Stevens was chosen as one of seven students from Charlotte to go to France in December to play in concerts, which included representatives of other countries including Japan and Belarus.

Every representative country played their own music, with the orchestra from the United States playing music by composer Aaron Copland. “We put on three concerts in different venues for crowds of hundreds,” Stevens said.

The musicians ranged in age from 12 to 21, and they were housed primarily in Limoge, France, a sister city of Charlotte. The ages of the musicians ranged from 12 to 21. The family who conducted the event was a French couple who did not understand English, so a language barrier was also present.

 “I could not speak French,” Stevens said, “ and my host family could not speak English well. We used Google Translate with their iPad to converse.”

She also experienced a bit of cultural shock. “When we were in Paris, we were at the Eiffel Tower taking a picture,” said Stevens,” and a gypsy walked up to our group and took a pastry from the hands of someone in our group.”

Stevens and the other musicians also enjoyed all the attention.

 “Our first concert was at the Opera House of Limoge and there was where we got our own professional dressing rooms to get ready for the concert. The concert was sold out, the news station was there, and we had three encores and an after party.”

The first night into the trip, Stevens attended a dinner party with her host family. The dinner party included friends of her host family who were also hosts for other musicians. The dinner party consisted of the host families speaking broken English and the younger children playing Wii.

“The French kids wanted to talk to me in the English they had learned in school that day.”

In spite of the barriers, Steven said she thoroughly enjoyed her time there. 

The entire trip was sponsored by the Charlotte International Cabinet.

Students at East Meck will choose their favorite nominee by donating money to each student. The Reverse Homecoming candidate who raises the most money by the game on Friday, February 3^rd will win the crown.

“I think East should vote for Homecoming Queen and King at the same time,” said nominee Ben Lineberger, “But I think the charity is a great cause.”

On February 1^st the guys on the court all endorsed the cause they were supporting by appearing on the announcements and spreading the word.

“Last year we raised $1,189 for Stand Up for Kids, this year we hope to be able to match that,” said advisor Martha Deiss.

This year the money raised will go to an organization called A Child’s Place (ACP). This group raises money for children who live without a home. The money obtained goes towards paying for homeless students’ education and a place for them to stay.

“A lot of people consider being homeless as sleeping under bridges,” said Deiss, “but it’s actually mostly couch surfing and finding a place to stay.”

ACP will pays for a hotel room for student and their families during their time of need. While it costs $62,000 for a child to be held in the juvenile court system, and $39,000 to be later incarcerated as an adult, ACP only pays $695 dollars for one year of housing.

“The charity is such a great cause,” said nominee Aaron Grant, “I am honored to be a part of it.”

The ten Homecoming candidates, Aaron Grant, Nick Mariano, Andy Thun, Antonio Crosby, Tennant Gardner, Ben Lineberger, Stanley Weaver, Sam Shisso, and Dhruv Pathak, who are raising money this week and right up to the game against Ardrey Kell on February 3^rd.

Ten students from East Mecklenburg have volunteered to participate in a special art assignment- the Memory Project, where they paint portraits of orphans across the world.

“They really become attached to their child,” said May Winiarski, the project coordinator at East. “A lot of them say it’s the eyes that really connect them.”

Ben Schumaker founded the Memory Project in 2004 after speaking with a Guatemalan man who grew up as an orphan without any personal belongings from his childhood. Schumaker created a program where he provided pictures of orphans across the world, to high school artists in America. The students created portraits off of the pictures which were then sent out as gifts to the orphans.

May Winiarski has coordinated the project at East Meck for the last seven years and has seen her efforts covered on television.

“Katie Couric reported on the Memory Project and we saw our stack of artwork on the news,” said Winiarski. “It was really exciting.”

Not just any student can participate; Winiarski goes through a process to accept only appropriate students for the job.

“I make sure that they have good drawing skills and that they can form facial features well. In my seven years, no one has ever asked me for extra credit,” said Winiarski.

Two of the students, Seniors Kim Hoang and Jenny Espinola, are returning to do the Memory Project for their second year.

“Portrait drawing is my thing,” said Hoang. “It makes me really happy when people draw me, so if I put all my effort in drawing someone else, hopefully it can make them happy too”

“I do it because I love seeing the videos of the little kids when they receive their pictures,” said Jenny Espinola. “I hope they get a really good feeling of themselves when they see the portrait.”

“They are orphans; they don’t have a family to show them love so someone else should,” she said.

Though only advanced students can participate, Winiarski allows students freedom in how they want to do the project.

“She gets these pictures [of orphans] and we get to choose who we want to draw. We can use any medium; last year I used pencil and this year I am using acrylic paint,” said Hoang.

Senior, Demitris Owens, known for playing on the Eagle football team, also participated in the Project.

“[We] should show them that even though they are orphans, they are still wanted and people care about them,” said Owens. “No one should feel like they aren’t wanted.”

“To some people, a picture speaks a thousand words, so I just want to do it if it means that much to them,” he said.

