The parking lot empties as students go home for summer. (Photo by Katie Quill)

By Daphne Chen

Sometimes my friends say I’m a bit of a Daphne Downer. I’m always the one at parties to bring up things like “You guys, this is the last birthday we’re going to celebrate together!” or “You guys, next year at this time we’re going to be across the country!”

I just can’t help myself from saying these things recently. Approaching graduation feels like finishing the last chapter of a book that I can’t ever read again, a book I would desperately like to relive occasionally, so I won’t ever forget it. But high school only happens once. Embarrassing moments, beautiful moments, horrible moments – they only happen once. Unfortunately, I feel paralyzed knowing that we can remember these times, but we can never relive them.

I’m afraid that I will forget. Like a book you can only read once, I am afraid I will forget the characters’ names. The funny parts. The sad moments. The profound ones.

For some reason, I’ve always struggled to find “happiness” because I used to think it was the meaning of life – to be happy. And I thought of it as this long-lasting, satisfied contentment, that one day, maybe I’d have the perfect job, a cozy home, a husband and family and it would just turn like a switch – I’d be happy.

But I wasn’t happy most of my time in high school. I was most often stressed, more often depressed, scared, jealous. Worried. Confused. Wondering why some people were always smiling, why they always looked happy, how they did it. I always felt happy with I was with my friends or doing something I enjoyed, but when I was alone again, why did I always feel sad again? Why could I never hold onto that happiness?

But what I never realized is that I can’t – I shouldn’t – expect a lasting happiness right now. I think about it like this:

Whether you believe in some form of afterlife, or simply believe that death means death, either way, you still believe in eternity – eternity in heaven or hell, or eternity in death, while the Earth moves on and civilizations turn into dust and new ones rise again.

In eternity, you have forever to be happy, or forever to be sad, or you have forever to simply be dead, to not exist.

So what truly matters, I think, is not the long run – you have forever to experience the long run. What matters are the smallest, briefest moments of this life, those snatches of time, those ephemeral split seconds when you feel that rush of joy. That surge of pure elation. That unbounded, limitless, perfect feeling of happiness, which you will never experience again after it passes.

That is what makes a life worthwhile. Moments.

So maybe that’s why I keep feeling the urge to remind my friends, “This is the last time”, or “Next year it won’t be the same”. I just don’t want them to forget what we had. I don’t want them to forget our happiness. I hold those moments so tenderly in my hands because I feel like a slight twinge would fracture it, but no longer do I need to clutch at it with white knuckles, trying to grasp at my momentary happiness so it won’t melt through my fingers. As bittersweet as it is, I know my happiness will come and go. But that’s what makes it meaningful.

A couple of weeks ago I was lying on the top of the West dome (sorry, CMSW police) with some friends at nighttime.

It was a perfect night. The sky was clear, the stars were bright like little pushpins. A breeze pushed our hair around. We put our heads together in a circle and linked arms, talking about nothing and everything, feeling at the same time like both an irreplaceable part of the universe as well as an insignificant one.

We looked up at the stars and over Coppell, a silent, quiet city. Our home. It was beautiful.

I thought, “I am so happy.”

And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t worried about the moment passing. About forgetting. About missing everyone and everything last year. That moment, I bid goodbye to Coppell, to high school, to my childhood, to The Sidekick, to old friends and old memories.

For the first time in a long time, I was happy in that tiny yet infinite moment.

I closed my eyes for a moment, and I was happy forever.

On Sunday, May 16, Irving residents may have heard the sound of beating drums, the smell of fresh pad thai and the cheers of Dallas residents watching dragon boat teams race across Lake Carolyn in Las Colinas.

Behind the scenes of the fourth annual DFW Dragon Boat Festival, however, were performers and volunteers who often had been there since early in the morning, making sure the event went smoothly.

The event kicked off early in the morning with several musical and cultural performances, such as Emily Lo of Plano Shepton High School, who not only played on the 21-string Chinese harp but also performed a classical Chinese “calligraphy dance”.

Emily Lo of Shepton High School performs a traditional Chinese calligraphy dance.

“The way I use my fan and move imitates calligraphy,” Lo explained. “I first got interested in Chinese dance because I always admired the grace of the choreography. When I saw it performed for the first time, I was stunned.”

Lo and her parents stressed the importance of staying connected to her Chinese heritage.

“If you lose your culture, you lose your identity,” Lo said.

