What’s for lunch? Actually, pretty healthy food

By Kennedy Myers and Cydne Curd

As you know, here at Perspectives we are told that we need to live a healthy lifestyle, but do we really abide by this rule?

Besides the fact that we don’t even take physical education, we’re about 88 percent sure the food we are fed at lunch isn’t as healthy as it’s supposed to be. The chicken is greasy, the “turkey” burgers probably aren’t even made of real turkey, and on more than one occasion we’ve had to pick old lettuce off of our sandwiches.

Don’t consider what we’re saying to be actual facts. We’ve never been inside our cafeterias’ kitchen--but that may just be because we don’t have one (a real one at least). Now, we’re not saying these people are feeding us complete nonsense, we just wanna get to the bottom of this so called “healthy lifestyle,” which is why we sat down with Tiffany Roberts, one of our cafeteria employees, for a quick interview.

Tiffany Roberts

Cydne: Okay, first off, where does our food come from and how is it delivered?

Tiffany Roberts: Your food is brought over from the Joslin Campus. They cook it for us, and it is delivered on a truck.

Cydne: Where does Joslin get the food from?

Ms. Roberts: Joslin buys the food from an actual grocery store, called Gordon Food Market. So all of the food we serve is store bought, not canned.

Kennedy: So after Joslin delivers the food, what do you guys do with it? How is it kept hot if we don’t have a kitchen?

Ms. Roberts: What we do is we take the food, and we place it in a heating tray. If something we get doesn’t fit in the tray, we put it in a electric heating box, which goes up to 200 degrees.

Cydne: What do you do with leftover food?

Ms. Roberts: Leftover food is thrown away. We are only given one lunch per student, and since some students do not eat lunch only a small amount of lunches are left over, which is not enough for everyone to get seconds.

Kennedy: Lastly, I am sure you are aware of our “healthy lifestyle” policy. What makes our food so much more healthy than the food served at regular public schools?

Ms. Roberts: In a standard public school, they serve foods like pizza, burgers, and nachos every day of the week. We serve foods like lasagna and turkey burgers. They fry their chicken. We bake our chicken and serve it skinless.

So there you have it, folks. Never mind the fact that our food is delivered on a truck, at least it’s not frozen and cooked in hot water the way we suspected it was. Rumors Dismissed!

Turns out our food actually is pretty healthy. Who would have thought?

MSA’s top-ranked senior almost enrolled elsewhere

By Robert Simpson

MSA Senior Kaylynn Cooper is currently ranked number-one in MSA’s first graduating class and is one of the most inspirational leaders in the school. She has maintained an extremely high GPA since the beginning of freshman year; she has remained focused and been a role model to the younger kids at MSA; and she has led by example and gone above and beyond to achieve her current goals.

Kaylynn Cooper hates cameras.

Q: How would you describe your overall experience at Perspectives MSA?
A: Well, I would say that academically it has been OK because at Perspectives you are considered a big fish in a small pond.

Q:What could have made your MSA experience better or more memorable?
A: I probably could have talked to more people but I like to stay to myself so that’s something I really don’t regret not doing. However, I did meet people that I believe I made lifelong friendships with.

Q: If you had not attended MSA, where would you have gone to high school?
A: If I had not come to MSA, I would have gone to either John Hope, Carver, or Kennedy. My aunt works at John Hope, so she could have gotten me in a program that will help me prepare for college that I could have taken all four years. There was a time when I wanted to go to the military, so I thought that going to a military school would have benefited me for my future then. Kennedy was just a back-up plan.

Q: Do you regret coming to Perspectives? Why or why not?
A: I wouldn’t say that I regret coming here but it was not in my top choices for high schools. My mom thought that it would be a good thing to come here because it was a new school. If the final decision was ultimately up to me, I probably would not have been here. I guess my mom was right in a way. Since MSA was a new school and a charter, the classes were smaller and there is more time I can have with my teachers.

Q: What will you take from away from Perspectives?
A: I will take away to not give up, no matter how hard something seems. Umm … and try to listen to other people’s opinions because you have to be open-minded about stuff, especially in today’s society.

MSA experts agree: Tourney time is Kentucky time

By Andre Veasley

As one of the most intense tournaments in college sports today, everyone at Perspectives Math & Science Academy has their own prediction for March Madness, but there is only one winner. This year, all but one of our basketball experts are agreed that Kentucky will cut down the nets in New Orleans.

	Chris Yates	Derodte Wright	Davion Linsdey	Dymond Taylor	Me (Andre Veasley)
Who is the most underestimated team?	Murray State	North Carolina State	Louisville	Gonzaga	Baylor
Who has the best chance to win it all?	Kentucky	Kentucky	Kentucky	Kentucky	Syracuse
Who is your final four?	Syracuse, Louisville, North Carolina, and Kentucky	Louisville, Kentucky, Syracuse, and North Carolina State	Louisville, North Carolina, Gonzaga, and Kentucky or Baylor	Kentucky, Gonzaga, Syracuse, and North Carolina State	Kentucky, Syracuse, Marquette, Kansaas
Which two teams will make the final game?	Syracuse v. Kentucky	Kentucky v. Syracuse	Louisville v. North Carolina	Kentucky v. Syracuse	Kentcuky V. Syracuse
Who should not be in the tournament?	Everybody should be in the tournament.	Everybody deserves to be in it	Duke	Everybody should be in it.	Duke
Who should have been in the tournament that is not?	North western	North western	North western	Oregon	Oregon
National Final Score?	Kentucky 79- Syracuse 75	Kentucky 71 - Syracuse 67	Louisville 81 - North Carolina 77 OT	Kentucky 79 - Syracuse 71	Kentucky 82 - Syracuse 89

About our Kentucky bias: Anthony Davis, a 2011 Perspectives Joslin graduate, plays for Kentucky and is one of the top freshmen in college basketball today. He averages 14.3 points per game and 10 rebounds per game.

