February 2019-News

STUDENT LEADER CREATES OPTIONS NOT LIMITS CONFERENCE.

By: Alexis Gomez

Estefania Hermosillo from “Immigrants Rising” sharing her immigration story and speaking about resources that can help the E.L.L community.

 "Options Not Limits” is a youth led conference that will be directed towards helping ELL/ESOL students by providing information that will aid them in being successful. Learning anything is not easy due to having to learn a new language while trying to maintain regular coursework and teachers that may not understand the struggles of not knowing English.

 Kevin Cavich Tejero got the idea to start Options Not Limits because he noticed that the dropout rates for english learner students were much higher than regular students when he was assigned to read data as a part of school site council.

 Tejero then analyzed why the dropout rates were so much higher for ELL students and he saw that age, money and motivation were some of the key factors. For Tejero, motivation was his biggest concern.

 “Students are not motivated to chase their dreams. So I came up with the ELL conference. This will help them feel like their education isn’t a utopia and it's something that will help them most in their lives”, said Tejero.  

 A goal for Options Not Limits is to uplift and arm English learning students with the knowledge they need to thrive in a mainstream academic environment and dealing with legal issues, and finding work/internships in a competitive scene. This information is not only available to students but Options Not Limits also encourages parents to attend to really understand what their children are going through in the public school system and what they can do to help guide them on the path to higher education.

 One resource the conference will provide is information on post secondary planning for families and finding scholarships for college along with financial planning.Post Secondary planning is planning ahead for college and all the steps that is needed to do that, such as federal student aid and finding the right schools.

 “Options Not Limits is impacting us in a way that we feel capable of helping our community even though we are new to it!”, says Kevin, student leader organizer.

 The Options Not Limits conference will happen on February 13th at 9:30 A.M and everyone is welcome. There are flyers promoting Options Not Limits in multiple languages in front of the Peer Resources room in front of gender neutral bathroom.

FLAG FOOTBALL SEASON BEGINS THEIR SEASON WITH NEW COACH

By: Jael Bryant

Vanessa Wu, Ashley Guan, and Ingrid Reyes practicing for their upcoming season.

 

 

  The new year is here, and with that comes the spring season and spring sports. One of those sports is the girls flag football team. Andre Walker, the long-time coach of the team will not be the coach for the upcoming season. There have been rumors going around that “he wasn’t safe for the girls” and that “he was fired because Lincoln has a new rule saying that only the Lincoln Faculty can be coaches of the sports teams.” The only people who really knew about this, were the girls that were on the team from the previous season. When talking with Principal Shari Balisi, she said that the Coaches at Lincoln have only a one year contract, and during the summer she opens up the application to the city and the CIF board to anyone that applies. She made it clear that she didn’t fire anyone.

  Athletic Director, Kevin Grayson spoke with Dre on the phone and encouraged him to apply, but he simply didn’t. He also mentioned that “There is no big conspiracy going on about Coach Dre. There is no secret underlining to why he is no longer the coach.”

  Mr. Harris, the former Flag Football coach and current PE teacher, will be the new coach for the team. Before Dre was the head coach for the girls Flag Football team, he was Harris’ assistant coach. But harris decided to stop coaching for them because he wanted to focus on his family. Harris was actually the first ever Flag Football Coach at Lincoln.

  Now that they have the girls have a new coach, Harris, alongside assistant Coach Michael Polluchi, they are now getting ready for tryouts because their season is just barely here. Though the girls are disappointed, they have to learn how to accept the new challenges facing the upcoming season. Even this cannot stop our Mustangs Girls from striving this spring season.

NONPROFIT GROUP IGNITE, INSPIRES FEMALE STUDENTS IN DIGITAL ARTS

By: Congnan Lu

(From left to right: Margaux Joffe, Jayme Brown, Ruqaiyal Angeles, Victoria Fajargo, Chloe Madison) Senior student Ruqaiyal Angeles asked to have a group picture with the four professionals after the panel.

 

 

   On January 17th, right after advisory, forty-four female students converged to the Lincoln library where four SF digital art professional women were waiting. They came from the nonprofit group, Ignite (Inspire Girls Now In Technology Evolution), whose mission is to share their experiences in the digital arts profession as women in order to inspire female students who are interested in this field.

      Ruqaiyal Angeles, a senior who asked a few questions during the panel, thinks it helped her a lot.

    “I think it was very informational and motivational because being a senior at Lincoln, I hit that stage which feels like having no ideas about what I wanted to do. I feel like having a panel of women and seeing how I can relate to their stories is very inspirational. It helped me to gain drive to continue into this field,” explained Angeles.

    “The gender ratio of women working in the digital arts profession is not proportionate to the number of men in the field,” said Jorge Goncalves, the teacher of Digital Media Design Academy. For example, animation or motion graphics has only twenty percent of women in their workforce, whereas audio engineering has only five percent.