Dragon boat races took off throughout the day, with 36 teams competing (the Irving Fire was the frontrunner and has been the winner for every single festival). However, running the event from behind the scenes were the various volunteers from across the Metroplex. University of Texas at Dallas students and Adil Shaikh, a 2008 CHS graduate, and Shirley Wu had been working the event since 6:30 a.m..

“It’s been a headache setting up booths, banners putting up tents, carrying around coolers and water and ice, especially because it was really muddy In the morning, but it’s been really fun meeting people,” Wu said. “I got to meet the mayor [Phil Dyer] of Plano.”

One performance that was very popular with the audience was the Lion Dance, performed by students at Lee’s White Leopard Kung Fu School. The lion dance is a traditional Chinese dance in which two people work as a pair underneath a lion costume to mimic the rhythmic movements of a lion, which is a guardian animal in China.

Alex Campolo and Adam Reed were two of the dancers; both are part of the two branches of martial arts schools in the Dallas area, Lee’s White Leopard Kung Fu in North Dallas and Wu Yi Shaolin Martial Arts center in Coppell at Belt Line and Macarthur.

“Lion dance is an integral part of doing kung fu,” Campolo said. “It builds a lot of the stance work needed for martial arts: arm strength, the leg stance work, the jumping ability, coordinating with a partner, knowing where you are in the air. It all translates into really good martial arts skills, so martial artists tend to be lion dancers too.”

In fact, Campolo, who lives in Colorado, had to rush to learn the choreography for the lion dance performance due because one of the dancers was suddenly injured the day before. However, since he has been practicing martial arts for 21 years (“a senior student,” as Reed describes him), he was able to get up to speed quickly.

“The hardest thing is that you can’t see what’s going on, you can’t see a thing,” Campolo said. “When you see lions that are in sync with other lions, it means they practiced a lot with each other because they know each other’s rhythms.”

In addition, lion dancers have to deal with many different handles and grips inside the lion costume, between the pole that holds the weight of the lion, hand pieces to move the mouth, and a string apparatus to move the ears and eyes.

Lion dancer Adam Campolo demonstrates how the many handles inside the lion suit work.

“Coordinating all that while you’re doing the movements, remembering to reach up and blink the eyes once in a while and making it look like a living thing is kind of the art form of it,” Campolo said.

Despite the difficulties of this traditional dance, Campolo and Reed still enjoy performing it, as is tradition before a martial arts demonstration in order to bless the demonstration.

Reed, Campolo’s partner in the lion dance, has been practicing martial arts for seven years.

“It definitely adds a different aspect to the martial arts,” Reed said. “The lion dance makes it into a team sport; as we’re training together, it brings people together through the rhythm of the entire team, not just the person under the cape with you. If one person is off then it looks like the whole team is off, so you really have to be together.”

Eric Emerts, who has been practicing martial arts on and off for about 10 years, played the drum while the lion dancers performed.

“We have a set routine,” Emerts said.

“But we rarely follow it,” Campolo interjects as everyone laughs in agreement.“What you practice and what happens on stage are very different. You’re blind and it’s hot, and you slip, and…”

Emerts’ powerful beats provide the background music for the lion dancers and infuse the performance with drama and energy.

“The drums, the music is just supposed to be there to make sure it sounds lively and there’s tons of energy in it,” Emerts said. “Basically I just watch them, and as soon as they start moving I’ll watch their cue and that’s when I change their beats.”

Different beats are specific to each movement, so Emerts is constantly on his toes during the lion dance.

Drummer Eric Emerts provides the beats for the lion dancers.

“Watching them is really the hardest part, to get the right beat and the right time,” he said. “I’ll start a beat, and they won’t be doing what I want them to do so I’ll have to change the beat and go with that, without it sounding like I did the wrong thing or something.”

In the end, all six lion dancers plus the two drummers worked together to put on a riveting lion dance performance to kick off the dragon boat event.

“Lion dance, even though it’s always fun, it’s always a tremendous amount of work,” Campolo said. “You never get good enough at lion dance so it’s easy – you’re always tired and exhausted at the end of it. It’s really a labor of love.”

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On Tuesday, May 4, the Coppell ISD Education Foundation honored its 2009-2010 CHS Distinguished Scholars and their chosen teachers, as well as the district’s teachers of the year, at the Marriott Hotel in Irving.

