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Although schools have security guards, students and teachers might still feel unprotected. Only half percent of students feel safe at school and 51% reported that their schools provide a false sense of security, according ACT- center for equality in learning. Some schools and students across the world feel unprotected and unsecured. With many school shootings happening across the country, many students and educators feel threatened. The Security Magazine survey found that 80% of educators worry on a regular basis for their physical safety. “The school needs more trained security guards,” said Western Hills freshman Marianna Bishop . Many students and teachers would feel less threatened if school security was taken seriously. Teachers would be comfortable teaching students without having to worry about their physical health. Many studies have shown a strong link between students feeling unsafe in school and attendance at school. Students who feel unsafe at school experience more symptoms of depression, attend school less, receive lower grades and have a harder time graduating. “The day they found a student with a [weapon] at school was a day that made me unsafe at school,” said Western Hills Freshman Bee Munoz. Schools need to take safety seriously because students can also be one of the reasons why another teacher or student might feel unsafe. According to French teacher, Ms. Karen Adams, “schools should provide more education about the rules we have in the classrooms. No one likes lots of regulations, but safety is our number one concern.” If students were obedient and fol lowed school rules then there would be less security needed and most importantly students and staff would feel much safer. “I believe that we try to keep our school safe, but we need the cooperation of all students,” said Adams. Safely is schools’ number one concern, and if everyone cooperated then the school environment would be secure. Students should learn to be respectful to regulations so there would be a safer environment for all students and teachers.

Have you ever thought about how AI (Artificial Intelligence) has begun to affect and change people’s daily lives? Do you believe that AI will begin to change us for the better or for the worse? Mauhlik Riley, a student at Western Hills University High School, states that, “It’s good up until we lose control over them.” As time goes on, more people begin to believe that AI is a rather good thing that has greatly affected our times. A research by the Pew Research Center found that nearly half of U.S. adults say that they are either equally concerned and excited.

AI has its great benefits such as helping students think of ideas, helping them with improving their grammar, and also with giving them suggestions on how they can improve their ability to convey their ideas. While some may seem to believe that it’s a good thing, it can also be seen how they can affect how students learn and develop. The use of AI in schools has been pretty new as of late only beginning to gain lots of attention since 2023. Although it may have started getting popular in 2023, it had been around before that year. When asking Riley the question of about hen did he started to notice that AI was being used to make essays, and he states, “In 2022, when I started using Chatgpt for work.” AI’s development started way before then, roughly around the 1950- 1956, which is when the idea of AI first started, and didn’t have a fast start, but has begun to rapidly grow as technology gets more advanced and people put more effort into AI.

It has begun to be used more often by students since AI can now begin to do complicated math questions, answer questions, and even create long paragraphs based around the topics that they want it to talk about. When asked the question about how frequently do students use AI to write essays, Megan Groat, an English teacher from Western Hills University High School, states, “More frequently than ever before. It’s more common than traditional plagiarism, in my opinion. On the first essay of the year for my class, I detected 12 essays that had large portions of AI.” When also asked the question about whether AI was affecting students’ ability to write essays, Ms. Meg states, “ Yes, because they simply don’t have to if they can find their way around it. People in my generation and older had to learn how to write essays properly. Now, AI just refreshes our memory and helps us out versus never actually learning how to do it themselves which is what is happening to the current generation that I’m teaching.” While AI has become very helpful in improving student’s abilities to write essays, there is also the fact that it has become a way for some students to avoid having to do any work at all. Although we do know that AI has become a problem for the education system, there is no likely way to avoid this from happening due to the fact that technology has begun to advance much quicker than before. Ms. Meg states, “It will increase and become more socially accepted. We live in an age of technological advancement.

It makes everyone’s lives easier.” As AI continues to grow throughout many generations, many will believe that it will be something that can help people grow stronger or something that can reduce our need to work harder. Daniel Caproni, a teacher for Computer Science and Statistices at , was asked the question of how AI will continue to influence people in the future, and he states, “It will create a longer divide between the educated and uneducated; expanding learning for some while replacing the learning for others.”

What is music to you when you listen to it? How does it make you feel? How can it make someone feel? Music isn’t just something you listen to, but it's something you feel; it's an emotion that you feel when you listen to music like hip-hop, pop, jazz, R & B, soul, and more. Music is something you listen to for fun, or it can be used for bad days or for meditation. It can become someone else's other half. It gives people motivation to be who they truly are, to express who they want to be. A senior from Youssouf Diallo says, “When I listen to music, I feel many different emotions depending on what kind of music I'm listening to; sometimes I feel sad, excited, relaxed, amused, and annoyed.” See, different types of music makes some people more excited or annoyed than others. You could even have a bad day, but music is the only thing that can bring you up or help you feel better than the days you had been into it with someone else. Music could be a great thing for sociality when the right music brings you to your feet. It can help other people see music is not just something you sing, rap, or song write; it’s an expression someone sees around them or what happened to them.

Diallo also says, “People from different parts of the world make lyrics in different languages to communicate one message; their love for music, and music is important to our society because it brings people together.”

I think music is important to our society too, it gives people a chance to express themselves through music, especially when others don’t listen or don’t want to listen. Another student from Western Hills High, James Nolasco says, “When I listen to music my emotions are happy, excited, and inspired. It gets me hyped and ready for my day. It depends on the person to be honest, but I think it's to express themselves and their feelings.” I think most people consider music to be able to focus on their work or for calmness.

It’s more of a need to be inspired by music to be able to want to create and feel your own.“I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music,” said famous singer Billy Joel.