Stories of the Year: 2022-2023

Walking through the halls, a McHenry High School student notices fighting near the bathrooms. In response, a school resource officer nearby issues adjudication citations, or tickets, to the students. All of them are shocked, thinking that the school, not police, handled misbehavior. Last year, ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune co-published "The Price Kids Pay," a series of articles detailing how Illinois s...

A photographer peers through their viewfinder. The subject smiles. A camera flashes. Every photo captures a moment in time. But for many people of color, pictures rarely capture authentic skin tones. Whitewashing in photography is a long-standing issue, stretching back to the beginning of film photography when Kodak was the premiere camera company. Film cameras work by exposing sensitive chemicals...

In every inspirational sports movie, the coach sits the losing team down at half time in the locker room and delivers one message: with enough hard work and perseverance, the underdogs can still win the big game. However, the results of a recent report from Hearst Connecticut Media suggest a different reality: ultimately, money plays more of a role in whether a team wins or loses. The report ...

As an aspiring astronaut, one’s dream of going to the stars begins to take off through learning and training. For up and coming astronauts, some will meet others who had the same dream. For one such woman, she turned that dream into a company that would become the creator of the world’s first publicly accessible spaceflight training facility. Maraia Tanner grew up with the aspiration of becoming...

Each Saturday afternoon since Sept. 23, chants of “Zan Zendigi Azadî” — Farsi for “Woman, Life, Freedom” — have filled the National Mall. Thousands huddle around the green, white and red Iranian flag embroidered with a golden lion, the Persian flag, in protest of the “sexist administration” within the Iranian government. The Syrian opposition flag, the Kurdish flag, LGBTQ+ flags and...

At 5:00 a.m., while many students are still in bed, Grace Ciaramitaro (12) can be found at the pool, practicing her freestyle or breaststroke. After Ciaramitaro’s one-hour practice, she heads to school, which is followed by another two-hour swim practice and a 45-minute workout. She does all of this work in hopes to swim at a Division One collegiate level program. It’s a dream that is only possible today because of the passing of Title IX 50 years ago. What is Tit...

On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian military forces began their full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In what Russian President Vladmir Putin calls a “special military operation,” multiple cities have been bombed, including Ukrainian capital Kyiv, shattering the Ukrainian infrastructure and displacing millions of Ukrainian citizens. The war, which has been occuring for over a year now, has taken well over 350,000 lives, though the exact death toll remains unknown. It has also been over a year since Wayland Student Press N...

More than half of Shalhevet students surveyed who own Kanye West (Ye) apparel have stopped wearing it in response to his Tweet about going “death con 3” on Jews, but a majority of students who have listened to his music continue to do so, according to a Boiling Point survey conducted Nov. 22 - 24. “I’m obviously not wearing his clothing, I’m not representing him,” said freshman London...

Tracing the swirling letters with a finger on her forearm, Pinkerton Elementary School physical education teacher Colleen Michaelis reminisces on a gift that her late son and Coppell High School alumnus Tommy McClenahan gave her three years prior to his death by an overdose on Aug. 10, 2018. “He gave me a Tiffany heart bracelet,” Michaelis said. “The letter that went with it said ‘To the...

Write me a 1000-word essay analyzing the Hero’s Journey in “The Odyssey.” Can you explain meiosis to me in simple terms? Give me a programming function to loop through a file. How about writing a WSS article on the implications of ChatGPT? Since Alan Turing developed the Turing Test to measure computer intelligence in 1950, artificial intelligence has rapidly evolved and is now impacting human...

When Lydia Swortzel and her husband Stevien Reece found out they were having twins, they were shocked. They were shocked not only because carrying two babies at one time is daunting but shocked all the more because they had only one embryo implanted through in vitro fertilization (IVF). “Did we transfer two embryos?” the specialist at her local Winston-Salem fertility clinic asked Swortzel as ...

Following the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade and the subsequent enaction of Ohio’s ban on abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, two Ohio prosecutors pledged they would not prosecute abortion-related crimes – a pledge that, at least in the case of abortion providers located in Cuyahoga County, is having little if any practical effect. The abortion ban, which Ohio Governor...

The Tennessee House of Representatives took the unprecedented move of expelling Rep. Justin Jones (D - Nashville), a Vanderbilt Divinity School student, and Rep. Justin Pearson (D - Memphis) — the body’s two youngest Black lawmakers. The resolutions passed in a party-line vote on April 6, while a resolution to expel Rep. Gloria Johnson (D - Knoxville) failed by one vote. These resolutions are...

FUHSD will begin providing free menstrual products in restrooms across all five high schools beginning the 2022-23 school year, in accordance with the Menstrual Equity for All Act signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October of 2021. Initially proposed by Rep. Cristina Garcia (D), AB 367 requires all California public high schools and universities to provide students with complimentary period pr...

This story was originally published on OneMaize Media on October 25, 2022.

This is the first installment of Midterms Mayhem, a podcast where Aquila staff members discuss the 2022 midterm elections with upper school community members. In this episode, Aquila reporters Ella, Emma and Anika talk with U.S. history teacher James Tate, Emmett Chung (12) and Trisha Variyar (12) about some of the key issues in the upcoming elections.  Ella: Welcome to "Midterms Mayhem," our p...

Last week McCallum celebrated Pink Week, its annual fundraiser for Breast Cancer Research Center- filling the halls with pink streamers, wearing as much pink as possible, pelting PALs with water balloons during lunch festivities and pieing teachers in the face during the pep rally. This was the highest-earning Pink Week ever as the PALs raised almost $3,000, raised awareness about breast cancer and...

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 began their strike for higher wages in the rain starting today. The strike has led to the closure of all Los Angeles Unified School District campuses until March 23. “The district doesn’t want to comply with us,” said special assistant Angelana Nabarretes, who has been working with LAUSD for four years and currently works at Valerio Street...

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) announced on March 24 that it has officially come to a tentative agreement with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 on a signed contract that provides about 30,000 SEIU workers with salary increases and health and additional benefits. “It’s a big step ahead,” said SEIU Local 99 member Humberto Renderos, who is a paraprofessional at Da...

3:30 p.m. Sam Cao sits in front of the computer in his room, enters the zoom meeting dressed as any teenager would be--black hoodie and tousled hair. Just home from school, he is the picture of an 18-year student from Mason, not the suit and tie you would expect of a political candidate running for office. Cao made history during the August 2022 primary, when he became the youngest candidate in Ohio...

When you first hear the word love, what comes to mind? Maybe it’s the person who gives you butterflies or the person who raised you. Perhaps it's that friend you play Mario Kart with all night, talking and giggling. Maybe it's your grandparents, happily married for what seems like forever. Whatever you think of, it’s welcome this Valentine’s Day. In celebration of this unbridled love, we asked...

After an ordinary hour and a half or so to begin the day today, the early morning calm within classes was abruptly and chaotically put to an end just as the first period drew to a close. Mac found itself the victim of yet another raccoon infiltration. Unlike the singular corpse that caused widespread and odorous torment to most in the main campus building several weeks ago, however, this invasion was carried...

Whether the subject pertains to elementary school crushes or long-term high school relationships, romantic connections begin for anyone with “rizz.” The slang term “rizz” derives from the word charisma. Its use has spread like a wildfire on social media platforms, especially TikTok. Since its popularization, it has been spun off into other terms. Although rizz can be a funny term for te...

Richie Tienter is a visually impaired student who has been with the Marquette German program for all four years of high school. His German 4/5 class, in coordination with engineering teacher Kevin Sharitz, decided to surprise Richie with a special board game for college. This story was originally published on Marquette Messenger on May 25, 2023....