Furor erupts over sex, drug stories in school paper
Parents blast district, MVHS officials for allowing graphic articles to be printed
by Nick Veronin Mountain View Voice Staff For the second time in less than a month, high school district officials have come under fire from a group of parents upset over articles published in The Oracle, Mountain View High School's student newspaper. Those articles, bundled together in two feature packages -- the first focusing on student drug use and the second on sex and romance at MVHS -- should have never been published, a vocal group of parents argued at the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District's board meeting, Feb. 11. While the package of articles on drug use at MVHS drew only a handful of parents to speak at the board meeting, the series on sex resulted in a veritable deluge. Administrators made several trips to bring extra chairs to accommodate angry parents, who filled all the seats in the board room and overflowed into the lobby of the MVLA offices. During the public comment portion of the meeting, at least 16 people addressed the board. All but one expressed disappointment in officials at both high schools for failing to stop the latest contentious news package, titled "Sex and Relationships," from being printed. And all were upset that the those in charge of the high school and the district -- "the adults" -- were not providing proper oversight and guidance to the students. "Mistakes were made," Groves said at the meeting, and board members assured the audience that action would be taken in response. Parents outraged One MVHS mother, Sarah Robinson, said she had filed a formal complaint with the California State Board of Education, had called Los Altos Mayor Jarrett Fishpaw to complain and was planning to do the same with Mountain View Mayor John Inks. "We're not here just because we want to air our concerns tonight," Robinson said forcefully, her voice wavering in what sounded like anger and frustration. "We are here because we want to see the board and administrators act. I hope you understand that I and other parents are committed to bringing this district leadership and administrators under real scrutiny until we see real change." As parents walked up to the podium over the course of the evening, many expressed support for Robinson's assertion, saying that they wanted to see school officials take meaningful action and ensure that articles like the "Sex and Relationships" package, never again find their way into the pages of the Oracle. Todd Adams, a local father, said he feels that printing of the articles in question suggests that the district tacitly approves of the behavior they described. "A school newspaper that publishes articles like these gives the idea that the institution is behind and supportive of the type of behavior that happens in schools that can be considered by some as (sexual harassment)," he said. During the discussion, Oracle staff writer Cerys Holstege, admitted that "mistakes were made," while defending her paper's merits. While some articles in a special "Focus" section of the newspaper discussed typical "High School Relationships," such as "the couples that celebrate anything and everything over Facebook" and "couples who are constantly on again -- off again." Another article, "What they teach you in health, and what you really need to know," went into great detail about where MVHS students could find contraception, the so-called "morning-after pill," and quoted a doctor from Case Western Reserve University who posited that "masturbating women tend to have higher self-esteem and significantly less physical and emotional stress." The point of the article, according to its author, Abbie Cunniff, was to explore "topics briefly covered in sex education classes that I felt needed more specificity to be relevant to student life." "To the parents who feel that my article was vulgar, explicit, and disrespectful to the MVHS community, I am saddened that they feel I wrote with malevolence. The intention of my article was to promote safe, healthy sex for those who wish to become, or already are, sexually active. I don't think my article did anything to persuade or affect students who are decidedly against sexual activity, because mainstream media and other teenagers do a much better job than I do. I only wanted to provide information for those who want to know more about having safe, healthy sex," Cunniff told the Voice. Many of the upset parents took issue with Cunniff's story, as well as portions of other articles, which they said were lurid, overly graphic and often inappropriate. Many who shared passages they found offensive quoted from Cunniff's piece, and some emphasized that it was their rights as parents to educate their children -- not Cunniff's or the district's -- about the subjects covered in her article. In a statement, Oracle advisor Amy Beare apologized, saying, "As a newspaper staff we made mistakes in this issue that we regret and we will move forward with greater care to ensure that we are true to our goal of provoking thought, not outrage." Beare also defended the student staff, calling them "a thoughtful, civic-minded, articulate group of young people who are passionate about journalism." "They are learning about their world in a way we as educators should encourage, through investigation of ideas, interaction with all kinds of people and the process of writing about what they see," her statement continued. "If they cross a line of decency that their readers find offensive, they are open to learning about that too." Round two Robinson was one of three women who addressed the board at its Jan. 21 meeting -- when she called for district officials to do a better job of enforcing current rules, and appealing for more to be done in order to prevent drug and alcohol abuse both on and off campus. During their presentation to the board last month, Robinson and two other mothers, Christy Reed and Tabitha Hansen, said the district needs to do a better job of enforcing existing rules, which they said were being broken over