The event, themed “I Hope You Can Dance,” began with the National Anthem sung by CHS senior Leah Gray and also ended with Leah and her father Rusty Gray performing the title solo.

CHS Principal Brad Hunt made a speech to highlight the seniors in attendance, who were invited based on their rank in the top 5% of the graduating class of 2010. In the speech, he pointed out many seniors by name, telling anecdotes about memorable moments with them, and even tearing up when he spoke about how this would be the first class to graduate that has had him as a principal all four years.

“I was a freshman when you were freshmen,” Hunt said.

Before the banquet, each top 5 percent senior was able to invite a CISD teacher who influenced them throughout their lives and had a photo shoot at Bob Freeman Photography for the program booklet.

In addition, HR Director Tracey Wallace and Sueprintendent Dr. Jeff Turner recognized the Teachers of the Year. The elementary school teachers of the year were David Barnette (Austin Elementary), Kimberly Becker (Town Center Elementary), Lisa Evans (Denton Creek Elementary), Julie Gossett (Lakeside Elementary), D’Ann Green (Valley Ranch Elementary), Crickett Roberts (Wilson Elementary), Jill Rupert (Cottonwood Creek Elementary), Lisa Ruth (Mockingbird Elementary) and Lara Wadlington (Pinkerton Elementary).  Secondary school teachers of the year were Gay Chapman (CMSE), Laila Sanguras (CMSW), Carolyn Wooldridge (CMSN), Jennifer Martin (CHS) and Brandy Osterberger (NTH@Coppell).

The students in the Top Five Percent and their teachers are listed below:

Annie Abraham – Leslie Vail (CHS, Social Studies)

Amanda Adams – Jodie Deinhammer (CHS, Anatomy)

Suwetha Amsavelu – Brenda Brinkman  (CHS, Health Science Technology)

Satvika Ananth – Rita Bauer (CHS, Social Studies)

Erin Barlow – Eileen Krueger (CHS, English)

Paul Blazek – Jeb Puryear (CHS, Chemistry)

Scott Bower – Kevin Casey (CHS, History)

Ellen Cameron – Bianca Coker (CSMN, Algebra)

Peter Chang – Monica Winters (CHS, Art History)

Daphne Chen – Zach Sherman (CHS, English)

Elisa Farrell – Mickey Pangrac (CMSN, English)

Drew Hasson – Paula Russell (CHS, Math)

Kirstin Hazelrigg – Valerie Garnier (CHS, History)

Bryce Heatherly – Tamera Westervelt (CHS, Art)

Arnold Hechanova – Michael Vergien (CHS, English)

Lucy Huo – Jennifer Martin (CHS, Biology)

Hiba Ibad – Heather Aston (CMSE, English)

Chaitnya Jayanti – Kirk Richardson (CHS, Math)

Daniel Lee – Debbie Youngs (Mockingbird, Assistant Principal)

Sam Levin – Matt Bowden (CHS, English)

Alexandra McCully – Scott Mason (CHS, Band Director)

Chris Nguyen – Amanda Stone (Lakeside, 4th and 5th grade)

Krishna Patel – Donnette Alexander (CHS, Economics)

Shaan Patel – Joey Ashbrook (CMSN, Band Director)

Bharad Raghavan – Robert Gribble (CHS, Physics)

Eric Ressler – Tim Dixon (CHS, History)

Sara Saastamoinen – Ian VanderSchee (CHS, Math)

LeeAnn Stover – Jan Bourg (CHS, Math)

Avery Szalkowski – Jim Griffin (CHS, History)

Holly Tallon – Jeremy Varnell (CHS, Latin)

Henry Trahan – Don Kemp (CHS, Math)

Jeffrey Xue – Ray Pool (CHS, Health Science Technology)

Vicki Yang – Carson Thompson (CMSW, 7th grade English)

Rebekah Yates – Allison Anderson (Wilson, Kindergarten)

Quinn Zhang – Michael Brock (CHS, History)

Chip Zurita – Mike Yakubovsky (CHS, Engineering)

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On April 9 and 10, CHS hosted the area UIL One-Act competition in hopes of advancing their own One-Act, the popular comedy Leading Ladies.

Leading Ladies stars seniors Jacob Harpel and Jake McCready, who play two out-of-work actors who pose as a rich woman’s long lost nieces in order to inherit a fortune. However, over the course of the play, the two imposters start to reevaluate their priorities when one falls in love.