Winiarski is as passionate about Memory Project as her students.

“Many of their parents die from HIV/AIDS and they never grew up with childhood photos or people taking pictures of them. For a lot of them, the portrait is the only memory they have of their childhood,” said Winiarski. “Many of these orphans went through hard times and they deserve lots of love and effort from us.”

Fifteen current college students in the Great Neck area of New York, all from top-ranked high schools, were found to have paid five other students to take their college entrance exams using fake ID’s in the past couple of months.  The scandal is now becoming national news, as it stirs up an ongoing debate about the pressures high school students are under to score well on such tests and get into a good university, a discussion which has now hit East Meck.

“As a kid who lives in a household of immigrant parents, I feel pressured to achieve a high score on the SATs,” said junior Hakeem Oufkir. “I feel like society has brought us as a whole to think that SAT scores are all that colleges care about.”

“So much of college acceptance relies on ACTs and SATS,” said senior Emma Wiebke. “If you don’t do well, you’re out of luck.”

Test anxiety is seen as a major problem by many parents and educators.

“Students are very fearful and anxious thinking they need name-brand education to get a job,” said counselor Sandra Rhinehart.

Some students may have a firm grasp of material, but under certain time restraints and the pressure to succeed some students cannot perform up to their full capability.

“It is such a long test I can’t remain focused,” Wiebke said. “I’m a good student but my SAT scores are average. I’m just a bad test taker.”

Some colleges, such as Wake Forest University, have made submitting SAT and ACT scores optional. Other schools have put less weight on scores and have begun to focus on other admissions criteria such as the student’s transcript, including difficulty of classes taken and grades.

“These test don’t truly reflect someone’s level of intelligence,” Wiebke said. “The ACT and SAT are based on basic knowledge. It isn’t stuff that we are learning in class every day.”

“I think colleges should focus more on what the student is capable of doing and what [he or she] has done the past four years of high school,” Oufkir said.

                Rhinehart suggests that many colleges are beginning to see the value in other aspects of a student’s high school record other than test scores.

                “Colleges are looking for a well-rounded student with good grades, extracurricular activities, and good leadership roles,” she said. “For the more competitive colleges, the essays are very important. Schools want to know what students have done in their school career that sets them apart from a kid with the exact same [scores].”

                “Colleges are looking for some innovative idea that has made a difference in a student’s community,” she added.

Officials have also suggested that the National Merit Scholarship Association move away from using PSAT scores as the only measure of awarding scholarship and focus on a more well-rounded means of selecting students.

“My father repeatedly tells me that SAT scores are what matter and to focus on getting a high score for scholarships,” Oufkir said. “In his opinion, SAT scores make you or break you.”

“The government is the military [in Burma],” she said. “There was discrimination…we didn’t have freedom of religion there, or freedom of speech.”

Burma, now known by the government as Myanmar, has endured much ethnic conflict since gaining independence in 1948. The US State Department estimates that there are over half a million Burmese refugees living in the nations surrounding Burma, including Thailand, Malaysia, and India.

Mawi’s family, however, left for economic reasons.

“It’s hard to find a job in Burma,” said Mawi. “We had a clothes shop, a small stall in the bazaar…After school, sometimes I helped my parents and my sister and brother. I didn’t have free time; I worked on the weekends.”

Mawi and her family left Burma by car, at night, to escape detection.

Sophomore Thian Khua Piang, also a Burmese refugee who has lived in a camp, added, “If the police had seen us [crossing the Burmese border], they would have caught us and put us in jail.”

Mawi lived in a refugee camp in Malaysia, but she said it was a much tougher life than she had been accustomed to in Burma.

“In Malaysia, we couldn’t walk everywhere,” she said. “We were illegal […] we didn’t have an ID or papers.”

Piang continued, “We didn’t have money, we couldn’t work. We lived in a camp in the forest; we had to be careful about being noisy [so] the police wouldn’t see us.”

Mawi said she has also had to adjust to a new culture, especially in school.

“Everything is different here [in America],” said Mawi. “In Burma, each class is fifty people. We had to pay for school and textbooks; we didn’t have free lunch. If after school I needed tutoring, I had to pay for that too.”

The teaching methods were also different, says Mawi.”[In school] I memorized all these things. We didn’t use ideas. When we had an essay, the teacher would answer for us and we’d memorize what they said. When I came here, it was hard for me. I just memorize.”

Said Mawi, “It was hard at first. We had no job, no English. But it’s better now.”

Math teacher Thomas Nguyen, himself a refugee from Vietnam, says that many people aren’t aware of the presence of refugees and the challenges they encounter.

“It isn’t easy,” said Nguyen. “[Refugees are] so poor, they don’t speak English, [and] they don’t know how to work the system like people who have lived here.”

Refugees are often supported by their own cultural communities, said Nguyen – fellow immigrants who have few resources of their own. He holds that schools have great potential to ease the transition of children who are refugees, but aren’t fully utilizing this ability.

