley’s parents are proud of their son and how well he has done.

“Jasper has a very good character as a person, a human being,” Elizabeth Bradley said. “He underestimates himself, he’s his own worst critic, and sometimes we just have to re-mind him to give himself slack.” p

Students give unusual thanksBy MegAn PrendergAst

Junior Ruben Velez’s father’s family is Puerto Rican so each Thanksgiving, a double stuffed turkey is prepared—half Puerto Rican and half American. Velez’s aunt Casilda Velez prepares the Puerto Rican stuffing while Ruben’s mother Rebecca Velez makes the American stuffing.

“[The stuffings are] quite different but equally deli-cious,” Ruben Velez said.

As a child Velez enjoyed the annual trip to Fayetville, N.C. to visit his dad’s side of the family.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Grady stu-dents are reminiscing on past Thanksgivings and looking forward to the upcoming merriment.

Freshman Decker D’Alesio also incorporates his heri-tage into his Thanksgiving tradition. While D’Alesio en-joys the typical Thanksgiving meal of turkey, mashed po-tatoes, corn on the cob, green beans, carrots, bread rolls, corn bread, salad and pie, his family adds a twist. The American-Italian family adds an additional dish to the menu: lasagna. Jerry D’Alesio, Decker’s father, is unable to eat turkey, making this addition his favorite dish.

“All the women in my family make amazing food, but everyone cares about the lasagna, so my mom, my aunt and my grand-ma all compile their ideas for lasagna into one,” Jerry D ’ A l e s i o said. “That lasagna is good!”

S e n i o r Chase Maxson experienced a unique Thanksgiving at an Italian restaurant with his friends. Since then, it has become a tradition of Maxson’s to go to odd restaurants o n Thanksgiving, like foreign joints.

“We went to this really small Italian place, and there was a sea of elderly people having a celebration,” Maxson said. “We just kind of blended in and had fun too.”

Over the years, Maxson has had his fair share

of unusual Thanksgiving dinners.“By far the best year was when we went to Hong Kong

Harbor on Cheshire Bridge,” Maxson said. “Nothing said Thanksgiving except all the ducks that were on the tables. [It was] like a scene out of A Christmas Story.”

One of junior Reilly Lerner’s traditions is to help pre-pare the food. The day before Thanksgiving, she and her mom prepare some dishes that only require being reheat-ed the next day, although a lot of the cooking and prepa-ration is still left for Thursday morning and afternoon.

“I make the cranberry apple crunch,” Lerner said. “[It’s] my favorite.”

David Lerner, Reilly’s father, is usually in charge of their family’s turkey-frying tradition. With the help of Mark, his brother, and John, his brother-in-law, Lerner prepares the meal’s main course—two fried turkeys.

“One year our backyard caught on fire,” Lerner said. “There was a big burnt spot on the grass.”

Several Grady students agree that as children grow up Thanks-giving has a differ-ent meaning.

“Thanksgiving was way more of a big deal when I was

a kid,” Ruben Velez said. “We don’t visit [my family] every year now, but we still

have the double-stuffing recipes. Everyone’s grow-ing up, so we can’t have simple fun as much like we did back then.”

Junior Jared McCan-non said that as a child Thanksgiving was all about the food.

“[Now] it is more sig-nificant,” McCannon said.

“It i s a time for families to get to-gether and give thanks.”

Sophomore Maegan Carnley said that when she was younger Thanksgiving was slightly dull and unexciting.

“But now I actually look forward to seeing my family, and I really appreciate it a lot

more,” Carnely said. p

continued from front page

“I was No. 13. There was a whole line of girls outside waiting to audition.”

The audition consisted of only screaming in front of a camera and making up a story about a bear. Simonton was in Chicago on a college visit when she learned the news that she had been cast.