“It was the first time that for One-Act we actually did a comedy rather than a dramatic play so it was kind of a new experience,” Harpel said. “A comedy is a lot harder than a drama because I feel like it’s a lot harder to make someone laugh than to make someone sad, so you have to take into consideration comedic timing and whether or not something looks funny, or appealing to different people’s tastes.”

Leading Ladies was oridignally written by Ken Ludwig, but the challenge of the One-Act competition is that the cast has to cut down the play to 40 minutes, with only seven minutes more to set up the set and seven to take it down.

Coppell was the only school at the area competition to perform a comedy which performed well at the district competition, giving CHS a spot at area. Unfortunately however, Leading Ladies was not chosen to advance to regional.

“There’s six plays competing, and they took two plays to region advancing, and one to be alternate,” assistant director and senior Rachel Humphries said. “We unfortunately didn’t get either one of those. It’s sad because I feel like we worked really hard, I feel like we deserved to advance, but it is what it is. We went in with a really strong play and we did the best that we could, and there wasn’t anything I would change.”

Freshman Alex Smith, who plays a “big and stupid” character named Butch, was the only freshman in the cast, which comprised of mostly veteran junior and senior actors.

“I loved how I got to work together with the pros – I mean, I call them pros – and with people in the department and to learn so much,” Smith said.

Smith says that he was moved by the camaraderie of One-Act. When Flowermound High School, another favorite to advance, was not chosen by the judge, Coppell supported them.

“When Flowermound received their critiques, we stood up and gave them a standing ovation,” Smith said. “Afterwards, when we found out we didn’t advance, we heard a knock on the doors and there was the Flowermound cast, and they started applauding us.”

Despite the disappointment, the cast is still feeling positive about the work they did.

“My favorite part is the feeling you get when you’re backstage because you get to watch the transformation of the actors into the characters they are, and then they come backstage and they’re the people you’ve worked with for he past few months killing yourself to get ready,” Humphries said. “The energy is so high, it’s intoxicating. It’s just an incredible mood and everything’s running and going and you feel like you’re a part of something.”

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On Wednesday, March 24, the first group of approximately 30 Outdoor Education students went on a field trip to Elm Fork Shooting Sports, a shooting range on Luna Road in Dallas.

Outdoor Ed teacher Bill Parker started taking his students to Elm Fork about five years ago.

“They really want young people to get involved in shooting sports,” Parker said. “They are really pushing for youth shooting so I wanted to do something different but still apply to hunter education.”

Students paid a discounted price of $35 each to go the range and were loaned the use of several types of guns and ammo, among them Beretta 12-gauge and 20-gauge shotguns, Beretta 92FS pistols and Beretta CX4 Storm carbines.

The Beretta shotguns were used for skeet shooting and were among the priciest guns that the students used, with each one costing, as the instructor informed the class, upwards of $1400. Students shot at clay targets that were propelled into the air and went 25 rounds.

“I liked it, but [the shotgun] was hard for me to use because it was heavy,” senior Jeanie Choi said. “My favorite part was lunch.”

Students used the carbines to shoot at steel targets and knock them down, often with two people “dueling” at one time to see who could knock down the most.

“My favorite was definitely the CX4 Storm,” senior Arshia Ladha said. “It was really smooth and there wasn’t much of a kick.”

The pistol was perhaps the most difficult to aim. Students were allowed to take home their paper targets riddled with bullet holes as a souvenir.

“I was surprised the pistol was so hard because it took time to perfect your aim,” Ladha said.

Overall, the students seemed to have fun on this field trip that was the first time for many to learn how to load and shoot a gun.

“It was a lot of fun and a good experience,” Ladha said. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to shoot a gun, so this was it. I might even come back sometime.”

(Graphic by Natalie Hill)

Ticket prices for the senior prom taking place on April 24 have been released. Shelly Redding, senior class sponsor and Ready, Set, Teach! sponsor, confirmed that ticket prices are $85 per ticket for the first week of sales (three weeks before prom), $95 the second week and $105 the third week.

I’m not the kind of person who usually tells her parents that she loves them.

In fact, I’m not sure it happens in many Asian families at all –  a cultural thing, I suppose, just like the way we don’t talk much during dinner or interact much during the day. I sometimes joke that I’ve spent more time nurturing my relationship with my biology textbook than with my parents.

We have always fought far too often, something I’ve traced back to the introduction of piano lessons when I was in third grade, the beginning of an endless stream of increasing pressures to perform the best and solve the fastest.

