The Hoofprint – January 2017

THE HOOFPRINT

Buffalo High School Buffalo, MN Issue 2 January 2017

Unplugged

Our addiction to handheld devices controls our lives.

In the midst of a booming technology industry, it’s almost a given that the new waterproof iPhone 7 or the slickest new tablet competitor will end up at the top of our wish lists. As a society, technology has become a key component of our lives. It impacts how we interact with others, it consumes our daily tasks, and it even encourages us to be up-to-date on what is happening in social circles outside of our own. For us at our school aren’t instant or social media and/or cell phones, and in some classes, access to Facebook or Remind101 is even a requirement. Technology has become our new heartbeat.

But what happens when that heartbeat… suffocates us?

“It was like I had a huge sign on my back that said ‘kick me’.” Every way I looked, people were circling around the new group message update on Snapchat. The constant reminders of the social media that was so close yet so far away was almost too much. “As a social Media Center, so to say—my life is just a soapbox of information. I feel like I’m bad, but I don’t have the willpower to stop.”

“The fear the editors have is that they are losing their place of the world—at the things we consider trivial.” - social MediaCenter, pg. 5

Technology is the modern world and with that change, so are the obligations of the human. It’s the students who are losing sight of what is most important: the here and now.

“The best part is how we’ll forget the value of face-to-face interaction,” said one senior. “It’s like we’re all scrolling through life.”

The modern phase of technology is at times exhausting; its constant stream of information breeds short attention spans and reduces the depth of conversation. Maybe, by disconnecting from technology’s heartbeat, we can discover our own.

Mobile phones are a fact of life in 21st-century U.S.A. Whether someone is using a classic cell phone with a sliding keyboard or an iPhone 7, Pew Research Center estimates about 88% of teenagers own some sort of mobile device. Considering there are almost 42 million teens in America, that’s around 37 million phones in adolescents’ hands at once. For better or for worse, phones aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Because of their constant presence, there’s a lot of debate surrounding how often teens are using them, especially with regard to school and social media. criminologists. A report by Common Sense Media claims teens spend nine hours using different forms of media every day (though this isn’t all necessarily on phones). Another report from the same group says that 63% of teens feel addicted to their phones. Considering this, it’s no wonder teachers have to struggle to pull students’ attention away from their phones and to the whiteboards.

This conflict has given rise to a frequent, common threat from teachers, informative students that they are going to feel the consequences if their phones left see them using them in class too often. However, at BHS, this seems to be nothing but an empty threat. Only once in recent memory has a teacher approached a student and demanded they hand over their phone. The student refused, leading to a tense standoff between the two. Apparently no one thought to write the officer, the teacher relented, and the student kept their phone.

This interaction says a lot about how teachers view the ongoing battle with phones in class. No matter how much an instructor wants a student’s attention, taking precious minutes out of an eighty-minute period wastes too much of every other student’s time to be worth the effort. Because of this, students seem to have won the battle of attrition, earning themselves the power to use phones whenever they want to.

Bans do, this seems like a hollow victory. With phone addiction becoming a more legitimate concern spreading their use to classrooms seems like a sign that the problem is not going away. For now, the only suggestion is for students to just willingly take breaks from using them every once in awhile. If users choose not to check their phones all the time, their usage in class may be reduced as well. Plus, reducing usage will have proven both the addictive, leading to a win-win scenario for both students and teachers, and such compromises are just another fact of life.

In a school where we are constantly linked to our social media, we fill our awkward silences and loneliness with online friends. Lily and I took a step back and realised that we needed a break from this overbearing addiction. With one glance, we decided that we were going to go on an eighteen day social media cleanse where we would log out of all of our current social media apps.

Day One: It was the beginning of a daunting Monday. Lily and I looked at each other in disbelief as we logged out of all Social Media apps. This included, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. This was going to be difficult. @LaurynMcAlpin

Day Seven: Anxiety crept through me today, as I sat contemplating what the rest of the world was doing. With no connection to my classmates' online lives, I felt as if I was on a deserted island, destined to never have human contact again! I yearned to see what people were doing, what my online horoscope was, and which Twitter video was a viral hit. This was turning out to be harder than I expected.

Day Eight: It was like I had a huge sign on my back that said "kick me". Every time I looked people were exclaiming about the new group message update on snapchat. "Hey Lily, how do you like the new update?" "You're in our group message, check it out!" Why haven't you been responding to my snaps? The constant reminders of the social media that was so close yet so far away was clawing at my insides. @LilyHershley

Most used Social Media Apps
57% Snapchat
24% Instagram
13% Facebook
8% Other

The average time spent on social media is 2.5 hours per day for BHS students

The Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose School District has a paradox: as the population of residents in the school district increases, the enrollment of students in the district decreases. This normally be explained by the open enrollment policy, which allows students of one school district to enroll in another public school district free of charge. This policy causes some districts to gain students and others to lose students. Currently, the BHM School District is losing more students than it’s gaining, a difference of 497 students last year.

Students choose to go to other school districts often for a number of reasons: suburban students who live in Hanover or Montrose go to the schools of their own district because to enroll because they want to go to a high school closer to home for convenience’s sake. However, there are still other reasons why students choose to open enroll.

