Columns, interviews, letters, artwork, etc. represent the opinions of their authors and not necessarily those of the Owlet. The Owlet is a student produced school publication and is produced as a public forum for students, teachers, parents, and community. There is no connection to or recommendation of any paid advertiser whatsoever through sale of space.
Letters to the Owlet are welcome from the students, faculty, and parents on any subject provided the letters meet the publication’s standards. They must be accompanied with the telephone number (which will not be published) and signature of the author. The Owlet reserves the right to edit all submissions. Letters should be sent to the Advisor: mianne.sciacqua@fresnounified.org
Dress Code Targets Females
by Jazzy Alvarado
The school dress code system is unfair, discriminating, and sexualizes young girls' bodies. Schools enforce the dress code like there is no tomorrow and they care more about what students are wearing than about what they learn. Women are targeted on a daily basis for the things they wear and are disciplined based on how specific pieces of clothing fit their body. Often times they are put down and led to believe that what they wear defines who they are which is a false statement.
Every single person in the world has shoulders, thighs, a chest, and a midriff, so why should female bodies be sexualized when they’re just like everyone else's. Women are degraded every day in settings that are supposed to be uplifting and teaching them that anything is possible. Instead of teaching females to love their bodies school admin teaches them that they need to hide for men to have a distraction free learning environment. “By policing what girls are wearing to school, it is sexualizing young girls. To me, it sounds like schools are saying that girls should have to cover up their natural bodies because they are too distracting to be seen” (Madeline Hollmann).
The dress code is in place trying to solve something that isn’t a problem. The real and only problem is that young men and even some administration people choose to sexually view a girl because of what she chose to wear. “Why don’t you start teaching our boys to be respectful, instead of blaming the girl for being a ‘distraction’?” (Madison Jones). What a female is wearing is the least of the schools’ problems, but the one they focus on most because sexualizing young girls is more important than stopping bullying and fights.
Instead of turning what a female is wearing into an act of sexual desire, both staff and other students should be taught to respect women. A young lady's shoulders should not be considered distracting, and neither should thighs or midriffs. School should be a place where students feel safe and comfortable learning freely, not somewhere they feel the need to cover up and be afraid. As humans we cannot control our body shape and making one person cover up because of how big a certain area of their body is is very discriminating and traumatizing. Women are not sexual objects, but that’s what the education system teaches them they are. The alternative to this devastating issue is that the school administration teaches themselves and everyone that what a student is wearing is not a disturbance to anyone's education.
Challenging Underclassmen to Change
by Isaiah Estrada
Is it me or have the freshmen gotten more immature with each year? Sadly, the current underclassmen on campus are negatively affecting the positive culture Fresno High tries to represent. These new students, who act with no regard, are allowing their young minds to be corrupted with what they see online.
I stand by my opinion; they should learn to improve their behavior. For example, whenever I walk into a restroom during passing period there is never any soap and the sinks are flooded. Many are familiar with this scenario since it is a popular challenge circulating on the social media app known as TikTok. Not only do these kids leave the toilets stained with some red substance, but they also refuse to flush the toilets and find amusement in it.
According to a 2020 article posted by Color New York, transitioning from middle school is rough for most kids and they are under pressure, which can lead to being irresponsible. As they progress through high school, hopefully, they mature. (https://colors-newyork.com/why-are-high-school-students-so-immature/#Why_are_high_school_students_so_immature). Going into quarantine didn’t help freshmen; they basically skipped a year and a half of middle school.
During lunch, I usually walk upstairs in the Math or English buildings because that’s where I hang out with my friends. Every single time that my friends and myself attempt to walk up the stairs they are blocked. There are several people who seem to get offended when you tell them they are blocking the entrances. Once again, there is a challenge on several social media outlets such as YouTube, TikTok and Twitter that have people purposely trying to get on other's nerves. The term for this would not be a challenge but rather a “menace.”
So, what do we do? These kids need to be aware of how inappropriate their behavior is. Sure, it’s okay to have fun, but they need to learn when it’s time to be serious. There’s only so much heavy monitoring that campus assistants can do, so maybe upperclassmen need to set the bar high with behaviors and show these underclassmen what it’s like to be a true Warrior. I mean, it couldn’t hurt to at least try, and maybe I could finally use the bathroom in the new north and south buildings.
School is Too Long
by Matt Marquez
Has school been feeling longer for anyone? Has class felt like it has been going on forever? If you have had those questions, come into your brain, it is because it has. Kids look more tired and tired every day, and I think it should change. School has been too long for too long.
Yes, you heard me right, the district has made the school day longer. If you do not believe me hear what Shayla Girardin of ABC 30 wrote about when interviewing superintendent Bob Nelson. Saying that “the district would be implementing extended learning for students during the fall semester by adding 30 minutes of instruction each day.” (https://abc30.com/fresno-unified-fall-2021-in-person-learning-school-district-plan/10708829/) An extra 30 minutes for a Pandemic Recovery Plan are stupid to me because 30 minutes seems like a lot of time, doesn’t it? But it is only an extra 5 minutes to each class which just means that people pack their bags a little later. The administration believes that it will help you learn everything teachers could not get to during quarantine and having to be online. They believe that the extra five minutes to a class will help you with everything we have missed. The extra 30 minutes is a waste of time for everyone involved. Even for sports, kids are getting out later which effects them with schoolwork. This plan is not working kids are much more tired. Kids with extracurricular activities get home extremely late and have no time for work.