The fighting would get especially bad my freshman year, often reducing to me heaving, gasping blobs of tears for hours and hours as I listened to the pain in my heart and wondered what parent could yell at her daughter like that, and watch her crushed like that, and still love her. I used to construct elaborate plans to run away from home. I’d turn 18, change my name, transfer colleges. They would never be able to find me again. And I’d never have to see my domineering mother again.

I would hate her.

I’d think, “When have my parents ever told me that they’re proud of me? After all I’ve done for them… after all I’ve sacrificed.” 

But over those tumultuous years, I never thought about their sacrifice. I never thought about how much they’d have to care about me, how much they’d have to love me, in order to fight with me so much. In order to protect me from every little harm that could come my way.

My parents may not (ever) tell me that they are proud of me, but they show me love by making me orange juice when they think I have not been eating well. They show me love by making me put on giant puffy jackets every time I go outside. They show me love by buying me SAT prep books.

I remember going to a summer camp when I was a sophomore and having to dorm by myself in one of those creepy rooms that look dark even when all the lights are on. I remember feeling so lonely that night, for some reason, the thought “I miss my parents” crossed my mind like a flash. I was startled to have felt it. I usually thought of myself as staid, independent, a separate entity from my evil parents, and I had never, ever been homesick.

I thought that night, “Maybe I do love my parents.”

Next week, my mom will start at her new job, requiring her to leave the house before I do for school. My dad will be in China, trying to jumpstart his new company.

And I will be alone when I wake up every morning, in a house too big for me, watching the sun tick by the second hand so I can leave exactly at 7:45 a.m.. I will grab my backpack and two coats, beep-beep to unlock my car door and peel out of an empty driveway. I will wave goodbye to no one.

Isn’t this what I wanted for so long? To take care of myself? To get out from the iron fist of my parents?

But I dread the thought.

Maybe it’s just because I’m afraid of being alone. Maybe I just miss the days when my mom used to make breakfast for me and my dad used yell at me.

Maybe this means I always loved them after all. I was just too afraid to admit it.

Senior Natalie Hill (Miss North Dallas) will compete in the Miss Texas pageant in September, the same pageant her mother won Miss Congeniality at in 1981. (Photo courtesy Natalie Hill)

Twenty-eight years ago, Vicki Graham stood on a stage with a dozen other women in evening gowns. She heard her name called – she had been voted Miss Texas USA’s 1981 Miss Amity (now known as Miss Congeniality). But looking to her left and right, Vicki realized that the stage was too narrow for her to pass.

So she did what she had to. Putting her hands on the shoulders of the woman on the floor in front of her and gathering up her skirts, Vicki jumped four feet down in heels to receive her award.

Twenty-eight years later, her daughter, senior Natalie Hill, might be repeating the scene when she goes to Houston in September to compete in the very same pageant.

Hill's mother, Vicki Hill, when she was younger. (Photo courtesy Vicki Hill)

“Since my mom was in the Miss Texas pageant, we’ve kind of always gotten news from them,” Natalie said. “They e-mailed me one time, and late one night, I sent in my application because I might possibly one day I consider doing it. A couple weeks ago I got a letter, and it said, ‘Natalie, congratulations, you’ve been chosen!’ There was a handwritten note from the president that said I should be Miss Coppell. “

Sitting together on her pink bed, chatting about finding the perfect evening gown, Natalie and her mom almost seem to be sisters. Besides their physical similarities and obvious beauty, they also share the same birthday in a coincidental twist of fate. At the Miss Texas USA pageant, Natalie will hold the official title of Miss North Dallas (her mother was Miss Hurst-Euless-Bedford). Like Natalie, Vicki also applied to be her local pageant winner on a whim, having lived in Florida until six months before she won the Miss HEB pageant.

“I did it truthfully for the experience,” Vicki Hill said. “It’s like skydiving or scuba-diving; it’s something that not everybody gets a chance to do, and I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I love people, and I think Natalie is that way too. I’m a big relationship junkie. I liked the idea of being with that many people and interacting and I didn’t go in there expecting to win anything.”

The importance of pageants in Texas can hardly be overlooked. Although the Miss Texas USA pageant lasted 10 days in Vicki’s time (now cut down to two and a half for Natalie), the Miss Texas USA pageant produces more Miss USAs than any other state, and pageant contestants still continue the age-old tradition of applying Vaseline to their teeth to force them to continue smiling. However, both Hills are determined to remain grounded throughout the process.