“It was about 6:56 when I got a phone call from Jayme [Pervis],” Simonton said. “I was in a hotel so my phone wasn’t working for some reason, so I couldn’t answer the call, but then I got a text that said ‘CALL ME NOW!’, so I rushed outside to where I had service and called her up.”

When Pervis answered, she exclaimed that she needed to know if Simonton would agree to do the commercial, and needed to know before 7 p.m.

“I was so excited when I learned that I had gotten it,” Simonton said. “And to think that I was literally seconds away from missing that oppor-tunity … it was just crazy.”

Simonton recognizes that the commercial was a big deal but still loves performing in front of live audiences.

“I just love the feeling of being in front of everybody and knowing that all eyes are on me and knowing that I have all of the time in the world to do what I have to do,” Simonton said.

Simonton sees acting as a big part of her future and would like to continue to do it throughout her life. p

MARCHES TO OWN BEAT: Since birth, junior Jasper Bradley has fought limits placed upon him, teaching himself to compensate without full vision.

SIMONTON wins best actress

THEATER THRILLS: Simonton crawls on stage in the most recent production at Grady, Property Rites. The play came in fifth place overall in the state one-act competition.

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Nov. 11, 2011

Turner: ‘cornered, tricked and bamboozled’ into team coach

Practice locations remain scarce despite new stadium

s p o r t s 15

No place to practice. Forced out of our own stadium. Unable to practice in a park right across the street.

This displacement afflicted Grady’s spring sports teams last year. One year later, nothing has changed.

Grady’s spring sports face eviction from their own field again this upcoming season.

Lakewood, Atlanta Public School’s other stadi-um, is currently undergoing renovation, a process that started last winter. If the renovation isn’t completed by the start of the spring season, then all home games for APS schools will be played in Grady Stadium for the second year in a row. This means less practice time for Grady teams once the season starts.

Last season, there were only eight spring days without games or track meets at Grady Stadium. Most games started at 5:30; however, most teams were given about 30 minutes to warm up. Six Grady teams—boys soccer, girls soccer, boys JV soccer, girls JV soccer, boys lacrosse, girls lacrosse—had about an hour to practice on one full field and one small field to the side of the stadium before they were kicked off. The track team also had to stop practice once the games started.

Even if the renovation of Lakewood Stadium is completed before spring season starts, the numerous problems related to field space still will not go away.

At the beginning of last year, the lacrosse team practiced from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., while the soccer teams had the field from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The girls team would take one half of the field while the boys team would take the other. The JV soccer teams were left to fight among themselves for the cramped piece of grass next to the stadium. This meant that none of the soccer or lacrosse teams were able to simulate a game experience, since each team practiced on half a field or less.

The situation is made more maddening by the presence of a spa-cious public park across the street, which has been declared off limits to Grady’s soccer, lacrosse, baseball and ultimate Frisbee teams. Why? The cross country and tennis teams routinely walk across the street to practice their sport, and the Piedmont Park Conservancy has never told them they couldn’t do so. The soccer team has been kicked off for not having a coach. The ultimate Frisbee team isn’t even allowed to practice in Piedmont when they do have a coach. I have heard various reasons for why Grady sports teams can’t (or haven’t) practiced—logis-tics, liability, money issues —but fundamental inconsistency remains: why can only certain Grady sports teams practice in Piedmont while others can’t?

The sad part is the double standard isn’t even the worst part of the story.There are areas within Piedmont Park specifically designated for softball,

which has the same playing field as baseball—a diamond, but the Grady baseball team can’t even practice there.

Why can’t a public high school that’s right across from a public park ac-cess those park’s facilities?

What’s worse is that APS, who got Grady into this mess with the pro-longed renovation of Lakewood Stadium (the renovation was suppose to be completed by Sept. 1 of this year), doesn’t seem to be doing anything to rectify the situation.

The football team had to deal with similar problems this season as well. They were only able to have two full days of practice each week—Mondays and Tuesdays. The ultimate Frisbee team had to practice at Central Park last year because they, too, aren’t allowed to use Piedmont’s fields. They also confront the same situation this season.