“We should have a partnership between [refugees and] students in prestigious programs like IB, who are good students, and who are in clubs,” said Nguyen. “[It] would help [refugees] fit into American culture faster and learn English faster, instead of just floundering around by themselves.”

Natalija Karan, a junior, has lived in Charlotte for 12 years, having come on refugee status from Serbia.

“It was really hard to adjust, for my family,” said Karan. “We had no money; we didn’t speak English.”

However, she added that, to her family, facing these challenges was preferable to remaining in Serbia.

“[Serbia] was really poor…because of the war,” said Karan. “There was no future there – no education, no jobs. If we were there, we’d be living in a slum.”

Karan feels that she and her family have assimilated successfully into a different country.

“I definitely think we live the same life as Americans now,” she said. “We have citizenship. The only difference is that when we do home, we have Serbian traditions [and] we speak Serbian.”

Karan added that she feels the environment at East Meck is welcoming to students who are or have been refugees.

“East Meck is so diverse,” she said. “There are so many refugees from different countries; it helps you feel accepted.”

In February 2011, East Meck received a sanitation score of 82. The B grade was solidly average – newer schools, such as Ardrey Kell and Rocky River, earned A ratings, whereas schools closer to East Meck in age, such as Myers Park, South Meck and Garinger, also received scores in the 80s.

“A lot of [the reason for the score] is just the building, and how old it is,” said Principal Rick Parker. “It’s things like tiles or water fountains.”

The report cites minor violations of regulations involving, among others things, bathrooms and storage areas. East Meck lost 40 out of 40 points in lighting and ventilation, and 60 out of 80 for water fountains.

The Health Department has no authority to force schools to make changes, and cannot close a school for sanitation problems unless it poses a threat to the public. However, East Meck’s score has risen in recent years, and head custodian Michael Johnson said his staff frequently performs maintenance.

“We’re constantly replacing lightbulbs; we check the bathrooms constantly and keep graffiti off,” said Johnson. “It’s my custodians’ job to report [issues such as] leaks and to come and fix them.”

As a result of budget cuts, CMS has reduced its custodial staff 17% since 2008, and has stopped performing certain types of “preventative maintenance”, such as refinishing and painting, as often.

“I had mold on that ceiling tile until there was a school board meeting in my room, and then suddenly it was gone,” recounts social studies teacher Martha Deiss.

“Mold is an allergen,” said school nurse Joyce Kramer. “Allergies…affect your immune system and can make you more susceptible to viruses, or trigger asthma.”

Kramer said that cleanliness is the first step in preventing illness.

“The number one way to prevent communicable disease, like the flu…is hand washing,” said Kramer. “That itself shows how important it is to keep surfaces clean, to keep bathrooms clean.”

She added that CMS implements strict protocol when it comes to preventing the spread of disease and has been successful in preventing breakouts of illnesses like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.

Nevertheless, many students complain about sanitation, especially about the cleanliness of school bathrooms.

“I think [the school] is sort of clean, [but] I’ve seen cockroaches and mice in the bathrooms,” said sophomore Sarah Franco.

“It would help if some kids would use better bathroom etiquette,” said principal Rick Parker. “It’s a matter of pride in the school.”

Christopher Williams, the 10th and 11th grade IB English teacher, has used numerous websites to network with his students and provide them with cutting edge learning tools. Among them are Twitter, Quizlet, GoAnimate, Evernote, Ning, Google Groups, and Google Docs.

“When people just started using computers, they were only useful to programmers and people with software knowledge,” said Williams. “Web 2.0 is basically a more accessible version of the web where users can get information without a large hassle.”

Williams has recently started taking advantage of Twitter, one of the web’s fastest growing sites, to accompany his teaching.

“I use Twitter to socially bookmark things so that students can have it out there to see,” said Williams. “I had also hoped that students would eventually start using twitter to start developing their interests and hobbies, and to keep up with politics and the news. Most students either like it or hate it.”

Williams is just one of several East Mecklenburg teachers using social media to educate. This recent movement has swept through schools across America, and East Meck is among the better ones at using it well.

“Right now, East Meck is at a good place in terms of how we use technology,” said Williams. “One thing that I would like to see started is Bring Your Own Technology. It would be great if students were allowed to use their own tools to help them learn.”

One of those students, sophomore Bokar Diaby, had some thoughts on Williams’ use of technology.

“I barely have time to get on the computer sometimes, I would rather have everything on a piece of paper so I can look at it whenever,” said Diaby. “I can see how it might work for some people, but I don’t really like it that much.”

Other students have different opinions.

“When things are online, it’s convenient because it’s there whenever you need to look at it, and It won’t ever get lost,” said sophomore Lawrence Pittman.

Williams has given much thought to the use of technology in his classroom. As more teachers start adopting social media into their routines, a danger emerges of alienating students that lack consistent access to a computer.

“As a teacher, you want to be consistent, but so many new things are always coming out,” he said. “You can’t invest in things only to realize that they have their limitations. More technology isn’t necessarily better, and I have to be conscious about not overdoing it.”