Pep Rally 2008

The Start of Winter Sports

On Wednesday November 17th, winter sports season started. Girls and boys basketball tryouts began on a great start. Winter track for boys and girls also began yesterday out side on the track . Down in the wrestling room, the wrestlers started preparing and working out for upcoming matches. Boys and girls bowling also started and they practice at the Smithtown AMC Bowling lanes. Also girls softball and lacrosse are getting ready for the spring season. Most of the sports this year had a large turnout of students from Smithtown West trying out and practicing on the winter teams. Winter sports will continue until about Febuary break and then spring sports will start.

Student Parking at Smithtown High School West is Potentially Dangerous

       At Smithtown High School West, seniors that drive are forced to park in a specific parking lot depending on when they arrive to the building. For some students this means parking in the fourth parking lot from the school, where the buses also park at the end of the day.

      The buses stop and wait for students while parked directly behind the seniors’ cars, potentially causing a safety hazard for the teens who have parked there. Some students have afterschool jobs and other obligations that they must attend at a specific time, so many don’t have the time or patience to wait for the buses to leave. They may try to get out of the lot with the buses still behind them, creating the possibility of hitting a bus that is parked.

Melissa McGuire, a senior here a Smithtown High School West who drives to and from school everyday, explains that she doesn’t like the set up of the fourth parking lot. If she doesn’t get to her car before the buses arrive, then she has to wait to leave. She has a babysitting job three days a week, so waiting in the school parking lot isn’t convenient for her.

      Some students attempt to guide others out of their parking spots with the buses behind them, and on occasion they are successful, but the cars come very close to crashing into the parked buses.

      The way that this parking lot is set up is a safety hazard, and the location of where the students and buses park should be altered. One solution to this problem would be to force the buses to park in a different area, away from student parking, to prevent accidents from occurring. Another solution would be to create a divider in the lot, so that one half of it will be for buses only, the other half for parking.

Something must be done about this matter to prevent future problems, and to protect the safety of student here a Smithtown High School West.

Editorial: Mall, Movies, Town and Repeat

           Friday nights are usually a way to de-stress from a long school week.  Most teenagers who live in Smithtown, don’t have that many options on how they are spending their Friday nights. The main things students do in Smithtown is go to town, go to the mall or catch a movie at the movie theatre. These three things can get boring after a while.
         Going to the mall quickly gets boring and repetitive. Also, since the price of a movie ticket went up to $11.00 it’s expensive for kids to go to the movies often. Town is fun but is really just based around the restaurants and small coffee houses like Starbucks. Marisa Sehested a sophomore states that “there are things to do in Smithtown you can go to the movies the mall or even red mango!”  
Most students go to parties at peoples’ houses but they are rare to happen every weekend. Also most kids don’t have jobs so they don’t have a lot of money to go to places like the mall or the movies. Since most students don’t have cars they are very limited as to where they can go.  Nicole LaMonica a sophomore from Smithtown West says that “Smithtown should offer more activities to do on the weekends so that kids don’t resort to destructive decisions such as alcohol or drugs.”’                       
         Activities also vary due to the seasons. In the summer fun places like the beach, Adventureland and Splish Splash are open and then closed in the winter months. This gives students less options on what to do. As the winter months approach kids are left with even less things to do because of the cold weather. Emily Doveala a sophomore from Smithtown West states that “There aren’t really many things to do in the winter besides hanging out with your friends at someone’s house.” Some other activities include ice skating, bowling and many other activities.
           If you have a car you have more options but then you still end up leaving Smithtown. Smithtown could really grow or feed the local economy if they had more activities for kids.

Maroon 5 concert review

           On August 11th, 2010, people were rushing into Jones Beach around 7 o’clock to see Maroon 5.  The night was perfect for the concert. People rushed into the stadium to get ready for the concert. Souvenirs and food were being sold outside the stadium.    
           First, VV Brown started the concert by singing a couple of her songs from her album: Traveling Like the Light.  At the end of her performance, she sang one of her hits, “Shark in the Water”. By the end of her performance, it was starting to get dark and then Owl City was next up.
Owl City’s performance included background singers and a couple of string instruments like the bass and violin. I really wasn’t a fan of Owl City before but when they played live they were excellent.  Adam Young, the lead singer of Owl City, was very friendly to everyone and helped make everyone pumped for the band everyone was waiting for Maroon 5!
          It was around 9 o’clock when the lights went dark and slowly rose as the musicians of Maroon 5 came out .The crowd was going wild. Finally, out of the dark the music starts playing; the song was “Misery”, which is their hit single from their new album: Hands All Over. Maroon 5 played some of their old songs from their previous albums such as Songs about Jane and It Won’t Soon be Before Long.  Maroon 5 only lasted about an hour and a half. Although they were really good, they should have made the concert long because they have so many great songs.
          The band left early and everyone was shocked. But the crowd called for an encore, and that is what the band gave us. They played many songs that got the crowd pumped. The night ended with the song Sunday Morning from their album: Songs about Jane. This classic song caused a sensation of people singing along and dancing. At the end, Maroon 5 gave their bows and the crowd went wild. People left in a good mood and the night was a hit.

