“If you want to wear closed toed shoes, just wear actual shoes,” said Freshman Alex Hage, referring to Crocs at school.

The colorful plastic shoes known as Crocs were a popular fad in the late 2000’s, when most of current high schoolers were in elementary school. For a few years they seemed to go away and out of style.

Sophomore Megan Ratke said, “I wore them in like second grade and then I outgrew them… people just started wearing them last year.”

Now people are wearing them again and they’re making a comeback.

“If they did leave then I guess they would be coming back because there’s a lot of people wearing them now,” said Senior Millie Chisel.

It’s clear that Crocs are becoming more popular, partly due to the warmer weather. People choose to wear them for a variety of their own reasons. Some people like them because they are easy, both to wear and to match with.

“You don’t have to think about what you’re going to wear for your shoes with your outfit, it goes with everything,” Junior Shelby Hermansen. says.

While there is some disagreement on them being fashionable, overall the utility and comfort of Crocs is what makes them popular.

“[I like them] because they’re easy to put on, when I’m walking out the door,” says Ratke.

“They’re like heaven on your feet,”Hermansen added.

Some critics still disapprove of the footwear.

“They’re ugly. Just wear sandals,” Hage says.

Whether you like Crocs or not, they’re here and not going away.

Freshman Ben Kiernan said the word, “Eggplant. I picked the word eggplant because after school yesterday, on April 7 2015, I had a dream. I had a dream that I was in this pitch black room with this illuminated picture of an eggplant just floating in the middle of the room. I was very inspired by this picture, so when I woke up around midnight, I put it on Snapchat and I was a very happy person.”

“Decapitation. I was trying to find for a weird word,” said Sophomore Joey Patterson.

Senior Megan Veeder thought of the word, “Tigers. Because in Biology we were learning about animals.”

“Chickenpuffs. I don’t actually know why I thought of that, it just kind of popped into my head.  It’s my favorite food,” said Freshman Archie Bralllier.

Other students thought of single words without any explanation:

• Vladimir-Putin

• Cat

• Giraffe

• Viagra

• Carpet

• Clash

• Cucumber

• Sausage

• Cory

• Blubber

• Chinese

• Chicken

• Orange

• Mud

• Air-Jordans

• Sex

• Hola

Previously there have been more students assigned to each grade as representatives besides the eight traditional roles as President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasury, Corresponding Secretary, Parliamentarian, School Board Rep and Advisor. Now the council will be narrowing down to three representatives for each grade instead of five or more this past school year.

AMSAC’s main goal is, “To secure power for the Arts Magnet student body through the Student Council.” It makes sense that the Arts Magnet has their own council, but what do they actually do? Sophomore Brandon Bednarek, of the activities committee, says, “I experienced leadership positions [by being a representative] and having a part in what’s going to change our student body.”

Arts Magnet hopes to spread their existence on social media as well. Junior Amy Nelson, of the social media committee, says, “Currently, I am working with Bestland to get social media sites for everyone to post all of our artwork to connect everyone who’s an artist, and all BHS students together.”

Many agree that the Arts Magnet program and student body has a “stigma”. “You can tell people view Arts Magnet as, ‘Oh, what do you even do?’ They see us goofing around in classes and doing weird things, and to other people it’s like a blindfold,” says Nelson.

Junior Tyler Upham hopes to change this, “Next year we want to get the council a lot more organized, we want Arts Magnet to have a higher standard of excellence in the school and have it integrated with the school and everything too. We’re doing a lot of changes to the council and making it to what it was originally, [as it was] set up with the constitution.”

Bednarek agrees, “We are going to work on our constitution and make sure it’s up to date and fits our needs as an AMSAC student body. I think a lot of what we’re going to do is team bonding, making sure that AMSAC is one with the students and that the entire Arts Magnet is one with the regular student body.”

The newly elected council is as listed;

Freshmen: Noah Schottler, Isabelle Jamison and Harrison Bjorback

Sophomores: Brandon Bednarek, Jonah Schmitz and Kyra Nygard

A lot of people that go to BHS have either direct or indirect Irish descent, yet many of us only celebrate St. Patrick’s day to an extent.

Freshman Isabelle Jamison says, “Sometimes we go to Chicago to see the [Chicago] river turn green.”

Others have gone all out in the past. Teacher Tracy Johnson said that today her and her husband will go through their photo album with photos from when they took a trip to Ireland. They hope to visit again in the future and already have a map marked with places they plan on visiting. “On St. Patrick’s day my dad would be dressed all in green, come wake me up in the morning and say, ‘Top of the morning to you, lassie,’ … [We would skip our school’s lunch and] go to my grandma’s house and she would [make us] cabbage stew, then we would come back for the rest of the [school] day. Then at night my family would do all sorts of crazy things. We would write little notes from leprechauns to each other, my dad would also leave riddles around the house from leprechauns to go help us find the ‘pot of gold’. We would always end [the day] talking about our Irish history and how it’s important to us.”

