On the evening of June 7, 2010 none of MCLC’s student athletes knew what to expect as they entered the auditorium for the First Annual Athletes Recognition Night. Rose Low, our athletic director welcomed everyone who attended, both athletes and parents. Both Rosie Martinez (ALC Principal) and Heather Daims (MCLC Principal) gave brief speeches as to what the assembly was going to be about and how she and other administrators organized this special event. Later Barbara Fiege (CIF-LA Commissioner) was introduced and gave both student athletes and parents a quick lesson about sportsmanship and was later congratulated for her continuous work for not only our school but many more as well. As George Sandoval (LASGS Junior) says, “I was really interested with what Barbara had to say because it will teach us to become better athletes and am thankful for her effort to our athletics program.”

Following that it was time for what all student athletes had been waiting for: their letterman awards. Before they were to recieve their awards their sports coaches were introduced and congratulated for what they’ve done for the sports teams. Not only were coaches introduced but also all the assistant coaches who helped to make the athletics department such a success this year. As student athletes were walking up to receive their awards you could see the anxiety in their eyes wanting to receive the award already. As Baruchs Ramirez said, “I couldn’t wait…I wanted to get my award already it was so exciting”  Students were called up by alphabetical order and as soon as the last student received their award the assembly wasn’t over, as the administrators who demonstrate their support in our athletics department by attending games to make sure everything goes fine and also cheer us on during games received their thanks. As Edson De Leon said, “ I think it should be a tradition to recognize all the student athletes for what they’ve done and I really enjoyed the ceremony.”  To conclude the ceremony everyone who attended was thanked for making the first annual Athletes’ Recognition Night such a success.

Central Middle School
650 Church St.
Plymouth, MI 48170

Dear Blake,

Hi my name is Baruchs Ramirez and it is pronounced bar00sh. I’m sorry you were misinformed but our school is not a middle school, it is a high school. In fact we are not just any high school we are a pilot school. We share our campus which is called Miguel Contreras Learning Complex (MCLC for short) with other schools . Three other schools inhabit our complex, Los Angeles School of Global Studies, Business & Tourism, and Social Justice. These schools are independent.  Our complex has 3 floors. We ALC, use the bottom floor, Global Studies uses part of the second floor and the other part is used by Business & Tourism, and the third floor is used by Social Justice. Although we do share the campus we have different lunch times and have P.E. separately.  The only exception of our schools coming together is when we have our sports teams. When that happens, we are all Cobras! Our school ALC also has a really bothersome rule, we have to carry a 2-inch binder around and have to take Cornell notes, these are notes that have three columns, one for questions another for notes and the last one for a class summary. It is still a pretty awesome school.

I am a 10th grader,and like you, I talk to my friends a lot. I play soccer for my school, I have tried out for football but I quit, and now I am giving Water Polo a try. The only manga book I have ever read was Death Note, and my favorite band is Avenged Sevenfold. I do not think there is anything wrong with liking Pokémon. I think the mail race is an awesome thing. Although I think I took too long to reply so sorry if you lose. Pokémon was interesting at one point but I stopped watching it. You are not asking anything wierd, I am a bit like you so I can relate to what you are asking. I hope you learned a bit about my weird school and see you are not the only weird person in this world.

Sincerely,

Baruchs Ramirez

First make sure you write down the source where you got your information. If your information came from a book, magazine, and website etc.

According to http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/06/ when you are going to cite your page for a book you would make sure to write down author name(s), book title, publication date, publisher, and place of publication.  
Example:
Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin, 1987. Print.

According to http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/onlineref/cited.html for a magazine you have to have the title of the article, name of magazine, number of pages of article. If you don’t have all the information to write the works cited because its not provided don’t worry; write whats provided.
Example:
Author’s last name, first name. “Title of article”. Name of home website. Date listed.                Date you accessed the article.
<website you used in angled brackets> 24 July 2001. 9 Nov. 2001 <http://www.csustan.edu/English/ reuben/pal/chap10/welty.html>.

This is how it would look like:

Reuben, Paul P.  “Chapter 10: Late Twentieth Century–Eudora Welty.”  Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide.

