West Shore Roar: March 2020 Issue

ROAR
Voice of the students | March 2020
TOXIC
CULTURE
SLEEPING EPIDEMIC HAS
ROOTS IN STRESS
Page 10
West Shore Junior-Senior High School | 250 Wildcat Alley, Melbourne, FL 32935

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WHAT’S INSIDE
Photo: Susan Eaton
For the Win Emily Tizol (10) passes the ball at
the district playoff game.
Photo: Lily Schutt
Host for a Cure Bella Stazzone (12) performs
at the annual Dance for a Cure event.
Photo: Paramount Pictures
Sonic the Hedgehog Classic video game character
takes to the big screen
Opinion
04 Editorial
Mental health initiative: Good idea, mostly poor
execution
Campus Connect
05
Sports
08 Soccer showdown
Girls’ soccer beats record by qualifying
for regional semifinals
09
Science fair shutdown
Coronavirus fears lead to statewide
competition cancellation
News
Hooky up
Increased absences has lead to large number of
attendance appeals
10 Toxic culture
Sleeping epidemic has roots in stress
13 Mental motivation
Students voice their opinions on new mental
health classes
14 Pedestrian peril
New crosswalks on A1A become hazardous
15 Sunscreen struggle
Florida Senate passes contentious bill regarding
local sunscreen regulations
16 Teacher rally in Tally
Teachers take on the capital for better working
conditions
Reviews
18 ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ and ‘Birds of Prey’
At the movies
19 Binge or cringe
‘The Witcher’, ‘The Mandalorian’, and ‘You’
Staff
Editor in Chief:
Rosellen Rodriguez
Managing Editors:
Alana Mayott, Leighton Johnson
Business Manager:
Isabel Burden
Adviser:
Mark Schledorn
Staff Writers:
Cayman Alford, Sophia Bailly,
Olivia Blackwell, Emily Lovelock,
Laith Rukab, Cooper Stein,
Michael Stewart, Abigail
Johnson
Cover Artist:
Isha Patel
wstheroar@gmail.com
Westshoreroar.com
@Wstheroar
“Roar” recognizes itself as a public forum and encourages letters from West Shore students and members of the community. “Roar” cannot print ads promoting activity illegal by Florida
law, ads opposing any religious beliefs, ads written in poor taste, ads with racial or sexist comments, ads considered inappropriate by the staff, advocacy advertising or ads containing
libel. “Roar” is not responsible for websites viewed through links found on pages mentioned in the publication. “Roar” values letters from our readers: maximum length for letters is 200
words. No more than one letter each semester will be published from a writer. Letters and columns are edited for length, content and clarity. “Roar” maintains the right to edit all submissions
for poor taste, length, grammar and libel. Views expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily represent the views of the Brevard County School Board, the West Shore administrators,
faculty, student body or “Roar” staff. Send your opinions to wstheroar@gmail.com. Visit westshoreroar.com for more content.
3

Opinion
Staff editorial Mental health initiative: Good idea, mostly poor execution
Recently, Florida schools have been forced to implement
mental health programs under the requirement of Florida
First Lady Casey Desantis’ mental health campaign with
a goal of teaching students how to spot signs and symptoms of
mental illness. On the surface — and more importantly — to
the media, the state legislature is being proactive in combating
this issue. And it seems that is all it planned to accomplish.
This new mandate to be enforced among sixth- through 10thgraders
is little more than a joke. The
state left administrators little time
to meet the requirements with a
mere semester remaining in the
academic school year. Not only that,
but districts were not given funding
and the parameters weren’t known
until January. It is ridiculous how the
state took the easy way out and left
the schools to scramble around for
how to meet the five hours. With this
initiative, the state has covered its
bases and mitigated chances of being
blamed for the next — it is no longer
an if at this point — school shooting.
Now, nothing can stop the state from
pointing fingers at the individual
schools themselves and deflect calls
for change in the legislature.