Clearly, everybody's vote is on Kentucky!

First MSA graduating class may be smaller than planned; almost 30 percent of seniors in danger of not graduating

By Robert Simpson

Almost 30 percent of MSA seniors are in danger of not graduating in June, according to school data provided by MSA Principal Julie Puzon. That means the school’s first-ever graduating senior class might be smaller than 50 scholars. There are currently 67 seniors enrolled at MSA.

Eighteen members of the senior class are short at least a half-credit toward the 28 credits required to graduate from Perspectives, according to school data. They have until May 11 to make up the missing credits or they will be ineligible to graduate in June.

Puzon said three MSA seniors are in danger of not graduating. MSA college counselor Antoine Finner said the number of seniors in serious danger of not graduating could be as high as five.

“About three seniors could be in serious danger of not graduating despite efforts and options provided to them,” Puzon said.

The other 15 scholars are expected to make up the missing credits this spring by attending internal recovery classes at MSA or by attending Saturday school at nearby CPS high schools like Harper and Dunbar.

Most of the students in danger of not graduating are missing credits in chemistry, according to Puzon. The next most-often-missed credits were in synergy/science. Mandarin was the third most-often-missed credit for the senior class, according to Puzon.

Some students are missing credits from freshman year, while many are missing credits from sophomore year. The missing chemistry credits are for sophomore-year classes.

Puzon said she thinks scholars missing credits have “not been doing the work and not taking it seriously.”

For the first time, MSA this year is offering internal recovery classes for students who need to make up credits. Puzon said 30 students, including underclassmen, have signed up for these classes this semester. The internal recovery classes meet twice per week for one hour each session.

MSA has not offered these internal recovery classes before, Puzon said, because of budget issues.

Puzon said she encourages students who are in danger of missing credits--no matter what grade level--to take advantage of opportunities to bring their grades up and to avoid falling behind. These include attending 10th period and working with tutors, including the new math tutors from IIT.

In the end, Puzon said it is up to individual students to make sure they get their school work done in order to stay on track for graduation.

“You know there’s a wise saying,” Puzon said. “You can bring them to the water but you can’t force them to drink.”

Demerits suggest high school students too noisy, and often out of seats; More than 22K demerits issued between August and February

By Mary Velez

High school students at MSA are too noisy in the halls, and when they are in their classrooms they often are out of their seats or not acting stellar, according to school-wide demerit data provided by Ms. Puzon. This data tracked demerits from the beginning of the school year until Feb. 1 and showed high school scholars had earned a total of 22,252 demerits.

The freshmen class led all others with 10,094 demerits. Sophomores came in second with a total of 6,576 demerits, and the junior class was issued a total of 3,174 demerits through the beginning of February. The senior class, MSA’s smallest, was issued 2,409 demerits, according to school records.

Those demerit numbers reflect the size of each class. While freshmen lead all others in demerits, they are also the largest in the high school, with 106 scholars. By comparison, the senior class has only 67 scholars.

The most-issued demerit, according to school data, was for noise zone violations. High school teachers and administrators issued a total of 8,093 noise zone violations.

The second most-issued demerit in the high school was for stellar violations. Teachers issued a total of 5,486 stellar violations.

Rounding out the top five most-issued demerits were out of seat violations (2,918), tardies to class (1,962) and cutting class (1,559). According to Puzon, most of the cutting class demerits were issued to students who missed 10th period.

Senior Deandre Williams said he was not surprised to learn that noise zone violations were the most-issued demerits at MSA.

“I can’t argue against that because it’s hard for students to concentrate with all the noise that goes on in the hallways,” he said.

Williams said he would have guessed that talking back was the most-issued demerit “because they try to limit us talking and try to teach us, I guess, morals.”

MSA math teacher Jennifer Webb said she thought the demerit total would be higher through Feb. 1. Ms. Webb supervises the school’s demerit tracker and helped build it.

“This is the time of year where the demerits are high,” Webb said. “But hopefully our scholars realize that they are almost done and focus on their school work and finish strong.”

MSA history teacher Leo Smith said he thought the demerit totals though Feb. 1 were very high and that he hopes they are now going down. He also said he thinks the school “should evaluate both where the scholars are not meeting behavior expectations and the extent to which adults are not consistently applying the system.”

“I suspect it’s a combination of both issues for why the demerits are so high,” Smith said.

Savannah Velez, an MSA 10th grader, said she would have guessed the demerit totals were higher than reported. But she was not surprised that out of seat violations were a popular demerit.

“A lot of students like to get out of their seat,” she said.

Ninth grader Janeya Cunningham was surprised by the number of demerits issued across the high school and blamed student behavior for the totals.

“The problem is us not caring,” she said. “I would think after 1,000 demerits we would get it, but apparently not.”

MSA Principal Julie Puzon said she expected the demerit count to be higher than it was because staff members are “holding scholars to a higher standard and are not allowing them to talk back or be disrespectful.”

“Our job is to hold students accountable for their actions,” Puzon said. “That’s what we signed up for when we came to this school.”

Puzon said school officials are trying to address inconsistency among teachers who enter demerits by visiting classrooms.

She said the demerit system is important in helping keep scholars on track to graduate.

“We’re here to go to college, not to play,” Puzon said.

Images from the March 1 All School Meeting

Meeting co-host Waverly Jennings and 10th grader Marian Williams

Waverly Jennings, Ibrahim Ogenyi, Alexis Wilson, and Marrisa Claybon

Chris Yates and Ms. Puzon battle for ping pong supremacy.