Double Victory

Th ere will no longer be 177 days of school. House bill 2610 was passed in the summer and now changes the requirement to 75,600 minutes per year. It took eff ect immediately. Th at means they are counting the minutes of instruction now; 420 minutes per day. Every year there are two snow days for if weather gets bad. After those days are used, if any other weather in-terrupts school days, the district looks at extending the school year or taking away the student holidays such as Good Friday and Memorial Day. Seniors are often aff ected because adding more days to the year means their graduation has to be moved too, and they don’t have a certain date till almost the end of the school year. Th e bill also says that lunch is considered an intermission and will be counted toward meeting the minute requirement. With the new law the district might not have to add any days. Th e school can just add minutes to the half days

already assigned in the calendar. “I think this is great,” Senior Barbara Torres said. “Th ere are times when me and my family have trips planned for after the last day of school and we usually always end up having to move it to another day since the district adds days to the school year. With this new law they won’t have to add days, just minutes.” In a presentation given by the HB2610, people have pointed out that most of the school district already go over the 75,600 minutes required. Yes, North Side is one of those schools. North Side already goes 15 minutes each day over the 420 minutes required. Students are going for 76,995 minutes a year and that’s 1,395 minutes over the requirement. Th at is equivalent to 3 days more than needed. “I think that we should have a longer lunch,” Barbara Torres said.” Since were already going over the requirement we should get more time, when I go out to eat I barely have time to get my food and come back. If we had 15 more min-

utes I could even stay and eat there.” Principal Martinez has another idea. “For me as Principal, I see it as there is not going to be a change,” he said. “Th e only thing they did was change days to hours and it’s going to stay the same. Since I’m in the principal level, there’s not really something I could do. It’s a district policy and I just follow what they tell me.” According to the bill, the district can add minutes to days remaining in the school year to make up for an un-planned event. “We have eight periods a day & my vision for eight periods a day for the future is for you guys to have study pe-riods or better said free periods,” Martinez said. “For example kids will have the opportunity to go to the library or anywhere else that you can study because you have done your job in getting all your credits to graduate. Th at’s kind of like college is about and I want to create a college feel for North Side in the next couple of years.”

Counting the minutesBy Yarizeth Sanchez

JROTC takes win in FirstBrigade Raider Stakes Competition

By: Maria Gomez

LARIATNEWSPAPER

A AA Student Publication of North Side High School

December 16, 2015Volume 3

Issue 1

2211 McKinley Ave.Fort Worth, TX

76164

With army combat boots fi xed deep in fi ve inches of thick water, North Side’s Raider Team anxiously stood before the 80 pound tire, 100 pound sandbox, and the muddy, sand-fi lled obstacle course they had to carry their partner through. Th eir faces fatigued but alert, the fi rst pair: brother and sister Kassandra Serrano and John Burgos stepped up to the line and anticipated the countdown that would begin the strenuous logistics event. On Tuesday November 17th, North Side’s JROTC Co-ed Raider team competed and won for the second time in the Raider Stakes Competition after win-ning fi rst place on 4/5 events, second place on one event and taking the overall victory last year. Th e female team took home three trophies including the overall fi rst place for female teams. Th e teams practiced for weeks in order to compete in fi ve mentally and physically challenging training events: a fi rst aid/ litter carry, rope bridge construction and transportation, push ups, curl ups, and a

2.5K run.Th e teams are composed of 8 mem-

bers; Th e Co-ed team, commanded by Cadet Second Lieutenant Edward Ahumada, and the female teams; the A-Team commanded by Cadet Sergeant First Class Maria Gomez, and the B-Team commanded by Cadet First Lieutenant Yesica Sanchez.

North Side competed against six schools in Dutch Branch Park. Th e location of the competition was moved in order to allow the competition to be on a school day and not on a weekend as it was previously planned.

Th e competition began with the PT portion. One minute of push ups, one minute of crunches, and an individual mile run. All the teams lined up and impatiently awaited the one minute that would decide their place in the PT event.

“Keep pushing through it!” North Side cheered on the runners as they zoomed past. “Finish strong, don’t give up!” Th e teams cheered each other as they ran their mile against the other high schools.

Afterwards, the teams took their guide-ons and marched to the One Rope

Bridge event. While the female team felt the pres-sure of having to transport everyone in the least time as possible, the Co-ed team faced the tedious task of constructing the rope, trans-porting the members, and taking it down again.

Th e female team lost points after one of the members touched the ground, but ended victorious upon discovering they had the fastest time for the event, even with the penalty.