and over again, without consequence. Music with profane language is being played at school dances, where students are dancing provocatively, students and teachers use profanity in class, and drugs were being used before school dances and during school dances, they claimed. "We feel it's worth a second look at how effectively the behavioral standards are being enforced" at district schools, Reed wrote in an email to the Voice. "No doubt there is some enforcement, but the consistency and level of that enforcement we feel is worth the district board examining." The women also recommended that the district consider having drug-sniffing dogs at every dance. At that meeting, the women called the board's attention to the package of drug articles, which included a story about parents who allow their teenagers to smoke marijuana at home, a collection of informational graphics on what illicit drugs are popular in the Bay Area and where they originate, along with a piece on "Weird Drugs." In her public comment to the board of trustees, it was clear Robinson did not feel that district officials took her group's previous presentation seriously -- so she made formal complaints to the State Board of Education and the heads of both Mountain View and Los Altos hihgh schools, which she said she initiated because the district was not "enforcing behavioral guidelines and allowing articles promoting illegal and obscene behavior to repeatedly be printed in the school newspaper." District's response Superintendent Groves told the Voice that he had read and would consider the recommendations made by the women at the Jan. 21 school board meeting, but added some caveats. A study that the women used in an effort to demonstrate that drug use within the district was disproportionately high compared to other districts had been conducted in 2009; secondly, he said, comparing MVLA to districts in Palo Alto and the Los Gatos-Saratoga area was an imperfect comparison; third, Groves said, some of the information the women used to draw their conclusions was gathered through a survey of "only 34, non-randomly selected students" out of the approximately 3,600 in the district. However, if Groves and the rest of the board did not take much action last time around, the superintendent said he has plans in the works to talk to the students at the Oracle, as well as Beare, the Oracle adviser and an MVHS English teacher. "I think there were things in the paper that, upon reflection, should not have been published," Groves said in a follow-up interview with the Voice. Groves said that the language used -- especially one crass turn of phrase in the concluding parenthetical sentence of the article, "What they teach you in health, and what you really need to know" -- was especially regrettable. However, Groves added, that he was mainly disappointed with the words chosen in certain instances throughout the series of articles, "not the topic necessarily itself." For all lines that were crossed and for all community standards that were violated, Groves said he takes ultimate responsibility. "As superintendent I'm responsible for everything that happens within the school district, so it's my responsibility to ensure that everything that we publish is accurate and meets community standards." Groves would not say whether anyone would be censured for not stopping the series of articles from being published. He said he could not discuss personnel matters. One parent who spoke up at the meeting, Dave Boyce, said he couldn't say what would be an appropriate response for the district, but he added, as the CEO of his own company, if something akin to the sex package were printed with his business' name at the top of it, that he would "put people on notice." Source: http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=6648 |
Hotel Fire in Philippines Kills 7, Officials SayOLONGAPO CITY, Philippines — A fast-moving fire ripped through a small hotel early Friday morning near the former United States naval base in Subic Bay, killing seven people, including four foreign visitors to the area, officials said.
The fire started on the ground floor of the Dryden Hotel Subic, in the Barrio Barretto entertainment district, sending flames and smoke into upstairs rooms where guests were sleeping, Jose Borlagdatan, Olongapo City’s chief fire investigator, said in an interview outside the establishment. Fire investigators on the scene described a hellish situation as the fire raged through the hotel’s upper floors, where guests died trying to escape fast-moving flames and intense smoke. One woman was found dead in a cabinet apparently trying to avoid the smoke. “The casualties were the people sleeping upstairs,” said Mr. Borlagdatan, who added that the cause of the blaze was still under investigation. Mr. Borlagdatan said hotel front desk registration records helped identify three American fatalities — James Brigati of Kodiak, Alaska, and Patrick Dart and Joseph Valuso, whose cities of residence were not known. A South Korean national was identified as Kyung Ook Kim of Suwan City. The other casualties were citizens of the Philippines whose identities had not yet been determined, Mr. Borlagdatan said. The fire department received the initial report of the blaze at 3:37 a.m. Friday morning and quickly extinguished it upon arriving at the scene, said Mr. Barlagdatan. Jovy Lustre, a cashier and front-desk clerk working at the hotel when the fire broke out, said that she was alerted when a co-worker ran from the back of the establishment yelling “fire.” Ms. Lustre said she checked the back of the hotel and saw fire near a back office, with flames licking the ceiling and sending smoke gushing forward. She said she tried to call the fire department but the hotel phone had no dial tone. She ran to a nearby community center to report the incident. “The fire got bigger and bigger,” she said. “It was fast.” On Friday afternoon, the hotel — which is along a national highway about 100 miles north of Manila — appeared gutted. The windows on the second floor, where guests were sleeping when the fire broke out, were broken and the panes were charred. The hotel, lodged between the Lollipop and Rum Jungle nightclubs, which were also damaged in the fire, offered rooms from $20 to $30 for visitors to the beach and entertainment district near Subic Bay. The United States turned over the Subic Bay Naval Base to the Philippines in 1991 and since then the facility has been transformed into a special economic zone. Neighboring Olongapo City was a booming red-light district for decades while the navy base supported the operations of the American navy’s Seventh Fleet. In the 20 years since the base was handed over, Olongapo has retained a red-light district but has also gained popularity as a beach resort area for Filipino families seeking to escape the heat and congestion of Manila. Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/world/asia/philippines-hotel-fire-deaths.html?ref=philippines&_r=0 |
