By Eli Lanehart
Business Manager Students may remember in years past that safety precautions have been centered around the passive-resistance of “staying down” in a classroom, waiting for a hostile to pass. This all is about to change as Red Lion is taking on the safety system that has been storming the nation - ALICE. “It’s a shift to how we usually do our lockdowns when we would potentially have problems,” Principal Grant Gouker said.
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School guidance councilor Mrs. Kathy Moser, English teacher Mr. Robert Beatty, and learning support teacher Ms. Lori Strayer are all retiring at the close of the 2016-2017 school year. Each of them has been a valued member of Red Lion's staff and they all leave behind a unique story for the high school to remember them by.
By Rachel Lau
Social Media Editor There have been several new changes this school year, but one that has seemed to gain everyone’s attention is the addition of an “academic prep” period. Last year, Red Lion had a period called flex, that didn’t exactly work well for students or teachers. Typically, either the period was left with nothing else to do for the extra 20 minutes or students would become bored and couldn’t keep their attention on the class. “All changes were made to give students extra support,” Principal Mark Shue said. He also brought up the statistics that showed from this year to last year, student failures lowered 16 percent. By Helen Zeidman
Staff Writer The new school year is well underway, and the times have changed. The Red Lion High School has gotten a new schedule. Since last school year, the administration has implemented a new school schedule with updated class period lengths, the removal of the flex period, and the addition of an Academic Prep period. Instead of the daily rotating twenty minutes formerly known as Flex Period, a new feature has been added to the schedule: Academic Prep. This 38-minute period will take place in your homeroom and will occur every day between third and fourth period. According to Principal Mark Shue, “Academic prep will serve all kinds of different functions.” Some of the uses for this new period include classroom remediation, catching up on missed work, club meetings, and special projects. The period will work on a request system. Either a student can fill out a request form to ask to spend the academic prep period with a certain teacher, or a teacher can request to spend the period with a student. A student is not allowed to leave their homeroom without a request. With the addition of academic prep, students will not have to memorize a dozen different schedules. “There will be the same bell schedule every day,” Mr. Shue said. The decision to the switch from flex period to the academic prep period follows a principle of human nature. “Human beings love consistency and structure. Academic prep gives everyone both,” Mr. Shue said. The consistency can also be helpful to teachers. Ms. Ayres, the librarian and yearbook coordinator, admitted that she enjoys the structure of the new period. “Personally, I like the consistency in the schedule. I don’t feel like I constantly have to think about what is coming next, so it is one less thing to worry about in a teacher’s busy day,” Ayres said. Academic prep also gives students the opportunity to finish their work during school hours instead of having to stay after school. If a student misses a class due to a sport, or because of an appointment, they can make up the work in the academic prep period. Allyson Ayres has her homeroom with the yearbook staff. With the extra time that the academic prep period provides, Ms. Ayres plans to improve the yearbook. “The time will allow us to complete quality work in a timely fashion,” Ayres said. “It will give students the opportunity to use their creative skills because they will have more time.” As this school year begins, the high school is saying goodbye to flex and hello to a brand new schedule designed to meet the needs of students and teachers. By Taylor Bosley
Sports Editor The seniors viewed the 9th annual “Mock Crash” led by the Red Cross Club April 24. Student actors Mike Ondek, Kenny Holloway, Lucas Crumling, Tyler Robbins, Courtney Hake, Brianna Dean, Meghan Rutzebeck and Evelyn Kunce of the mock crash demonstrated the dangers of drinking and driving “Every person, every part, is huge,” Vice Principal Mr. Grant Gouker said. He believes that every part of the Mock Crash, from the students to the emergency services to the famous helicopter appearance, is crucial to the whole picture the Mock Crash is trying to paint. The list of everyone involved includes Mrs. Jennifer McCandless, advisor of the Red Cross Club, Red Lion fire company and ambulance services, Dallastown fire company, Yoe fire company, York Regional EMS, York Area Police Department, STAT Medevac, York Trauma and Arundel Fire Co. Along with the emergency services, Baker Son and Towing donates the cars to be used in the Mock Crash. Mr. Gouker noted that this is of no cost to the district and it includes all donations and volunteers. The number of pieces that goes into the making of the Mock Crash all do it out of kindness. “The goal is to make it as real as possible,” Mr. Gouker said. Senior Meghan Rutzebeck, one of the actors involved in the display, views the mock crash as beneficial to the senior class. “I think it’s really necessary that we show we them this