Th e logistics obstacle race is always the event with the most yelling from specta-

tors hurrying the competing teams to fi nish quickly. Many teams tumbled to the ground, dropped their gear, or received penalties for not fi nishing the obstacle completely.

Th e Raider Teams will compete again on Saturday, March 5th 2016 with the same determination to keep the champion-ship trophy here at North Side.

Go to this link to suggest the prize for Binder Bingo

at the end of the year. (Poll ends January 8th)

htt ps://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PGH-BQXK

Students are expected to keep a three inch binder for all their classes as a requirement in order for them to learn how to stay organized.“Th e purpose of the binders is to help you guys understand the power and the importance of being organized,” Assistant Principal Poullard said. “Too many times we see students get a piece of a paper or take a note and can’t fi nd it again.”Th e school found a way to encourage students to participate. Th ey created ‘Binder Bingo’ which is game where every student will receive a bingo card and will get a signature from a teacher if they had their binder and were organized. ‘Binder Bingo’ will take place every Friday in the students’ 2nd period.“We are encouraging you guys and encouraging your teachers to get credit for having your bind-er,” Poullard adds. “At the end of the year, Avid who’s sponsoring ‘Binder Bingo’ and every single person that has a signature from a teacher ac-knowledging that you have your binder and you’re organized, all of

Features Pg. 3

English teacher turned authorBy: Javier Alva“As Trevor journeys further down the rabbit hole, he fi nds himself challenged by multiple parties in a dangerous game of corporate espionage,” Sean Strange writes in his book Cross. “Struggling with the demons of his past, confl icting ethical choices of the present, and an uncertain future, Trevor must ultimately choose the trajectory for his life after the cross’ hid-den secret shifts power into his hands.” Mr. Strange is proud of writing and publishing his fi rst book. Sean Strange is an English teacher at North Side he has been teaching for twenty years. One of his life-long goals was to write and publish a book. It took him three years to complete his book and get it published. “It’s always been a personal goal to write a book,” Mr. Strange says. “I fi nally got serious and began writing.” His fi rst thoughts of planning the book started ten years ago, but with teaching he couldn’t get much done during the school year. Instead he dedicated his summers to writing his book.“I found out that there’s not a lot of free time during the sum-mer with training and other work related things,” he says. “I realized how short summer vacation was.”It is a very long and diffi cult process to create a book, from coming up with the characters to developing a good solid plot.“Th e fi rst thing I did was to start with the characters, get them developed to make them feel realistic,” he says. Th en I developed the plot which was a diffi cult process.”After a rigorous beginning, he

started writing every day for a little bit at a time until he got it complete. After he was fi nished writing his book he needed to revise and edit the book to send it to a publisher.“I got a good friend to copy edit my book I helped out a lot to fi nd mistakes I didn’t get and gave me ideas to work with,” he says. “Th e fi rst thing I did was to write a query letter in which you tell the publisher about your book. It took me a month to write the letter. After Th anksgiving of 2014, I got a letter saying that they accepted my book.” When he received that letter he was very proud of himself but publishing the book has cost him more than it has given him. ‘It has cost me more to make the book than it is to sell it, but I didn’t write the book to make money. I wrote it because it’s always been a goal of mine,” he says Mr. Strange is very proud of his book especially of the cover which was made by one of his good friends; but now after completing his fi rst book he is making a sequel to it.“I’m already in the process of making my second book,” he says. “ Th e ideas started while I was administrating a test. My second book will continue the same story of the fi rst.” Following the release of his book Mr. Strange has had people purchase the book and they have given him good re-views on Amazon. Reviews said that it had a ‘clever storyline that moves along as smoothly and stealthily as the likable pro-tagonist.’ Another review said it was a ‘really good book and recommended for anyone can’t wait till the next one.

Enforcing organization at school

By: Ana Renteria the those students will be invited to a party.”Students that can’t aff ord to get a binder can be provided one by some teachers and staff .“Th ere are several teachers who collect binders over the years.” Poullard said. “Th e purpose behind asking you guys to pay 25 cents, anytime you guys pay for something we can take that money and put it in an ac-count that we can turn around and spend on you.”In addition, some students struggle with doing their schoolwork let alone keeping up with where they put it. Th erefore, the school made the binders a re-quirement for all students. Th e stu-dents will also be expected to keep a binder for the rest of their lives to continue to be organized after high school.“When I was a student no one encouraged us to be organized,” said Principal Martinez. “Th at’s why we decided to make it a little easier for you guys. If I was more organized I think I would’ve done a better job when I went to col-lege.”Of course, there’s a downside to everything.“Th ey are heavy, es-

