ISSUE 1 • ALTA VISTA CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL • KANSAS CITY, MO • JANUARY 2012Conexión AztecaLa

The Aztec Connection

INSIDETHIS ISSUE

THE BATTLE OF THE SEXESThe school’s athletic program currently offers more opportunities for boys p. 7 story by Zenaida Arregui photo illustration by Manuel Damian

p. 2 NEWS

Is the school getting new building?

p. 5 FEATURE

Student aspires to become published author

p. 6GALLERY

SOCCER SEASON REPLAY p. 8

Winter concert photos

SCHOOL IN SPEAKING

2 NEWS

MOTION An inside look at the school’s potential move to a new building. Some of the pros and cons are discussed by the students and staff.

story by Misael Fraire photo by Manuel Damian

Out in the west side, Alta Vista Charter High School’s build-ing is proving to be too small and too outdated, prompting the school’s administration and school board to attempt acquiring a new build-ing. They have been considering on moving to a new building for several years now.

The new building that the school is trying to acquire is Douglas Ele-mentary School, one of the schools that was closed during Kansas City Missouri Public School’s downsiz-ing initiative.

However, the district is not re-leasing the building to Alta Vista just yet, and there’s a possibility this ex-

change may never materialize. “There’s a fifty-fifty chance that

the school will purchase the build-ing,” Middle School Principal Ms. Stuzman said. “The decision is ex-pected to be made sometime between March and June.”

If plans go as hoped and the dis-trict releases the building, the charter school will then check for asbestos and lead, which could cause serious illness and lung cancer if not removed before the students and staff move in. Accord-ing to the middle school principal, if they find any of the two, the search

for a new school will likely continue because it will be difficult for the school to purchase the building with the additional costs asso-

ciated with the removal of such material. Stutzman said the school

has the monetary resources to purchase the new building which

is projected to cost over $1 million. Sophomore Zachary Massey be-

lieves that if AVCHS transfers its student body to a new building, there will be more students and if there are more students the quality of educa-tion will go down.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” High School Principal Mr. Mendez said. “We have high expectations for

students’ be-havior. These students will become used to the cul-ture; they’ll learn that

they can’t do what they want.”Students are weighing wheth-

er a potential change in school will be the right fit for the stu-dents. CON’T. ON PAGE 6

“There’s a fifty-fifty chance that the school will

purchase the building.”

While at the national level many foods are be-ing removed from school lunch menus because they are considered “un-healthy,” students at Alta Vista Charter High School have mixed reviews about the lunch they are served, and some parents are starting to vocalize their disapproval concerning the quality.

“There’s times when it’s cold and nasty,” soph-omore Cinthia Ramos said.

Some students agree with Ramos that they want the community and school to step up and make lunch better for students.

Parents of AVCHS stu-dents are sending letters addressed to Principal Mr. Mendez after students

complained about their school lunch and break-fast. The letters, which contain the same informa-tion, are urging the admin-istration to make changes to the current lunch op-tions.

In the letter, the parents state that they believe Alta

Vista can be a true leader in school food. It goes on to state, “We believe you share the desire of doz-ens of parents across the school to create a better health future for our chil-dren—children who are in your daily care.”

The Parent’s Advisory Council is also urging

Mendez and the school board to use their leader-ship position to make fun-damental improvements that will last a lifetime of healthy habits for the next generation.

The school has started making changes regard-ing school lunches.

S o p h o -more Alan Gaytan be-lieves the school is

making an effort to make lunch healthy by provid-ing the salad bar.

According to research funded by the U.S. De-partment of Agriculture, Southern Methodist Uni-versity linked childhood obesity with the federally-coordinated lunches they eat at school.

“There’s times when it’s cold and nasty.”

PARENTS DEMAND CHANGES

Raise Nutrition Standards: Ex-ceed the new federal school food for nutrition standards beginning this second semester. Set a spe-cific cap on daily sugar content. Begin reducing sugar by limiting flavored milk and ensuring that drinking water and glasses are accessible in the cafeteria.

Improve the Cafeteria Environ-ment: We appreciate the changes in the school schedule that gave children 25 minutes for lunch, but they are still lacking some funda-mentals. “Hot meals” should be hot. We have received several complaints from our children about the temperature at which “hot meals” are served. We have also been informed of several in-stances when the kitchen ran out of meals. Pre-packed peanut but-ter and jelly sandwiches are not lunch.

More Breakfast with Less Sugar: Ensure that every child receives a nourishing break-fast—without all the sugar! It is often that donuts/danishes, sug-ary breakfast cereal and syrup laden fruits are served all in one week.