scenario,” Rutzebeck said. To begin the show, seniors could hear the 911 dispatch call over the loudspeaker. Soon after, sirens were heard in the distance and the fire truck and ambulance entered the parking lot. The students watched as the EMT workers rushed to get the students out the cars. Many watched in awe as their friends were pulled from the cars, bloodied by make up. Mr. Gouker’s goal was to make the entire scene as real as possible. The makeup, helicopter and EMT workers were all used to reach the goal. By Ian Adler Multimedia Editor The rainbow spinning wheel has been showing up on computers in classrooms throughout the high school this school year. With technology issues in the classrooms, district officials have been responding to each case, hoping to make technology use efficient and useful. The future looks bright for technology here at Red Lion, although there are guaranteed to be speed bumps along the way. “Our goal is to bring teachers and students the best customer service possible,” Supervisor of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Mr. Eric Wilson said. The district experiences login bugs, network errors and even an occasional internet outage. “There were a lot of wireless devices added to the district over the past year and moved to different parts of the buildings where wireless coverage was not increased,” District Network Manager Dustin Boyd said in an email interview. This overload of traffic on wireless hotspots appears to be the culprit of the slow internet speeds. It’s no secret that the school is going to need to increase its arsenal of wireless hotspots. “We are constantly monitoring the wireless coverage and adding devices where they are needed. Currently, we are looking at doing a complete wireless assessment over the summer to make sure these issues are resolved for the following school year,” Boyd said. The technology department also received multiple requests for individuals not being able to log into the macbook carts. This seems to be a mix of wireless coverage and the version of OSX the macbooks are running. “We are returning some of the carts back to the older version of OSX that have less issues with network connectivity,” Boyd said. “This is a fairly time consuming process so we cannot do all the carts at one time, but we are working on resolving the issue.” As far as the internet outages go, “There are multiple points from the source to the school where the internet can fail. It all depends on the different situations,” Wilson said. Some classrooms have trouble connecting to the server, having better luck on some days than others. The wireless internet rarely has totally shut down all across the high school, rendering online work impossible. “We don’t have control over most of the things that could go wrong.” Wilson said. Turnover in the Tech. Staff. Mr. Jared Mader, who left the district in 2013, was the director of technology and he oversaw the network and also educational technology, according to Wilson. Currently, the district technology staff consists of several different people. “Currently, Dustin Boyd, Network Manager, focuses on hardware, and I focus on educational technology, so we work together to fill the position,” Wilson said. Between the departure of Mr. Mader and the appointment of Mr. Wilson, Global Data Consultants provided network services, according to Wilson. At the end of January, several students weighed in about their experiences with technology in the high school. “I know a lot of kids experience trouble with it, but I really don’t,” junior Jen Owrutsky said. “I think it’s been a really big help with everything in class.” “I think it’s better in some classrooms than others,” Owrutsky said. “We use the computers in physics for a variety of activities,” junior Grant Fickes said. However, “There are pop-ups everyday and sometimes the applications run quite slow. The internet usage is somewhat spotty at times.” “The internet goes down at least once a week,” Senior Ben Logan said. “It’s just hard to do stuff on technology at school.” With the growing dependence on technology in this day and age, Red Lion has, and plans to continue to, expand its use of technology. “At this point in time we’ve had a lot of professional development opportunities for teachers to learn how to use technology services and incorporate it into their classrooms,” Wilson said. “Since early November, we have been working to make sure that we have a face for our tech staff for the different buildings.” He wants to have the best support for the students and staff by having two dedicated technology support staff members making the system run smoothly, including Mr. George Leitheiser and Mrs. Amanda Stikeleather. “Mrs. Stikeleather and Mr. Leithiser will be the only staff working here (the high school) so people can develop a relationship with them. Our tech staff is awesome, they’re very knowledgeable and they work very hard,” Wilson said. It seems impossible to fight the growth and dependence on technology not only in the classroom, but also everyday life. With the right understanding, Red Lion as a whole can really look forward to their experiences with technology in the future. As for addressing long-term concerns, the district plans to make careful plans for the future. “We prefer to take the time to make the right decision instead of a quick decision,” Wilson said. |
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