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OPINIONS PAGE 3 Omaha Bryan High School THE ORATOR November 20, 2015 Disrespect, conflict brings parents, teachers to battle Sit in any class through- out the building; students everywhere have no respect for any authority figures. If a student gets in trouble, their first reaction is to defend themselves. If that doesn’t work, parents take matters into their own hands. In a survey of 15 teach- ers, one out of three report parents making their students the victim when the teacher tries to take disciplinary action; any action they try to take is whiplashed with disagree- ment. Often parents confront teachers about students’ grades. They become ir- ritated about the situation and nothing comes out of the scenario. Two upset adults and a failing child helps nothing. Everyone has to help and cooperate to resolve this conflict. “We teachers can only do so much to help our stu- dents. The rest is up to the kids,” ESL teacher Sarah Berkebile said. “We can try everything to get a student to participate, but if the student lacks motivation, our hands are tied.” Students have no moti- vation to do well and their attitude effects the environ- ment. Instead of guardians listening to teachers and trying to find the root of the problem, they jump to teachers themselves being the underlying cause of conflict. “Students aren’t always to blame, they do disrupt classes and make it dif- ficult, but I feel teachers aren’t off the hook either,” sophomore Anthony Ayala said. “If we want change we have to be willing to change.” If anything is going to come of this, we should all start with clean slates. We’re all here to learn from each other. And if no one can come to that con- clusion there’s only ever going to be conflict. 9 out of 15 teachers report parents have blamed them for bad grades and bad behavior only 27% of teachers recive support from guardians when repermanding a student 53% of teachers who’ve worked for 5 or more years say there is a growing problem with student/ parent behavior. On avereage a teacher will be accused by guardians 7 times during their teaching carrer 15 teachers participated in this poll Battle line drawn between students, gaurdians, teachers Deals give no thanks IAN JORDAN-CHOWNING Reporter With bellies full and bank accounts dried, American people have a wealth of new items that they aren’t thankful for. Over $50 billion were spent on Black Friday in 2014 with just a little over $1,000 million being spent for Thanksgiving Day festivities. Black Friday has been receiving more and more attention over the holiday season in recent years, leaving nothing to be grateful for while Ameri- cans crowd their shopping centers for the next best thing. Approximately 55 per- cent of all Americans rush to the doors of the nearest stores or computer screens to get a chance at Black Friday deals. A day of sales and spending sprees receives more recognition than the holiday itself, it is con- tradicting the reason for Thanksgiving. We as a society have to realize Black Friday isn’t the most important during the holiday. It’s a time to be thank- ful for what we already have, not to get your hands on the newest, cheapest product in the market. Many stores see thanks- giving as an opportunity to bring in more custom- ers, and obviously that has been successful, but it is a sales pitch. After a holiday with family, everyone’s must-haves come to mind. Thanksgiving needs to become the holiday it’s supposed to be and not overshadowed by a day of sales. Gas station targets high schoolers Pretty much everyone in the school has been there and given them money. What many fail to realize is that they are targeting us. They are targeting students and exploiting their vulnerable and developing minds. Select Giles Mart, the gas station across the street from the school, sells glass pipes and other glassware used for smoking. Being across the street from the school, many of the gas station’s customers are students. Selling these materials is inappropriate and sketchy. More well-known gas stations in the area like Bucky’s, Shell and Quik Trip do not sell these materials. While Select Giles Mart claims it is normal to have pipes and bongs, and that the glassware is for use with pipe tobacco, the amount of glass pipes being sold is not consistent with the amount of pipe tobacco being sold. In 2013, there were 316.5 million people living in the U.S according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And according to cancer.org only 2.5 million of those people admitted to using pipe tobacco. That means that less than 1 percent, only .7 percent of the population in the U.S. used pipe tobacco that year. According to the owner of Select Giles Mart, the business sells an estimated 4-5 pipes a day. Being that they are open seven days a week that means that they sell approximately 1,460- 1,825 per year. That accounts for way more than the .7 percent of people who used pipe to- bacco in the 2013 poll and that is the number of pipes sold today and the number of people from 2013 that used pipe tobacco. With the knowledge that we have gained about the harmful effects of tobacco, that number is surly lower than even the .7 percent. Another red flag that makes it clear that they know that selling these items is shady is that they display the glassware behind other items like wallets and alcohol bottles making them hardly no- ticeable. A photo of the gas sta- tion’s merchandise was shown to students. Ninety- four percent of students identified glassware’s purpose was for marijuana usage. Even staff members identified the materials as drug paraphernalia with 16 out of 20 of them saying that the items pictured are used for marijuana. The gas station’s excuse that the glassware is for tobacco smoking is a cop-out. Not only is it inappropriate to sell these things across the street from a high school, but it promotes poor life choices and targets teenagers as most of them are easily influenced. The Select Giles Mart also encourages students to hang out at their business, often during school hours. Although they don’t ver- bally say it, the layout of the store has been changed within the last year. The new layout allows for customers, who are of- ten students, to be hidden from view of the windows. Last year a table and chair set was inside of the gas station next to the main window where customers could be seen from the outside of the business. Now the positioning of the chairs and table are hidden behind shelving units where customers aren’t visible through the window. In addition the gas station has also been in trouble for selling tobacco to minors. “I’ve ticketed them per- sonally,” Bellevue Police Officer Carl Grubb said. Select Giles Mart gas station across the street to the south side of the school carries stock of glass pipes hidden by pamphlets, sunglasses and cups in a glass case. Camouflaged by trinkets and gas station oddities the pipes bring suspicion of their use. Photo by: Anna Tanner-Siford OPS Students struggle with real career skills College, the magical place where people gain skills and knowledge for life, or that’s how it’s sup- posed to be. High school is the series of trials to prepare students for that magical wonder- land, but according to eagleforum.org professors say that college freshmen are not prepared at all for the life ahead of them. “Expect a lot more in college,” alumni Abbie Boiko said. “With all these expectations they have, everything you do sucks.” OPS’ current grading system creates holes that students can fall in to pass. On OPS’s grading scale, students can graduate with a 1.51 GPA. The math explains it all; with an average of 2.5 on summative assignments and no formative assign- ments, or an average of 2 on summatives and 1 on formatives students can still pass- barely. With a grading system flawed with holes, students will learn to go through them just to graduate. Something needs to be done about the current grading system to prevent situations like this and make students do more work to pass. Graduating with a 1.51 won’t do; a 2 would suffice to prepare students for the future, but without a basic grasp of what is needed, there is no possible future. “I was doing roughly 2-3 hours of homework a night. The workload was already piling in my other classes and while being part of two learning com- munities, it was way too much,” alumni Yazmin Ramos said. “College is all about time management and keeping a balance in your life. People, such as myself, bomb stuff in college because we put too much on our plate and procrastinate.” Grading system sets students up for failure WILSON DIEP Life & Style Editor DEVAN DIGGINS Opinions Editor ORATOR STAFF Editorial IAN JORDAN-CHOWNING Reporter Wilson, I need those reports by 5! In high school I could have had another week. --Sigh But, sir... 5 O’CLOCK WILSON!
