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Voting age should be lowered to 16

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By Wilfredo Portillo-Quinones

We learn in school that voting is one of the most important rights of citizenship. Yet most high school students are not allowed to vote because they are under 18. I believe that 16 and 17-year-olds should have the right to vote. As a teenager we have fresh perspectives with new thoughts and ideas that can add to what our government already has in mind for the country.

Our current government is run primarily by older people. When the two main candidates for President are the oldest to ever run in history, it feels like we’re lowering our standards. There needs to be a better mind at our highest office of government, especially when we’re making enemies out of other countries and military forces. I think if teenagers could vote, we would vote for a president with an open mind and someone who can relate to our ideas for the country.
Our country needs a leader who has an open mind about things and isn’t quick to make enemies. We as teenagers could support our government with ideas and feel better about our government if we knew we had a president who could relate to us.

There are claims that young people don’t care or even think about our government power and that is false. A lot of young people care about our government, as studies show. According to the website youthrights.org, people of the age of 17-18 vote more than people ages 20-40. In 2014, Chicago allowed their youth to vote and 75% of eligible people ages 16-17 voted compared to 54% of people ages 20-50, showing us that our youth care at least as much as older people do. In Baltimore, we let our youth vote for our mayor in one election and people of the age of 17 voted 35% compared to 36% of people 18 and older, showing us that teens will vote at more or less the same level as older people. This proves that our youth care as much as older people do. The same website also shows data that shows that contrary to popular belief, high school students actually know more on average about the government that older people. This makes sense when you consider that we are learning about government in school and the information is fresh in our minds. Despite some people’s claims that teenagers are too ignorant to vote, the truth is that youth have open minds, are as well-informed as other age groups, and should have the same rights as other Americans. We also care about our country and who our leaders are.

There are many organizations fighting for youth rights and they’ve proven the facts that teenagers have the right ideas for our country. We should support and fight for teenage voting rights. Voting rights for teenagers would create many new opportunities for us to become active citizens and make our country better. I hope these specific facts will convince you that teenagers above the age of 16 do care about our country and should be given the right to vote.



Clippers track and field team makes history at City Championships

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(Photo by Kylayah Davis/Patterson Press)

By Coach Smith

The Patterson track and field team made history at the Baltimore City Indoor Track and Field Championships on Thursday, January 25 at the Prince George’s County Sportsplex. Najah White AKA “Little Nae” won 2 gold medals. She won a gold medal in the mile and rebroke the school record. Then, an hour later, she won a gold medal in the 2 mile.

Additionally, many of our other runners also broke school records. The girls 4 x 400 meter relay team of Ahmawanyah Lewis, Najah White, Dayvia Weaver, and Quintine Nterere broke the school record. Additionally, Rancel Corporan Lagombra broke the school record in the 500 meters. The boys 4 x 800 meter relay team of Joel Lukoo, Vema Maneno, Aaden Hopkins, and Rancel Corporan Lagombra broke the school record. And the boys 4 x 400 meter relay team of Aaden Hopkins, Joel Lukoo, Marshall Mallory, and Rancel Corporan Lagombra broke the school record.

Our track and field team is comprised mostly of freshmen and sophomores. In the next year or two, Patterson track and field will take over the city of Baltimore.

(Photos by Kylayah Davis/Patterson Press)

Health care out of reach for many in the U.S.

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By Dayanna Herrera-Mateo

 Healthcare prices have been a big problem in the United States for years. It is said that the prices are getting more expensive because of new health-related technologies.

From a global perspective, it has been reported that the United States has the worst healthcare prices and they continue to be more expensive than other high-income countries, and still, the U.S. is the only wealthy country that doesn’t have universal health coverage. Universal health coverage is when all people have access to all of the quality health services they need without financial problems.

Spending money per person on healthcare is almost two times higher than in Germany and four times higher than in South Korea. In the United States, people are more likely to die at a young age, the highest death rates are from avoiding conditions that can be treated, and we also have the highest suicide rate, which may stem from mental health problems which can also be expensive. About a total of 79 million Americans have medical bills and/or debt.

Immigrants have also been protesting in front of the Maryland State House in support of a healthcare bill which stated that healthcare is a human right. The bill would have allowed undocumented immigrants to access state health care assistance, but the bill failed to pass. The CARE Act, which was passed in 2016 and is still in force today, prevents many immigrants from receiving benefits from Maryland’s health care assistance program.

