After careful deliberation, The Fairness Committee has settled on a formal recommendation to the administration. First of all, we are recommending a “complaint hierarchy.” When a person has an issue with a teacher or class, then he/she should first go to the teacher or their advisor with that problem and try to work it out with them. If the student feels ignored, then he/ she should then go to the department chair. If he/ she still feels like their complaints have not been addressed, then the case should be brought to The Fairness Committee. If, after all of this, the concerns are not answered, he/ she should then, as a last resort, go to a Principal or Head of School. We put this in place because we feel like there can often be a miscommunication and hurt feelings when either the teacher or student tries to go above the other’s head. This hierarchy will be included in the student/ parent handbook, and followed in good faith by students, teachers, and parents.

Our second recommendation applies to the teachers. We suggest that they raise the participation percentage in their classroom to be around 20%. The reasoning for this is to aid the teachers when the class gets out of hand, and is done so on an individual level. If a teacher sees that a student is being too disrespectful, talking excessively, taking long breaks, etc., then this will more directly affect the student’s grade. If the student shows good behavior, then he/she can earn the deducted points back.

We must all realize that this is a Just Community and therefore we all take action and aid each other. Many felt like this case wasn’t fair because the entire grade did not act disrespectfully. However, acting as bystanders is just as bad. Therefore this case, and the associated recommendations, applies to the entire grade.

If The Fairness Committee or the teachers find that this level of respect has not changed to the expected and mature standards of a Senior class, consequences will ensue in compliance with school policy. These include the revocation of off- campus privileges, in school suspensions, etc.

If there are any complains or concerns, we would be happy to address such in a respectful maner.

To a better future and stronger democracy,

Your Fairness Committee

KRAKOW, POLAND: Today we visited the infamous Auschwitz and Birkenau. First off, it is more than difficult to find the words to properly describe the experience, but here we go.

It is important to understand the atrocity that occurred there; the murder of 1.1 million Jews. The number is so large that it is so difficult to find a connection, but my eyes were introduced to another perspective. The Holocaust isn’t a story of six million, rather it is six million individual stories waiting to be told and heard. A few particular displays and instances had an impact on me.

As I walked into a room I saw a display filled with tons of hair. After the Jews had been killed in the gas chambers, the Nazis would shave their heads and use the hair for nets and other products. I was shocked to see the tons of human hair left over and some of the materials that were made from hair. It made me feel blessed for even the smallest and simplest things in life that we all take for granted.

Walking through the camps was saddening — looking at the prisons, gas chambers and the “shooting wall.” For some reason though, these sights didn’t arouse the emotional experience I so desired. Our day was coming to an end and I was feeling disappointed. We all stopped to daven Mincha (afternoon prayer). At the start I had a strong connection to my prayer and with each word following the other it became more powerful — suddenly I felt it! My heart was pounding so fast, as if I had just hit the winning shot in a basketball game. My legs began shaking and wanted to give out.

I was praying in the very spot that was intended for our destruction. We showed the world that we are still here, and here to stay. Our existence is the continuation of those six million who sacrificed their lives for Judaism. I feel such pride walking around with my Kippah on my head and my tzitzit by my side. I’m Jewish and I’m proud.

Shabbat Shalom,

Josh Meisel 

KRAKOW, POLAND: It’s hard to understand what generates emotion and personal connection. Why does watching a KONY 2012 video in Town Hall make everyone’s eyes water, but you can walk through the Auschwitz-Birkanau death camps — a place we’re far more tied to on a cultural and religious level — and not shed tears?

Maybe it’s because the things that hurt us most deeply take a while to sink in, and when they do, processing the experience is more valuable than your emotions during the experience itself. On the bus ride to Auschwitz from our hotel in Krakow, the mood was predictably on edge. Visiting Auschwitz is arguably the most hyped-up and anticipated experience of high school at Shalhevet,  and it showed. We chatted and listened to our i-pods, not only to pass the time but to distract ourselves. One girl summed up her anxiety about reaching the destination: “I need to do this,” she said, while singing animatedly to her music and snapping photos. “If I don’t I’m going to go crazy.”

