news2 DECEMBER 2012

calendarDecember – February

Yearbook Picture Day for underclassmen

Report cards distributed

Dec. 13 – Dec. 19• Geometry EOC

Dec. 24 – Jan. 4• Winter Break

Monday Jan. 7• Students return to school

Jan. 14 – Jan. 18• Exam week

Tues: per. 1 & 8

Wed: per. 2 & 4

Thurs: per. 3 & 5

Fri: per. 7 & 6

Friday Jan. 18• End of 1st semester

Monday Jan. 21• Martin Luther King Jr. Day No School

Tuesday Jan. 22 • No School

Saturday Jan. 26• SAT

Monday Jan. 28• Club Pictures

Feb. 1 – Feb. 28• Black History Month

Friday Feb. 8• Fair Day No School

Saturday Feb. 9• ACT date

Saturday Feb. 15• Special Olympics

Friday Feb. 18• President’s Day

Hispanic Heritage Month

Happy Birthdayto our staff member!

Lillia Zinszer – Dec. 14

Students in Advanced Placement social studies classes will be re-quired to take standardized for-

mative exams in the upcoming semester.Formative exams, similar to end-of-

course exams, are standardized quar-terly exams created by the county. The implementation of these exams disal-lows AP social studies teachers to create their own exams.

“Formative exams will make assess-ments more standard county wise,” said AP U.S. History teacher Jeff Ditman.

Test scores will be used to compare students’ achievement in the AP social studies courses across Hillsborough County.

“Before, each teacher could make their own exam, so there was no real comparison,” said Ditman. “The forma-tive exams make sure that students are being taught the same material.”

The new exams were supposed to be implemented at the beginning of this year, but are not yet ready. Some of the social studies classes may receive their exams by second semester.

“[The exams] will probably not affect me in economics for a while. I don’t think they’re going to get to the economics maybe not even this year, but definitely not this semester. They’re trying to get them done by the end of this year,” said AP Economics teacher William Avant.

Teachers have had mixed reactions to the installation of formative exams. Some believe they will provide accurate means of comparison across the county.

“I like it; it’s helpful to have a stan-dard exam that covers all the topics. I’d like to see how our students compared to other schools,” said Ditman.

Others however, find formative ex-

Hillsborough County standardizes exams for social studies classes

ams to be a burden not only for them, but also students.

“It’s not necessary to standardize AP classes considering that we already have AP exams. If we want to evaluate stu-dents, we can do cross comparison using the AP exams,” said AP social studies teacher Melissa Lemmons.

Material wise, formative exams will not be much different than the semester assessments.

“There aren’t any major changes, just some of the type of questions they ask. But [it will] basically cover the same ma-terial, so I don’t see any change,” said Avant.

Most students are not aware of the

Cowboy Closet provides help for stu-dents in need

Guidance is now home to the Wish Tree for the newly established Cowboy Closet program.

Cowboy Closet is a program where students and teachers can donate basic supplies to other students who are in need.

“We all experience a crisis in our life, such as a death, a fire, or even the storm that’s in the North East. When this hap-pens, teachers try to help their students. I notice myself and other teachers saying they bought so-and-so something,” said guidance counselor Mary Burke. “When we bond together, instead of just one per-son doing it, we can help all together.”

Junior Lania Juarez proposed the idea for Cowboy Closet in the fourth quarter of the 2011-2012 school year, however, plans were delayed due to ren-ovations. This is the first official week that the Wish Tree has been running.

“I talked to Mrs. Burke in the spring and started to get [Cowboy Closet] start-ed. I wasn’t really discouraged when it was delayed, I knew I would continue to pursue it,” said Juarez.

Cowboy Closet differs from other do-nation programs because students ask for the exact items they need and that is all that can be donated. These items are written on tags, hanging on the Wish Tree in the guidance office.

The tags indicate the exact type and

size of the item. Anyone interested in bringing a donation can take a tag and return the item to guidance. New items will receive a receipt for tax deduction.

“I was surprised. I talked to a lady who works with the homeless and she said that people in need usually use gift cards because of size and preference. Gift cards can also be for groceries,” said Burke.

Cowboy Closet emphasizes the con-fidentiality of the program. Only Burke and Strickland are privy to the names of the students who participate.

“I think that this will be great for stu-dents in need because it gives them the opportunity to ask and receive without anyone knowing it was them who need-ed it. For some people telling others you need help is a big pride issue and affects their self esteem when it really shouldn’t because we are all in need some way or another,” said junior Hannah Hender-son.

Their focus at the moment is getting the word out. There are currently flyers around the school and in the guidance office encouraging people to make dona-tions.

“We’re getting the ball rolling. We have everything we need, now we need to find the students in need. Mr. Strick-land says once it starts it will snowball,” said Burke.

In order to inform people about Cow-boy Closet, Juarez has talked to her friends, who then pass the word along. She also plans to start a club in order to strengthen the program. Cowboy closet

has already been featured in the news-letter and reminders will be sent out quarterly.

On top of all the obstacles which de-layed the Cowboy Closet, Juarez pre-dicts that there will be more challenges to come.

“Administration has been supportive, but we might have challenges down the line. It’ll be hard to keep it afloat. We’ll need someone at the desk [to collect do-nations] but we also don’t want it going to a lot of people. We stress the confiden-tiality,” said Juarez.