It’s time for APS to stand up and help Grady out. It’s time for APS to pay the $63 a day needed for Grady’s spring sports teams to be able to practice on a full-sized field. Here’s the number to call: 404-875-7275.

Do your duty, APS. p

By Mac Barrineau and

Lindsey Leonard

Grady’s cross-country team ran in the regional meet at Mercer University on Oct. 29. The girls varsity team along with senior Zane Coburn, qualified for the state competition.

The varsity girls team finished in third place out of five teams with an average time of 22:48, just be-hind Woodward Academy and St. Pius X High School.

The team’s finish qualified the seven-member team to compete in the state meet on Nov. 5 in Car-rollton. The girls team consisted of seniors Nally Kinnane, Alix Young-blood and Molly Daniel, junior

Isabelle Taft, sophomores Allison Rapoport and Emma Kasper and freshman Grace Powers. Kasper injured herself before the state meet so freshman Lia Pett ran in her place.

Coburn said six of the top 10 teams in Georgia are in Grady’s region, making the regional meet very competitive.

“We have the hardest region in the state,” Coburn said.

Girls cross-country coach and science teacher Jeff Cramer has developed a method to prepare his athletes for the tough region.

“We run every day,” Cramer said. “But I like to throw in some-thing fun to take their minds off

of the pressure from the upcoming meet.”

During the week before the re-gional meet, the girls ran normal practices but also made tie-dyed shirts. Cramer said it was a nice way to have some fun and help re-lieve stress.

“We want them to win, but we only ask them that they do their best,” he said.

Cramer said he was proud of the girls and their third-place finish.

Though the varsity boys team was eager to return to state after making it last year, they placed fifth in the region with an average time of 18:50, and they did not qualify as a team. Coburn finished

as the second overall runner with a time of 16:55 and qualified for state. The boys varsity team con-sisted of Coburn and senior Austin Burch, juniors Dominic Romeo and Troy Kleber and sophomores Archie Kinnane, Adrian D’Avanzo and Benjamin Searles.

“[The boys varsity team] didn’t make it to the state meet but had a pretty good meet,” Coburn said. “We probably could have made it out in any other region.”

Coburn has now turned his at-tention to the state competition.

“The regional meet is in the past and now it’s time to focus on the state meet,” Coburn said. “Every-one gave it their all.” p

Cross-country team faces mixed results at regionals

PhiLLiP suitts

A SWIM COACH WITH A DRY SENSE OF HUMOR: Broderick Turner’s (right) instruction to Ryan Switzer comes drenched with sarcasm.

By naLLy Kinnane

Broderick Turner’s tall stance, broad shoulders and long swaying arms indicate that he is a swimmer. Turner has been swimming in At-lanta for the last 20 years.

“I have always loved swimming, but I swim to prevent fatness if we are being honest,” Turner said.

Turner swam for the City of At-lanta Dolphins throughout his child-hood. At North Atlanta High School he became one of the founders of the swim team while he was a student. Turner said he tried branching out to other sports but he always eventually found his way back to swimming.

“When I was younger I went to the Olympic Train-ing Center for water polo, and I tried to play basket-ball, but I sucked,” Turner said. “Swimming seemed to be the only thing I was good at.”

Turner went on to college at Emory University where he competed on the varsity swim team, but quit after two weeks, he said, so that he could “party.” Turner admits it wasn’t a shining moment in his life, but he doesn’t regret quitting the team.

“I then joined the intramural team where I kicked butt in the freestyle sprint, and I continued to swim two days a week all through college,” Turner said.

All the hours in the pool made Turner something of a swimming sage. Sophomore Allison Rapoport said you can tell he has a lot of swimming experience from his coaching style.

When Turner started teaching at Grady three years ago he had no idea that he would be the swim coach.