Natalie and her mother share a close bond that seems to be manifested in more ways than one - besides participating in the same pageant, they also share the same birthday. (Photo by Henna Khan)

“Have you ever seen the show ‘Toddlers and Tiaras’?” Natalie said. “It looks ridiculous. And the show is just horrible, so I’m picturing these terrible moms, and just expecting a bunch of makeup and blush and hairspray. It reminds me of my dance recital days.”

Because the Miss Coppell/Miss North Dallas pageant was an application rather than a stage event, Natalie has still never experienced a true televised pageant like Miss Texas USA, just like her mother at the time. Vicki still talks candidly about the shallowness that tinges most pageants, and how she avoided it.

“The thing that I brought away from it was being able to share my faith with a lot of the girls there, and what was really awesome about that is that at the end of the 10 days, they still voted me Miss Congeniality,” Hill said. “Even though I was really upfront, and there was partying and boys in and out, I was just myself and that’s not something I did, so I really thought it was cool. When I look back, it’s like it was one of those ‘what goes around comes around’ moments. If you do the right thing, you get blessed for it.”

At Miss Texas USA, Natalie will compete in an evening gown, swimsuit and interview competition, and will be judged based on “poise, personality, intelligence and beauty,” according to state director and president of Miss Texas USA Gail Clark.

“I think they learn a lot, not just as a matter of what they learn throughout the two-and-a-half days, but also in the preparation for it,” Clark said. “They just put a lot into it, and we find pageants to be extremely confidence-building and that girls really grow out of the experience.”

Although several months away from the competition, Natalie is still anxious – about making friends, about getting swimsuit-ready, about how her walk needs to be “cuter”. But her mother believes in Natalie.

“The question is what’s important,” Vicki Hill said. “Are they just looking for a gorgeous girl? Well, she can do that. But I don’t really think that that’s what she is. I think if you unzip Natalie, she’s even more beautiful on the inside. And most people won’t even get past that, to see what’s on the inside, and I wish they did.”

On Labor Day weekend, the week before Natalie will fly to her first year of college at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, Vicki will watch her daughter, the exact same age as she was when she won Miss Congeniality, arrive in Houston and meet over 100 other pageant hopefuls. She will watch her walk across a stage, sit through an interview and try to make friends. What will her daughter be worried about?

“I’m known to be quiet, so I want to open up more,” Natalie said. “I want to basically just be more like my mom.”

“I don’t want her to be like me,” Vicki immediately replies. “She’s so much better than me.”

Like mother, like daughter.

Does CHS' competitiveness drive more students to cheat?

By Daphne Chen
Editor-in-Chief

Every student and teacher knows the telltale signs. A yawn and a stretch. The ever-so-slight glance of eyes to the left and right. The glint of an iPhone held casually beneath the table, away from the prying eyes of teachers.

It’s cheating.

And to some, it’s also a survival technique. In the words of one sophomore student, “If you care about it enough, you cheat.”

The Pressure

In 2003, a survey conducted by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute found while the percent of high school students who maintained an A average in 1968 was 17.6 percent, that number had inflated to 46.6 percent in 2003. Essentially, students who make straight As in high school today are simply… average.

Biology teacher Jennifer Martin hears these kinds of statements from grade-obsessed students all the time. Martin teaches allegedly one of the toughest courses in the school, AP Biology, attracting ambitious students who want to beef up their courseload. Martin says she sees cheating happening in the upper 25 percent of students – not the lower quartile.

“I’m very concerned about our focus on grades because I really feel like it is leading to the degradation of integrity in our students,” Martin said. “I really wish Coppell would not give class ranks until your senior year. I think that would help at least a little bit.”

Eighty-one percent of public high schools use class rank. As more and more nearby school districts are eliminating class rank on student transcripts, such as Carroll Independent School District (its new policy will start with the Class of 2011) and Highland Park, both highly competitive school districts. CISD is also considering the change.

“We are exploring it and letting Southlake and Highland Park take the lead on this,” Dean of Instruction Gina Peddy said.

In school districts this competitive, the pressure to be “number one” can reach extreme levels. Just 20 minutes to the east and six years ago at Plano West Senior High School, valedictorian Jennifer Wu and salutatorian Sarah Bird had GPAs that differed by .00154 points. Bird sued the school board to be named co-valedictorian, demanding that her unweighted As for playing on the basketball team (treated as a P.E. course) be taken off of her transcript. She won.

