In the past decade, dropout rates have been higher than the graduation rates of high school students in the state of Washington. On average throughout the nation, about 1.3 million high school students become dropouts each year. Parents continually pound into children’s minds how important education is going to be to their lives.  Many students at Newport High School take their education seriously, planning to go on to either a two-year, four –year, or technical school after high school.

But how would getting a high school diploma help us succeed in life? Amber Verville, one NHS senior this year, says, “Education gives you an idea of your abilities, and it shows you your interests that you can expand. I found that I am really good at math, which I don’t like, but that I am also good at Spanish and learning languages, which interests me for the future.” In other words, a high school education can help individuals know what they are capable of doing in life so they know what  are possible career choices for those particular individuals.  If individuals didn’t know what abilities they were capable of or what they wanted to do after high school, they wouldn’t be able to perfect some of their better abilities and put them to use later on in the future.

Whether or not we have a basic high school education also affects how we view the world and other people in it. Having a high school education also affects the kind of choices that all individuals have to make in life. Mrs. Waterman, an English teacher at NHS comments, “Knowledge is important to be an educated, balanced person; it prepares you for college and careers, and it teaches life skills.” Amber also adds that, “If you graduate from high school, it shows that you care about finishing something, succeeding at something. Many high school dropouts gave up on high school because it was too hard, and an employer doesn’t want to see that.”

So what encourages our students to graduate from high school and get their diploma? Amber blurts out, “I am highly self motivated, and I just decided at a young age that I wanted to go on to college, and that I didn’t want to stop learning, ever.” Duncan Heaney, another senior at NHS informs, “To find a job that I can enjoy after high school, that I can do for many years to come.”

Getting a high school diploma is one of the most important decisions that students have to make in their lives. Making this decision can affect an individual’s life forever. But without a high school diploma, we can never truly be successful in our lives.

In the state of Washington, every high school student is required to take the HSPE test only during their sophomore year, unless they are retaking it a later year.  The initials HSPE stand for High School Preference Exam. This exam is supposed to test students on how well they know each subject. There are four different HSPE tests, reading, writing, math and science. Each grade has their own graduation requirements; some students don’t need the science HSPE to graduate.

Some students don’t think the HSPE should be a graduation requirement. Rachel Brasch, a student at Newport High School said, “No, because some people do not test very well, but that does not mean that they are not smart. If they pass their classes, then they should be able to graduate.” Another student, Austin Krogh, stated, “The HSPE is a joke, because some people do not test well, so if they’re smart it’s not going to show on the test.”  Several students feel that the HSPE is unfair and that it should not be a graduation requirement.

Each student is different, and certain HSPE tests can be hard for one student but not for another. Rachel Brasch said, “I find that the writing HSPE is the easiest, because I enjoy writing even though I am not a very good speller.”

Some students feel that teachers don’t prepare students for the HSPE, as well as they should while others feel the opposite.  Austin Krogh said, “They don’t prepare students as well as they should,” while Rachel Brasch said, “I feel that some teachers try to prepare you, but in the end it all depends upon the person and how well they test.”

Every student is different, and they all test differently. The HSPE may come very easy to some students, whereas others may stress out, because they are worried about not graduating.

Ok, so the first day of high school, we’ve all been there. It seems only a week ago you were soaking up the last rays of the summer heat. Now with the glow of summer you find yourself anew with confidence, “What will the new year bring?” Now, fast-forward 3 years. The epic journey of high school has nearly ended, and you find yourself faced with a new question, “What have these last 4 years given me?” The terrible outbreak of “senioritis” is well known and spreading like wild fire. It’s easy for seniors to get caught up in the glory days of college, but it’s important to consider that yes, one day they will all be on their own paths. They will grow with each adventure that will be more awesome then the next, and then they will reflect back on those last 4 years of high school and what really made senior year the best. There is an old saying, “If I would have known then what I know now…….” Many seniors at NHS where surveyed about what high school means to them today and how their perspective has changed. This is their story……

When asked, “Think back to freshmen year. In what ways do you think you have changed as a person and why?” Judah Meek responded with “I’m different for the fact that I didn’t know what to do in my life, I am completely different because now I have real dreams and hopes that help define me as a person and drive me to choose the things I do.”