pecially the three ring binder when they have a lot of stuff in it,” Avid teacher Ms. Holms said. “But over time we tell them that they’ll build their muscles and it’s nothing that’s going to hurt you. It’s just about three pounds.”Students then begin to like having the binders because they know it helps them.“Over time they learn to love it.” Hol-ms adds. “Because they know that without it they will be lost. I hope that students outside of Avid will learn to love and appreciate the use of a binder. It really relives a lot of stress.”Some students aren’t too happy with this requirement.“I don’t like the idea of it,” 9th Grader Karla Renteria said. “Imagine the weight that it’s just going to add on to us and then we have to car-ry the laptop bag around.”Th ough some students don’t like to carry the binder around, many do see the good side of it.“I do think some students will be more organized with the binders,” Karla adds. “Es-pecially since some students like to throw their stuff in their backpack.”

Page Layout/Design for the Lariat made possible by:

CTE Graphic Design and Illustrati on & Arts AV program.

Advanced Graphic Design Students:

Semaj Gadlin

Jesus E. Gonzalez

Angel Munoz

Javier Perez

Jesse RodriguezAlejandro SalazarLuis VazquezJordan Matthews

Th is school year students are now allowed to wear t-shirts from their favorite bands, and ripped jeans. Students can express themselves in their clothes like they nev-er could before. Last school year students were required to either wear a college, spir-it, or collared shirt, but now this year students are allowed to wear whatever they’d like, though it still has to be school appropriate. “Well we kind of decided that as long as it wasn’t over the top, then it was more important for kids to be in class,” Assistant Principle, David Trimble says. “As long as the dress code wasn’t ultra revealing or a distraction, then it was more important for kids to be in class getting instruc-tion and learning, than it was fi ghting for a t-shirt.”-Students really like this new idea too. Students can now be in class getting instruction rather than being in in-house because of a shirt that didn’t have a collar. “I feel very good about this idea,” Junior, Christian Ban-da says. “I agree because some students aren’t able to attend school because of dress code, therefore this new idea al-lows students not to worry about dress code.” S p i r i t shirts and school shirts sales have gone down because of the new dress code howev-er. Th e class of 2016 sold 50 percent less shirts than last year for homecoming. “Yes, it’s a huge diff erence,” class of 2016 sponsor, Jessica Arre-ola says. “ A lot of students are not really buying spirit

A third of the students who attend FWISD don’t have in-ternet access. In October, Us-baldo Martinez, a junior, was given a hotspot device to test to see if it would be a good option for those students. He gave them feedback on prob-lems he was having and they fi xed them. “It makes me feel like I can be trusted,” Usbaldo Marti-nez said. “Th at I can be re-sponsible enough to handle

College tuition is expensive. To attend TCU one year is $40,630; UTA’s is $23,522; and TSU’s $21,920. People that want to go to college may fi nd themselves apply-ing for many scholarships or preparing to drown in student loans if their family can’t aff ord to pay for them. U.S Senator and presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, believes that anybody in the United States who has the

FeaturesPg. 2

Fashion police

less strictBy: Alma Cossio

shirts anymore, but I think we still have enough school spirit that students still want to wear North side shirts.” “Last year I used to buy spirit shirts so I wouldn’t have to wear collard shirts,” Junior, Joanna Chavez says. “Honestly, this school year I stopped buying them since we can wear whatever we would like to wear.” Although dress code isn’t en-forced this school year, hats are still never allowed to be worn at school. “My personal feeling is you don’t wear hats inside any-where, and that’s just my opinion,” Trimble says. “It’s disrespectful, you just don’t wear hats when you walk in to a building. You should take your hat off , that’s just sort of the problem. Th e dress code says no hats, so no hats.” Some students don’t like the fact that they can’t wear hats.“I really don’t like how we are not allowed to wear hats,” Junior, Jose Gomez says. “I feel like we should be able to wear them. I per-sonally don’t think there’s a problem with wearing hats, but that’s just my opinion.” Even though students may not like the fact that they can’t wear hats, or other spe-cifi c things, they still have to follow the rules. “I just think our students have done a great job with rising to the occasion, which pretty much all the students here when we give them rules they do what they’ re supposed to,” Trimble says. “It’s great to have such good kids at North Side.”

