Tag Archives: connecticut

Knockout

A dangerous game called “knockout” might of reached Connecticut. In this game, usually young boys in their teens go up to strangers and punch them extremely hard in the face attempting to knock them out. The first assault that occurred in Connecticut was in West Hartford. The man was walking on an overpass and was accosted by 3 young men. Suddenly one of the boys sucker punched him right in the face, knocking him out.  The police say that the only objective of this game, or ruthless assault is for the attacker to knock out the victim in one punch to be crowned the “knockout king.”

The first time I heard about this incident happening, I thought it might’ve been between two different gangs. However, when I read through the article and watched the video, I realized that it wasn’t involving gangs at all. It was just a teenage kid walking up to a man he’d never met and punching him right in the face, knocking him out cold. I’ve been in West Hartford before and to know that there is a group of teenagers running around punching people is an odd feeling. If someone I know gets assaulted like this I would be so angry. I would want the police to look into the case immediately and bring the kid to justice. I think that the police should patrol the streets and install security cameras around the cities to prevent, or decrease the amount of these attacks.

~Ben

 

Taking Steps To Prevent Another Sandy Hook

On December 14, 2013, twenty children and six adults were shot at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. This tragedy hit the U.S. by storm in their hearts and their minds. A realization occurred that the use of guns in the U.S. must be controlled. Twenty-six innocent people died that day.  We must do our best to prevent any more. On Wednesday, April 3, 2013, Connecticut state senators intensely discussed a bill to control the overall use of guns. This bill would require background checks on the private sale of guns and a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips (the kind used in the Sandy Hook shooting). The high-capacity ammunition clips that the shooter used allowed him to shoot 154 rounds in five minutes. The bill will also create a $15 million fund in order to help schools improve security due to the fact that it would also increase the amount of weapons included in Connecticut’s assault weapons ban. The bill is still being intensely debated in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. For more information visit here.

I think that by placing these measures, it would make the U.S. Government feel they did something to help protect people from another shooting like Sandy Hook. I believe that it’s a “grey area” if you ban the use of guns to the public, it would be a violation of the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, the right to bear arms. Still, as long as guns are available to the public, it’s possible for another tragedy to happen any day. I’ve heard the term, “working the system”, well I believe “working the system” is exactly what these types of people do to get their hands on a gun. On the other hand, a 15 million dollar fund in order to help protect schools from tragedies like Sandy Hook from happening again, is something long overdue. Would you give up your right to bear arms in order to protect from another Sandy Hook? I would! What do you think?

~Kellie Phipps

Winter Storm Nemo Takes Out Northeast

Now finally recovering from Winter Storm Nemo, many are still shocked by the superstorm. On February 7th, 8th, and 9th, 2013, two powerful storms both heading for the New England states collided in a massive blizzard. Nemo, named Blizzard Charlotte in Connecticut, hit hard as towns like Hamden and Milford racked up as much as 38”, leaving many stuck in their homes. 18 deaths from this were also reported in th U.S. and Canada. Some main roads, side roads, and exit ramps were still not plowed even a few days after the storm. Luckily, plows came to the rescue on Monday and Tuesday so now people can get around. The snow wasn’t the half of it. Howling winds on Friday night caused 4-7 foot drifts around houses and buildings. Thankfully, almost everything is back to normal as towns and cities are almost cleaned up.


Winter storm Nemo, in my opinion, was the worst single storm in my life. Many cars, buildings and houses were covered and a lot of them caved in, 16 houses reportedly caved in by Monday morning. I think that if we were more prepared, Connecticut would have not been so bad as to cleaning up. Cheshire was hit hard, but Hamden and milford were bad. both had close to 38” of snow, and since we live near those 2 towns then this shows that the lower part of CT was the worst. In conclusion, this was a terrible storm but luckily we are recovering.

~Joe Degennaro

Pilot Program

The U.S’s public school system has decided to test a new idea they have created called the pilot program. This program will be adding an additional 300 hours of schooling to the public school year. They believe that this new idea will help struggling students do better in school, and give more time for the teachers to better help kids get a better understanding of their academics. Another anticipated benefit from this program is to ensure better performance in the classroom by the students. They have selected just a small number of five states to experiment this technique on. They consist of Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Tennessee. Just under some 20,000 students will be affected as this experiment is only being tested at 40 different schools.