I believe to solve the problem we should just go back to the regular schedule. It is an easy fix so easy that they are going to change it back when we come back after winter break. Bob Nelson could just fix the schedule because it is causing these kids to go insane and keeping them longer is making them into fighters. We should go back to the original times because it was much easier and since we have an idea of what is like to be there for the extra 30 minutes, we would be able to adjust a lot easier
Negative Effects of Social Media
by Nick Bonilla
Many people use different sorts of social media from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Snapchat. People use social media as a place where you get to socialize with many people from friends, family, or people from school and work. Many individuals use social media to keep in touch with people they know, share information, or use it to entertain themselves, People also use social media as a career opportunity to promote a business. But people don’t really mention the negative side of social media, many examples of this is that of cyberbullying which leads to self-harm, insecure about your image, comparing your lives with other people, and self-absorption. My opinion on this is that even though social media is a good place to socialize with people, but it is also a place flooded with negative things that could eventually lead us to become to have issues in which could lead to depression if you are an individual who uses it a lot. I also certainty believe that social media is the main cause of many problems that are happening today such as spreading false information and the online harassment of people having different opinions.
Social media can cause some depression and anxiety. Things that cause these are the feeling of missing out on things, online harassment, and the insufficiency about your life or your appearance. A study that was made by. Dr. Richele Mayshack suggested that almost all young people with a rate of 90% for internet usage and social networking, the rates of depression and anxiety have risen to 75% in the last 25 years. She also claims that there is more evidence that social media is connected to an idealized image that is associated with Facebook and Instagram having people who have low self-esteem or feelings of inadequacy. Another issue that happens in social media all the time is the amount of cyberbullying that occurs in social media regardless of any age, but cyberbullying usually comes from teenagers all the time, cyberbullying enables cruel activity to people tearing people down with only little effort which leading to they have led people to self-harming themselves. A new study that has been found for cyberbullying is that 59% of U.S. teens have personally experienced at least one of six types of abusive online behaviors, one of the most common types of harassment online is name-calling in which 42% of teens say they have been called offensive names online through social media or cellphone, 32% of teens state that sometimes someone spread false rumors about them on the internet, and 16% have been the target of physical threats online.
https://this.deakin.edu.au/society/is-social-media-making-us-depressed-and-anxious
The negative effects of social media could mess up people's lives badly and could make you feel like you are not good enough whether you do. But luckily there are some solutions that could help stay away from all that negativity. A proposal to solve these issues is that maybe people need to limit their usage on social media or maybe delete it for a while until they feel comfortable using it again. Individuals could do activities they enjoy or try something new to distract themselves from thinking about all the negativity on social media. A message that I would say to all the people who struggle with negative impact on social media is that it doesn’t matter who you are, you are perfect in your own way, don’t let all the negative impact take a toll in your life.
Monitor the Restrooms
by Isaac Bernal
When I walk into the restroom, I am expecting there to be soap dispensers and working air dryers. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case in the boys' restrooms at Fresno High. People have been stealing soap dispensers, breaking the air dryers, writing all over the stall walls and flooding the toilets. All this could be prevented with monitoring in the restrooms.
Kids have been vandalizing the restrooms for a TikTok trend that they think is the funniest thing in the world. They flood the toilets and write all over the walls because they know that no one will know that it was them who did it. Kids are also flooding the toilets which makes the restroom smell so much it is unusable. There is not type of monitoring in the restrooms to prevent these types of things from happening. Kids at Fresno High have clearly shown that they are too childish and immature to be left alone for a little while and everything be ok. An example of extra monitoring of the restrooms working is when Columbus area schools put security at the restroom doors and even installed new cameras to show who comes in and out of the restrooms, they have said that there has been improvement but if things start to get worse again, they will make kids sign in and out electronically to use the restroom. The principal Melissa Ladowits of one of the high schools said that they will also take legal action against kids who participate in vandalizing the restrooms (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/devious-licks-columbus-area-schools-warn-students-after-tiktok-trend-leads-to-damages/ar-AAOyxx5?ocid=BingNewsSearch).
Putting a security guard in the restroom would prevent a lot of vandalism from happening and would discourage kids from doing dumb stuff. Kids will not be able to steal the soap dispensers or break the air dryers if there is an adult standing by the door on the inside. An adult being by the door would also stop kids from flooding the toilets and the adult could keep a mental note of who goes in and when. What I want students to take away from this is stop acting like little kids and stop destroying our restrooms because some of us use them how they are intended to be used and it makes it hard to wash our hands and be clean if there are no soap dispensers and air dryers.
Stop Pink Inequality
by Kayla Madrigal
The Pink Tax is a method for anything that is “pink” to simply be priced. But the Pink Tax isn’t actually a tax, it’s a discriminatory system of pricing that affects products intended for a “female” buyer.
A study for gender pricing of New York City states. "On average, across all five industries, DCA (dollar cost averaging) found that women’s products cost 7 percent more than comparable products for men” *https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-pink-tax-5202741). This is seen, especially on toys, clothing, personal care products, senior homes and health care products. Everything that was just listed was priced higher for women than male consumers. The DCA found that 42 percent of the time men products are cheaper than female products.
This affects many women's lives. The average woman spends over $1,300 a year and because of this Pink Taz or “gender tax” DCA states that females are paying $1000 more a year than men. Think of it this way, for the average woman, a pair of jeans cost $50 and for men its $35-40. This is economic inequality between women and male.
The Pink Tax is simply unfair. When I take my younger siblings shopping, my little sister's shoes are always more expensive because she wants the pink shoes. Even if they buy the exact same ones, but mine are blue, I spend $90 dollars for pink and $80 for the white and blue ones.
This discrimination has been called out, but it is still happening. In April 2020, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a proposal to ban the Pink Tax, and it went into effect on Sept. 30, 2020. “The measure requires certain service providers to provide price lists for standard services and notifies them that gender-based price discrimination is prohibited under state law. If businesses violate the law, they are subject to civil penalties” (https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-pink-tax-5202741). Sadly, this is not the case in most states.