Month: March 2015

By Shradha Singh, Staff Writer

Most people who hear the words “McClatchy library” may immediately visualize the library situated within our own school, complete with its newly updated technology and stained-glass lion. But hidden within the crowd of houses on Poverty Ridge is another library, similar in name, smaller in size, but just as rich in history.

The Ella K. McClatchy Library branch is located in a small residential house in midtown Sacramento. Built in the 1900’s by Northern California architect Rudolph Adam Herold, it was home to the McClatchy family, including Charles McClatchy, supervising editor of the Sacramento Bee and the namesake of C.K. McClatchy High School.   His children, Eleanor and Charlotte, donated the house to the city of Sacramento in 1940 to become a library as a memorial to their mother Ella McClatchy.   Originally, the library was focused on providing reading material for young people and was dedicated almost entirely to McClatchy high school students.  Since the 1950’s it has served the general public within the Sacramento Public Library system.

On November 15th, the Ella K. McClatchy Library hosted an open house in celebration of its 74th anniversary in the library system. Complete with food, crafts, and music, it opened its doors to all who wished to participate, whether they were Friends of the Library, or first-time patrons who wandered through the doors. Tours of the facility included a visit to the spacious second floor that was renovated in 2013.

The branch, though not that well known, is still quite active in the community. It is host to the Tolkien book club, which meets every Second Saturday in the afternoon, as well as the Neighborhood Knitters who meet every second or third Thursday of each month. The branch even has a sunroom, in which one can find books and crafts for sale, not to mention a rich collection of borrowable books ready to take any avid reader’s imagination by storm. And with a nice quiet space and comfortable couch upstairs, what’s not to love?

The Ella K. McClatchy Library is located at 2112 22nd Street. For a more complete listing and information regarding the library, its events and/or its book collection, please visit www.saclibrary.org and look for the Ella K. McClatchy Library.

By Lilia Quevedo, Staff Writer

C.K. McClatchy was under lockdown on Wednesday, February 18th. A McClatchy student posted on a social media site that they were going to bring a gun to school and shoot students. Threats are not taken lightly, especially with the increasing amount of school shootings in the past three years. Someone alerted the school, and the lockdown was initiated during third period. The police arrived shortly and began to inspect the main building, in the end finding no weapon.

Due to the nature of social media, the whole story and numerous other rumors spread like wildfire. Within moments of the announcement that the school was under lockdown, students began to send text messages and Snapchats to each other, asking what was going on. In less than ten minutes, the most popular story of what was going on was that a student in Mr. Ho’s Physics class had been apprehended by the police because they were carrying a gun. They searched the backpacks of all of the kids in his classroom, and then the whole science quad. Whether or not this is true cannot be confirmed, since it is unlikely the administration will reveal any more than we already know.

It is still unclear who was involved or what really happened. “I heard it was a freshman, and he posted something on Twitter, like, he was going to blow up the school.” said Ariana Gomez (‘17).  There are some students who believed there were many people involved and that there was a bomb. Sergio Farias (‘16) commented, “I thought that there were multiple students involved, and that some of them were in the D-Wing and others in the main building. That way no one could escape.” In order to respect their privacy, faculty kept the name of the student who was apprehended for threatening the school a secret. The lack of information has created many rumors, even one that the whole thing was a set up.

There were many mixed reactions from students that experienced the lockdown. Joseph Buck (‘15) said, “I was in government during the lockdown. I didn’t really care ‘cause I got to miss class.”  Another student, Mark Lantin (‘16), laughed as he said, “Me and my friends just played ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’. We didn’t duck or hide or follow the drill.” There are some kids like Joseph and Mark who weren’t worried about the lockdown. This is probably because all the ones we’ve had have been false alarms or nothing too serious. There are other students, however, that were worried the situation would turn into a shooting. “I was scared because I heard the announcement repeating ‘Take cover! Take cover!’ which is [an announcement] I’ve never heard before,” recalls Grecia Huang (‘16). Thankfully, the school had reviewed and gone over the lockdown and fire drills several days before.

The staff was able to communicate effectively with parents and guardians about the lockdown, so there wouldn’t be any overly-worried adults coming to the school. They left voicemails and sent messages when the lockdown began and ended.

The best thing to remember from this experience is to participate in future drills like they are the real thing. It’s tempting to just go walk with your friends to the soccer field when there is a fire drill since you know there isn’t a real fire, or to watch YouTube videos or send Snapchats on your phone when there is a lockdown. And as surprising as it sounds, there are teachers who do not care as much as they should about what students do during drills. Hopefully in the future, a real drill will not be necessary again. At least now we know what to do.

By Jennie Jasperson, Staff Writer

Everyone remembers the lights suddenly going out during first period on Friday, Feb. 6.  “I was taking a math test and all of a sudden, everything just went dark,” recalls Jason Deng (‘16).  What ensued for the next two hours was confusion and immense boredom, brought on by what appeared to be a lack of communication with teachers and students.