I think that trying this idea may be worth a shot. I think this because they have had many other unsuccessful attempts to help the children and improve their overall school performance. I also think that they should try this just to see how the children would adjust to a longer school day. Having a longer school day can also prepare the students for future jobs that may require long hours of sitting which takes great patience which they can now build in the classroom. Another benefit of this idea is that the student’s grades may improve considering they will now have more time with their school teachers. Longer school days may also enforce better behavior because the children now have to see people they dislike for a greater amount of time than usual. With these many anticipated benefits the pilot program may be extremely successful on the youth of America.

~Victoria Torres

School is….. longer?!

Guess what?! Some states are starting to consider longer school days! And about five others have already been starting an hour earlier! In the article, “5 states to increase class time in some schools,” It says that five states are going to make learning time for students longer by adding 300 hours to the school year in 2013. The five states that are doing it are Colorado, Massachusetts, New york, Tennessee, and yes, Connecticut. The site says that the reason that states are making school times longer is because they want to boost student achievement and make U.S. schools more competitive on a global level. This will affect almost 20,000 students in 40 schools. They are hoping to expand it to more schools. But that is up to the teachers and parents on whether or not they want to make the school day longer, add more days to the school year, or both.

My opinion on this issue? My opinion is that we should not have a longer school day because we already spend enough time in school! We barely get to see our parents! If anything, the school day should be shorter. Also, some of us kids are not morning people and it is a struggle to wake up in the morning. If we have to get up even earlier, we may get sick from lack of sleep! And if school was an hour or more longer, some people would not be able to do the after school activities that they enjoy most (ex. soccer, lacrosse, karate etc.)  Lastly, even though we are kids, we have lives outside of school, senate people!!!!! And I think that if you ask any other kid, they would agree with me.

~Erika Markowski

Looking Back on Irene

Looking back on Hurricane Irene, it really didn’t happen too long ago. It was an eight day hurricane that started on August 20, 2011 and ended on August 28, 2011, which was around the time that we all remember when it hit us in Connecticut. And the truth was, we really didn’t get the worst part of the hurricane either. Even though the hurricane caused the first day of school to be canceled, when the storm got to Cheshire, it was actually starting to die down and was hardly what it used to be early on. Even so, the storm still caused some major damages in Connecticut anyway. Throughout Connecticut, 20 homes in East haven were destroyed and 5 more beyond repair along the Long Island Sound. In addition, and estimated half the state, that’s about 750,000 people lost their power for up to a week during and after the storm.

Weather is certainly unpredictable and sometimes very devastating. One of that last things that people in Cheshire would expect to happen is for a hurricane to hit. Even inland in a place like Cheshire, a storm like this can cause a lot of damage. That is why is is extremely important to be prepared for something like this to happen. Just having a generator when something like this hits can save you from days without power. To watch out, and keep track of storms like these easily, all you have to do is watch the weather channel on TV, weather reports on the computer, or even when power and cable are out, you can still tune into an emergency weather broadcasting channel on a radio.

~David Amann

Storm of the Century

About a month ago there was a category one hurricane that hit the east coast hard. It was Hurricane Irene. This wild storm happened on August 28th, 2011.  People were preparing everywhere in case the worst would happen.  Stores were empty and homes were full of supplies.  Flooding and major winds were expected so many people were preparing.

Some places that had problems with flooding was New York. The Northern part of the city, had flooded in the Hudson River Valley and in the Catskills there were washed out roads and buildings.  In Philadelphia, several buildings collapsed after the two rivers around the city flooded. In Maryland, Delaware, and Washington DC widespread power failure affected more than a million households. But in some places people were lucky and did not lose power or have flooding issues.

In many places there was no school and for Dodd Middle School and all Cheshire Schools we had to postpone the first day of school. In my opinion its good that the first day of school was canceled because there were still many people with out power and some roads were blocked off from the branches being in the road. In my neighborhood we did loose power but for only one day, and there were many trees and branches that had blocked the street.

Hurricane Irene definitely did some damage in New England. And living in Connecticut we were lucky that it did not do as much damage as in other places.

~Danielle Grenon