Auschwitz was green with orange brick buildings, a sight I wasn’t expecting. We saw the gas chambers and stood on the train tracks in Birkenau where Dr. Mengele had chosen his victims on a nearby platform. We saw the braids of hair, utensils and shoes hat the Nazis had stolen from their Jewish prisoners. We wore our Israeli flags proudly, and posed with them with our back facing the camera: pictures of defiance and hope.

Some students were visibly upset and cried, while others, like myself, struggled with their emotions, saying things like “Ridiculous” and “This is sick” to try to voice their feelings to their friends.

I’m sure my classmates had their own moments of connection and “it hit me” moments, as we all experienced Auschwitz our own ways yet still together. But the moment for me when I realized where we were standing was when we davened Mincha in Birkenau after just seeing photographs that had belonged to the prisoners of Auschwitz. I don’t know if I was making a connection to prayer or to the camp itself, but I realized where I was standing and for the first time, and the magnitude of the terrors that had occurred there.

Before this trip I wouldn’t have said that visiting Auschwtiz was essential to understanding what it means to be Jewish, but now I’m convinced that it is. You might be able to grasp how big the number six or 11 million is, but being there for yourself in the place where it happens makes it real.

– Leila Miller

With Mother’s Day around the corner I want to talk about the deeds moms do daily. Mothers — everybody has one. In the United States we have an entire day honoring them.

Some are great, some aren’t. I have an exceptional one.

My mother is someone I could talk about for pages and only scrape the surface of all the things she does. I will take you through her day. She wakes up at 6:15 in the morning so she can pack lunch for me and my brother, wake us up and make us breakfast all before 7:30 am. After dropping my brother and then me off at school, she goes grocery shopping. She then goes home, puts away the groceries, and loads the laundry into the washer.

As the laundry is running in the washer she cleans the kitchen, cleaning the mess from breakfast. She then gets a well-deserved break but even while she relaxes for those precious few minutes she is cutting coupons, doing taxes, paying bills, or folding laundry depending on the day.

Then it is time for lunch, after which she prepares food for my father who has many eating restrictions. She then cleans another room of our eternally messy home, reschedules doctor appointments to avoid’ extra-curriculars, puts dinner in the oven, and is right there waiting to meet me at carpool at 4:45. And that is only 10 ½ hours of her day.

I won’t even go into what happens after I get home.

All I have to say is that on Mother’s Day, do something express your gratitude towards your mom, your family superhero.

The month of May has graced us with her presence once again. Wait, scratch that…what I really meant was that the month of May has bashed down the doors, tumbled across the room and fallen abruptly into our laps. I do not recall inviting her in and May deserves nothing near a warm, open-armed welcome.

If I haven’t made myself clear already, allow me to be painfully blunt. I hate May. Filled with AP exams, post-spring-break work loads, and the stress of raising grades before the end of the year, May really doesn’t have many pleasant things to offer.

AP exams are brutal. They take up so much time and absorb so much energy. Many feel pressure to get a perfect score. To junior Natalie Kessler, the AP tests “cause unnecessary stress,” and she believes that “the entire AP system should be eradicated from Shalhevet’s curriculum.”

I can’t say I disagree. An entire AP course is centered around the final AP exam. This adds so much pressure to do well on it, because there is a mindset that this test is what we’ve been working towards. Another junior, Briana Marshak, explains why she is stressing out over her AP Psychology exam, confessing: “I know I’m gonna procrastinate but I need to do well.  I need a perfect score if I have any shot of getting into my choice college.” She explains her thinking this way: “AP exams are important because most colleges really want their students to have taken AP’s in high school and receive good grades on the exams.”

Whether our perception of the exam’s importance bears any truth is almost beside the point.  As long as we make these exams into the be-all and end-all of life, they are the prime generator of May student stress.  It’s the perfect storm of perception becoming reality.

Aside from stressing over the AP exams, the month after Pesach seems to be overloaded with homework, tests and quizzes. Teachers seem to lose their perspective as they realize they aren’t quite where they hoped they would be at this point in the year. Junior Elie Hess expresses a popular student sentiment: “Summer is so close I can almost taste it – the school year just needs to end already.”

Personally, I struggle to find the will-power to push through. I’m always so nervous and simultaneously drained. This really is the final opportunity to raise grades before the end of the year.  For these last assignments, every quiz, homework, test and project matters more than ever. The combination of getting through all of the work while scratching for every extra point is enough to drive a student crazy!