Success for all

By: Ana Renteria will to go to college should be able to go regardless of their or their families’ in-come. “Higher education should be a right,” U.S Sen-ator Sanders stated on Huff Post Live. Sanders explains that free education shouldn’t stop at high school. “Th ere are today hundreds and thousands of qualifi ed young people who want to go to college but can’t go to college for one reason alone,” Sanders explains in an inter-

view with Th e Washington Post. “Th at is their fami-lies’ lack of funding.” Bernie Sanders also says that it is absurd for people to talk about the need of the Amer-ican economy and it’s future. “We need to have the bright-est people possible getting the best education possible,” the 2016 presidential can-didate adds in the interview with Th e Washington Post. “So that we can grow the strongest economy possible.” Th ere are many people that see how much good can come from this. “I support it,” Junior Luz Gar-cia says.”It would put college at the reach of many that wouldn’t even think about college because of the cost.” Sanders intends to help any-body who actually wants to extend their education but there will be those people who will not take the op-portunity. “ S o m e students will most likely not care,” Luz further explains.

“However those that truly and deeply want to go to col-lege to make themselves and their families proud would be ecstatic because they can make their dreams come true.” Th e U.S Senator’s plan will not only benefi t the person wanting to go to college but their parents and families too. ‘’Parents will have a weight lifted off their shoul-ders,” Freshman Karla Rent-eria says. “Th ey won’t have to worry about paying for their child’s college expenses.” Many see that Bernie’s plan is benefi cial but people still are wondering how he will come about it. He says that if the government were to cut military spending by less than half and invest that money in educational oppor-tunities for today’s college students, it could cut tuition by 55 percent. College tuition is expensive now but with Bernie Sanders running for president it may not be that way forever.

Fire up the hotspot

By: Salvador Lopezthe job, for someone to trust me to give them feedback is very important.” Like many North Side stu-dents, he doesn’t have Inter-net at his house and struggles to get his homework turned in. “I take AP classes so doing work at home is hard, there is no way around that,” he said. “If you forget something like a link or a picture, that can make a diff erence between an A or a B just because you

don’t have internet. ”Usbaldo contacted the school board president Jacinto Ramos Jr because of his internet situ-ation at home. Th ey got the Chief Technology Offi cer Kyle Davie to help him out as well.“He reached out to our school board president Mr.Ramos,he connected the two of us and we wanted to get his feedback to see if it was a viable option,” Kyle Davie said.Th ere is a require-ment for students that need a hotspot .“It’s based on need at home, if people don’t have internet access we will have an option for them to be able to have internet access at home.” Even though the hotspot is a great idea for students to have, it does come with some

problems that the district has to fi x. “Th e problem right now is that when I try to open spe-cifi c sites like FWISD Focus or Google Drive they won’t open,” Usbaldo said. “Since the hotspot signal is provid-ed by Sprint it is completely diff erent from the signal at school.”Usbaldo has gotten in contact with the team responsible for the hotspot and they worked out the problems it was having. It is now working properly and they are planning to move forward with the project to other schools and stu-dents.“Now that the hotspot is working, I felt so produc-tive at home,” he said. “I got two assignments turned in last night.”

Go to this link to suggest the prize for Binder Bingo

at the end of the year. (Poll ends January 8th)

htt ps://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PGH-BQXK

Students are expected to keep a three inch binder for all their classes as a requirement in order for them to learn how to stay organized.“Th e purpose of the binders is to help you guys understand the power and the importance of being organized,” Assistant Principal Poullard said. “Too many times we see students get a piece of a paper or take a note and can’t fi nd it again.”Th e school found a way to encourage students to participate. Th ey created ‘Binder Bingo’ which is game where every student will receive a bingo card and will get a signature from a teacher if they had their binder and were organized. ‘Binder Bingo’ will take place every Friday in the students’ 2nd period.“We are encouraging you guys and encouraging your teachers to get credit for having your bind-er,” Poullard adds. “At the end of the year, Avid who’s sponsoring ‘Binder Bingo’ and every single person that has a signature from a teacher ac-knowledging that you have your binder and you’re organized, all of

Features Pg. 3

English teacher turned authorBy: Javier Alva“As Trevor journeys further down the rabbit hole, he fi nds himself challenged by multiple parties in a dangerous game of corporate espionage,” Sean Strange writes in his book Cross. “Struggling with the demons of his past, confl icting ethical choices of the present, and an uncertain future, Trevor must ultimately choose the trajectory for his life after the cross’ hid-den secret shifts power into his hands.” Mr. Strange is proud of writing and publishing his fi rst book. Sean Strange is an English teacher at North Side he has been teaching for twenty years. One of his life-long goals was to write and publish a book. It took him three years to complete his book and get it published. “It’s always been a personal goal to write a book,” Mr. Strange says. “I fi nally got serious and began writing.” His fi rst thoughts of planning the book started ten years ago, but with teaching he couldn’t get much done during the school year. Instead he dedicated his summers to writing his book.“I found out that there’s not a lot of free time during the sum-mer with training and other work related things,” he says. “I realized how short summer vacation was.”It is a very long and diffi cult process to create a book, from coming up with the characters to developing a good solid plot.“Th e fi rst thing I did was to start with the characters, get them developed to make them feel realistic,” he says. Th en I developed the plot which was a diffi cult process.”After a rigorous beginning, he