Traditions are important and are a part of what brings all of us together. How will you be spending St. Patrick’s day?

One concern is that students will ask to go just to avoid spending time in class. Science teacher Jenn Sheedy handles this by letting one kid at a time use the restroom as many times as they want in the quarter,  as long as they sign their name on the front board. “It minimizes people raising their hands and saying, ‘Can I go to the bathroom?’, since it’s something they can take care of by themselves. [I also enforce it] to keep people in the classroom as much as possible and not to have 5 people messing around in the hallway,” she said.

Most world language classes and various others have a set amount of maximum passes you may use per quarter.  “Limiting people to use the bathroom is stupid because sometimes you just go to go… I know I have to [go] more than six times a year,” said Freshman Alex Hage.

German teacher Frau Strassburg on the other hand enforces the bathroom pass policy rule, “I have it the way I do simply because students think twice about missing class. A lot of students say they’ll take care of it before or after class and that way they’re not missing that time in class.” However, this doesn’t mean that students can’t go if they’ve used all of their passes, “I’m not going to not allow them to do so, they can go [if they need to], but for the most part, I think it does cut down on people leaving class. I think it’s important that they stay in class [as much as possible].”

Freshman Emma Adams sees both sides of the argument, “[Passes] can be helpful, depending on the class. Both have pluses and minuses.”

The main goal of students with these types of problems and their counselors is to get them to school, get them to class, and have them stay in class.

“[At BHS] they give you the strong sense that it’s okay to not be okay, and that’s essential for people who have issues like these,” says Freshman Madeline Bollingmo.

Counselor Christina Cox says that communication with families is key in these types of scenarios. She also suggests for these students to set up therapy outside of school, because the counselling department does not have enough time or professional experience to deal with mental illness one on one.

A primary goal of most counselors is to build trusting relationships with their students so that they feel comfortable talking freely. Counselors can than select personalized coping strategies for students who need to use them. (Ex. slow breathing, counting, “fidgets”, take a break/walk.)

“Think outside the box. If there is a way for you to be here, we can do that,” Cox says.

Most of the time, the most difficult part can be getting these students to school. A lot of these students use avoidant behaviours to continuously prevent themselves from having to go to school. If this becomes an even bigger problem this falls into the category of “truancy”.

When you are truant, the protocol can be lengthy:

1. Parents contact the school and talk to

a. Their counselor

b. Resource officer or principal

2. These authorities then give the student a certain amount of time for them to get to school, or they drive to the student’s home and manually deliver them to the school.

3. The student is then given a pass to class or goes to the counselor to speak to them, and then they would head to class.

“Once it happens to you, you don’t want it to happen again. It’s good motivation for you to make it to school, even if you are having a bad day,” Maddy said, regarding her truancy.

Students with anxiety or stress issues may be given passes, so in case there is a situation where they need to leave the classroom and “Take a Break”, they may do so.

Another student, who was diagnosed with major depression and anxiety while in third grade, takes another approach.

“Reading books saved my life. If I’m in class and not doing well, I’ll pull out a book and read it,” says Freshman Grace Happe.

The protocol for kids who need to take medicine for their mental illness follows the same orders as if they were to take normal medicine.

Overall, BHS makes a safe and comfortable environment for anyone who’s struggling with mental illness, no matter the severity of the disease.

Students may be concerned that this new group could spark controversy.

In 2011, school district #885 denied students’ request for a pro-life club at St. Michael-Albertville because they thought it,  “[would] not support the student body as a whole”. The ordeal developed into a federal lawsuit and eventually the district agreed that they would recognize the club officially.

Though the group says that they will not be involving religious views into their discussions. “We have to be respectful,” said  Sophmore Andrew Scherber.

The group will meet about twice a month in Kate West’s classroom; however, it has no faculty adviser or sponsor. The group is led solely by its founding members, Sophomores Joey Patterson and Andrew Scherber, Junior Alex Rasset, and Senior Samantha Busch.

Scherber said the group hopes to promote “life overall” of all people – not just focusing on the issue of abortion. They also wish to educate the community and teach people their views when addressing the issue.

Some of their goals include hosting fundraisers for people who need help supporting children and helping out at a resource center.

The group hopes to have around thirty through forty members and plans on having more meetings in the future.