Immigrants try to avoid hospitals even when they’re very sick and have a sickness that could even be deadly because they’re scared about the high bill that they could have, so they’re demanding healthcare insurance. There was also a video trending in which a lady was seen trapped in a subway train in Boston and you could see she was struggling but she kept shouting and begging others who were on the scene not to call the ambulance. That might be because ambulance rides can cost about $1,300. It is understandable that she didn’t want the ambulance to be called. 

Healthcare is too expensive for some citizens to even afford, and it has been a problem for a long time now. The U.S. also doesn’t guarantee government or public health coverage to all their citizens. People are getting stressed to the point where they go so far as to unalive themselves because of hospital bills or any type of healthcare bills. 

High School Choice: Why you should care about it as a student and why I think it should be gone 

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By Jayzanay Blessett, Junior at Patterson High School and Diversity Chair of the Associated Student Congress of Baltimore City

Baltimore’s School Choice was established as a program in 2002. It determines whether or not you get accepted into the school you chose by considering your composite score and your academic performance during your Middle School years. If you do not get into the school you would like to go to, then you are typically placed in your zoned school or your other choices. Certain schools require special application requirements, such as Polytechnic Institute, Baltimore City College, etc. In this article, I will express my opinion on why I believe we should put an end to this and why, as a student, you should care.

My Story

As a middle school student you constantly hear your teachers drill thoughts into your brain like, “Go to Poly”, “Go to City”, or “Make sure you do the best you can so you can get accepted into Poly and/or City”. Hearing teachers consistently say that makes students feel pressured that they have to go to those said schools and if they don’t it’s bad or is not “acceptable”. Putting this kind of stress on 12-14 year old children is not healthy whatsoever. 

The idea that only those two schools you will give you the best education is a terrible idea. From a personal standpoint, my School Choice year was during the pandemic. My virtual school year was bad and I was struggling with many mental health problems just like every other student. I was so scared to miss the deadline for my School Choice and I was nervous that I was not going to get into the school that I wanted to, which was Baltimore City College. Once I got my results, I cried, because I got into one of the supposedly “worse’’ schools in the city, Patterson High. 

For the majority of my 7th grade year, I heard so many stories about why Patterson, Mervo, and honestly any school that was not Poly, City, Western, and or BSA was bad, so getting into a school that was not on my list was embarrassing for me because every time I would tell anyone about the school I went to/was going to, I was told I would be “too smart for that school’’ and that I need to transfer to get the education I deserve. 

The Issue

Understanding High School Choice from a student’s point of view, I will now give some reasons why I believe School Choice is an ineffective program and why the District needs to stop doing it. Baltimore’s School Choice creates equity issues, a hierarchy among schools and students, and transportation struggles.      

The Baltimore City school system has long had an equity issue. I feel as though School Choice will hinder us from solving this problem. When I took a look at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute’s website I noticed that they state, “Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (“Poly”) is a citywide magnet high school for Baltimore City Public Schools that emphasizes a rigorous college preparatory curriculum in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. With a student body of more than 1,600 students and 85 teachers, Poly is committed to ensuring that all students have access to college and post-secondary opportunities.”

Viewing the part where is says “Poly is committed to ensuring that all students have access to college and post-secondary opportunities’’ threw me off because all schools in the city do this. You should not have to go all the way across the city because you only have maybe 2 schools that have a “rigorous college program”. Every school in Baltimore City should have equal robust classes dedicated to help them get into college. Being a Patterson student, we are not offered many of the classes that schools like City have, which makes it difficult to receive the education I need to compete with other students for college.

Having a program like High School Choice also creates a hierarchy between the students because you will get shamed for going to a school that’s not highly liked. It also creates an issue with transportation. If we focused on giving each school the same resources and opportunities, students would not need to transport themselves all the way across other parts of town to go to school. 

We could have school busses that take kids to school because no school would be better or worse than the others and students could just go to their zone school, but in the system that we currently have, we push all “high achieving’’ kids into one school and kind of just push out the other students. If you take a look at Baltimore County’s public school system, they are outperforming us because they don’t have something called “School Choice”. They have zoned schools with each school properly allocated equal resources and robust class courses. 

Taking Action

If students speak up on this issue a lot more, we could possibly make a change in some way. Imagine going to a school that has everything you need to be successful and pursue higher education without having to pick a school and maybe get rejected. Every single school in Baltimore need to have robust science, math, and English courses. If one school offers AP in Freshman year, then all schools need to that.