Title- Coach Harmon : The passing away of a beloved coach

            On July, 17th 2010 a beloved coach of Smithtown School District passed away.  Patrick Harmon passed away after fighting brain cancer for several years. Despite Coach Harmon’s struggles , nothing stopped him when he coached and taught at the Smithtown High Schools. Harmon worked at Smithtown East as a permanent substitute teacher and coached football. At West, Coach Harmon coached winter and spring track and field for the boys and girls.
           At Smithtown West, most of the kids knew Coach Harmon as one of the coaches of the track and field team.  One of the track coaches in our school, Mrs. Flynn (works in the math office) worked with Coach Harmon for many years. “He was a very dedicated coach, he was at practice every day even when he didn’t feel well. He was supportive of the athletes and other coaches and will be greatly missed this season,” said by Mrs. Flynn.  Senior Kate Feulner worked with Coach Harmon in shot put every winter since she was a freshman at High school West.  “Coach Harmon was loved by all who knew him and was a great coach. He spent all his spare time training our shot-put team to be the best we could be and because of his help and dedication we all improved. I will miss all the jokes and laughs we shared with him”, says Feulner.
           Gianna Glock an 11th grader who was on winter and spring track since freshmen year also had a few things to say about Coach Harmon. “Coach Harmon was, and always will be, an amazing coach. He was such an inspirational person who didn’t take life for granted. I’m so grateful to have had him as a shot-put and discus coach for the past 2 years and he will never be forgotten”, says Glock.
During the time when Coach Harmon was first diagnosed with cancer, he started to work with George Haines. Haines was also diagnosed with brain cancer like Coach Harmon. Both men worked together and they created BCMeetUp which was a support group for people who were affected by brain cancer. This gave people who were struggling with brain cancer a way to connect with other people who were dealing with brain cancer. For any more information on this website, check out: http://www.meetup.com/braincancer/.
           After the passing of Coach Harmon, the students of the Smithtown School district worked together to create a fundraiser walk/run on behalf of Coach Harmon. All the proceeds go to the American Cancer Society. This will be taking place on October 10th at the New York Avenue School building. To register and find out more go to:  http://www.active.com/running/smithtown-ny/5k-runwalk-for-pat-harmon-2010.
         The upcoming winter and spring track season at West will be a lot different without Coach Harmon.  His dedication was a very positive feature to the track and field team.  Although the team has lost a great coach, his memory will still live on for years to come.   Coach Harmon will always be remembered as an amazing coach who was and his legend will live on at the Smithtown High schools.

Library Closing Time a Hard Transition for Smithtown West

             As school started and the new year began to transcend, students at Smithtown High School West were faced with homework and projects.  For some kids, the library after school is a place for them to do their work and meet up with other students for studying.

Due to the budget cuts, Mrs. Masrour says that the library now closes at 2:30 p.m. this year, when last year it didn’t close until 3:00 p.m. This has been a problem for most of the students that use the library regularly.

    Jackie Falk, a student here at Smithtown High School West, said that, “it is really annoying and I find that I need more time to work on my work.”  With the amount of homework and projects that are given at Smithtown West, time is valuable to the students and they need to use library time as often as possible. Kids have a hard time concentrating at home with multiple distractions, which is why they sometimes choose to stay after school to do their homework, but if the library closes at 2:30, the students only have a maximum of thirty minutes to try to get all of their homework done.
           “The staff cut last year caused the library to lose one librarian and now three are left which leaves two for the morning and one in the afternoon,” says Mrs. Masrour. Since there is a lack of librarians, the time for after school library has been significantly cut from last year. The library is open 5 days a week.

Mr. Coady is planning to make changes that are going to be released at a later date. Teachers that currently work in the building have been walking around the halls making sure that students have something to do after the library closes-while they are waiting for the bus-but students need quiet time inside of a library where they can ask a librarian for help with whatever they are working on. Kids become bored and reckless while waiting for the bus and bad things are bound to happen. If the students have a place to sit and do their work while waiting for the bus it can benefit the teachers and the students.                                              

    As the school year progresses, Mrs. Masrour states that the chances of having the library close at a later  time is “very unlikely this year .” She also stated that “the librarians didn’t make the decision, the budgets did.”  For the students at Smithtown High School West, this new time change at the library will be a hard transition to get used to.