Cooking Fresh from Scratch: Prioritize fresh, whole foods. Re-turn to scratch cooking, and en-sure all nutrition staff get the cu-linary training they need to cook real food properly.

story by Juan Acevedo photo from Headforart.com

SPEAKING BETTER LUNCH OUT

for Parents and students voice their opinions about the state of the school lunch

NEWS 3

story by Misael Fraire photo by Manuel Damian

It was a surprise for all. The Midwest Emmy Awards Show

was hosted in Chicago in November, and journalism teacher Mr. Sotelo was one of the nominees in the col-lege news production category.

The Emmy Awards, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, recognize excel-lence in television programming; it’s a celebration of journalists’ dedica-tion to the industry.

“It was very exciting! It all felt like a dream, and it went by very fast,” Sotelo said. “It was a very elegant ceremony, but what was most memo-rable was seeing so many of my jour-nalist friends. We all worked together for months and the Emmy night was the pinnacle of our hard work paying off.”

Art teacher Ms. Craft said she was so happy when she heard that Mr. So-telo was a nominee for the Emmy’s.

“I didn’t think anyone I knew would ever do something that would send them to the Emmy’s,” Craft said.

Sophomore Zenaida Arregui, Mr. Sotelo’s journalism student, said she thought it was unique because she

never had a teacher that had been nominated.

“It was pretty cool to hear a teacher going to the Emmy Awards and [po-tentially] giving his first hour journal-ism class a shout out,” Arregui said.

Sotelo said that when his televi-sion broadcast team submitted the paper work and news production to the Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sci-ences, he thought they had a chance, but never fully realized that be-coming a nominee would soon become a reality.

“I was grabbing the hand of my co-re-porter as I looked at the announcer on stage,” Sotelo said. “I wasn’t too nervous, but I had a lot of inner-ener-gy – this tingling sen-sation inside of me.”

Sotelo found out shortly thereafter that he did not win the Emmy Award.

“No matter if we didn’t win the nomination, I felt privileged and

humbled to be among so many tal-ented and passionate journalists.”

This is the second time Sotelo is part of a news production that is nom-inated by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

He has also had the opportunity to work with Manuel Campo Vidal, the president of Spain’s National Acad-emy of Television Arts and Sciences, and he hopes to return to Spain this upcoming summer to help the pro-

ducers with the national tele-vision awards show.

Arregui is happy to have Mr. Sotelo as a journalism teacher because she knows he’s gone through all the process and is teaching all he

knows about it. “I felt inspired

because I know how hard he works and how

far he has gotten,” she said.

story by Giselle Hernandez photos courtesy of Mr. Sotelo and Emmys.tv

NIGHT AT THE

School’s new journalism teacher celebrates recent accomplishment

4 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

FEATURE 5

“The alarm on my phone buzzed at 5:25 a.m. It was an unholy sound. Still, I smiled at myself in the mir-ror as I saw my new uniformed ap-pearance. I practiced looks for the hallways. Manly. Tough. The intimi-dator. A smile and a wink for the la-dies. I was ready for the first day of school.”

A quick skim through the brief excerpt from “Lost Love,” a short story written by Alta Vista Charter High School senior Juan Limas, is all it takes to find a charismatic-filled story that takes us on the adventures of daily life.

Juan became inspired to write av-idly after he started receiving feed-back of enthusiastic approval from students and teachers who read his

stories. “I enjoyed reading Juan’s sto-

ries,” Spanish teacher Mrs. Orozco said. “They were very entertaining and they were easy to read.”

His short stories are a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. His ideas are product of what he observes around him, his personal experiences and the different shades he thinks the world should be.

“I’d like to see Juan write a fan-tasy fiction so he can use his imagi-nation,” Orozco said.

He has written eight stories and counting all together during his high school years.

“Hearing peoples’ reactions makes me feel proud and it makes me want to keep writing,” Juan said.

Orozco hopes Juan continues to write because it provides him with

a powerful outlet to express himself and write content that is relevant to others.

“He should continue to be a writ-er or a comedian,” Orozco said. “He has natural talent.”

Orozco said that Juan’s stories are sweet, and they remind her of when she was young.

Juan is still writing “Lost Love.” He hopes the story is published as a book in the future, but until then, he knows there’s more learning and writing to do.

For any student who wants to be a writer, Juan’s advice transcends the boundaries of paper and pencil and can be equally applied to life.

“Write what you’re most inter-ested in because if you’re not inter-ested, you won’t want to finish your story,” Juan said.

“Write what you’re most interested in because if you’re not interested,

you won’t want to finish your story.”

AN EARLY START TO WRITING CAREER

story by Juan Garnica photo by Manuel Damian

One student says the school should consider the move.

“I think we should change schools,” sophomore Giovanni Damian said. “This building is too small, has smelly and crowded hallways, and has poor air conditioning.”

But other students argue that the transition is unecessary and could be counter-productive.

“We shouldn’t change buildings because this is good enough,” Massey said. “If we move, we will encoun-

ter more problems. There could be a possibility of more gangs or use of drugs.”

