Documenting the world of Century High School
The Canned Food Drive started on December 3rd and ended on December 18th. Students deposited their canned foods in their day 2 period 2 classes. The goal this year was 27,000 cans and 100% class participation. We were still the school with the most cans […]
The 2018-19 school year has brought in 6 foreign exchange students. A month and a half into school, we remain with 5 students. The students’ homelands range from all around the world, most coming from Asia and Europe. They all said […]
As returning Century students know, the school has recently closed off the hallways that were previously open during lunch. This is one of the causes contributing to amount of students in the cafeteria. Although outside and upper central is open to students during lunch, the weather is getting colder which will discourage students from going outside.
Upstairs Central gets very crowded during lunch as well due to many students hoping to escape the packed cafeteria. Although the school had their reasons for closing the halls, it has made lunch for students less enjoyable.
Many students struggle to find an open table or even chair in some cases. Looking for a place to sit takes away from their actual eating time, which leaves students either unable to eat, or eating in their next class instead, which can be distracting.
Many changes can be made to fix these problems. Sophomore Lucila Gonzales keeps a very unbiased opinion when speaking on this issue. “I feel that it is definitely helping with students and not skipping class and helping the janitors with less space to clean. Last year, we had a recurring problem of students not cleaning up after themselves. In the opposing aspect, I think it’s very difficult for me to speak to a teacher and get where i need to be sometimes.”
“For example, I may be talking to my second period teacher in south and my next class is in north, and I’m walking to my class and the doors are locked…now i’m angry and even later than anticipated.” Both these pros and cons should be taken into consideration when discussing possible changes and the overall well being of the students.
The colder months will also bring in the students who usually sit outside, which adds to the chaos in the cafeteria. In order to avoid this, the school should make changes to make the students’ lunch experience more enjoyable.
Crowded lunchrooms may not seem like a big deal to some, but for many students, lunch is the only break they get throughout the day. Because of this, the school should try to make it as enjoyable as possible.
Although the school has their reasons for closing off the halls, there are alternatives to keeping them open. For example, opening further into South and North main halls, but not allowing students to go into the connecting halls where the majority of classes are.
This brings us to the question of, “What if they do disrupt classrooms?” If multiple complaints are made of students at lunch disrupting classrooms, the privilege would taken away once again. However, it seems that students have seen what it’s like not having the halls open, they’ll be more inclined to have and enforce better behavior to keep it that way.
The school currently has 52 tables set out for each lunch. These tables can hold a maximum of 7 chairs around the table, which leaves an average of 6 chairs around each table. If half the school has each lunch, that means an about 700 kids have lunch together. With 312 chairs at lunch, it leads us wondering what the remaining students do for lunch. Some students prefer having their own personal space, but with the condensed amount of people in the seating option areas makes this extremely difficult.
As previously mentioned, many options are available that can help better the well-being of Century students for the rest of the year.
Many students at Century are excited for winter break this year. It lasts from December 22nd to January 6th, which totals 16 days of no school. People are delighted to use these chunk of days to spend time with family and […]
Some students are extra stressed this school year, their teachers are asking them to print and are facing issues. Nothing has actually happened to the printers, but the access points to the printers are disappearing. As most students have noticed, all […]
On December 11th, 2018, the Portland Metro area lost a pillar of the community.
Local Holocaust survivor, Alter Wiener, died in a fatal accident late that tuesday night.
He was well known in the community, and devoted his 92-year long life to educating people about the suffering he and so many others went through at the hands of Adolf Hitler, and the failure of the international community to intervene, in the complacency of regular people.
Alter gave speeches in schools, libraries, and community centers around the Portland Metro area for years. According to his website (alterwiener.com) since moving to Oregon in 2000, Wiener had given over 850 speeches to various libraries, schools, universities, and places of worship since then.
Wiener wrote a memoir that has sold many copies since then. As of December of 2014, “From a Name to a Number” was ranked as the #1 Holocaust Survivors’ book on amazon.
Although he ceased giving speeches due to his age, Wiener continued to fight for Holocaust Awareness to his final breath. In September of 2018, he visited Salem to give testimony to the Senate Committee on Education, hoping to secure a vote to make Oregon join the 12 states that mandate Holocaust and genocide education in public schools.
Alter’s father was killed when he was 13, after the Germans began their invasion of Poland. Over the course of WWII, Alter spent 3 years on various concentration camps, including Auschwitz, until his final camp was liberated by the Russians in 1945. At that time, he was 18 years old and weighed only 80 pounds.
Instead of letting the suffering he endured make him angry, he devoted his life to education and awareness so the same mistakes made in the 1930’s and 1940’s will never be made again.
According to the Washington Post, a study revealed that 22% of millennials weren’t sure what the Holocaust was, and hadn’t heard of it before. In addition to this, 66% of millenials couldn’t identify and example of a concentration/extermination camp, and didn’t know what Auschwitz was.
The aim of making Holocaust Education mandatory is to increase awareness, with the hope that history will not repeat itself. However, with the rise of alternative movements and increased anti-semitic tendendancies has resulted in a revitalization of proud Neo-Nazi groups, meaning literally “New-Nazi”.
When speaking to the Senate in September, he plead with them to make Holocaust education in Oregon mandatory, and left them with a plea.
“Be better, not bitter.”
Wiener’s service was on Friday the 14th, at Congregation Neveh Shalom in Portland.
On behalf of the Century High School Jagwire Staff, I would like to thank Alter Wiener for everything he did for our community, as we mourn the great loss he left behind, and try everyday to live how he wanted us too, with love and compassion, instead of hate and violence.
In the past decade, social media has made an enormous impact in the modern world. One’s social media accounts can completely alter the perspective that people are seen in. Teenagers tend to be the most affected group of people influenced by […]
The first speech and debate competition was November 3rd and it kicked off the season! Speech and debate has officially started their 2018-2019 season. Their first debate was on November 3rd and took place at Sprague High School in Salem. This year, Senior Emily Basler […]