Teen Mom: Raising the Bar on Drama

          The popular television show, Teen Mom, has been airing on MTV for two seasons now, the end of the second season being just last week. The show started off as 16 and Pregnant; a show about high school girls who are forced to become mothers at a very young age. After the show became wildly popular, MTV chose four girls that were originally on an episode of 16 and Pregnant and made them the stars of Teen Mom. 

Maci, Catelynn, Farrah, and Amber were chosen to be the four girls that MTV focused on. Maci has a little boy named Bentley and is separated from Ryan, Bentleys dad. They were engaged but after multiple fights and immaturity they broke it off. Catelynn had to give her daughter up for adoption after realizing that she doesn’t have the best family life. Her and her boyfriend Tyler have come to accept the fact that they wont be raising their daughter Carly, but Catelynn’s mom just can’t forgive Catelynn for giving her daughter up. Farrah has had some major fights with her mom including a split lip, the police and jail time, but now Farrah is in the middle of building back up her relationship with her mom. Also, Farrah has to deal with the fact that her daughter, Sophia’s dad, is deceased which makes her life harder than it needs to be. Amber, the last of the teen moms, has some anger management problems that have put her all over the news. She has hit and kicked her ex-fiancé in front of her daughter, which had caused the world to question her parenting skills. Unless she controls her temper and proves to everyone her daughter Leah is in fact safe living in her house, her ex Gary might just get custody of Leah.

            Teen mom shows how teens face their problems and take over a situation at such a young age. It shows that you can do what you want to and what you need to if you set your mind to it. The show sets a good example for kids that either are teen moms or kids that are just in a sticky situation. Teen mom shows honestly what it is like to be a teen mom. Through the hard times and the good times these girls are able to pull through every time without letting their children down.  It shows kids that if you need to grow up you can, and that you can take responsibility for your actions no matter how bad or good they are.  This show is a fun watch that just takes you away from all of your problems for an hour and brings you away from all your stress. I suggest watching this show every week.

School Lunches at Smithtown High School West Extremely Unhealthy

     At Smithtown High School West, students are given the choice to bring lunch from home or buy lunch from school during their lunch periods. Many kids buy lunch from school, as well as bring lunch from home. The lunch choices at Smithtown High School West vary day to day however they always contain unhealthy choices.

      Everyday the school lunch counter offers some kind of french fry or fried potato, a choice of different bagels, or the special of the day which is usually something unhealthy. The school does offer healthy choices such as salads; wraps and Boars Head sandwiches, however most kids usually order the unhealthy items because they are more appealing to the taste buds. If the school didn’t offer these unhealthy choices than maybe the students wouldn’t be so unhealthy and some on the verge of obesity.

      The schools lunch ladies don’t have to do much work when it comes to preparing these unhealthy meals. They usually just pop the precooked meals in an oven and then their job is done. As a result of the easy job the food manufactures have to put a lot of preservatives and unhealthy items into the food to make them stay fresh over long periods of time.

      Kids mostly always grab the pizza, chicken fingers, fries and the dessert on the lunch line but never really go for the healthy choices such as wraps and salads. These unhealthy choices always seem more appealing to the eye and the mouth, but if kids really knew what went into the food their eating they wouldn’t be so quick to grab the pizza.

      Amanda McGuire, a sophomore here at Smithtown High School West feels that “the school lunches are repulsive and shouldn’t even be offered for kids to eat.” Danielle Reffsin also of the 10^th grade states that “the food tastes like what it is. Processed junk food. It’s worse than McDonald’s health wise.” 

      Food here at Smithtown High School West should be better for the kids but still be something that they like to eat. Maybe if students enjoyed eating the healthy food from school they would be healthier and have had a more nutritious lunch which could help in the long run with their grades.

     

GYM CLASSES: BECOMING MORE ACADEMIC DAY BY DAY

Physical education classes at Smithtown High School West have always been a place where kids can find their exercise for the day without going to harsh practices and tedious workouts for school sports and activities.

The school board has come up with many fun ways to endure a workout with classes like Project Adventure and Movement and Explore. These fun ways to spend 40 minutes of exercising have been fading away quickly.

When the kids of Smithtown West went into their gym classes on the first day of school they were told about their classes and handed a course description syllabus. That sheet of paper has changed dramatically over the years.

This year the kids that partake in all the different types of physical education classes have a few new rules. The kids have to hand in a certain number of writing assignments, take written tests after each different unit and take fitness tests that grade you on your physical ability to do certain activities.

All the different students feel differently about the new changing curriculum. Some kids like Haley Dougherty feel that “this change is for the better and will help our study skills and Grade Point Average”, but other kids like Stephen Ellsworth feel that if they “do badly it is an unnecessary grade that could hurt them when it comes time to choosing a college.” 

Rebecca Martinbianco a 10^th grader here at Smithtown High School West, takes the gym class Movement and Explore, felt that “the new gym class tests could help improve our grades and may make us work harder but could help us out in the end.” Most kids did not agree with Rebecca and had a very different outlook on things.

