As the persistent clicks of the sewing machine bounce off the blush-colored walls of her study, Coppell High School sophomore Mehak Lohiya settles into an easy rhythm. 

Just minutes before, Lohiya…

Coaching philosophies serve as guidelines for how coaches lead the team, including morals and values beyond just the sport itself. Ask a male coach with a male team his coaching philosophy and a common…

On May 12, the Food and Drug administration lowered the age for receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to 12 from 16 as an emergency use authorization (EUA) after the Center for Disease Control and FDA’s…

There was once a little girl obsessed with the Disney movie The Little Mermaid. Though lacking in red hair and a tail, Ariel was reflected in her through curiosity: the defining trait of the princess and…

After a period of little to no COVID cases in India, a recent surge of cases created a second wave, leaving millions infected.

“Every boundation [imitation] was removed, schools, colleges, malls,…

Snitches get stitches. 

Don’t narc on me. 

Tattletale. 

From a young age, the concept of reporting wrongdoing has a stigma attached, a little negative social label stuck onto those who dare…

To listen to this story, click on the box to the left. 

Dear Reader,

My name is Akhila Gunturu.

That’s 13 letters total. Six and seven in English, three syllables each in Telugu.

A-khi-la….

When you get to Austin, keep heading down Guadalupe Street towards West Campus until you hit a small white building with purple accents; and unlike the rest of Austin, actually decent parking availability.

As…

Don’t judge a book by its cover.

An age-old adage passed down between generations and the moral of countless children’s books, this lesson is ingrained in our minds from the day we can comprehend…

On April 22, the United States Senate passed a bipartisan COVID-19 hate crimes bill to enact protections for the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

The bill is a concrete step from the government…

A bright orange sign with the words ‘Dallas Zoo’ stamped in white appeared on the side of the highway as New Tech High @ Coppell sophomore Vibha Radhakrishnan and her parents were en route to the Perot…

On April 9 in Washington, D.C., Coppell High School 2009 graduate Jim Pagels died in a five-car chain reaction crash while cycling, leaving those who knew him devastated. Pagels was an urban economist,…

Listening to the angelic voice of the singer accompanied with the warm, buzzing and metallic sound of the veena, Coppell High School junior Hira Sarangapani knew the veena was an instrument unlike any…

“It’s bussin bruh.”

This is a phrase I have been repeatedly saying to my friends. Yes, they get annoyed, but eventually, they catch on.

Generation Z’s slang is filled with arbitrary words…

“Once on This Island” sheds light on the Haitian retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” with flashlights as props, stage lights and a color-changing screen that canvases the stage…

Every time cars honk and passengers holler at the busiest intersection in Coppell, Coppell High School 2020 graduate Angeli Smith jumps and waves the two signs in her hands. The names of two Black men…

For women, March was a month of being neglected, harassed, dismissed and killed. It was a month filled with events, policies and remarks counteracting each step of progress women were able to make. In…

Xiaojie Tan. Delaina Yaun. Paul Andre Michels. Daoyou Feng. Yong Ae Yue. Hyun Jung Grant. Soon Chung Park. Suncha Kim. 

On March 16, the heart-shattering Atlanta spa shootings transpired at Youngs…

Hidden away amongst identical doors behind the staircase in C hallway at Coppell High School is a room with a tightly shut door, almost always locked. Every so often, its light is flicked on but its…

Playing NCAA Division I basketball is a difficult feat on its own, especially for those with Indian origins.

With his commitment to Stanford University, announced on March 16 via social media, Coppell…

As numerous Coppell residents huddled under layers of blankets, it was easy to focus only on the moments they were living right then. The lack of power,  risk of burst pipes, inability to travel on snow-covered…

Four percent.

According to UNESCO, that’s the approximate amount of media coverage for women’s sports.

Pathetic, isn’t it?

On March 2, entering Women’s History Month, four U.S. Olympians…

Hysterical. Vain. Frivolous. All are words more commonly used to describe women as opposed to men.

But why?

Centuries have passed since women began fighting for equality. In 1987, Congress declared…

In the fifth grade, I told a girl, awe-struck, that I was jealous of how skinny she was. She turned to me, looked me up and down and said, “Yeah, and you’re… Well, look at you.”

