By Brionica Jackson

Patterson High School students took a 3 day trip to Annapolis from Saturday, April 27 through Monday, April 29 to participate in the Maryland Youth in Government program. They were able to stay at Hotel Annapolis for the weekend.

The students had choices to participate in one of the following activities: court, press, Senate , House, or delegate. They were able to act out the different roles of our government. Students were able to vote: electing the next Governor, Secretary of State, and Lt. Governor. They were able to exercise their opinions on the bills that they put out, sign petitions and more. Students wrote bills, fought for them, and helped bills get signed by their elected Governor.

The students even dressed professionally for their acting roles. Attendees were able to go to a banquet where the seniors in the program were awarded a graduation gift for being a senior and being in the program for two or more years. The seniors of Patterson who went on this year’s trip include John Dingzon and Brionica Jackson. The students received a red, white and blue ribbon. When I asked John Dingzon ” How did it feel to be graduating from Maryland Youth and Government after all this time?” he responded with “I was proud of myself!”

Kayla Holeman is a freshman and it was her first time going to Youth and Government. Although she didn’t have time to speak on her bill she enjoyed her time there. She said that next year she can’t wait to do it again. She enjoyed the atmosphere of the program and meeting new people. It looks like Kayla will be the next senior graduating from Youth and Government from the Patterson High School delegation!

By Eloisa Perez

Saving Adolescent Girls Everywhere (SAGE) is a club at Patterson High which helps young girls find themselves during high school, cope with some problems they might have, and help them do good in school.

SAGE is a group of girls “that talk about social awareness issues such as domestic violence, sex trafficking, body image”, said Coach Tatiana Cooper, the volleyball coach and SAGE faculty adviser. “We also do education involvement such as study hall every week and we do career and professional developments”, Coach Cooper added. “So pretty much I want to make sure they have jobs or educational opportunities over summer and throughout the year.”

“I started this program because I wanted to mentor girls that look like me… and I feel like there wasn’t even time to get into the school system.” Coach Cooper started this program so she can help girls throughout high school because high school can be a rough place for girls and she wants to help out as much as she can.

Coach Cooper is happy that she started the program because she has seen it help the students. “I’ve been able to see GPAs get better over time… and building a sisterhood and seeing the girls get along and have the community see them for who they really are.” Coach Cooper is saying that the girls she works with are really smart; it’s just that they need some encouragement from someone so they can do good in school.

Jade Recio is one of the 15 girls who are in the program. She likes SAGE because they help girls in need and it also helps her personality with issues she faces at home. “The program teaches me to not be so selfish and put myself in other people’s shoes because when we are helping other people that are in need I realize my life is not as bad as I thought it was.”, Recio said.

Recio believes that SAGE is a good program for girls who are facing some problems at home or anywhere. She says that the program teaches students to be humble and grateful for what they have, because some people out in the world have nothing.

Zewdi Mamno is another girl in the program. She encourages other girls to join the program because it helped her and she believes that SAGE can help other girls with their problems or to have more confidence in themselves.

“I would definitely tell other girls to join because it helps you find yourself, because high school is a really big place and I feel like there should be a place like SAGE where you can come to be yourself, because you’re judged everyday.”, Mamno explained.

SAGE is a really good program for girls in school, and its members believe it should be in every school because it helps them in every situation they might have.

By Ziara Jones

This basketball season, Coach Tarver felt proud of Patterson High School’s girls basketball team for trying their best to win. The girls basketball team won 8 games and lost 7 games.

Coach Tarver was proud when they played against Central High School even though Patterson lost that game. Patterson High School had a close game against Central. The score was 40 to 46.

“I was most impressed with the performance of the girls  at that game. All the way to the end they worked together very hard. It was a really tough game; it was a high emotion game for Patterson High.”, Coach Tarver said. “I was impressed by the score because they had lost last year but it was score of a blow out, but this year they were very close.”

Tyshenna Avery scored 12 points, the most points in that game. Patricia Escobar had 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 6 points.

The Patterson High girls basketball team is looking towards to what they hope will be an even better season next year.

By Meylin Diaz

Three students from Patterson’s Student Government Association attended a leadership convention in Ocean City, Maryland from March 27 through 29. Meylin Diaz, Keon Johnson and Brayan Pacheco represented Patterson High School at the Maryland Association of Student Councils (MASC) as delegates of the Associated Student Congress of Baltimore City.

The students learned great tips and received the keys to leadership. Ms. Brenda Moreno Martinez was doing a great job by helping others as an adviser.

This trip was a great opportunity to learn more about how to get the keys to  leadership. I learned how to be a leader and that our voice is our power . The part that I enjoyed most about the trip was when we got all the keys to leadership. I think Patterson gave me this great opportunity because this way I can teach others what I learned. The purpose of the trip was to learn about how to be a better leader and how to help others.