started writing every day for a little bit at a time until he got it complete. After he was fi nished writing his book he needed to revise and edit the book to send it to a publisher.“I got a good friend to copy edit my book I helped out a lot to fi nd mistakes I didn’t get and gave me ideas to work with,” he says. “Th e fi rst thing I did was to write a query letter in which you tell the publisher about your book. It took me a month to write the letter. After Th anksgiving of 2014, I got a letter saying that they accepted my book.” When he received that letter he was very proud of himself but publishing the book has cost him more than it has given him. ‘It has cost me more to make the book than it is to sell it, but I didn’t write the book to make money. I wrote it because it’s always been a goal of mine,” he says Mr. Strange is very proud of his book especially of the cover which was made by one of his good friends; but now after completing his fi rst book he is making a sequel to it.“I’m already in the process of making my second book,” he says. “ Th e ideas started while I was administrating a test. My second book will continue the same story of the fi rst.” Following the release of his book Mr. Strange has had people purchase the book and they have given him good re-views on Amazon. Reviews said that it had a ‘clever storyline that moves along as smoothly and stealthily as the likable pro-tagonist.’ Another review said it was a ‘really good book and recommended for anyone can’t wait till the next one.

Enforcing organization at school

By: Ana Renteria the those students will be invited to a party.”Students that can’t aff ord to get a binder can be provided one by some teachers and staff .“Th ere are several teachers who collect binders over the years.” Poullard said. “Th e purpose behind asking you guys to pay 25 cents, anytime you guys pay for something we can take that money and put it in an ac-count that we can turn around and spend on you.”In addition, some students struggle with doing their schoolwork let alone keeping up with where they put it. Th erefore, the school made the binders a re-quirement for all students. Th e stu-dents will also be expected to keep a binder for the rest of their lives to continue to be organized after high school.“When I was a student no one encouraged us to be organized,” said Principal Martinez. “Th at’s why we decided to make it a little easier for you guys. If I was more organized I think I would’ve done a better job when I went to col-lege.”Of course, there’s a downside to everything.“Th ey are heavy, es-

pecially the three ring binder when they have a lot of stuff in it,” Avid teacher Ms. Holms said. “But over time we tell them that they’ll build their muscles and it’s nothing that’s going to hurt you. It’s just about three pounds.”Students then begin to like having the binders because they know it helps them.“Over time they learn to love it.” Hol-ms adds. “Because they know that without it they will be lost. I hope that students outside of Avid will learn to love and appreciate the use of a binder. It really relives a lot of stress.”Some students aren’t too happy with this requirement.“I don’t like the idea of it,” 9th Grader Karla Renteria said. “Imagine the weight that it’s just going to add on to us and then we have to car-ry the laptop bag around.”Th ough some students don’t like to carry the binder around, many do see the good side of it.“I do think some students will be more organized with the binders,” Karla adds. “Es-pecially since some students like to throw their stuff in their backpack.”

Page Layout/Design for the Lariat made possible by:

CTE Graphic Design and Illustrati on & Arts AV program.

Advanced Graphic Design Students:

Semaj Gadlin

Jesus E. Gonzalez

Angel Munoz

Javier Perez

Jesse RodriguezAlejandro SalazarLuis VazquezJordan Matthews

GET SCHOOLED IN FASHION LARIATNEWSPAPER

A ANorth Side

High School2211 McKinley Ave.

Fort Worth, TX 76164

The Lariat Sta�:Javier Alva

Emyly Arguello Mariela Avila

Alma Cossio Maria Gomez Salvador Lopez

Ana Renteria Stephanie Sanchez

Yarizeth Sanchez

Advisor:Andres Bentley

Principal:Antonio Martinez

The Lariat is the o�cial publication of

North Side High School. As a public forum, we will pub-

lish letters to the editor as space

allows. Letters must be signed and

names may be with-held. Opinion

columns represent the opinion of the

Lariat Sta� Newspa-per at North Side High School. The

Lariat will not accept advertisements for

products or services that are not legally

available to students.

Flaunting their movesAn ensemble of teachers and students danced to “Single Ladies” by Beyoncé.

Impressing the audienceBarbara Kuba, amazingly dancing on stage to “Hello” by Adele.