Other students have also expressed their concern that too many students may be admitted if the new building is purchased. Mendez, however, has as-sured that the school will not rush the expansion of the student body limit.

“The maximum would be about 300 for the high school,” Mendez said.” We are going to grow gradually. Hopefully we get students who want

to come to this school because of the learning environment and progress. For example, students that want to be a part of ECP and Manuel Tech.”

And while the high school remains optimistic about moving to a new building, Alta Vista Charter’s own middle school has already started mak-ing plans to move into the high school building.

“Our plans are to move into the high school and build onto the second floor,” Stutzman said.

6 NEWS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

Winter Concert

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After many weeks of taking the instruments home and countless hours of rehearsal time, the Alta Vista Charter Middle and High school bands, soloists and small ensembles performed their Holiday Concert in Decem-ber.

While many other schools in the Kansas City, Missouri Public School District offer a variety of sports for both boys and girls, the story is differ-ent at Alta Vista Charter High School. The boys have more opportunities to be involved in sports than the girls, and while the reasons are varied, many express it’s because of the girls’ lack of commitment. “I think guys are more into sports than girls,” sophomore Cinthia Ra-mos said. “Once [the girls] see how much effort they have to put into the sport, they start to slack,” That’s the main weakness for the girls at AVCHS: commitment, along with a lack of interest. History teacher Mr. Brenner said the two main reasons for not having more sports for the girls is not only limited enthusiasm toward sports, but also the lack of a coach to push for another girls’ sports team.

“I tried to do cross-coun-try but there was no inter-est,” Brenner said. Principal Mr. Mendez agreed. “Girls have to be willing to commit and go to every practice and attend every game,” Mendez said. Mendez said grades are the main prerequisite for

having more extracurricular athletics. “Grades have to be good in order to play,” Mendez said. The sports available to boys are soc-cer, basketball and baseball. On the

other hand, girls only have one op-tion – soccer. Sophomore Karla Montes said girls should have more opportuni-ties to play sports because some

girls don’t like soccer. “If we have more opportunities,

then we would be concentrat-ed on positive things rather

than on negative things,” Montes said. “I think

it would also moti-vate us to come to school and stay in school.”

Many students at Alta Vista Charter High School are wondering why the school does not have a football pro-gram.

Physical education teacher Mr. Hart-mann said high insurance costs and a small student body could be prevent-ing the school from starting the sport.

Alta Vista staff is not yet aware of the cost for the insurance and equip-ment.

“I really don’t have an idea,” Princi-pal Ed Mendez said. “It might be good to contact other schools.”

Mendez also mentioned that the cost of equipment such as uniforms, pads and helmets is very high.

But while the school could poten-tially fund the program, Hartmann still believes that there might just not be enough students to go out for it.

Some students at Alta Vista think that there aren’t after-school programs.

“There should be a football team because it would be a new sport and people might be interested,” sopho-more Darrel Thomas said.

At the school, there are approxi-mately 270 students, a small number of students when compared to other schools within the Kansas City, Mis-souri Public School District.

Principal Mendez said that if the school grows to about 300 or more

students and interest and commitment exist, the administration may consider having a football team for the school.

“I think there are few students inter-ested,” Mendez said. “You would need to do a survey.”

One student was surprised that the school has not yet started the pro-gram.

“Every school should have one,” sophomore Eric Yepez said.

As for Thomas, he would not miss out on the opportunity to join the foot-ball team.

“Football is a good sport,” he said.

SPORTS 7

LIMITED ATHLETIC ACCESS for students

story by Zenaida Arregui photo illustration by Manuel Damian

story by Juan Suarez

This school’s past soccer season is described as “rough” by several stu-dents and team members alike. Stu-dents point out that it was not easy to defeat other teams.

Students also said that teammates and other students put down the team and did not believe they were good enough.

“They were acting dumb and put-ting others down,” sophomore Zach-ary Massey said.

Team players and students agreed that during the season, players gave up and didn’t want to do anything.

“The boys could have done better,” Assistant Coach Greg Brenner said.

Aside from putting each other down, the season didn’t go as well as it was supposed to go, some soccer players said.

“I think the season was alright, but

last year’s season was better,” sopho-more Hernan Gonzalez said.

But the soccer team still had the op-portunity to have fun.

“What went best was the fun we had and the new players learning and becoming part of the team,” Brenner said.

Now, students are looking forward to next year’s season.

“We will be better next year be-cause we will expect a strong com-mitment to the team from each play-er,” Brenner said. “We will practice a lot more and demand more.”

Students, however, disagree saying that if there are additional practices, more players will quit the game.

“This might be too difficult for some people, but we need to get tougher if we want to be better,” Brenner said.

SEASON IN REWIND & fAST-fORWARD

8 SPORTS

story by Jose Zavala photos courtesy of Mr. Sotelo