Hope that this article helps you to write the works cited page in your junior year.

This year for our pathways final we juniors had to complete a portfolio that included: summaries about other classes, reflective essay and presenting. After finishing the portfolio, we had to wait for the day of the final when we had to present our portfolio to the whole class. Some of our classmates were shy, for others it was just normal because they have known their classmates three years. Most students learned how their classmates think about school. Mr. Lee said that , “Everybody did good on their presentation.”

However one junior said that in her pathways, some students said “bad stuff that pathways isn’t helpful.” Others feel that Pathways is helpful because it helps you with tutorials, also it helps us (ALC students) keep our binder organized. Another thing is that our teachers tell us about colleges, and also what are the requirements in order to get to the college, we want to attend. Here are some opinions about their pathways final.

What did you think about your pathways portfolio?

Stephanie: “It was more work because we had to also do other projects from other classes too.”
Lily:”It is good, because it makes us reflect on what we achieved in our up’s and down’s. Also on what we did through out the semester.”
Janet:”Pathways final wasn’t helpful because it got in the way of doing other work for other classes.”
Beto:”its a way to organized your work and improve on your assignments. Also, you can check on anything that you need to improve on.”
Oscar:”Mine, I think it was okay! but it could have been better if I worked on it longer”
Chris:”Mine was way better than last year because last year I didn’t put anything”
Alejandra: “That it’s a good way your assignments & experience how you did in their previous years.”
J. Rodriguez(ALC Teacher):”I think its a good way to reflect on what you did this year.”
Yasmine:”That this year it got more harder because it is more writing.It’s kinda lame because it’s something we do every time.”

Everyday, teachers and staff face something that doesn’t really make them happy. Whether  it’s a student’s ridiculous behaviors, bad attitudes, or unnecessary actions that disrupt the classroom. Every school has their certain “do’s and don’t”, but not everyone follows them. That is why next year we should try to be ready to show that we understand and follow rules. I’m not saying that ALC is the only school that acts up. What I’m trying to say is that we should be able to know the difference between the wrong and the right.

Did you hear about students stealing teachers’ belongings? I mean besides being clearly on the wrong side of right and wrong,  that’s not nice. You wouldn’t want someone to steal your stuff. Like Junior, Alejandra Navarro said, “I think that everyone should respect people’s belongings. They shouldn’t even be touching it without permission in the first place.” Sophomore, Baruchs Ramirez said, “Why would you even steal a teacher’s belonging?” and sophomore, Jessica Jimenez later added, “That’s just mean. I know they might be angry at their grade but that’s just immature.” That being said, teachers should be able to trust their students. If you see anyone trying to pull off something like that try to stop it!

Does it bug you when others don’t take responsibility for their actions? Another huge problem is the dirty quad. Have you seen the quad after lunch? Well after ALC heads to class after lunch, our quad is such a mess. I’m not sure if it’s just ALC or another school here at MCLC that leaves their food trays out there every single day. But what I can say is that it looks unsanitary. Even though we have school janitors, they shouldn’t be picking up after hundreds of students everyday. That’s why there are so many trash cans out there. Sophomore, Jackie Chinchilla agrees, “Oh my gosh! How hard is it to put your trash in the trash can?” That’s true because on the way to class, you can bring your food tray along and drop it.  Plus, it won’t make our school the way it does after lunch. A number of people have seen a bunch of food trays piled up on water fountains! We don’t want our school to be like that. Well I hope that next year everyone tries to prevent these actions so that we have a better year!

A few students shared their thoughts about this school year:

Oscar Rosales: “It went by too quick, I can’t believe we are almost going to be seniors, it was a pretty fun year but hopefully our senior year will be the best and most memorable one.”

Maria Garcia:”Well, I think this school year was pretty fun and the hardest year of high school. And well can’t believe we are going to be seniors because the year went so fast without knowing!!

Katherine Mendez: “It’s been a pain in the rear, it was kind of a struggle, it was kind of difficult. “

Janet Calvo: “This school year was fun, it made me talk more with people. I used to be really shy.”