In the sixth…

At Coppell Middle School North, theater room F103 flooded after a fire sprinkler pipe burst. The state of her classroom stunned CMSN theater director Brittany Reese, as she, one of many teachers, homeowners…

New Tech High @ Coppell senior Cole Ramirez very well knows he comes off as pretentious. He voices his hate to Starbucks feverently, wears plaid pants casually as an 18-year-old, makes short films with…

Three fourths of the way into the 2020-21 school year, Coppell High School art teacher David Bearden’s classroom, E103, holds about five students per class period, out of approximately the 25 enrolled….

What does the world look like for a visually impaired sixth-grader that cannot remember going legally blind?

Coppell Middle School East sixth-grader Sullivan (Sully) Kessler wants everyone to know that…

Coronavirus Disease 2019. COVID-19. Both imply this was an outbreak isolated to 2019, but the pandemic continues in 2021, after hundreds of thousands of Americans have perished as a result of COVID-19…

She runs. She stabilizes her pole. She lifts her body upwards. She propels herself over the crossbar. She lands. She repeats.

“[Pole vaulting] is stressful, but it’s so fun and you have so much…

Editor’s note: This is part 3 in a series exploring today’s news media and the impact of distrust on its consumers. Read part 1 and part 2 here.

Youth and the media

As the torch bearers of digital…

Editor’s note: This is part 2 in a series exploring today’s news media and the impact of distrust on its consumers. Read part 1 here.

Deepening the divide

As trust in the media continues to falter,…

The first time IT professional Jo Ann Hill worked with computers was during her bachelor’s degree program at Mississippi Valley State University. With an affinity for numbers and math, Hill had chosen…

His daily scans of box scores, game stats and sports articles in The Dallas Morning News each day sparked his fascination for sports journalism. But, it wasn’t until joining The Sidekick did he realize…

What was intended to be a single weather day off school ended up being a week of power outages and bursting pipes for some Coppell High School students and teachers.

Coppell woke up on Monday morning…

This week snow fell for hours in Coppell and its surrounding cities. Eventually, many Coppell High School students and faculty started to lose electricity, Internet access and water due to the freezing…

Three weeks after the release of his song, “Na La Lenu,” Coppell High School senior Akhil Aitha woke up to find the music video had been viewed 3,500 times.

The song, released Jan. 10, is Aitha’s…

Four inches of snow piled on sidewalks, stores and houses in Coppell on Sunday, prompting a week-long closure of Coppell ISD. The record-low temperatures brought with them rolling power outages, rendering…

“‘It’s today in history!’”

This is Wilson Elementary fifth grade teacher Beth Brandenburg’s first year of teaching history in fifth grade after 19 years of teaching, 15 of those spent at…

As she approached the fencing strip, adrenaline and excitement pumped through her body. With a mental plan ready, she faced her opponent, ready to enforce the techniques and skills she developed through…

Hands clasped and kneeling in front of an idol of the Hindu god, Krishna, I refused to pray.

It wasn’t an act of rebellion, like my parents believed. Nor was it a phase. It was the result of years…

Competition vs. accuracy

Clickbait vs. quality

Fake news vs. journalism

Mutually exclusive or intertwined?

Information is a double-edged sword. As the wielders, journalists pick their…

How to be anti-racist. What’s happening in China.

As soon as I open Instagram, I am bombarded with the same taglines, captured in bubbly colors and fonts, attempting to draw attention to social justice…

It was during his sophomore year while playing on the varsity soccer team that now 2017 Coppell High School graduate Bishesh Manandhar realized how fortunate he was to play with cleats on his feet and…

Coppell High School senior and creator of Melodies for Math Swetha Tandri was a late talker, so at a young age, she used singing as a means of communication.

Tandri was previously featured for her environmental…

The hat slips.

She pulls it up and tugs it firmly over her head. A perfect fit. A blue lock of hair brushes against her dark, hard eyes.

All gazes turn her way.

Coppell High School senior Sneha…

In a sociology class the summer after my sophomore year, I learned the American Dream was dead.

Not explicitly, not definitively, but through a series of statistics and case studies of individuals who…

Close your fingers with your thumb on the side of your fist.

Move your thumb to the front of your fist.

Open your thumb and index finger and point them straight up.

A-S-L.

I grew up in a community…

Whether it is a dive into tranquil water at the Coppell YMCA pool or a flawless pass to a fellow lacrosse teammate, Coppell juniors triplets Jack, Scott and Luke Moyer possess a common attitude in their…

A cross-country road trip from her hometown of Coppell, Texas took Angela Almeida to Washington D.C. on Jan. 6 – the day of the Capitol protest.

“We were walking from Union Station when we started…