The short time schools were
granted to come up with a plan was quite apparent in the mental
health videos students have been forced to sit through during
homeroom. The videos are sad excuses for mental-health help.
Nothing can replace a professional diagnosis and advice of a
Letters
Lack of faculty diversity a disservice to all students
Though it may not be obvious to others, one characteristic
of our school that has troubled me since seventh grade
is the lack of representation of Black people among the
teaching staff.
Take a look as you progress through the day from first to
seventh period and you’ll see that there are zero Black teachers
on West Shore’s campus. Now, you might be thinking that this
lack of representation isn’t necessarily an important issue or that
race doesn’t matter when it comes to being a good teacher. But for
Black students such as myself, being able to create relationships
with teachers based on shared experiences, such as those
related to race, is an essential part of creating a comfortable and
welcoming learning environment. Moreover, Black students are
essentially being robbed of the opportunity to see people of their
same race in positions of authority from a young age, which can
be subconsciously be defeating and unmotivating because this
makes kids feel limited in what they believe they can achieve in
the future.
4 | westshoreroar.com | March 2019
Illustration: Madi Newcombe
psychiatrist or a therapist. Each individual is different with
chemical balances and environmental factors that influence
various states of mind. Even worse is that the videos seem to place
blame on the victim of mental
illness. They oversimply
the complexity of mental
health by telling students
to “get more sleep.” Yes,
sleep does improve a
person’s well-being,
but often times it goes
beyond that. Teens can’t
get sleep due to work, school
and extracurriculars. These are
responsibilities that students can’t just drop.
The videos offer every alternative except
seeing a mental-health professional, the
one person who can help the most. Perhaps
indirectly, the program is discouraging students
to seek out therapists because their problems
are “simple” and require just a mere change in
character, and thus, leading them to ignore and
bottle up their emotions. The videos themselves
are detracting from what they are trying to
accomplish. But hope might lie ahead.
The Feb. 26 assembly caught the attention
of many for being a step in the right direction.
Having people speak out on their depression
and their experiences themselves made the presentation feel
genuine. It pushed the idea of not being alone and that there are
resources willing to help. If only the state made it clear in the first
place that this is what needs to be shown to students.
This situation also reinforces historical preconceptions of the
role in society in which Black people belong. Yet this issue doesn’t
only concern the Black students at West Shore, as students of
other races are being dis-serviced as well. Most evidently, these
students who are also unable to see Black people in authoritative
positions are not being properly prepared for the reality of our
diverse world, in which there is an innumerable Black people in
these roles, so they may not be used to having people who don’t
look like them in positions above theirs. Even though the majority
of you are not Black and cannot directly empathize with this
situation, try to imagine that you don’t have any teachers who
share your race and attempt to understand how that would effect
your academic environment and your ability to form relationships
with your teachers. Hopefully you can recognize why this is such a
pressing issue for all West Shore students.
Shelbi Winslow, 12

News
Science fair shutdown
Coronavirus fears lead to statewide competition cancellation
Story by Sophia Bailly, Staff Writer
The State Science and Engineering Fair
has been cancelled due to the Coronavirus.
Anatomy teacher and Brevard South Fair
Co-Director Maggie Molledo received an
email March 4 from SSEF board member,
Bill Herschleb, alerting her of the event’s
2020 suspension.
“Everyone is kind of shocked,” Molledo
said. “And for West Shore, it’s a big deal.
It’s like one of our sports here. We did
really well and we were going to send
a large group of kids there. It’s just so
disappointing, [like] if they cancelled the
Super Bowl, [or] if they cancelled the state
championship soccer game. It’s like pulling
the rug out from under you.”’
March 24-26 would have marked the
65th consecutive year of the event. More
than 950 students — 72 of those students
representing Brevard County — and more
than 800 adults would have attended
the event at the Lakeland Convention
Center. According to the announcement
of SSEF’s website, the fair was cancelled
due to “current global regional health
circumstances as a result of the COVID-19
viral epidemic.”