Stephanie Gonzalez: “ I guess it got us prepared for our senior year, and motivated us to try not to fail the  classes.”

Adalberto Leon: “The way that I feel about my junior year was that I got to feel the pressure on some classes that I took and it’s not a good feeling when you are behind in some work from that subject.”

Chris Torres: “I feel that my junior year was pretty fun, got some bad grades BUT working on them.”

As you all know, Drum has been canceled almost every year because not a lot of students sign up to give school spirit in the football games or in lunch. The program that got this Drum Line going on in 2009-2010 was “A World Fit For Kids”. They managed to get students in the Drum Line from ALC and other academies. Greg Perez, the sponsor of the program, manages the Drum Line and was successful, for some weeks. There were over 30 MCLC students that participated in last year’s Drum Line. They usually had practice that started after school from 3:30 to 4:30. The coaches explained they would teach the students how to play in 10 weeks of practice to do a performance, which they sort of never did.

As the Drum Line was reduced to a small number of students, the coaches were having the feeling that the students didn’t want to learn or participate in the program. As I was in the Drum Line, I saw that the students just wanted to be there to mess around with the drums and not be serious about it. “From there I got out because I had joined in a sport and wasn’t able to participate in the Drum Line,”  So, at the end there were only three students left and the school didn’t want to waste money on the Drum Line, just to teach three kids so they canceled it again, according to a friend that was one out of the three left in the Drum Line.

So then, the same program doesn’t give up and let’s hope that we manage to get Drum Line back by going to a meeting on Thursday 17, 3:30 p.m. at the Grotto. Hopefully that there will be an large number  of MCLC students going to the meeting.  I know that I will be attending/  If Drum Line succeeds, there would be an exciting half time in the football games.

Lorenzo Gaspar will miss  “playing sports and some of my friends . I like the fact that they help you out they push me to not give up .” Lorenzo plans to get a high school diploma and go to Glendale College .

 Migual Diaz is going to miss his friends and teachers “because they are cool” and he is super happy that he is going to college at Santa Monica as soon  as he is done with high school . His advice for freshman year  is to not slack off because they are  going to take it over again during senior year .

Jessica Phu is going to college in Texas and she is planning to move out of her parents house.  She might live on campus.   She also plans to get a job and her advice to the freshmen is to keep up with their homework “don’t do your homework at the last minute.”

What are your plans???

Recently in the ALC campus there have been a few physical fights where students shove, pinch, grab, or even slap each other. Physical fights normally involve two or more teens who have chosen to use physical force to resolve a conflict or argument. Since physical fights are so common now, many kids see it as a growing up thing. There have been students who encourage others to continue the fight at times. Yes, there are also students who try to stop the fights, but there are those who neglect it as well. Honestly I do not believe there is a point to starting fights in school. School is to learn and not to start any type of fight. Junior Berny Orantes believes that fighting is not a smart choice because sometimes they fight for no good reason. Senior Makie Pun said, “I was not aware of the fights. Fighting is not a good idea because not only are they physically hurt, but they might leave a mental mark that might come back to them.” Junior,  Martha Solis said, “Fighting is a really bad idea because it influences other students to fight as well, and it also makes the other ALC students look bad.”

Lastly Senior Perla Diaz thinks that some kids fight over something that could be talked out. “They don’t know what’s up!”

According to keepschoolssafe   .com

• · More than 1 in 3 students have been in a physical fight;
• · About 1 in 7 have been in a physical fight on school property; and
• · About 1 in 9 of those who fought had been hurt badly enough to need medical treatment.

Many students don’t realize that taking part in physical fights could have consequences. For example if caught you could get suspended, expelled, and even worse get arrested for battery and assault. Physical abuse is not a game because one of the kids involved could get really hurt. If you know someone that is going to get in a fight, try and talk them out of it. It is the best thing to do because they won’t get hurt and they won’t get in trouble. If the problem is serious to the point that you can’t stop it, it is always good to talk to a counselor, a teacher, or the staff. Don’t let a school fight be neglected, do what you can to help..