A 1999 Who’s Who survey published by The Heartland Institute found that 95 percent of high-achieving students who had cheated in the past reported never being caught. However, the CHS administration wants students to know that those are caught will not get off easy.

“If the teacher reports [cheating] to the administration, the administration acts aggressively on it,” Peddy said. “It could eventually become a Compass placement. We do not want our students to cheat. They represent CHS for the rest of their lives – good, bad or ugly.”

Private school differences

Private schools often deal with cheating a bit differently than large public schools. Many have honor councils to hear the students’ “case” and make a decision like a jury.

At the Episcopal School of Dallas, all students are required to sign the honor code and promise not to “lie, steal or cheat”. If a teacher accuses them of breaking the code, their case is brought before the honor council, an organization consisting of three elected student members from each grade and the Student Council president. Both the student and the teacher present their side of the story, and the honor council members make a judgment on the student’s guilt and set a punishment, which usually includes a one-day suspension and a letter of apology to the teacher and dean.

“The thing about private schools is that it’s all about community,” ESD Upper School Dean Eddie Eason said, noting he himself is a product of a large public high school. “We have about 400 students, and with our 100 seniors, it’s really family. The way we look at it, an honor violation is an offense against the school community.”

The dealings of honor councils are almost always kept highly secretive; at ESD, talking about any cases of the honor council constitutes a violation of the code in and of itself.  The mysteriousness of honor councils makes the idea of cheating all the less tempting for students at these tight-knit schools, a closeness CISD may not have.

“Coppell tends to be a very religiously-based community,” Peddy said. “And yet the students almost OK cheating. It’s interesting how students can rationalize copying and cheating and still go to church every Sunday.”

CHS also experimented with an honor council-esque program about 12 years ago when the school was smaller, called the Academic Integrity Committee. Unfortunately, for a school so big, too many petty complaints were brought in and the idea fizzled.

The Definition of Cheating

The Sidekick surveyed over 100 CHS teachers and students about eight possible situations and whether or not they constituted “cheating.”

One of the difficulties in punishing cheaters is that the act itself can be an ambiguous. The CHS 2009-2010 Student Handbook states: “Students found to have engaged in academic dishonesty will be subject to grade penalties on assignments or tests and disciplinary penalties in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct. Academic dishonesty includes cheating or copying the work of another student, plagiarism, and unauthorized communication between students during an examination.”

But what about more ambiguous scenarios? The Sidekick surveyed over 100 CHS teachers and students about eight possible situations and whether or not they constituted “cheating.”

The scenarios:

1.       Skipping a day of school to take a test later

2.       Writing acronyms or notes on your hand to look at during a test

3.       Asking a student who has already taken the test “what I should know”

4.       Reading Sparknotes for its analysis to finish English homework

5.       Taking advantage of a teacher who guides students to the answer instead of restating

6.       Students working together on take-home worksheets or packets

7.       A student is playing on his phone during a test. Do you assume that he was cheating?

8.       You see a student glancing around the room during a test and it looks suspicious. Do you assume that he/she was cheating?

The survey reveals for almost every single scenario on the survey, a greater percentage of teachers versus students believe the given scenario is an act of cheating.

“Asking a student who has already taken the test ‘what I should know,’” the third scenario, illustrated the greatest different between teacher and student opinions: Nearly 74 percent of teachers believed that this was a form of cheating, compared to only 33 percent of students.

“Sometimes, teachers tell you to study whatever and then the test ends up being way different,” senior Matt Speer said. “It’s like they’re trying to trick you. So that’s when I ‘cheat’ the most. Whenever the test is different from what they tell me to study, I don’t feel regret at all because that’s not fair to me as a student.”

But what ignited the most debate between teachers and students was the fourth scenario: “Reading Sparknotes for its analyses to finish English homework.” Although teachers and students found themselves in basically agreement as far as how many believed using Sparknotes was cheating – 23 percent for teachers and 24 percent for students – many found the question too subjective and commented that using Sparknotes in lieu of reading was cheating, but allowable as supplementary material.

Others didn’t find the question so subjective, like an anonymous teacher who simply circled “Yes” in response to the survey question “Is this cheating?” and wrote, “The worst of all. =)”.