It’s easy to see how, as we get older, our choices and experiences can change how we perceive different aspects of life. When asked how her perspective of high school has changed over the years, Caitlin Balasa described her experience about gaining success. “Ya know you come into freshmen year thinking you can’t slack off at all and you can be super paranoid about everything, but then my sophomore and junior year I just didn’t care as much, for me at that point in my life the work didn’t matter. Now as a senior I see the seriousness again and do my best to succeed.” With success comes confidence, Anden Fernandes exceeded well in athletics, his confidence as an athlete fueled his goals as an active student for his community. “I would say my favorite experience in high school was getting involved in all of the sports the school had to offer because the varity I feel suits the personalities of all the diverse students of the school.”

Seniors are faced with common questions about college, post high school life, and careers quite often, but if you would have asked them those same questions as freshmen, you would  have found that their answers have changed dramatically over the years. Funny how one day you could walk in knowing exactly what you want to do and be, then even a small experience, such as picking up a camera for the first and feeling the thrill of capturing your vision forever on film, could completely change your outlook for the future. Yesterday they were freshmen, young, blind with excitement. Now, today, they are seniors, proud, confident, goals and ambitions stretched out before them like a never ending wave, just waiting to meet the shores of their destinies. “ We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers,” stated President Thomas Woodrow Wilson. The first four chapters have been written, but how it will end? We must turn one page at a time to find out.

High school is the one place to get serious before going off to college. At Newport High School, there are only about 300 students. There aren’t a lot of options to choose from when it comes to classes. It would be nice to have a wider variety of subjects and classes to be able to choose from when considering careers after college. Some of the things students want to do when they go off into the big world aren’t even offered at the school. It would be nice if students had a little experience before going into college, so that they would at least have some knowledge of their major or minor before they were put in classes that demanded a thesis and multiple works in their field.

There are a handful of students here at Newport High that would like to go into a design field. Tami Bridges, a Junior in the school,  is one of them. She enjoys clothing design and being able to put different outfits together to match her personality. “I think we should have a Home Economics class where we can learn how to sew and put zippers on stuff.” Tami believes that this would help her in her career pursuit and give her an advance on others that haven’t had experience.

Joseph Weltzin, a freshmen, said at his old school he had a career class. “The class would get a certain career for the whole school year. Once a week we would have to dress up as that type of profession and try to maintain money.”

After interviewing several freshman, the main class that people want added is a cooking class. Elice Cunningham, Kailey Saunders, and Ari Newcomb all agree that a cooking class would be enjoyable.

Newport High School should be able to offer a larger variety of career based classes for what students are interested in after high school education. The students deserve to have a wider variety.  Home Economics is one that comes up often when interviewing. Newport High should also offer a choir or orchestra instead of just a band, giving students the opportunity to expand their musical knowledge. So many different classes can be offered that would help the students in such a variety of ways that it seems a shame to have to choose from so few. Newport High School should offer more classes.

Last month, all students were required to    lead their own Parent-Teacher Conference in order to tell their parents how well they were performing in school. Students seemed to panic more and more as the days got closer to the conference. Now that they’re over, how well do students of Newport High School think they conducted their Student-led Conference, and do they think Student-led Conferences should be held next year?

A Student-led Conference is a part of school that is mandatory for all NHS students. Though it is thought by some that these conferences help the students by preparing them for the future, many students still don’t agree. One sophomore, Dominique Petrie, tells Grizzly Print, “I don’t think Student-led Conferences will help me prepare for the future because I spent five minutes showing my mom random accomplishments. I don’t think that in my career I’m going to sit down and tell her how my career is going in a binder.” However, some students believe that the Student-led Conferences will help with their future. Anna Ratcliff, a senior at NHS, comments, “I find that the Student-led Conferences help prepare any student for the future by showing them what is going to happen once you get out of high school. In high school, you know all your peers so it’s not surprising that the Student-led Conferences are helping you perform speeches in front of crowds. Once you get out of high school, there will be times where you will need to read speeches in front of an audience. Most likely, you won’t even know most of the people you’re giving the speech out to.” In the end, it is safe to say that students have mixed opinions about the conferences they have to conduct every year.

Do students have any advice for a student who has never taken part in a Student-led Conference before? Dominique advises, “Don’t be nervous. It’s all right in front of you, and it’s people you’re familiar with.” “If anything, just to relax and to do their best. Students who haven’t done a Student-led Conference shouldn’t think that they can go in and do it off the top of their head. Not only will it mess up the conference, it will also make the student look unprepared for their Student-led Conference.” Anna explains.

What do teachers think was the best part of these Student-led Conferences and the students they advise in Navigation 101? Mrs. Almond comments, “They all grew so much this year. They were serious and seemed to understand, and actually were proud of themselves while presenting to parents, advisor and friends.”