Amanda McGuire also of the 10^th grade and in the same type of gym class as Rebecca Martinbianco says, “I feel that gym classes should focus on athletics and not knowledge.”

Lauren Traina a student in the 10^th grade, who participates in the gym class Lifetime Sports, feels that “gym classes should be class to get away from all the stress of you other classes. You shouldn’t have to worry about studying and forgetting homework in gym.”

Most of the kids who attend Smithtown High School West think that gym should be a time where talented kids who play sports can show off their skills in front of their classmates and not have to worry about getting a good grade on a test or a homework assignment. There are a few kids that feel that gym assignments are good for the students and should be carried out throughout the school years to come.

Gym teacher, Ms. Eagan says she “agrees with the gym curriculum, and feels that it is important what were doing and why were doing it.”  Ms. Eagan feels that they are “enforcing the rules more and more as the school years come and go.”

As we get deeper into the school year kids may change their minds about the new gym class programs and will start to find the bright side of this new change that came with a new school year, but as of now the majority of the students at Smithtown High School West feel negatively about this new change.

CHANGE OF VENDING MACHINES IN THE CAFETERIA’S, AND ON THE FIRST FLOOR OF G TOWER IN SMITHTOWN HIGH SCHOOL WEST

            This year there has been a dramatic change in the drink vending machines of the F and E tower cafeteria’s, and on the first floor of G tower. The old, and unhealthy, Snapple and Gatorade vending machines of last year have been replaced with healthier water and fruit juices (Dasani and Aquafina products and machines).

Although there are healthy options at that location, unhealthy beverages such as Arizona products and Gatorade drinks can still be purchased out of the vending machines located in commons. These drinks aren’t as easily accessible for students who eat their lunch in the cafeterias found on the first floor.

            Different students have different views/opinions about this change in available drinks. This adjustment doesn’t affect most students who don’t eat their lunch in a cafeteria; however, some students believe that this is a positive change while others long for the old beverages that had been easily accessible to them last year.

Melissa DiGiovanna, a tenth grader here at Smithtown High School West who eats her lunch in the F tower cafeteria states, “I like the new vending machine because it gives me and my classmates healthy choices.” She is a student who enjoys the change in vending machines, and appreciates the new options. William Berntson (10^th grader) states that “I think that healthier drinks in vending machines is a good thing. It helps promote a more natural and healthier environment for children and adults.” While some students agree with Melissa’s and William’s positive approach, other students have a different outlook on this matter.

“In my personal objective opinion, these new vending machines limit the publics personal drink preference,” says Brianne Towey (a 10^th grader here at Smithtown High School West). Nicole LaMonica (10^th grader) agrees with Brianne’s negative outlook on this matter. She states “I think that the new vending machine choices do not appeal to the kids of Smithtown West as much as the old choices.” Both students believe that the old machines were what the public desires, and they wish for the old drinks that used to be in the vending machines around our school.

            Although students have different opinions about whether or not they appreciate the new, and healthy, vending machines, they are here to stay. The transformation of these machines affects what the students put into their bodies, and the new beverages are healthier than the old ones, so maybe kids will adjust and accept this change.

Inside the Mind of a Criminal

             Criminal Minds is an invigorating television program that will keep you on the edge of your seat and guessing the entire time as you get into the mind of psychopaths and learn the reasoning behind various crimes. It is aired on Wednesday nights at 9 O’clock Eastern Time zone on CBS. The recent season has only premiered five episodes as of now, and each show doesn’t usually follow the plot line of the previous one, so anyone can start watching at any time

            This interesting series follows a team of profiles from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit as they learn of different crimes and link them back to a criminal, based solely on psychological clues and evidence. All of the actors/ actresses do an outstanding job and add to the intensity of this stimulating television show. After watching just one season, it is easy to become attached to the characters that you see every week.

From murderers to rapists, all kinds of criminals are learned about and their ways of thinking are explained and analyzed. If you enjoy investigating crimes and feeling excitement, Criminal Minds is sure to impress. This season alone, there have been murder investigations in which the reasons behind the murderer’s philosophies are horrible childhoods, unsuccessful marriages, disease, power struggle, and mental imbalances. Not only will the thinking of the criminals excite you, but you will also learn about the thinking of unique people who are able to investigate crimes in a way that the average person wouldn’t be able to think of themselves.

The way that murderers and other criminals act and think isn’t the same as other people, so it is interesting to learn why and how they commit various crimes. Once you are hooked on this series, you will look forward to Wednesday nights and the viewing of new episodes of Criminal Minds. If you end up enjoying the series, you can purchase old series of Criminal Minds and learn about all of the crimes that you missed learning about in the past.