Yes, I understand that School Choice is an important tradition for Baltimore City, but the System is setting us up for failure and as a student, you should care about this too. As the student Chair of the Diversity Committee for Baltimore City Public Schools, I plan to advocate on the issue to the best of my ability.

Patterson provides services to meet student needs beyond education

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By Deontay Blackwell

Ms. Lia Reid, Community School Director
(Photo by Deontay Blackwell, Patterson Press)

Like most schools in Baltimore, Patterson High School offers services or help to students who may need it. For our school, we have a plethora of services that need to be better known by the general student population.

Ms. Reid, the community school director, runs the community center at Patterson, better known as the pantry. She helps to bring partnerships into the schools based on students’ needs. For example, she brought the B.A.T.S Automotive Club to our school last year and an interpreter program this year. 

“I have a lot of families come in just to get food to take home for the weekend or holiday break, we get frozen meats which is new this year, we also get a lot non perishable items all the time in the pantry.”, Ms. Reid said.

Ms. Reid also runs the Clipper Closet where people can find any clothes they need. Ms. Reid explained how the community center can provide clothes for people like button-downs, ties, and dresses for job interviews or any other reason. Even if there’s none on hand students can request a specific article of clothing that they might need if asked. They also have a lot of shoes and jackets not just for students but for anyone in their family who might need some clothes or request sizes for people who might have younger siblings by working with other schools that have clothes as well.  

Ms. Reid also has a comfort closet within the community center where she keeps toiletries and feminine hygiene items for students who might not have some, in addition to that she sometimes even has household items like laundry detergent, sheets, pots, and pans.  

While Ms. Reid operating the community center here at Patterson brings in much support for students, the nurse’s office/health suite next door also provides medical services for students here. Katie, the nurse practitioner here, helps provide medical care to students while other nurses are giving vaccines to students, doing physicals for upcoming student-athletes, helping kids with chronic illnesses like diabetes, and giving medication to those who are sick. They can even help with allergens and other minor chronic illnesses. The health suite is run by the Baltimore Medical System which also supplies them with the things they need on a day-to-day basis. Students can also receive STD testing, condoms, birth control, and sign themselves into a confidentiality consent law that doesn’t require their parents’ permission to receive these services. 

Although there are many services at our school that are unknown to most students, you can always ask the Main Office or a teacher for help and they will direct you to someone who can help with your needs. There are many more services besides the ones mentioned in this article. 

Bentley Law holds drunk drivers accountable for child support

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By Dayana Herrera-Mateo

About 43% of car accidents involve drunk drivers in the United States. About 10,850 people have passed away every year because of drunk driving crashes. In Austin, Texas, a new law was made in which drunk drivers who have killed a parent or parents have to pay child support until the kids turn 18.

The law took effect on September 1, 2023. This law was made after a fiery car crash that killed Cordel, Lacy, and their four-month-old son, leaving behind Bentley and Mason under their grandparent’s care. Cecilia Williams, the grandmother of Bentley and Mason, and the mother of Cordell, said that kids of this circumstance no longer have parents and she wants people who cause that sort of pain to be held accountable. She believes they should pay child support for the consequences of their actions.

At the moment, four states have passed the law. Tennessee was the first to pass the law, along with Kentucky, Maine, and Texas. Cecilia Williams is hoping that by December of this year, all 50 states will have passed this law. She also hopes this law prevents people from driving drunk and helps the victims who are struggling. 

Teenage gun violence at its highest rate

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By Jennifer Iraheta-Delcid

Incidents of gun violence involving teenagers is rising in Baltimore. Teenagers are being injured and even killed in 2023 at a pace never seen before in at least a decade. On average, one victim is shot every two days and one is killed every week. The cause of the highly elevated rise in teenage brutality may be because of disagreements and rivalries.

This year, Baltimore City made a significant advancement in reducing overall violence by seizing 398 guns while seeing a 25% reduction in homicides and 27% in non-fatal shootings. Yet many Baltimore residents still have easy access to these guns, which is also a reason for this increase in gun violence among teens. High school-age teens continue to be shot in record numbers, with the year 2023 ending with 16 juvenile homicides and 94 non-fatal juvenile shooting victims. This generation of young people can’t resolve problems peacefully like talking it out. Most situations like this are victims younger than 19 years old. These conflicts can affect the well-being and mental health of many students, teachers, and parents by inducing fear and worry, and it’s devastating to the community.