Versión en español (Spanish version):

Yo decidí venir a Ocean City porque esta es una gran oportunidad para aprender como obtener las claves para el liderazgo. Aprendí como ser un mejor líder y que nuestra voz es nuestro poder. Lo que más disfrute del viaje fue cuando obtuvimos todas las claves del liderazgo. Patterson me dio esta gran oportunidad porque de esa manera puedo enseñar a otros lo que aprendí. El viaje consistía en aprender como ser un mejor líder y como ayudar a los demás.

Meylin Diaz, Keon Jonhson y Brayan Pacheco representaron a la preparatoria Patterson en la Asociación de consejo Estudiantil de Maryland. Como delegados del congreso de Estudiantes Asociados de la Ciudad de Baltimore, los Estudiantes aprendieron grandes consejos y recibieron las claves del liderazgo.  

Ms. Brendahizo un gran trabajo ayudando a otros como consejera.

By Kayla Holeman and Dante Wilds

A representative from the Federal Reserve gave a presentation to American Government students in the Media Center on March 7. The Federal Reserve is a national banking system that plays a major role in regulating the U.S. economy.

The decisions made by the Federal Reserve (Fed for short) can affect you in many ways. It can affect how much money you borrow by controlling interests rates that influence your spending and saving habits. This in turn helps to stabilize the average prices you pay for goods and services.

The Fed helps promote a healthy overall job market for you and other workers. Everyone wants to get paid more, but higher pay can lead to increased prices for goods and services you need.

The Fed (along with other government agencies) checks to make sure your bank is financially sound. The Fed issues the currency (money) you use and helps get payments from Point A to Point B. The Fed even connects to your community by gathering information on economic conditions in different parts of the country.

Congress designed the Federal Reserve to ensure it is acceptable to the public but free from short-term political pressure. The Federal Reserve system includes Federal Reserve banks, a Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Many different people work for the Federal Reserve, including bank presidents, network developers, cash tellers, risk managers etc.

So the Fed controls almost everything about the American economy to keep you where you need to be financially. The Fed helps keep you on track with your money on how you spend it or on goods and services and it helps ensure that your bank is financially sound so you do not have to worry about whether or not your money is safe.

The Federal Reserve visit to Patterson was very informative. At the end, they gave the students $100 each! Unfortunately, it can’t be spent, as it has been taken out of circulation and shredded into hundreds of tiny pieces.

Brionica Jackson

Students in the Jonathan Club went to the number one school in the nation, Princeton University, on April 5.

The club traveled two hours and thirty minutes to Princeton, New Jersey, to visit the school. When the students arrived there, they ate pizza in the cafeteria while some students even brought food from the school. During the trip the students walked around the school and got a tour.

Coach Kelley, Academic Coach and teacher adviser for the Jonathan Ogden Club said, “it was great to expose our students to an Ivy League College and show them how hard they have to work to get accepted.”

Ms. Edler set up the trip and brought some juniors to see where they could be in the future if they apply themselves.

Kumatchu, a junior here at Patterson, says, “It was great to see a school like that. Before, I didn’t even know what Princeton was. When I get my SAT Scores back I might even apply there.”

The trip to Princeton has inspired students to think harder about their goals for after high school and what they need to do to achieve them.

By Paris Smith

Education is important. Everyone tells you and you know this. But isn’t your safety and well-being just as important or even more important?

But not everyone agrees about what will make us safer. Currently school police in Baltimore City Public Schools are not permitted to carry guns inside the schools. Some people, including the majority of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners, want to have guns in school to give the school police. They believe that guns will protect the students and everyone in the school. The main reason is the school shootings that have taken place all over the country. They want to put a stop to this problem because it is one of the most dangerous things to happen in schools.

“Having an unarmed officer is like having an empty fire extinguisher, it’s just there for looks and has no use in a real emergency.”, said Mr. Jason Casey, the EMT pathway teacher at Patterson. “In this day and age, we face more and more violence in places we could have never imagined.  If our political leaders and ‘celebrities’ have armed security, I think our children should also.  Those who wish to do harm will always find a way to harm others; we should be at the ready.”

Yet others have a different opinion: that guns are too dangerous for school, even in the hands of school police. They do not agree that it will make the schools safe but rather that it will put students in more danger then before. It could cause the danger that we are trying to prevent–school shooting–if a student or intruder grabs a school police officer’s gun and fires it. The school police might also use their guns to shoot a student in a situation that could have been handled without the use of guns. Because of several cases of unarmed black youths who have been shot and killed by police in the past few years, many students of color are unsafe having armed police in their schools.

Mr. Jesse Schniederman is a teacher at Frederick Douglass High School, where a staff member was shot by an adult visitor to the school in February. In spite of what occurred at his school, Schniederman is still convinced that arming school police is not the answer.

“Research shows that armed police don’t stop school shootings.”, Schniederman told the Patterson Press. “Even without evidence that this policy is misguided and ineffective, the presence of armed police in schools can negatively impact kids who have only known police as oppressors and who deal with gun violence routinely in their non-school lives.”