Striking a quick pose for the camera Eric Delgado shows off his casual wear on the red carpet.Standing tall

Ms.Reyes strikes a quick pose for the audience while wearing leopard print casual outfit.

Mrs. Taylor modeling her left wingShe walked off stage with her one sleeve dress.

GET SCHOOLED IN FASHION

By: Mariela Avila

Brianna Rodriguez steps on to the stage with a gray kimono like dress with fl ower ruffl es at the bottom and on the back. “When I use to sit down and sketch at a early age, I always wanted to see my sketches become alive on a live silhouette,” Dedric Davis said. “I like curves so I would always sketch clothing with curves. When I started making the cloth-ing myself I would cut and sew it

by the models measurement.” Dedric never thought his dream would come true about designing. He has been designing with Mrs.Capelton for 10 years now.

“For high school students it’s helping them get inspired for

their future,” Dedric said.” Every-body is not going to be a designer but to be able to be a role model and let high schoolers know that

whatever your talent, dream, and gift is use it to your advantage.” Although he was young when he started sketching he al-ready knew what his future looked like. “I love clothing and nice looks, I love to see others look good and feel good in what they are wearing. “ Dedric said. “When you look good you feel confi dent, I feel good to know I help out in that process.” After all his ideas came from his mind, he would see all the shapes and diff erent forms of fash-ion. “Th is is a gift,” Dedric said.” When you have it, no one can take it from you.” Fifteen North Side high school students modeled Ded-ric Davis design’s on December, 3, 2015.

By: Emyly Arguello

It was a red carpet aff air that Mrs.Capleton’s Versa Style team organized. North Side’s

2nd annual fashion show, it was held on December 3,2015 in the auditorium to a packed house.

“We have a little red carpet we will try out,” Mrs.Capleton said. “So we will make it as close as possible to the theme, we can only go so far with formality.”

Th ere are three segments for clothing. Models either provide their own clothing which has to be clothes they have never worn before, clothes someone else

created for them or that some-one else brought in.

“We have a size and body size sheet,” Mrs.Capleton said. “For all diff erent people so that the clothes will fi t them properly the day of the show.”

Many people usually panic or have stage fright before performing in front of a lot of people, a lot of things run through their mind.

“Th e one thing I was most scared of,” Junior and model Leslie Es-peleta said, “Was walking out into the stage and tripping, that would have been so humiliating.”

Dedrick Davis designed Leslie’s dress and many more of the mod-els make up and clothing.

“I have worked with my designers for 10 years now,” Mrs.Capleton said, “ they were willing to come and donate their time to the students with no fee so they were doing it out of their own pockets.”

Organizing something like this is never easy.

“Th is fashion show was a little tough for the team,” Janet Vasquez said, “But we got the job done.”

52 models started their stuff along with the participants performing their dancing and singing skills. Barbora Kubu danced to Hello, assemble of teachers and stu-dents danced to Single Ladies, the cosmetology did demonstrations, Alejandra Calzada sang Like I’m Gonna Lose You, the Mariachi per-formed and fi nally a showstopper with Mrs. Reyes.

Our 2nd year sponsors this year include Whataburger, Barse Jewerly, Gordon Boswell Flowers, Riscky’s Bar-B-Que and Sam’s Club along with out fashion designer Dedrick Davis and our partners the Fort Worth Women’s Association of Feder-ated Women’s Club.

Th ey hope to have another one and keep the tradition going.

Strutting Into the Spotlight Jessica Ruvalcaba walked down the runway showing off a Dedric Davis original red ruffle dress as she showed the crowd her stuff.

Malik Williams shows off his casual wearHe wears a black shirt with dark green pants.Mrs. Taylor modeling her left wing

She walked off stage with her one sleeve dress.

SportsPg. 6

“No matter how good you do, there’s always more to do,” Head Coach Jo-seph Turner says. “And it de-pends on how good you want to be. If you want to be the best, then you’ll do whatever it takes to be the best. If not, you’ll just become comfort-able with where you are and won’t work as hard.”

Former TCU Run-ning Back, Joseph Turner, took on North Side’s Foot-ball team as the new head coach over the summer.

Turner came from a single parent home in East Austin, Texas. As one of three boys, he helped out his mother while he went to school, and later enrolled in TCU- becoming the team’s Running Back.

“Playing at TCU was tough,” Coach Turn-er says. “It was a job. It was fun many times and then it was stressful, but you know, you spend 8-10 hours a day in the football complex, so that’s a full time job.”

Also while in col-

lege, Turner met his future wife.