“This makes me feel sad and worried at the same time because there is no security anymore… This affects me because I have a daughter in high school”, stated Joselyn Delcid. She added, “ I believe they should have more security like metal detectors and the state should remove the easy access to guns. I would feel more at peace with the security and well-being of my daughter and everyone in the school.”

Mayor Brandon Scott associates gun violence with the lack of responsibility and care of parents or even the way they raise their children. He is looking for ways to hold parents accountable. Scott is partnering with a program called “We Our Us“  in hopes of making progress through numerous small efforts that can add up to have a big impact. Scott also said he will be placing more mentors and specialists in Baltimore City schools to see if it makes an impact. The Mayor said the state and the country need stricter laws and a more efficient justice system to hold criminals accountable. Whether or not we will see a decrease in violence in the future is unclear, as teenage gun violence continues to be an unsolved problem.

Students prepare for new semester

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By Kimberly Aguila-Torres

Patterson High School’s first two quarters are coming to an end already. Final exams are soon to start right when we students come back from Winter Break. Right now, teachers are wrapping up their final lesson for students before they head off for their Winter Break.

I asked several students if they were ready to start a new year with new classes.

”It’s whatever”, said one student. “I had gotten used to in my classes so it’s going to feel weird when we have our new classes.”

“It is gonna be a change for students.”, another student replied. “This is the first year that Patterson High School does this [semester schedule], but students will adapt to their new classes. Some will have the same lunch and some will change.”

I followed up my first question by asking these students if they like the classes they will be taking next semester.

One student responded, ”Nah, really I will be having geometry–and I am not great at math–and chemistry, which I think I properly will do not good.”

So far, there are students that like this new semester-based schedule and some that don’t and wished that they could just stay in the same classes throughout the whole school year. It’s going to be difficult for students once they come back from their break and have to take a lot of final exams for each class.

“I am feeling really sad because I wont be with the same people I was in class with.”, one student lamented when asked how they felt about the semester ending.

Hopefully students will enjoy their new classes and get used to their new schedules for next semester.

Remembering those we lost this holiday

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By Jennifer Iraheta-Delcid

On Thanksgiving in Baltimore, many have lost their loved ones and Thanksgiving doesn’t feel the same to them. Additionally, many Baltimore residents don’t have the resources to celebrate this holiday. Fortunately, there are many generous people who want to help out and give to those in the community.

Firstly, In West Baltimore there is an event called ‘The Giveback’ celebrated on Thanksgiving. The reason for this event is to help out the community and give back to them, especially to those who are not financially able to celebrate this day. Secondly, There is another group of people who provide meals to the families of homicide victims in order to share their kindness to someone who is grieving the loss of their loved ones. These simple but thoughtful events are able to unify everyone, provide for those in need, and bring joy, cheer, and reassurance to the community. 

Jade Harper started the Overcame Foundation and also teamed up with the City of God apparel shop where she provides hot meals, dancing and music, and even warm clothes. It has almost been a decade since this celebration first occurred. This event is able to bring joy and hope to many. Many children and adults benefit from this since they are able to walk away with free warm new clothes. There were 40 volunteers from the city ready to give back. Being able to give back and see the glow in people’s eyes is “monumental” to them. Jade’s main goal is to show people in the community that there are still people who care and are there to support them. 

Peggy and Kevin Callahan, organists of the Sacred Heart Glyndon Catholic Church teamed up with the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Grief Ministry Program to provide meals to 30 families who have lost family members to homicide. The Archdiocese was focused on bringing joy to the families on this holiday. Additionally, parishioners donated enough to be able to provide meals and gift cards to families on Thanksgiving. The grief ministry program has helped 365 families in the past two years who have gone through traumatic losses by providing many things such as groceries, care packages, relocation costs and funeral expenses. Peggy and Kevin, as well as the everyone else involved in the program, feel blessed to be able to help these families and bring some joy and hope to their homes.

Also, in Belair, the R.I.C.H. Foundation (Reaching Innocent Children’s Hearts) is having a holiday giveback for Christmas on December 22.

Many take for granted what they have and don’t cherish it, while some people suffer the loss of their loved ones during the holidays where most families are united. Then there are others who don’t have the resources to celebrate this holiday. Fortunately, there are many who care and have kindness in their hearts who are able to volunteer and help these families and the community and give back to them and also provide them with a joyful holiday.

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