SEVA HESTER  Staff writer

Northside Independent School District grows by at least 3,000 to 4,000 students each year. In the last ten years, the district has gained a total of 24,000 students. A headcount statistics report showed the attendance on campus was 3,298. With that in mind, it might seem difficult to maintain the district-wide grade averages.

  However, that’s not the case in this situation as, “Grades are mostly the teacher’s responsibility,” campus registrar Michele Turner said. “The grade report secretary, Mrs. Brown, keeps up with errors, incompletes and inconsistencies. She is basically the guard keeper of the grades.”

  Students aren’t the only numbers rising, “as of this year there was an addition of six brand new staffing positions,” Academic Dean Jennifer Bishop said.

  Enrollment is up throughout the district and some campuses are seeing record numbers. Bishop explained how our educators are working to prepare for increased numbers and provide quality instruction to maintain high academic success.

  “[Teachers] work as a ‘Professional Learning Community’, or PLC,” Bishop said. “[It is] to anticipate where students might struggle and work with that. We encourage kids to attend tutoring, and then a specific group we noticed [that was struggling more] was the ninth graders. That’s why we have Connections; other high schools were doing it too. We wanted our freshmen to have the same successes as the other high school freshmen have.”

  Connections is a program created to help students transition from middle school to high school.  Freshmen with resources to pass classes are more likely to continue to do well throughout high school.

  Students passing classes with A-B range grades are more likely to enroll in advanced placement classes.

  “Last year we did 1,500 AP tests,” Assistant registrar Amy Prichard said.

  Advanced Placement classes help students earn college credit, as long as they score a 3, 4 or 5 on the exam.

  “I think that [taking] AP classes in high school is really beneficial because it allows students to not only prepare for college courses but also lessens the load of college,” sophomore Mia Ramirez said.

  Counselors and teachers “advocate for [students] to take Advanced Placement,” Prichard said.

  But what is the reason to take AP courses?

  “Because college is not free. As for school goes, it helps your GPA and if you pass the AP test, you will earn college credit,” Turner said.

  Students recognize the importance of AP classes as well. Senior Delia Flores is enrolled in multiple AP courses including AP Government and AP Economics and understands the benefit of these courses.

  “AP is important because it gets you ahead. Regular classes just don’t give you the prep you need,” Flores said.

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When they’re not at the pool you can find the water polo team along with Coach Haidin supporting the Bexar County Family Justice Center. Students from Coach Haidin’s art classes and water polo team created artwork to donate for an auction, and all proceeds will go directly to the charity. The Bexar County Family Justice Center helps the victims of domestic violence.

Photo by Darcy Loessberg

Jarrod Ragsdale Staff writer

With election season just around the corner, everyone is anxious about what’s happening. Currently, all the talk is focused on the two very aggressive and opposing candidates in the polls and what’s to come which leaves many new voters like our current seniors very confused on how to actually register to vote and why voting is such a big deal.

“A lot of people don’t think their votes count because of the Electoral College,” senior Brandon Johnson said.

This makes sense, as many like him ask themselves why we should think voting matters if we don’t see our vote directly correlating to the polls. However, if everyone has this mentality, then the Electoral College will have no idea what the populace really wants. With so many of our current seniors about to enter the political scene as fresh voters with fresh ideas, it’s important to review how to register for voting. All you have to do is follow the steps listed at right:

Many seniors are either not interested in voting or don’t know how to, yet we expect them to. There are some faults to be accounted for this.

“[Students are] not interested in voting because…we don’t show them any application or significance in their lives,” AP English teacher Mr. Stephens said.

Stephens said that students don’t have the same care or interest in voting as adults do because they haven’t yet had to deal with adult responsibilities.

“We just say ‘get out there and vote’ like we have this expectation that they’ll suddenly care about things they’ve never had to care about because it’s never affected them,” Stephens said.

Students have a similar feeling towards this.

“Kids in society don’t give it much thought. And now with schools, we don’t really talk about it that much, so if you’re not exposed to it, you’re not going to want to do it,” senior Jawed Bensalah said.

Half a semester in the tail end of your high school career isn’t enough to get young adults interested in something that has hardly concerned them until then, so we need to either remedy that or stop expecting young men and women to give two hoots about voting.

Even if you were not sure how to vote, you would do well to inform yourself on both candidates and vote on whose policies you agree with most.

ANGELA RAGSDALE Staff writer

Picture the ocean and all of its beauty: the waves gently pushing and pulling the sand, beautiful blue fish swimming in and out of coral. Now take a closer look deeper into the darkness, see the horrors that lie beneath, the damage that a perfect storm can cause on the waterfront, the devastation the water brings while still maintaining its beauty. The 2016-2017 Panther Band wishes to take you on a journey beneath the water and to witness the beauty of ‘the Living Sea.’

 As the UIL Region change is putting our football team against tougher competition, the same is for band. The band has advanced to the State Marching Contest for the past four years and has established a reputation as a big fish in a small pond as the reigning UIL Area G Champion, but this year the band goes up against possibly the toughest competition in the state in order to qualify for the chance to make it to state.

 “Overall the higher standards of the investments have pushed everyone to work harder and stay up to par with the expectations of this show,” senior color guard captain Taylor Ritchie said.

 The band has many new additions to not only the director staff with a new band director, Jamie Ramos and a new color guard director, Darryl Pemberton, but also in the people who wrote this year’s show. The band has employed some of the most well known people in the marching world to work with the band and as a result the band’s work ethic has changed to make the show what the creators have imagined it to be.

 “The change in mentality of the band is already evident in our rehearsals that our membership is pushing themselves and holding themselves to a higher standard because we all have a common goal to make it to state this year,” senior head drum major Rebekah Altenburger said.

 The band knows the challenges that face them and that only hard work and determination can get them to where they want to be. The directors know this and it is also why they can be heard yelling at morning rehearsals trying and to get the band to realize their potential, that they can go into this new area and compete with the best in the state, that they deserve to be amongst them.

 “Scores don’t matter I just want the satisfaction knowing that we did the best we could,” junior tuba section leader Austin Parry said.

 For any UIL activity making it to state is a great honor. The whole goal is to be able to stand with the best in the state, to be the best in the state, and with the hard work that goes into it, to not reach that dream can be devastating. But ultimately the band has no control over whether or not they make it to state, its up to the judges, the one thing they do have control over is making sure that they do the best possible job so that they can be proud of what was accomplished.