   “Not being exposed to this field is one of the main reasons that digital arts professions are dominated by men,” says Victoria Fajardo, an Audio Engineer who works at Women’s Audio Mission. Female students do not get enough inspiration in the digital arts field from schools and families, which consequently leads to fewer interest.

    “My parents still think my job is just DJing,” explained Fajardo with a laugh.

    The four professionals came from different backgrounds with one similar point. They all had some disadvantages being women/women of color both in and out of school, and they wanted to encourage female students to not give up easily.

    “When I was in middle school, I was bullied, both emotionally and physically. After I got to high school, my social life became better, but I had a teacher who was super sexist and another teacher who was super racist. They were looking at me as if I were a specimen. That made me not want to come to school,” explained Jayme Brown, an audio engineer at Women’s Audio Mission.

    The four digital arts professionals also gave their own advice to female students who attended the event with questions like, “How do we deal with frustration?”

  “What can we do after high school?”

  “Be vocal about your interest. Let your teachers know it, so they can provide resources for you,” said Fajardo.

    “Stick to your own; don’t compare yourself to someone else,” said Brown.

    “Be creative; do things that you think are cool,” said Chloe Madison, the founder, and chief creative officer of Voidbox.

    Students who attended this event also expressed their own opinions on this issue.

    “I really wanted to learn more about the digital media design career. A lot of females don’t have the opportunities to expand to a career pathway like this. I feel like more females should be more open to one another. Women’s perspectives could also improve this field and make it better. Seeing so many women from different backgrounds made me a little more confident that I could pursue such a career,” stated Ashley Guan, a junior in the DMD academy.

   “This cleared a better path for me. The Ignite panel helped me on what I wanted to do, not only having one option to go off. I don’t want to be called a kitchen help because everyone’s the same. We all have ideas, if you are down to do it, you are down to do it,” said Kay-yea Wong, a junior student at Lincoln.

    Overall, the Ignite panel made a good impression on both the students and teachers.  

    “I thought the event went very well and that the majority of the girls were engaged, paying attention to the speakers, and asked good questions to them at the end of the event. I liked the event a lot, and I felt the speakers were very authentic and told personal stories about their schooling,” claimed Goncalves.

THE EFFECTS OF A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN ON A LOCAL LEVEL.

By: Urban Trdeski

 

 

  On December 22nd, 2018, President Donald Trump refused to sign a bill that would fund the government’s operations for 2019 after realizing that the bill would not give enough funding for the border security wall. This prompted a government shutdown, which had no hope for compromise and no end in sight. Trump and Democrats are both refusing to give in to the other’s demands, and debates on Capitol Hill show no signs of progress. As a result, thousands of government workers were furloughed until the government reopens. Federal employees who are considered “essential personnel” were being forced to work without pay. Thankfully, the government has agreed to re-open for three weeks, but the damage was already done.  It was a devastating 30 days at the Capitol in DC, but what were the effects of the shutdown on a local level? What will happen when it closes again in three weeks?

  Here in San Francisco, we receive most of our funding for public services from the state or locally with taxpayer money. This means that important departments like the Police Department and the Fire Department are going to stay whether the government shuts down or not. The Police Department does receive federal funding from the Department of Justice, but they do not rely on it to keep the department running. Thanks to the separation of powers, most public services in the city aren’t affected by the government shutdown.

  Although critical departments and organizations in San Francisco will stay open during a shutdown, there is still cause for concern. The FDA was almost entirely furloughed, which includes food and drug safety inspectors. This means that any facility that produces food or drugs were not being inspected or reviewed during the shutdown. Although most companies would want to keep their integrity, it still opens up the possibility for them to ignore or overlook crucial steps to ensuring product safety. The lack of FDA oversight could lead to devastating outbreaks from foodborne diseases and large amounts of pesticide residue in our food.  Not to mention that the shutdown halted the approval of a new peanut allergy medication.

  Along with the FDA, the National Parks Service (NPS) had to furlough most of its staff as well. The lack of presence from the NPS will have the most visible effect on our city, as several parks and historic sites are managed by the agency. Several parks have already been shut down across the country, and several more could close without notice. The NPS posted an official statement on their website, which states that “Some national parks may remain accessible to visitors; however, access may change without notice...For most parks, there will be no National Park Service-provided visitor services, such as restrooms, trash collection, facilities, or road maintenance.” This means that any park or historic site run by the NPS could have closed at any moment. Historic sites like Fort Funston and Alcatraz Island could have closed without any notice. In fact, Fort Point is already closed, and Alcatraz was set to close on January 24th, 2019. Several other parks ran by the NPS such as Ocean Beach, Lands End, Crissy Field, and others were very close to being shut down.

  Although our Federal Government is in political turmoil and set to shut down again after their three weeks is up, San Francisco, for the most part, will remain the same. The concerning and controversial reasoning for the shutdowns is on a national level, and does not directly affect our city. However, a continued shutdown in the future could cause serious problems in the upcoming years.