“I met my wife freshman year of college,” Turner said. “And we hated each other, but two oppo-sites attract sometimes and we’ve been together going on

10 years, we’ve been married for almost fi ve. I have two beautiful daughters, I have a six-year-old, and I have a 10 -month-old.”

He affi rms that everything he knows, he learned from playing at TCU

Joseph TurnerF r o m T C U R u n n i n g B a c k t o H e a d C o a c h

and that is one of the reasons he is now able to be North Side’s head coach. One of Coach Turner’s closest friends, Jerry Hughes, made a $15,000 donation to North Side’s Football program that will now be an annual gift.

Th e 15,000 dollars from Hughes’ donation and the $5,000 from the NFL will be used for weight room gear, game gear, cleats, and all sorts of other equipment for the football program.

“I think [Turner] is a great part of our program,” Linebacker and sophomore Raphael Carbajal says. “He is a big inspirer, great moti-vator. He shows us character and how to be out there. He’s

a good coach on the fi eld and off the fi eld. He teaches us to be a great person and indi-vidual. He motivates us every day in practice, in games, af-ter games, every time we see him. He always tells us to be

better than you were before.” Th e new million

dollar football fi eld is a great new addition; the easy main-tenance is allowing the foot-ball players to practice on the fi eld no matter what the

weather. But besides the new fi eld with North Side’s name centered on each end of the fi eld, cement on the outside, and the vibrant white yard lines marked on the artifi cial turf, Turner does not deviate from his goals for the team.

“[Th e season is] not going the way I want it to,” Turner said “We’ve lost to three teams that we should of beat because we beat our-selves by making mistakes. We have a young team and have a lot of bad habits we need to change. So until we go undefeated and win dis-trict it will not go the way I want it to.”

Th e 2015 sea-son record was 3-wins and 8-losses. North Side was able to defeat Diamond Hill, at Homecoming with unbe-lievable score of 38-7. Th ey also beat Dallas Sunset and Western Hills. Th e team didn’t have the best record but under coach Tuner, they still remain one of the hard-est working teams in the 5A region.

Ashley Aviles, Lizbeth Rodriguez,Karina Aragorez and Brenda Salgado running at a meet.

sleeping to run long distanc-es. It’s a team made up of hard working competitors. Th ey race 3 miles in a very short amount of time. “Running relieves me from all the stress I have with school,” Senior Ashley Aviles said. “Running gives me a nice feeling. You are out there having fun run-ning long distances with your team. I run cross coun-try because it helps me get things off my mind.” Both the boys and girls showed rapid improve-ment throughout the season. Also the junior varsity boys team as well. “Th at’s the thing with Cross Country, are you willing to work daily, work weekly and eventually those results will then come off to when you stop training and do something else. It’s like I’m not improving as much

as I want to,” Coach Brigge-man said. Th e cross country team competed in 8 meets but each individual is al-lowed 7 plus the district and

regional meet, so some ran 9 meets in total. “I was so nervous,” Ashley said. “It was very nerve-racking to see all these nice runners and feeling like

STEERS MAKING HISTORY After taking a three year break from coaching, Garth Briggeman took both the girls and boys to the re-gional meet. A total of 14 students from North Side High School qualifi ed for the regional meet on Octo-ber 26, 2015 in Lubbock, Texas. “When I fi rst start-ed coaching I took the girls in 2000 and 2001 to the re-gional meet,” Cross Country Coach Briggeman said. “Th e girls haven’t qualifi ed since then, 14 years something crazy like that. I was real-ly excited for them. Going into a district meet you need to fi nish in the top three to qualify.” North Side Cross Country runners are com-mitted to their sport. Th ey get up early in the mornings while most people are still

By: Stephanie Sanchez

By: Maria Gomez

you are going to be last is a good motivation for me. All I thought in my mind was I could do it and all I needed to do was fi nish strong and not let my team down.”

Cross country is not only an individual sport but also a team sport. All the runners are judged on indi-vidual times and teams by a points-scoring method. “I was surprised I thought maybe the girls had an outside shot when we were there,” Coach Brig-geman said. “Coach Busta-mante was coaching them the entire year and I got the privilege in coaching them at the meet. I thought may-be we could fi nish fourth, but you know when I got the results and they announced third by just three points, it was like wow! It was this close as I thought it was. I was really excited.” Th is years North Side’s cross country teams qualifi ed for the regional meet. All the runners gave it their all at the meet but came up short at the end.

“Since [Hughes] donated money, now the NFL wants to donate mon-ey as well,” Turner says as he chuckles when mention-ingthat the NFL said they would match Hughes’ dona-tion.

