School News – A Student Publication of the Roxbury Latin School

Zoom classes are a virtual success

By David Brennan I

The unprecedented coronavirus pandemic has caused schools across the world to close their doors and forced them to come up with new ways to educate their students—Roxbury Latin is no different. Students left campus for Spring Break following class on March 11, and could not return for rest of the school year. Meanwhile, the remainder of the curriculum is being finished virtually on Zoom. Instead of gathering for homeroom each morning, students just open up their computers and click on the Zoom link for the teacher of their first class. These links then bring the students into the virtual space where classes are conducted. While it is certainly a change from normal, this new reality has worked relatively well over the first several weeks. Besides a welcome shift from the original schedule, everything seems to have gone according to plan.

The pandemic is affecting all schools similarly, but their responses are different

By Chris Zhu I

As the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global shutdown and sent everyone into quarantine, schools around the world have been focused on resuming normal activities online. In this unprecedented time, institutions have embraced the use of online media to connect students and teachers and digital teaching platforms on a scale never seen before. Just like embracing the many other parts of current quarantine life, adjusting to an entirely online system hasn’t been an easy process and has required frequent adjustment. RL students have experienced this themselves – after a somewhat unpleasant first few days of long online school days, the school thankfully responded to students’ feedback and consequently adapted to fewer online classes and a longer lunch break. In the spirit of recreating the school environment remotely, RL has also run occasional online Halls and homerooms to simulate community gatherings. While our community has made significant progress with successful remote learning, it is interesting to see how other schools have responded to the crisis. I polled a few friends from ISL schools and some other nearby schools to see what their experiences were with the new online system.

Yard signs celebrate seniors

By Christian Landry I

All around Massachusetts, high schools have been providing yard signs for graduating seniors to indicate that they are a member of the class of 2020. With the help of parents of Class I, RL has done the same. On May 9, several parents of the class of 2020 traveled to houses of RL seniors to drop off RL yard signs.

Class I Matriculation

As of May 23, 2020

Avi Attar – Princeton University

Ian Balaguera – Brown University

Joey Barrett – Colby College

Collin Bergstrom – Harvard College

Standardized testing is a victim of the pandemic

By Aidan Cook I

The coronavirus pandemic has caused everyone to reconsider how to assess students as they start thinking about college. This year, the College Board, the institution that organizes and administers most of the standardized tests high schoolers take as they apply to college, has announced that AP tests will be given remotely and that SAT tests will be cancelled until at least August. These changes have far-reaching implications in the college process for not only juniors but also younger students.

First-ever virtual Recital Hall features student and faculty musicians

By Jonathan Weiss I

RL’s first-ever virtual Recital Hall boasts everything from intimate in-home performances to composites of recordings made literally across the world. It features a remarkable variety of genre and production, with two solo acts, a live in-house act, and two acts recorded in separate places and edited together.

Dr. Esther Duflo gives virtual Hall

By Krishantha Muniappan VI

On April 21^st, Roxbury Latin gathered for its third-ever virtual Hall with Nobel-prize-winning economist Dr. Esther Duflo, to conclude a series that has been focused on homelessness and poverty around the globe. This year, RL has already heard from four other prominent speakers experienced with this theme. The first was Matt Desmond, author of Evicted. The second, Tina Batista, is the director of A Bed for Every Child. The third was Kate Walsh, the CEO of the Boston Medical Center and the fourth, Bill Walczak, the co-founder of the Codman Health Center. Each told their separate stories in an engaging manner meant to educate and inspire their audience. As one might expect, the Nobel prize winner had no trouble meeting this standard with a riveting presentation of her own entitled “Fighting Poverty, with Facts and Passion.”

Time Capsule: Students detail quarantine diversions

One snapshot of daily quarantine life from each grade

By Daniel Berk II

Quarantine can be a tough time. The days feel long, there are no friends to see, and there are few new experiences. If you are running out of things to do while social distancing or just want to hear someone else’s take on life as a quaranTEEN, look no further! Members of each class at RL have answered these three questions:

How do you spend your days?
How do you feel about the virus?
What are some recommendations for things to do?

Watch these video snippets from their quarantines!

Latonics drop new album: “Lose Yourself Again”

By Christian Landry I

After a long wait, the Latonics’ new album is finally here! Lose Yourself Again features songs from the 2016-2017 Latonics and 2017-2018 Latonics. After an unexpected backup in production, the album was delayed significantly, but it was well worth the wait. In addition, the Latonics are now going virtual! This album will be directly uploaded to Spotify, Apple Music, and more, instead of being released as an actual CD. The album art was created by former Latonics member Erik Zou ’19. You can find the tracklist below:

Newsies hailed as best Winter Musical of all time

Performances fill Smith Theater to capacity

By Christian Landry I

In a year full of firsts, Roxbury Latin’s first Winter Musical was a huge success. This year’s production was Disney’s Newsies, a story about a group of young kids who sell newspapers in New York. The group is led by Jack Kelly, played by Nick Chehwan I, an energetic and passionate leader who organizes a strike against the newspaper company The World, after Mr. Pulitzer (Ian Richardson I) raises newspaper prices. Jack unites the different bands of Newsies from all across New York and forms a union against the newspapers. He is only able to organize everyone with the help of his friends, especially Crutchie (Ale Philippides III) and Davey (David Sullivan III). Despite Crutchie’s capture and imprisonment in The Refuge, a children’s prison, and Pulitzer’s attempts to bribe and thwart Jack’s plans, the Newsies push strong and eventually, with the help of Governor Roosevelt (Teddy Glaeser III), are able to get what they want.