In the past week that it has been run-ning, Cowboy Closet has already collect-ed a couple items.

“In my opinion, the Cowboy Closet has been pretty successful since we got it officially started. The day after we put all of the tags up people had already signed up to donate three quarters of the supplies needed,” said Henderson.

Cowboy Closet will not only help stu-dents who have financial difficulties but also increase student awareness about the issue. It will bring the school togeth-er for a good cause.

Currently, there isn’t a countywide program that donates directly to stu-dents in need, but other schools in the area, such as Middleton, do have similar programs.

Students who are experiencing par-ticularly difficult financial hardships can contact guidance counselor, Mary Burke or social worker, Rick Strickland, in order to receive help through Cowboy Closet in complete confidentiality.

changes because the exams are not final-ized yet.

“Students don’t know, but they will respond just fine,” said Ditman.

Many students, however, are not as accepting of the change as the teachers are.

“I don’t like it. I already have to study for the Collegeboard AP exam, I don’t need more work to do, I like it better when the teachers design the exams we have,” said junior Genevieve Rodriguez.

Implementation of formative exams will affect underclassmen because they will be required to take them, while se-niors can exempt the exams if they meet requirements.

School opens ‘Cowboy Closet’ to accept donationsTax-deductable donations will be given to Gaither students in need

Mid-term and final exams will count as percentage of semester grade

Sahar TakshiCenterspread Editor

Sahar TakshiCenterspread Editor

Junior Ashley Masuck studies hard to ace her Advanced Placement U.S. History formative exam. Standardized exams were implemented so that social studies teachers cannot create their own exams.

Congratulations to the Teachers of the Year!

Jean Cattoi – Teacher of the Year

Jenna Miller – Ida S. Baker Award Recipient

Rachelle Mourra/Pony Express

THE PONY EXPRESS news 3

School will be selling Christmas trees in the front of the north park-ing lot.

The types of trees being sold are Douglas fir and Fraser fir and their heights range anywhere from three to twelve feet in size.

Smaller trees will start around twenty five dollars each and as the size increase the price does as well with taller trees going for around eighty dollars.

Not only are they selling Christ-mas trees but there is also a shipment of plants from Oklahoma that will be for sale.

“There are going to be some very nice trees out there,” said Assistant Principal Henry Strapp.

Buying a Christmas tree from the school will provide benefits to student population. Proceeds from the sales will be going to the school athletic de-partment.

Students and their families around the community purchase these trees every year.

“I’m really excited to buy my christ-mas tee from the school, I do every year and they are always fresh and healthy,” said senior Kate Chastain.

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, bask in the Christmas spirit by supporting the school’s ath-letic department with the purchase of a tree.

O’ Christmas tree, O’ Christmas trees for saleSabrina Olivier

Staff WriterFirst lady Michelle Obama cre-

ated a campaign targeted to promote awareness against childhood obesity.

Her program is called “Let’s Move,” and it encourages kids to do just that. Students across America have been directed to eat on and maintain a healthy lifestyle to ensure a healthy future.

Hillsborough County recently took part in Michelle Obama’s cam-paign and is now serving smaller and healthy portions of school lunches.

All Hillsborough County students are now affected by this new policy. The foods offered by every school’s Student Nutrition Specialists have been carefully planned to ensure a healthier nutritional value than pre-vious years.

“It certainly affects me because the school lunches before were small and now that they’re even smaller. I’ve just been hungry the whole day,” said sophomore Emily Bayron.

Although some students might have issues with the new policy, many agree with the First Lady’s steps in order to prevent childhood obesity.

“I think what she’s doing is some-thing people can really look up to and it’s great that she cares so much for the kids and is actually doing some-thing about this rather serious issue,” said senior Alex Mihankah.

Let’s Move focuses on five initia-tives, or steps, to proven childhood

obesity. According to Obama’s website, www.letsmove.org, the initiatives are creating a healthy start in kid’s live, empowering parents to help out, provid-ing healthy food in school cafeterias, improving access of healthy and afford-able foods, and in-creasing kid’s physi-cal activity.

Hillsborough is taking charge of all five of these initia-tives, particularly in grade schools, starting kids on a healthy road in their lives, thanks to the first lady.

Other counties both in the state and across the country are expected to partake in the campaign in the fu-ture.

Students have been very receptive to the changes in the lunchroom diet. Many believe that the move towards healthy choices in the cafeteria is a positive decision for county officials.

“It’s good to have a balanced diet. There are a certain amount of calories that are necessary for teens to have everyday. If they don’t get enough or go over, there will be definite health problems,” said freshman Dillon My-ers.

Others support the program based on the fact that it encourages stu-

Michelle Obama’s new food policy hits countyHealthy lunch choices are becoming available for students to purchase

Story by Marc Costello

dents to make smart decisions when deciding to what to eat.

“I think that students’ decisions in the cafeteria have a big impact. May-be they can eat pizza on Fridays, but not everyday. Good alternatives like salads throughout the waeek will gvie them more energy and make them less sleepy,” said sophomore Erika Kalger.

Lets Move has made a significant impact on the choices that students make in the cafeteria. Hillsborough County’s decision to adopt the pro-gram has been beneficial.

Lunch entrees have decreased sig-nificantly in portion size. Changes like these have been made as a part of the Let’s Move campaign.

Rachelle Mourra/Pony Express