“A lot of this is because of the proximity to other schools,” Buffalo High School Head Principal Mark Mischke said. “I have a lot of parents that come up here and tour our school. For the most part they’re here because of athletics or specialized programs.”

Parents said the choice of Buffalo High School is mainly due to its strong sports program and close community. As one parent said, when a student is looking for a new school, it’s essential that the school district feels welcoming and safe. Students who leave BHM often cite safety concerns and the need for a different educational environment.

Other students choose to leave Buffalo due to programs or an atmosphere other schools can offer their students that Buffalo cannot. Rachel Larsen is a Hanover resident and a St. Michael High School senior who said her family decided to enroll in Buffalo because of hockey. “I had already made so many procedural expectations (by busing) into another district to go to St. Michael,” she said.

Some students choose to leave Buffalo due to programs or an atmosphere other schools can offer their students that Buffalo cannot. Rachel Larsen is a Hanover resident and a St. Michael High School senior who said her family decided to enroll in Buffalo because of hockey. “I had already made so many

Each year since 2005-2006 school year the net gain or loss of students lost to open enrollment has been graphed. For the years some students have left the district there can be much, which means the district has a net loss. In recent years the number of students who chose to opt out of another district have been drastically increasing.

good friendships I didn't want to lose with that hockey team, so that's why I decided to go (to St. Michael)," he said. "St. Michael holds pretty high standards and that's also what's appealing about it. We have a really good athletic program and it's just have a lot of school spirit. Our school is overcrowded, I don't know why there are so many kids wanting to go to St. Michael but I know we have insanely growing numbers."

If these trends continue, there will be negative effects on BIS and the school district at large, including some staff members not having a place here with a smaller enrollment.

"If we keep losing kids, we will have to cut staff," Bischoff said. "You would have less people in the building because there is less kids; it's less any more complicated as that. Quite a bit of our money goes to people: teachers, paraprofessionals, cooks, custodians, people who help our building or work with kids. The fewer kids you have, the less funding you have, the less staff you have. That is not a trend we would like to see. If you look at it long term, if I'm in a lower teacher, I want to stick in, have a family and work for twenty years, this might make me a better to take it on whether my job is secure."

To battle this trend, the school district is trying to recruit and convince families with young children to settle in the district.

"We are trying to boost our marketing efforts to make sure families choose to come to BHM Schools over somewhere else," said Gary Kowalewski, District Director of Finance and Operations. "Looking into early childhood programs, we have started to send a flier pack which is a child in born. It has some information about how the district and we have a little Buffalo. Some more. Everything from trying to get to families early and often, from making sure that the programs we offer at our buildings are going to keep kids' attention and make them want to attend here."

However, very recent indications this year might show this trend finally reversing after years of decline.

"We were projected at 1847 [students] this school year, and we came in at 1898," said Mischke. "Starting in October, we had more kids than we had anticipated. Also, over the last couple of years our enrollment has been pretty rocky; they have never gained that many kids before. That is just one year of measurement, so we will see what happens this year. Hopefully these trends continue and we will see a positive trend at our school."

This map of the school district pinpoints every student who has chosen to use open enrollment rather than the neighborhoods highlighted. Many of these students live in neighborhoods around Buffalo. There is a large cluster of open enrolled students in Buffalo.

Our time, the idea of privacy has changed drastically. High schoolers now confess of their personal information on their cell phones. Technology has become simpler to use, so parents are finding ways to look into their kids' lives. Although this helps people better communicate with others, it is also able to be accessed by people who might not be welcome.

Some students, such as Sophomore Cammie Meeker, have parents who use the Find My Friends app to track her location. "My parent's [sic] use a super strict about my phone, because they like to give me some privacy, but my mom mainly just goes through my pictures every once in awhile and they have my location on Find My Friends," she said.

Other students have parents who keep track of phone records, such as Junior Payton Dannewitz. "[My parents] get a record each month from our phone company that says how many messages I send throughout the month and whether or not I make calls," They also get the names of the people I have sent and have access to my messages and see the numbers they were sent to and what the messages say."

Either way, both students are punished when rules are broken. Meeker's parents prefer to ground her. "They just took my phone away for what was supposed to be a month, but they gave it back early."

For Dannewitz, it is slightly different. "They only get mad when I send messages past 11PM and will threaten to make me leave my phone upstairs. I don't think they've ever looked at what the messages say, but maybe they have and just haven't said anything to me about it."

Most kids appreciate their own freedom, and Meeker would like more privacy from parents. "I think parents shouldn't even be allowed to go through their kids' phones at all or track their location," she said. "We all say things we don't need other people going through, and it I want my parents to know where I am, I'll tell them."

High school students want to feel independent and to be trusted by their parents, and parents want to make sure their children are acting safely and smart. These differing opinions cannot be changed in a day, and it may take compromise to coexist happily.