However, most students don’t seem to think so.

“It’s way too crazy for me to try to read the whole book and not understand a word of it,” senior Aagya Sharma said. “If you just read the summary, then you can get the whole thing. You’re actually just utilizing your time.”

As the percentage of students who admit to cheating rises each year along with the pressure, a highly competitive environment may be affecting the way teens think about their education negatively rather than positively.

“People feel like it’s worse to get a bad grade than get the punishment,” senior Marco Arce said.

However, Peddy does not believe that the high-pressure academics should be an excuse.

“Because of the need to get the GPA up, to take the advanced classes, I think people justify it because ‘everybody does it’,” Peddy said. “I understand the pressure. Life’s all about pressure. But I think it’s a cop-out, to be honest.”

Eason sees ESD’s approach to cheating differently.

“There is no shame in not being able to do some schoolwork, but a lot in turning in something that is not yours,” Eason said. “We are constantly reminding kids that honor is everything.”

Interestingly enough, sophomore Connor Wilcox said something that parallels Eason’s words.

“People will do anything to get into college, into the top 10 percent,” Wilcox said.

“Rank is everything.”

So what will CHS students choose to sacrifice?

Starting with the Class of 2015, CHS will be introducing Career Academies in order to encourage freshmen who already have an interest in a certain career.

Teacher Michael Yakubovsky's engineering academy served as the pilot program for the academy system to be made available to incoming freshmen. Here, engineering students work on their robot at the BEST Robotics competition in October at UNT. (Photo courtesy Michael Yakubovsky)

The three academies are the Science, Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) Academy headed by science teacher Mike Yakubovsky, the Public Services Academy headed by science teacher Brenda Brinkman and the Emerging Media and Communications Academy (EMAC) headed by KCBY-TV director Irma Kennedy.

This new model is part of the Strategic Planning process that began in October 2006 as part of an effort to create smaller learning communities within CHS.

“We realized that you can’t just motivate kids,” CISD Superintendent Dr. Jeff Turner said at a Jan. 3 meeting with Coppell parents. “You have to find something that motivates kids.”

This “something” became the academies, geared towards the diverse interests of the incoming student body. The district has tried to expose students to these academies through a series of evening meetings at the middle schools as well as day presentations given by current CHS students, but some parents are still wary of taking the leap.

“I’m kind of concerned about whether a 14 year old can really make that decision,” eighth grade parent Sandra Braden said. “I don’t understand how it’s that easy for them to try something and then decide ‘This isn’t for me.’ In a way, I kind of wish they had made it so they could be exposed to all of those things and not been so pigeon-holed. I’m not sure we’ll go the academy route for that reason.”

Until the school knows how many students sign up for the academies, they cannot determine exactly how integrated academy courses will be with general studies and AP/GT classes (although the International Baccalaureate program will be incompatible with the academies, since IB students need to take very specific classes). The idea, however, is for each academy to be an autonomous learning community.

“We’re going to have the core teachers working with us to create a curriculum that is focused on those specific areas,” Brinkman said. “So in English, you could be writing a paper that has a medical topic so it brings some connection to it.”

One direction that parents can look to see a successful academy is this school year’s Engineering Academy, headed by Yakubovsky, which served as the pilot program for the STEM Academy. Next year’s STEM Academy is similarly designed to prepare students to be successful through learning about engineering and science, as well as the technology that goes with it.

The EMAC Academy focus on careers in print as well as broadcast journalism, web design, photography, graphic design and marketing. Students who enter this academy are on track to apply to be on the staffs of The Sidekick student newspaper, KCBY-TV and the Round-Up yearbook.

“Everything will be seen through the lens of communications,” Kennedy said. “Communications has changed completely because all of this emerging media. Now, you have to be able to get your hands wet in all fields – your future really depends on it.”

The last academy, the Public Services Academy, is geared towards students who are interested in getting a foundation in education or medicine.

“These students are usually the typical leaders on our campus,” Brinkman said. “They typically have the same characteristics as our healthcare workers and our teachers. They’re very ethical, and creative and innovative and hardworking. The cool thing that we’ve seen in common with them also is that they’re kind of global-minded and they want to be those people out there taking care of world issues.”

In addition to these academies, incoming freshmen can also choose to remain in general studies. Students who join an academy but feel that it is not the right fit for them must remain in the academy for a year before dropping out.

Open enrollment for the academies begins with freshmen registration.