As much as some students might hate to admit it, many others think that the Student-led Conferences are helpful to themselves and their futures. For now, students of NHS are glad to know that the Conferences are over, but most look forward to another Student-led Conference next year.

Would you rather have a project or a portfolio as a graduation requirement for your senior year? As a graduation requirement for any high school, students must either complete a Senior Project or a Senior Portfolio before their graduation ceremonies at the end of their senior year. State law requires schools to choose between having a portfolio or a project as their requirements for graduating high school. Newport High School requires their students to complete a Senior Portfolio before they graduate from high school. However, what if the students at Newport had the option to choose between the two requirements?

By choosing to do a Senior Project, students must commit almost all of their time to that project. Let’s say that your project deals with nursing: all of your hours of community service must reflect back to dealing with nursing. You must also write a written report on that topic and later present it to your peers. If a student wishes to have a senior project as their graduation requirement, they normally choose their topic during their junior year in high school. They then must work on it from when they chose it, over the summer, and throughout their senior year in high school. Amber Verville, a Newport High School senior stated, “I think that working on a senior project would differ from working on a senior portfolio because in the project, you’re doing something you want to do, in relation to your future career, as opposed to keeping and presenting a record of your scholarly achievements.”

By choosing to do a portfolio as a graduation requirement, there is less of a hassle on where the work can come from. For example: your volunteer hours can come from multiple sources and they don’t have to reflect back to one singular topic. By choosing to work on a Senior Portfolio, students are able to work on it starting freshmen year and continuing through it during their years in high school. However, by choosing a Portfolio, there are a lot of requirements that need to be included in it by the end of senior year. Some requirements that are needed in the senior portfolio include: a collection of best works (one from each class) or a summary of that class, official transcripts from the office, two letters of recommendation, and so on. There are also some problems that are involved with a portfolio.

“You don’t have enough class-time to work on it and the due date got moved up a month earlier this year,” Michael Rapp, a NHS senior stated. Steven Contreras, another NHS senior advises incoming freshmen to “collect their best works throughout the years.”

Newport High School is required to have students put together a portfolio as their graduation requirement. By allowing students to have the option of putting together either a portfolio or a senior project, students would be able to decide what they want as their graduation requirement.

Are you a musician? If you are, do you ever feel like it would be a good experience to be judged by a professional? If so, than the Solo and Ensemble contests are for you. It’s pretty basic: just ask your local high school band teacher to help you enter, and then they will give you a piece of music to practice. You practice the piece until the day of the event, and then you play it in front of a judge that knows and understands your instrument. First, they make notes of how you do as you play, and then give you feedback. Then, they’ll tell you where they thought you did well, where they thought you could use improvement, and how you could enhance your performance.

An interesting thing about these competitions is that you don’t have to do it alone if you don’t want to- meaning you can have a friend play along with you as a duet, a trio, or even more of your friends. The instruments that you can use are limitless too; anything from a drumset to a harp is just fine by them.

“I wouldn’t change a thing about it” offered Newport’s local band instructor, Barbara Bell, while smiling. “This year I would have hoped to see more kids take advantage of the chance to do it, but I wasn’t disappointed with the results.”

Newport had four students participate this year (Madie Merrill, Anne Glines, Carly Christopherson, and Zerrin Frankel), all of them getting a 2 or higher on the grade scale. The grades the judges give you range from 5 to 1; 5 being the lowest, 1 being the highest caliber rating available. “The adjudicators are good, it’s a very well run contest, and I’m very satisfied with it.” Mrs. Bell concluded.

The contest has been around for about as long as the instruments have, showing that it’s tried and true. “I’m excited for next year because I’d never heard of a drummer going!” Becca Daigneault quipped excitedly. Hosted in a different high school in Spokane every year in January, it’s not too far away to stop in and give it a try yourself, or simply listen in.

Fighting fires, treating animals’ sicknesses, baking a delicious cake in a bakery, studying the bones of ancient sea creatures; the possibilities are endless when you’re a young child. Perhaps some of us still hope to obtain those jobs even when we’re older. Or have our dreams changed now that we’re older and more mature? How on Earth do we even hope to obtain a job when we’ve spent the majority of our youth sitting in classrooms in a school building?