Photo by Jocelynn Mosqueda

Editorials Pg. 6

Th is year, the principal decided to add one more period to the day. Instead of seven, there are now eight periods. So far in these past few months, the 8 periods have not been a student’s best friend. In fact, it has become a student’s worse nightmare. Having an 8th period was not a good idea.Students have been complain-ing about getting too much homework and being more stressed out than they already were from last year with just seven periods. Th ey

8 Periods?By Maria Morales Special to Th e Lariat

have been complaining about hav-ing too much homework and not having free time for themselves. Students say they are more stressed because they don’t have enough time to comprehend a subject and still be accountable for it. Th ey get at least one more hour of homework each night so there is less time for any extra-curricular activities if they want to complete all the work.Although the 8 periods are allow-ing students to catch up with their

in class means there is less time for teachers to be able to teach their lectures and for students to be able

to learn the lectures in 45 minutes. Th is would make stu-dents not fully understand the lecture and have trouble on their homework or any work.North Side would have to have a “Block Schedule” for the

students to be able to learn more things. Th is would mean that in one day, the students would go to their fi rst 4 classes and the next day go to their last 4 classes. Th is would allow students to have approximately an hour and half in each period. North

credits, the students who are caught up don’t think it is fair to them. Th ose who are caught up believe

that it is just adding on to their homework and it is not necessary for them to be taking an extra class.Even though some students and teachers say the days go by faster now that there are eight periods, there is less time in class. Less time

Side could also carve out time for a longer lunch. So instead of lunch only being 30 minutes, it would be 45 minutes to an hour. Th is would make students not have to eat in such a hurry.In order for getting the proper ed-ucation that the students at North Side need, they would need more time in their classes to be able to learn more. Th is Block Schedule would help the students achieve that and maybe even fi nish their homework so they can have free time at home. 8 periods all in one day is not the answer.

“...they don’t have enough time to comprehend a subject and still

be accountable for it.”

One More Period Doesn’t HurtBy Chris Gomez Special to Th e Lariat

More like 8x the stress

Cheers & JeersCheersTo no dress code. Now we don’t have to worry about getting in trouble.

JeersTo not being able to use our phones during lunch. It’s basically our break.

CheersTo having a new fi eld. It looks nice and beautiful.

JeersTo attendance recovery. We only have specifi c Saturdays, and not everyone can attend those days.CheersTo only being able to miss 8 days. Students now attend school more. Jeers To not being able to wear hats inside the building.

CheersTo the Go Center. It helps stu-dents with college preparations.

JeersTo the cafeteria food, it’s not that good so not many people eat lunch. Th ey should make it better.

CheersTo a long Christmas Break.

During the 2015-2016 school year, North Side High School implemented a new sched-ule where there would be 8 periods in a day instead of 7 periods. Th e 8 periods is possible by cutting down each class by 5 minutes and making students come in 15 minutes sooner. It is best if North Side High School continues the 8 period schedule approach because of the positive ways it can help students.Th e 8 periods are helpful because it helps student make up credits or get

them quicker than usual. Th e more classes per year mean that stu-dents are able to fi nish their classes, especially electives, much earlier in their high school years than if they only had 7 periods. Th e 8 periods also gives students the opportunity to take diff erent classes that they normally wouldn’t try because of the limited schedules. Th is especially works for freshmen because by the time they are seniors they can try many diff er-ent classes because they would have most, if not all, of their credits. If the students are able to complete most of their required

credits by senior year, then they will be able to have free periods in ei-ther the morning or afternoon so they will be at school for a shorter amount of time. Th e school wants to reward those students who went above and beyond the expected number of credits by giving them free periods but, the ultimate prize is the fact that students can start early with their college credits. Although most students agree to the 8 periods, there are still a handful of kids who dis-agree with it. Th e shorter class times means that students may not be able to fi nish all their classwork

which they now have to take home to complete. Th e 8 periods also means that students and teachers need to start coming to school 15 minutes earlier than last year. Th e extra class may also add additional stress to the students due to the ex-tra work they are responsible for. Th e extra work that may be given to students only helps them stay involved with their school work and the shorter classes forces students to stay alert and focused while class is taking place because if they don’t then they will not understand the material. Th e earlier time doesn’t impact the amount of

students that get to school on time because students will fi nd an excuse to be late whether class starts earlier or later than usual. Th e stress also shows students what they may have to deal with whenever they become adults and have to juggle many tasks at once. Th e 8 periods does noth-ing but helps students achieve their goal of graduation and also helps them explore new classes that they otherwise wouldn’t participate in. Th e students that truly take their education and their future seriously will have no problem adjusting and welcoming the 8 periods with open arms.

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