A Youthful Populace Helps Make the Philippines an Economic Bright Spot in AsiaBy FLOYD WHALEY
Published: August 27, 2012 MANILA — In the upscale business district of Manila, a midweek crowd spills out into the street. The New York-themed Borough restaurant is pulsating to the beat of a Bon Jovi song, while young, hip Filipinos take shots of tequila from a passing tray and sing in unison. Jes Aznar for The New York TimesA company support center in Makati City, Philippines. Last year, the Philippines surpassed India as the world’s leading provider of voice-based outsourcing services. “Whoa-oh, we’re halfway there!” the crowd sings. “Whoa-oh, livin’ on a prayer!” The revelers have reason to celebrate. Times are pretty good in thePhilippines if you are young, skilled and live in the city. Young urban workers are helping to give the country its brightest prospects in decades, economists say. With $70 billion in reserves and lower interest payments on its debt after recent credit rating upgrades, the Philippinespledged $1 billion to the International Monetary Fund to help shore up the struggling economies of Europe. “This is the same rescue fund that saved the Philippines when our country was in deep financial trouble in the early ’80s,” said Representative Mel Senen Sarmiento, a congressman from Western Samar. The Philippines has certainly had a steady flow of positive economic news recently. On July 4, Standard & Poor’s raised the country’s debt rating to just below investment grade, the highest rating for the country since 2003 and equivalent to that of Indonesia. The Philippines is the 44th-largest economy in the world today, according to HSBC estimates. But if current trends hold, it can leap to the No. 16 spot by 2050. The Philippine stock market, one of the best performers in the region, closed at a record high after the recent S.& P. rating upgrade, and the country’s currency, the peso, reached a four-year high against the dollarat about the same time. The gross domestic product of the Philippines grew 6.4 percent in the first quarter, according to the country’s central bank, outperforming all other growth rates in the region except China’s. Economists expect similarly strong growth in the second quarter. “We have made a very bold forecast for the Philippines, but I think justifiably so,” said Frederic Neumann, a senior economist at HSBC in Hong Kong. A high population growth rate, long considered a hindrance to prosperity, is now often seen as a driving force for economic growth. About 61 percent of the population in the Philippines is of working age, between 15 and 64. That figure is expected to continue increasing, which is not the case for many of its Asian neighbors, whose populations are aging. “There are a number of countries in Asia that will see their working-age populations decline in the coming years,” Mr. Neumann said. “The Philippines stands out as the youngest population. As other countries see their labor costs go up, the Philippines will remain competitive due to the sheer abundance of workers joining the labor force.” Many of those workers are feeding the country’s robust outsourcing industry. The Philippines, where English is widely spoken, surpassed India last year as the world’s leading provider of voice-based outsourcing services like customer service call centers. According to the country’s Board of Investments, offshore call centers employed 683,000 Filipinos in 2011 and generated about $11 billion in revenue, a 24 percent increase from the previous year. The government is seeking to expand the industry and has said it hopes it will generate $25 billion in revenue by 2016. The Philippines’ growing prosperity has also been driven by the 9.5 million Filipinos — almost 10 percent of the population — who work outside the country and who sent home about $20 billion in 2011. That is up from $7.5 billion in 2003. Trinh D. Nguyen, an economist with HSBC in Hong Kong, said the Philippines had benefited from an increase in government efficiency and revenue collection, as well as aggressive actions to address corruption, like the impeachment of the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the arrest of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on suspicion of accepting kickbacks and of misusing government lottery money. “It is not only short-term growth that draws investors to the Philippines,” Ms. Nguyen said. “The fundamentals are there.” But there are also real weaknesses in the country. Recent flooding, which by some estimates submerged 50 percent of Manila, illustrates a shortage of modern infrastructure that makes the Philippines highly vulnerable to disasters. “The Philippines is hit with several deadly and devastating natural disasters every year,” Ms. Nguyen said. But government officials have said that the recent flooding might actually help economic growth, because reconstruction will require an increase in public spending and the country will have to put into place programs to make it more resistant to the effects of natural disasters. Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/business/global/philippine-economy-set-to-become-asias-newest-bright-spot.html?ref=philippines |