“There’s no way for these [students] to
do anything to present their projects and
all of this work,” Molledo said. “What we
have been doing the past couple of weeks
to get them ready, it’s just done. We’ve been
basically working on this for the whole
school year. I even worked on it over the
summer. And for some of [the students]
it [was] their last chance. I feel horrible.
There was a lot of money to be had, and
other scholarships.”
Senior Sarah Bahsoun was on her way
to second period when she received a
text message from her sister regarding
the official notice of SSEF’s cancellation.
Winning first place in the Intelligent
Machines and Robotics Systems category
at the regional science fair, Bahsoun
prepared to compete at the state level for
the first time since eighth grade.
“I created a program that qualitatively
analyzes neuron-derived exosomes,
potential biomarkers for Alzheimer’s and
Best of Show Laysa Damaraju (12) won’t have
and opportunity to compete at states.
Parkinson’s diseases, from transmission
electron microscope images,” Bahsoun
said. “The program uses a convolutional
neural network that I tested and trained
with exosome images from an open-source
database online.”
Bahsoun said she had been “refining the
parameters of the program” in order to
increase overall accuracy, leading up to the
moment she heard her preparations and
research would no longer be judged at the
state level.
“I was looking forward to enjoying
my time away from school with friends
who also qualified for state fair this year,”
Bahsoun said. “As a senior, I submitted
my applications last fall, so anything
I could’ve won at state wouldn’t have
affected my admissions decisions. For
underclassmen however, it could’ve served
as a wonderful addition to their resumes
[and] applications. For that reason I think
it impacts them more.”
Although disappointed, “given the
seriousness of the virus,” Bahsoun
“understood and respected the decision by
the SSEF committee.”
COVID-19, originating in Wuhan,
China in December, has spread globally,
causing 109,609 cases as of 3 p.m. Sunday.
The number of deaths rose to 3,800, and
60,693 carriers recovered. Eighteen cases
were reported in Florida, including two
deaths, as of March 6.
“I knew it was going to spread, but I
Photo: Vinod Damaraju
didn’t know how fast and if it would get
here,” Molledo said. “It’s still going to get
worse before it gets better. I read these
kinds of books. I follow this kind of stuff
because I find it interesting. It’s a part
of what I teach. So when [COVID-19]
started coming out in China and I saw it
spreading, I knew it was possible that it
could get here. But I was like, ‘Well, I’m
not going to worry about it.’ But I’m not
surprised.”
According to biology teacher Angela
Feldbush, COVID-19 is an RNA virus that
“hijacks [human] cells and turns them into
little machines that make more viruses.”
“The main problem is that
because [COVID-19] is so mild, people
don’t always feel sick right away, so
they can spread it before they feel sick,”
Feldbush said. “I don’t know that we are
going to have school closures, but given
the size of the county, it’s not ridiculous
to be prepared in case there are closings.
It’s easy to see people rushing out to buy
masks and bathing in hand sanitizer. But
buying masks and bathing yourself in
hand sanitizer is not what’s going to help
you. There are just simple things that you
can do, like washing your hands and not
touching your face.”
According to the World
Health Organization, common signs
of COVID-19 include impairment to
the respiratory system, and can cause
pneumonia, severe acute respiratory
syndrome, kidney failure and in severe
cases, death.” Although a recent study
from the Chinese Center for Disease
Control and Prevention has concluded that
80 percent of the cases are mild, elderly
citizens with “pre-existing health issues”
face a higher chance of death. Of the
72,314 subjects analyzed, the CDC found
that patients in their 80s had a 14.9 percent
chance of death, In comparison, those in
their 70s had an 8 percent chance, those
in their 40s had a 1.3 percent chance and
those between the ages of 10 to 19 “were as
likely to die as patients in their 30s” at 0.2
percent.
5