“I was cornered, tricked and bamboozled by Coach [Ukah] to start coaching the team, but it worked out,” Turner said. “Coaching the swim team is my favorite part of my job.”

Sophomore swimmer Ryan Switzer said interacting with Turner is easily the best part about being on the

swim team. “He makes swimming fun for

me,” Switzer said. “He doesn’t mind telling you exactly what is on his mind, but he is always funny and encouraging.”

Students on the swim team can’t help but notice Turner’s eccentric style choices.

“Yesterday at practice he showed up in a baby-blue tank top and women’s leggings,” Switzer said. “We all laughed at him, but it

doesn’t matter to him.”Rapoport described Turner as quirky and said he

always wears strange socks to practice. “One of the best things about Mr. Turner is that he

really takes the time to talk individually with each of us to discuss what we personally need to work on,” Rapoport said. “And he tells us what we need to do to get to where we need to be as swimmers.”

Turner said his coaching technique is having the better swimmers train the weaker swimmers. He be-lieves that most swimmers do too much yardage so he is trying to get the kids to go hard and intense in a very short amount of time in the pool.

“I am trying to push the kids so hard that one of them pukes this season,” Turner said.

Switzer said Turner doesn’t think he can be con-sidered a real swim coach until he causes someone to barf.

Turner makes an effort to be approachable to the swimmers on the team. Every now and then he will get in the pool and swim with the team, Rapoport said.

“I only race them when I feel like they can handle the whooping,” Turner said. “I do it to embarrass them and to let them know how slow they are and make myself feel better when I beat 13- and 14-year-olds. I like to rub it in when I beat them. Ahh take that, you tiny person!” p

third in a series

COaChes

Senior boys varsity runner Zane Coburn finished second at the state cross-country meet in Carrollton on Nov. 5. Coburn completed the five-kilomer course in 16:03.

“I ran my best time by 20 seconds, but I just couldn’t pull out the win,” he said.

The girls varsity placed 13th, and all seven runners finished in the top 120. While the girls’ season is over, Coburn plans to keep competing.

“Everyone ran a great race, and I’m hoping for top 30 at nationals,” Coburn said. p

-- Mac Barrineau

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theHENRY W. GRADY HIGH SCHOOL, ATLANTA NOV. 11, 2011

thesoutherneronline.comVOLUME LXV, NUMBER 3

sectionSportsWhen I go to

a football game, whether it is high school, college or professional, I ex-pect to see crazy fans. I expect to hear cheering mixed with the sound of clashing

shoulder pads. I expect to smell the fumes of hot dogs and beer hovering in the air. What I don’t expect to see, however, is frus-trated, temper-driven players and coaches attacking each other.

Recently, in the news, I’ve heard about multiple cases of athletes or coaches ex-changing harsh, unnecessary words or get-ting into physical brawls. Maybe it’s just the ubiquitous media reporting every little con-flict, but I didn’t think such displays were so commonplace. I didn’t think fights at or-ganized sporting events, at least among ath-letes and coaches, were an everyday occur-rence. It makes me think that maybe teams are starting to take rivalries too far. Maybe now all losers and winners are sore. Maybe, these days, no one is being taught the eti-quette of athletics and sportsmanship.

It was particularly disturbing to hear about such a case so close to home. On Oct. 14, after Hancock Central High School beat rival Warren County High School 21-2 in its homecoming game, Warren County head coach David Daniel ended up in the hospi-tal. Daniel had to get reconstructive surgery on his face after attempting to break up a fight instigated by the winning team.

In another incident, San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh was over-celebrat-ing after a win and was apparently a little too rough with Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz in the post-game handshake. He also reportedly said something inappropri-ate. Players were forced to separate the two to prevent a scuffle. Grown men fighting over a game? I think football is beginning to be taken much too seriously.

Don’t get me wrong. I love football. It’s easy to get sucked in, rooting for your favor-ite team and shouting at the TV any time you don’t agree with a call. But there’s a line between passion and obsession. And when you cross that line, aggressive emotions can get in the way of common sense.