Schniederman also criticized the School Board’s recommendation to overturn the current restrictions on school police carrying weapons inside schools. “The process by which the School Board voted to allow guns in schools was a violation of the Open Meetings Act.”, Schniederman claims. “The school police union got to speak for extended time with specialty groups, despite not being on the agenda. The union head, Sgt. Boatwright, was spoon-fed easy questions by the School Board while myself and other advocates against were asked to provide printed out copies of the research backing up our statements.”

On the opposite extreme, some decision-makers have been thinking about giving guns not just to school police but also to teachers, to make sure the teachers and students are safe. This can have its pros and cons. The teachers can protect their classrooms in emergencies when we lock all doors and stay safe in the area, but teachers could also hurt a student. Some teachers may feel threatened because in other schools they have had problems with students putting their hands on a teacher or instructor. In a situation like that, a teacher might panic and reach for their gun. A gun could also go off by accident, injuring or killing the teacher or a student.

What is your opinion on this topic and how do you feel about this danger or new safety that could either help us or hurt us in school? To better understand the issue, you can find more information from staff, teachers, and students, and articles and videos from the Real News Network, where some of the information for this article came from.

By Eloisa Perez, Makhia Burley, and Breonia Holley

At Patterson High School, the conditions of the bathrooms are poor. The Patterson Press launched an investigation to figure out why.

Some of problems that have been identified by students and staff are lack of supplies, broken toilets and sinks, trash on the floor, and students locked out when they need to use the bathroom.

History teacher Mr. Ted Smith said he tries to avoid the bathrooms because they are dirty and smell really bad. “I try not to use them ever again. Sometimes I have to use them but I try to avoid it I say maybe a couple times a week but I try to avoid it”, Mr. Smith said.

Coach Brian R. Miles Sr. suggested, “They can use more scented things in the bathrooms like air freshener” so the bathroom will have a good aroma.

Most students resist going to the bathrooms because they are dirty and smell really bad. They also say when they go to the bathrooms there are no supplies that they need such as soap, paper towels, toilet paper, etc. Kaija Johnson is a student in Patterson High and she said, “They are dirty and they need to clean them a little bit more”. Johnson said the girls need to stop putting their pads in the toilets because that’s a problem in the girls bathroom. Some girls put their pads in the toilets because their are no disposal bins in stalls. Some students and teachers also expressed that it would be good to have vending machines for pads and other feminine hygiene products in the girls’ and women’s bathrooms.

On March 12, we gave a survey about the bathrooms to 50 students in both A and B lunch periods. One of the questions was about what supplies are usually missing when students use the bathroom. 60% of the students said that there is no soap, paper towels, or toilet paper when they go use the bathrooms. Mr. Robert Jones is one of the janitors at Patterson High and when we asked why is there no supplies in the bathrooms he said, “because they take the toilet paper and the soap and snatch it off the wall”. Mr. Jones is saying that the students take the supplies from the bathrooms and that is why there are no supplies in the bathrooms.

Some teachers are trying to change the way the bathrooms look like by painting the main doors as a woman cartoon or a man cartoon for the girls and boys and also painting the stalls a different color. Nancy Holter, one of the art teachers at Patterson, is painting the bathrooms with her class.

“I wanted to make the bathrooms cute and to make it look positive for the students”, said Ms. Holter, because she thought the school looked bleak and she wanted to change that. Ms. Holter and her students have painted the main doors for the bathrooms and now are moving to painting the stalls.

“I want to bring in soap and like lotion for the girls bathrooms because we need to be treated like human beings… People in prison have more supplies than us”, she said. Ms. Holter wants to see more change then just the color of the bathrooms.

In conclusion, the Patterson Press found out that the Patterson bathrooms are mostly dirty because of the students. At least that’s what the janitors are saying. We also found out that the bathrooms are not in good condition because “the school is old and it’s worn down”, as Principal Vance Benton put it. Mr. Benton explained that the school district is not going to spend a lot of money on fixing pipes and other facilities because construction for the school new is going to start in June.

By Brionica Jackson

Why are students not doing so well in school? Why is it that Senior year is the year that students’ GPA tends to drop? Why is it that some students struggle with more behavioral issues than other students?

One reason is depression.

I conducted a survey for students at Patterson High School, and it turned out that out of the four different grades, Seniors are the ones who are facing depression the most. Based on this short survey, 53% of the students are stressed due to family issues. Things that are going on at home are causing the students to be upset.

Most issues that students develop come from how the students were brought up and how their living situations are in the home. The things that happen at home are what is causing kids to act out. When it continues or the problem expands, students began to feel numb to the feeling of loneliness. They start to feel nothing and that causes them to become depressed. When that happens, they begin to lose interest in things. Stress and pressure leads students into a depressed state of mind.

Seniors are going through more stress and pressure as they worry about meeting graduation requirements, getting into college, and preparing for the transition to adult life. That is one of the main reasons why seniors tend to be more likely to become depressed than the lower grades.

If you are feeling depressed or stressed out, see the school psychologist, Ms. Gaither, in the Media Center or other staff members for support.