But before we lose all perspective, it is worth remembering what else occurs in May, namely the “yoms.”  As we sweat the small stuff, the Jewish calendar gives us a reminder of Yom HaShoah, the day we remember the horrors of the Holocaust and the destruction of European Jewry.  And Yom HaZikaron, the day we pay our respect to those Israelis who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our people’s security.  And finally, Yom Ha’atzmaut, where we celebrate and reflect upon that which is truly important.

This May, don’t let the APs take your soul.  When you feel yourself slipping into self-absorbed insanity or you suddenly find yourself immersed in academic nonsense, take time to give yourself a quick reality check and remind yourself of what is truly important.

“We submitted a lot of stories that I think were award-worthy and I’m surprised we didn’t get more,” said Editor-in-Chief Leila Miller. “But I’m really happy that new people who have never won anything before won this year. It’s always encouraging to everyone when people win awards.”

Leila, a senior, won for her front-page preview of Shalhevet Drama’s production of Pride and Prejudice earlier this year. Titled “Drama holds up an unexpected mirror,” the story compared the characters in the play to Modern Orthodox teenagers, and was one of 37 winning stories out of 384 entries in the Feature category. It’s Leila’s second award in this category, and her third total.

Sophomore Sarah Soroudi, Torah Editor, won for her report on Shalhevet’s kaparot ceremony. The article, “Ancient ritual for ‘transferring’ sins debuts on the Sport Court,” was one of 36 winners in the News Story category, where 335 were submitted. The award is Sarah’s first.

Junior Rose Bern, who has been Opinion Editor for two semesters, won for her unsigned editorial “When the work isn’t yours.” This piece about plagiarism and other forms of cheating was among 27 winners chosen from 301 entries in the Editorial category.

The editorial began:

It creeps into all classrooms and plagues students everywhere. It’s socially accepted and practiced in smaller and larger doses. The phenomenon is cheating. Don’t gasp, because whether it’s copying a friend’s homework or cheating on an exam, this exists in all schools, including ours.

“It’s a major shock,” Rose said about winning an award for the first time. “That was probably one of the hardest editorials I’ve ever had to write, and I’m proud of the Boiling Point for its other awards.”

Shalhevet competed against the top student newspapers across the nation and in English-speaking schools around the world. Schools are limited to five entries per category.

The Quill and Scroll contest is judged by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), which most recently also awarded The Boiling Point an International First Place Award for the 2010-11 school year. All award-winning stories can be read online at www.shalhevetboilingpoint.com.

SAR High School in Riverdale has a co-ed choir and allows the girls to have solos.

“We want to give both boys and girls opportunity to express themselves through non-suggestive and appropriate song while expecting both boys and girls to take control of themselves such that what is presented is not charged in a sexual way,” said Rabbi Tully Harcsztark, SAR’s founding principal.

Frisch High School in New Jersey has a mixed choir, but for solos, three girls must sing together at the same time. This is similar to Shalhevet’s former policy, which required solos sung by two.

“The policy was set before any of the current rabbeim were on staff, but my understanding is that it’s based on a slightly more machmir [strict] version of the principle that two voices can’t be heard at the same time ,” said Frisch’s Rabbi Yaakov Blau. ”If you look up the famous Sridei Aish, Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg’s responsa, about kol isha, it’s one of the factors that he quotes to be lenient.”

Ramaz High School in Manhattan has a mixed choir and does allow girls to sing solos.

“The source for this policy is the Ritva and others,” said Ramaz Principal Rabbi Haskel Lookstein. “But the real source is that my father, Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein, allowed it, and I continue in his policy.”

Maimonides High School in Boston only has a girls’ choir, ironically named “Kol Isha.”  They perform only for women in school and in the community.

“Psychologists have proven what is often called ‘the cocktail party effect’ – that humans can direct their perception towards a target sound if they wish,” stated Rabbi Yaakov Jaffe, Limudei Kodesh Principal of Maimonides. “Our policy strives to apply the halacha so that our students and families will grow in their lives as religious Jews. That’s the reasoning behind this and all our policies.”