I’m worried this poor sportsmanship could be becoming entrenched in our so-ciety. As children, we’re taught winning is good and losing is bad. Kids see their role models and sports icons, like tennis star Serena Williams, on TV behaving in un-acceptable, poor-spirited ways and think that’s the norm.

There’s no excuse for exhibiting poor sportsmanship, even if you are extremely disappointed about a loss or exhilarated about a win. In the end, sports are just games that are meant to be fun. Yelling, dirty looks and physical violence make the whole experience unenjoyable for both fans and athletes. So why ruin a beautiful dis-play of physical talent? p

Sports figures

forget we play

for enjoyment

Tricked ouT: derwin Brown (above and left)

attempts tricks in the Skateraid festival in late

September in decatur. Zac Garrett (middle) entered

the competition at the Skateraid festival and

placed second. Garrett has a deep appreciation

for the art of skating. “it’s an art form because you

can be really creative, and everybody has their own individual style,” he said.

eddie Schwartz (right) performs a trick called a foot nose grab spine transfer at old Fourth

Ward Skate Park.

By Joe Lavine

A skateboard is nothing but an 8- by 32-inch, wooden board on four wheels, but for three Grady students, it is worth so much more. It is a professional aspiration, a childhood dream or a lucrative spon-sorship. For juniors Derwin Brown, Eddie Schwartz and Zac Garrett, skateboarding is how they roll.

Brown started skating five years ago after watching his cousin skate down his street doing lines of tricks.

“My cousin started, and I got hooked because it looked cool,” Brown said.

He tries to skate every day, whether he goes to a skate park or just skates by his house. He goes to Old Fourth Ward Skate Park and Atnalta Skate Park twice a week. Because Brown likes skating street courses more than skating bowls, he prefers At-nalta. Brown recently competed in the Dirty South Skate Fest at Atnalta as well as Skateraid, a skateboarding festival in Decatur in late September.

Brown hopes to eventually go pro-fessional, but first he is trying to score a sponsorship from either Ruin Skate-boarding or Love Skateboarding.

Relative to Brown and Garrett,

Schwartz has been skating for a short

time. His friend, ju-nior Henry White,

introduced him to it just three

y e a r s ago.

S i n c e t h e n ,

s k a t i n g has been a

passion for Schwartz. He

skates for trans-portation and said

he goes to Old Fourth Ward Skate Park, his fa-

vorite skate park, two or three times a week. “It’s amazing,” Schwartz

said. “It has some odd geometry, but it’s pretty neat.” Schwartz views skating more as a

fun activity and, unlike Brown, does not wish to turn it into a career. He still has plans, however, to keep skateboard-ing in his life.

“When I grow up to be a man, I want to have a big ramp at my house,” Schwartz said.

Schwartz said he plans to teach his children the sport he loves.

“Nothing would make me prouder than having a kid that is good at skate-

boarding,” Schwartz said.Garrett has been skating for six

years, the longest of the three. He said he started in fifth grade when he saw some kids two years older than him skating, and he wanted to be like them.

When Garrett was in eighth grade, he got sponsored by

Stratosphere Skateboards, which he has found to be extremely beneficial in

his skateboarding.“You get your name

out there,” Garrett said. “And you get

k n o w n around.”He said being sponsored by Strato-

sphere means they support him in his goal to have a successful skateboarding future, and the company benefits when Garrett shows off his Stratosphere gear in competitions.

Garrett, like Brown, skated at the Skateraid festival. Garrett entered the competition at the festival and won sec-ond place, which came with new clothes and a new skateboard.

When he is not skating in competi-tions, Garrett skates for transportation. He goes to Old Fourth Ward Skate Park twice a week.

“It’s just fun,” Garrett said. “Whenev-er I skate, all the problems in my mind just fade away.” p

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