Today nearly two-thirds of American adults own some kind of smartphone. This moment has almost doubled since 2011, according to Pew Research Center. As we start off 2017, technology is rapidly advancing, and we now have the whole world at our fingertips. Although this is considered to be beneficial, we are becoming so connected to the little devices in our hands that it may be becoming unhealthy. New technologies are a habit in which someone becomes extremely anxious and less comfortable without their phone in their hand. FOUR B8 students took the challenge to see if they could spend a week off the grid.

Sophomore Roberta Rooker was one of the participants who gave up her phone. Rooker had a very positive experience taking a break from technology.

"I wasn’t really a big deal or anything for me. I don’t have a lot of people I talk on my phone anyway. And I would rather talk to people in person anyway," Rooker said. "[Not having my phone] definitely positively affected me and made me go out and talk to people. Being able to share emotions and feelings in person are better than over text."

Although Rooker had a positive experience losing her phone for a week, others didn’t like it as much. Overall, Junior Rebecca Westrum enjoyed the experience, but sometimes it was difficult.

"Not having my phone was good but also bad," Westrum said. "It was bad because I couldn’t send a quick text to my parents if I needed something. But, other than that I can survive without my phone because I don’t talk a lot of people. I liked not having my phone because then I wasn’t worried about getting it taken away by teachers."

Although some people may find it impossible to live without their phones and total connection to the world at their fingertips, it is completely possible to live normal lives without a cell phone, and in some cases, it results in a positive outcome.

Bob Johnson said it best when he stated, "It's a great day for hockey." The quote may be taken a little too seriously when it comes to the construction of the Buffalo's Boys Hockey schedule. Both Varsity and Junior Varsity players have been living at the rink ever since their season started on November 14th. Between practices, scrimmages, tournaments, and games, it seems that every day must be a great day for hockey.

With longer, more intense practices and challenging opponents, everyone is looking to improve upon a lackluster 11-11-3 record last year. The boys only have six days off throughout the season. The question is whether or not this congested schedule could risk start a more successful season or whether it is too demanding for these student athletes.

"On school days it can be difficult to find free time to do things beyond hockey," Senior Nick Mueller said. On average, the team will practice 4-6 times a week, spending up to 15 hours a week at the rink and on the ice. The effort put forth by the players has so far proven to benefit the team. They have started the season 6-0 in their first twelve games as opposed to the 4-7-1 record they started with last year.

Mueller said, "My coach favors long (about the schedule) in having to balance hockey and school work to maintain good grades. It can be hard trying to use time management skills to balance it all when you're tired." These two statements highlight a major concern shared by both the coaches and staff. They are called student athletes for a reason. It is difficult when nobody owns attention to where the time should be drawn.

"I do like the schedule because it's tough and we play against teams that are ranked pretty highly. It has allowed us to build better connections as a team," Mueller said. This ostensibly was a consensus between nearly of the players. Junior Jared Sullivan said, "I think having the busy schedule is good because when you don't practice, you begin to notice it on the ice and your fastness. The biggest thing that's different this year is the school start time, which has thrown everything off."

Some players have barely noticed any difference in the schedule, and others just want to be on the ice as much as possible. Senior Blake Habisch emphasized that the schedule has only benefitted him in his pursuit to better himself as a player and teammate. "You always have to work on your skills to keep up with other players in the sport," he said.
Habisch has a strong love and passion for hockey and has spent a large portion of his life on the ice. "It's my last year, so playing with a busy schedule is fine. I think as well, so it’ll incentivize [my] younger teammates to play high school hockey again."
You can imagine that the busy schedule could be harder on certain players more than others. Sophomore Nathan Mueller had to confront the task of transitioning into a varsity sport in the midst of their busiest season yet. However, he was able to tackle the challenge head on. "I believe that the schedule has helped to connect the team. It's made the transition from youth to high school much easier." This, accompanied with his astounding hard work, has earned him the distinction as the goalie, has helped so show how with the difficult schedule has served him and his teammates.
While it may seem to be an uphill battle, the boys have so far been able to pull off this transition task. The busy schedule has strengthened the team and has brought them closer together, enhancing the chemistry they have on the ice. Each player's individual passion for the sport has allowed them to push themselves to the max and win the battles that count.

Senior Andrew Scherber sees his phone as mostly a distraction from real life. He prefers to store exciting life events in his memory instead of in technology. "When I visited Europe for two weeks this summer I only took 32 pictures," Scherber said. I realize people like their evidence, the memories, but I find the best memories are the things you don't take pictures of. The world isn't in the camera, the camera's all about what it's the photos; it's all about getting out, on the technology and living life in the present moment.

While not an avid user, Sophomore Garrett Fadden recognizes the benefits and disadvantages of using technology.
"I use technology less than a lot of people, actually, I use social media, but I don't like to sit there and text all the time. I'm more of a face-to-face type of person."
Fadden said, "You can get addicted, which can be a problem. One thing I like about it pro is that info is easier to get."

Snapchat and Spotify are where Junior Emma Weber spends a lot of her time. She starts the day by updating her streaks and ends it on her phone as well.
"I use (my phone) to be social, to make connections — I like to be able to reach out to others," Weber said. "I still hang out with people in person fairly often, but I have to make time and liking those Insta pics is a way for me to be social without having to sacrifice time."