Creating beautiful works of art, training dolphins, cooking for gorgeous restaurants; what have you decided to be now?  “Fashion designer or massage therapist,” stated Tami Bridges, a junior at Newport High School.  “My dream career to pursue after High School would probably either be a music producer or a freelance graphic designer making logos or editing pictures and videos,” comments Ethan Tafoya, also a junior at NHS.  “Opening a training area for training service dogs for the disabled and impaired,” comments Rebecca Daigneault, another junior at the school.

Four-year college, two-year or community colleges, CTEs and learn on the job experiences; there are so many options when it comes to deciding how someone would achieve their goals.  How is it we plan to achieve our goals even while we’re still in High School? “I plan to take classes such as Graphic Design One and Two in high school, doing tutorials and such to sharpen my skills,” states Ethan. “Make it through High School and go to a four-year college.” says Tami.  “I plan on going to college and studying animal sciences and psychology, hopefully majoring in both,” states Rebecca.

The only question to helping ourselves achieve our goals is, does anyone think there are job opportunities for young adults out in the “real world”? Some think not. “I don’t think there are many jobs available to me right now because of my age and my dependence on my family; I don’t live alone or have to make money for my family,” says Ethan. However Tami states, “Anything! There is a job anywhere if you work hard enough.”

Perhaps our dream careers aren’t as far away as we think. Some believe that if you can dream it, you can do it. All of us here at NHS have our own dreams for our lives, and perhaps, if we do work hard enough at it, WE CAN DO IT!

The Distributive Education Clubs of America, or DECA, sponsors an annual national event. It’s been around for over sixty years. DECA has to do with marketing, finance, hospitality, and management in high schools and colleges around the globe. DECA provides competitions for being in a typical marketing setting. There are individual and team competitions.

There are numerous events in DECA. Depending on your event, you have to go through procedures, and then a performance. The judges score you on how well you handle your event situation. Usually before you go in to meet the judges, you get a paper that gives you your instructions and you study it. While at competitions, kids must dress in a professional manner.

DECA is a great way to learn about marketing and financing. It is also a great way to meet new people and be social. Mr. Daniel, football coach and the head of Newport’s DECA chapter says, “ DECA allows students to put forward all their learning into practice. It deals with real life situations and is a great experience. Kids should sign up because it’s a great opportunity to push yourself and excel in the business world.”

If you sign up for DECA, the first competition is regional. If you advance on, you go to state, and after state it’s nationals. During marketing class, students work at the student store. This teaches them how to behave in a “store” setting. The students have to learn how to take inventory and count all the money. This is a big advantage in the marketing world. Kenny Krogh, senior and president of DECA, stated, “ You get your best dress on, go out and you do business.” DECA is an incredible way to learn new things, meet new people, and excel in business.

“We all live under the same sky, but we don’t
all have the same horizon.”- Konrad Adenauer

When you walk down the crowded halls of Newport High School you see them everywhere, the artistic viewer, the excellent athlete, the achieving scholar. You see leaders, seniors. What you can’t see with just a first glance is how they started. Once they were just small kids with huge dreams. The coolest job in the world was being a super hero or a princess. Then, with time, the adventures grew beyond the playground, and paths changed. Now, four years later, they are still dreamers, but with many new options; four year college or community? Trade school or army base? Work force or take a year off? Suddenly this adventure has now become a crossroads and one question remains. What next?
Where do you see yourself in five years? Of course many seniors are still figuring that out, but Kate Selier had a pretty good idea. “In five years I see myself in my sophomore year at WSU, doing an internship for veterinary practice.” Now it’s certain that many students are undecided, but that’s okay. School is not just about careers and getting a high paying job after graduation, it’s a place for learning about yourself and the world. Many college counselors say that 75% of students change their majors after their first year or two of college. So if you’re a little unsure, don’t worry, chances are you’ll change your mind a thousand times. “The hardest part is choosing which college you want to go to, because it’s a big part of your future, figuring out where you’ll live and if the college is right for you in the long run,” said Judah Meek, senior. That leads to the next and most important question, what’s best for me?
As a senior, it’s important to ask yourself these questions: What are my strengths? Do I like being with people who are mostly like me or do I want to meet a more diverse group? After you’ve narrowed down some ideas, don’t be afraid to pursue them. Because of money, you should ask the school counselor about possible community scholarships. Learning to readjust goals and priorities is a useful life skill that shows you’re growing up and getting out there in the world.
So no matter where your skyline is, the proud marine, the caring nurse, the freelance photographer, or the pro NBA player, work hard, stay focused, and always keep your eyes on the horizon. Today we are Grizzlies, but tomorrow, well the rest is up to us.