The power outage occurred due to a SMUD substation being struck by lightning during a heavy rainstorm.  Not only did the power go out at McClatchy, the rest of the Land Park area was without power for several hours.  Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s webpage indicated more than eight thousand people in their Sacramento County region were without power just after 9 a.m. Friday. The majority were reports from the Land Park and South Sacramento areas.  SMUD reported that the power was finally restored around 11:30 a.m.

That might have been reassuring for students and teachers to know at the time of the power outage at school.  Students were stuck in their classrooms and not allowed to leave, with the exception of going to use the bathroom.  Teachers relied on updates from campus security monitors.  Many students remember the frustration of not really knowing exactly what was happening.  “My classroom was all the way in the D-wing during the power outage, and the campus security only came to give updates occasionally.  Even then, the updates gave no actual information as to what had happened,” says Chloe Collins (‘16).

Many students also seemed to hear the rumour that if the power remained out for a certain period of time, school was supposed to be dismissed.  “Yes, I heard that if the power was out for longer than an hour then all students would be let out,” says Lorena Garay (‘16).  Principal Peter Lambert quickly dismissed that saying, “That’s not true, we would never dismiss students only to release them into a storm.”

When asked about safety protocols during events such as a power outage Principal Lambert explained, “Luckily, we had just reviewed safety drills a couple days before.  During the power outage, it was important that students stayed in their classrooms.  We had campus monitors stationed around the school, and teachers had their own safety backpacks with flashlights.”

Even with all of these safety protocols, there were still many student complaints about not being able to be dismissed from school early.  Once the power had been out for over an hour, many students began calling parents to come pick them up.  This resulted in a surge of parents arriving in the office, all trying to find their kids.  This was a difficult task for both the parents, and the attendance office, due to the fact that the phones weren’t working and there was no real way of direct communication.  However, Principal Lambert said, “There was no need for parents to come pick kids up.  It was much safer to remain at school than to go back out into the storm.”

Despite this, the front of the school was soon filled with parents trying to find a staff member to locate their child.  “There weren’t any organized lines, and a campus monitor even refused to help me at first,” says an anonymous parent of a McClatchy student.  Furthermore, the parking in front of the school quickly turned to chaos.  With no more parking spots available, many people were forced to park illegally on the side of the road.

When asked about the process of parents trying to pick up their kids, Principal Lambert responded, “I think things went very well.  Everything ran smoothly.  With each situation, there’s always something new to learn.”

It was certainly a relief when the power finally came back on and school was able to resume as normal.  This was quite an experience and fortunately, everyone made it through safe and sound.  As with situations like these the most important thing is that students were able to remain calm and get through the two hours of darkness.

By Nia Evans, Staff Writer

Freshmen year, for most of us, is a time we would rather not look back on. Everyone is discovering who they are and trying to find their rightful place in the McClatchy community.

However the struggles that we once faced as freshman doesn’t seem to be a problem for the freshmen class of 2018. This year’s freshman seems to have it all together, these students are sports prodigies, starring leads in the school play, and are brilliant little intellectuals destined to do big things. And one of those students who has the potential to do amazing things here at McClatchy is Kainoa Lowman.

Kainoa is a starting star player on the JV basketball here at CKM. Before attending McClatchy Kainoa attended California Middle School, where he was very active in the their speech and debate program. He participated in one of CKM’s speech and debate tournaments but hasn’t since because he’s been preoccupied with school and basketball. But Kainoa says “when I have more free time I would like to continue with it.”  He says that he’s really enjoying his classes because they’re very engaging and way more interesting than the things he learned in middle school. He also likes his teachers a lot and says Ms. Cook is his favorite teacher so far. When asked if he felt any discrimination for being a lowerclassmen, especially a freshman, he replied “no, that everyone he’s met at McClatchy so far  is super cool and genuine.”

The amazing people here at McClatchy have had a profound and lasting impression on Kainoa, to the extent that one of his role models is McClatchy’s own junior Roby Shideler. Kainoa says that Roby always brings positive energy to any situation and his humour could make even the saddest old man crack a smile. Kainoa added “Roby is a very talented mascot and is a clever and creative maker of campaign poster,” which he finds admirable. But on a more serious note, another role model who Kainoa looked to as an inspiration through his childhood was former Phillies baseball player Shane Victorino, who is originally from Maui, Hawaii. Though Kainoa wasn’t born in Hawaii, he’s half Hawaiian and has lots of family members who live there so he visits frequently.

Kainoa is looking forward to his future here at McClatchy and beyond. Although he doesn’t plan to run for class president Kainoa would be interested in being “bake sale test taster.” He wants to exceed his parents already great accomplishments by attending a college better or compatible to his parents schools, Stanford and Duke. Currently, Kainoa  is considering majoring in Journalism but he says “I’m not sure how viable of a career option it will be by the time I grow up.” Some time in the near future he would like to travel abroad preferably to South America where he can put his spanish to the test.

This school has a plethora of talented young individuals, Kainoa included.If you see Kainoa in the halls, don’t be a stranger, give him a high five or a quick awkward hey because chances are this funny smart charismatic kid is going give you a big smile and a friendly response back.