Are gangs and School violence a problem in South Gate?

“Gangs and school violence can turn into a problem if no one does anything about it.”

Nicholas Antonelli, a freshman at Granada Hills Charter High School, thinks it’s really dumb to get into a gang. “Gangs aren’t needed, it’s very unnecessary in schools,” Antonelli said. He has no experience in gangs or anything related. Although he has no experience in a gang, he has friends that are in a gang and fight and do drugs. “I personally think they get into gangs because of an older brother or a family member. I think this because I have a friend and his brother is in a gang and now my friend is in a gang.” Antonelli thinks they get into gangs just to look cool and tough. “I think they just get in one to impress and scare people,” Antonelli said. He thinks they don’t have weapons. “People should not get into a gang because if they do it’s going to be really hard to get out of it.”
According to Louise Gerdes, “Children are more than 100 times likely to murder outside the school walls than within them.” Many kids don’t die on school grounds, they are most likely to die somewhere outside of the school. Drive bys are is an example how kids die outside school grounds. According to Barbara Aufiero, gangs are a group with individuals who share alike traits. “Mostly commonly, teens become gang members to fill their need to belong.” Maybe their parents don’t care about them or their parents are involved in these problems too.
Jesse Meza, an 8th grader at South Gate Middle School, says, “I don’t care if there are gangs, as long as they don’t mess with me. There are so many gangs at my school, the school has to call the police.” He has about 20 friends that are in a gang but he doesn’t want to join them. “If you get into a gang, you’re basically stuck,” Meza says. He says there’s always a fight with other gangs and if there not fighting they’re smoking something. He thinks there are gangs just because they don’t care about their life and their future. “I think maybe their parents are in a gang, they got influenced by them. Maybe they just feel left out by their parents and they start a gang just to feel the love or something.”
The gang culture isn’t anything new. According to Gary Burnett, “Researcher’s agree that most gangs share certain characteristics.” Gangs love the neighborhood they are in and show really strong loyalty to their neighborhood by their mark with graffiti. It has some impact in schools, but not as much as people imagine. According to Kenny Leones, “Some teens find it necessity in order to gain recognition and fame whether in school or in other circles that they belong to.”
Some kids feel that no one cares about them so they don’t care about themselves so they get into a gang. “Joining a gang is sometimes too much to handle for teens with unstable characters.” Gangs can harm them forever and they can’t understand why. Joining a gang will change your life and it will be bad for the people in a gang.
Isaac Serrano, a freshman at South East High School, thinks its okay as long as they don’t mess with you.” You know which people are in a gang, the people that look scary.” Serrano thinks they join gangs because of family members or because they feel left out by their parents. “I can tell when they are in a gang, the way they dress and the way they look at you. Some parents may not know their kids are in one and maybe they do know there in a gang,” Serrano said. He thinks they do carry weapons most of the time with them.
School violence and gangs is a sad thing to see in the community of South Gate. It’s all cool when you’re in it and at the end it’s not cool when until someone sees their best friends dead on the floor. Hopefully, school violence and the gangs will end up stopping before it’s too late.

Skate Team at South East High School?

“Skateboarding is a passion for many kids in this school.”

Should South East High School have a skateboarding team? Alex Isidro, a freshman at SEHS, says, “No! SEHS shouldn’t have a skate team.” Isidro says there are going to be too many posers on the skate team. “I don’t want to hear the skateboards everyday after school.” People would get headaches from the noise of the skateboards. One reason why Isidro doesn’t want a skate team is because he dislikes skaters. He doesn’t like them because Isidro thinks that they think they’re all cool and tough. On the other hand, Isidro said, “I think skating isn’t a waste of time though. I think it’s just cool just for hanging out with friends and not play video games all day.”

Alexander Martinez, a freshman at SEHS who loves to skate, said, “We should have a skate team.” Martinez thinks they should have a team to have fun and hangout with friends. “We should have a skate team at SEHS because it has a lot of cool skate spots,” Martinez said. It is okay to skate on campus because there are many skaters skating in front of the school and nobody says anything about it. He also says, “We need to have competitions for a skate team.”  Martinez thinks all the members should put in 5 dollars every 2 weeks for 6 months to get a Jaguar board design. “If we do get a skate team we should skate 3 times a week,” Martinez said. Martinez thinks there should be a waiver for students to wear a helmet or not. 

Jesse Meza is an 8^th grader at South Gate Middle School. “Yes, of course SEHS should have a skate team,” Meza says with pride. Meza thinks they should because many people skate at SEHS and it would be cool if they did. He believes it would raise pride and spirit. Meza also thinks skaters should pay 5 dollars to get free boards by the school.  Meza thinks the competition should be held at schools and at skate parks. “There should not be a helmet rule, they decide to wear one or not” Meza declared. “Skating is a passion many people have in SEHS and it would be really cool if they had a skate team,” Meza says with pride.

Eduardo Martinez, a freshman at SEHS thinks there should not be a skate team. “Skating is a hobby people do and should be done at home,” Eduardo said. Although he thinks skating is not a waste of time, “I think it helps lose weight and make friends at their own time.”

Overtime skating might be a part of SEHS. People might start a club and start skating at the school. Eventually SEHS will have a skate team.  

The Way to Start...(G.O.S.S)

Joseph Folgar a 14 year old freshmen at South East High School hope to be very successful in life.

Folgar says he wants to go to collage and be a musician. “I want to get good grades so I am accepted into USC. I need to study way more and pull up my grades.” Folgar also wants to get into more programs at SEHS and other places. Folgar hopes be successful and graduating out of SEHS will be the first step in his long successful journey.

Folgar is currently in band. He hopes to find his passion in band. Since he wants to be a musician its the perfect exercise for it. My opinion, is that it is very good practice. Folgar is not doing bad in this classes, he is doing quite well. So this is Joseph Folgar journey to become a successful and proffesstional musician.

Code of Ethics

Preamble-I am a member of the Society of Professional Journalist believe that ypu should not plagiarize, steal nobody's story, tell the truth, and be 100% accurate. I as a member will follow all of these rules and will not define and violate them. You should do the same thing and maybe you can get a lot of credibility.

Seek Truth and Report it

• Journalist should be fair with others, honest, and 100% accurate at all times. To be fair you have to get both sides of the story not just one side.
• If you do plagiarize their will be some serious consequences coming to you. So just stay out of it and you will end up being a good journalist for the newspaper.
• If you are 100% accurate more people will like maybe love to read your stories. You can maybe get follwers or get more.
• Try not to steal anybody's stories. If you see a story and you see some one that already took it even though you hate the persontry your best not to steal it. You can get more respect if you do.
• When you get a story make sure the source is the truth if not it can end up being being fake and wrong.

A Farewell to Summer

What Carlos Gonzalez did this summer is that he went swimming, hiking and worked. He really didn't go anywhere special during summer. He told me he was kind of bored during his break. What did get was some cool stuff. He got an i-Pod and some new cloths for school. He said his summer was cool, lazy, and calm. He said over all he did have a great summer. Gonzalez needed money during his vacation so he worked to earn money. He did learn some things over vacation. He learned that its not good to be lazy during vacation. Gonzalez met some new people. He met people that are calm, funny, lazy and adventures, those type of people. This is how Gonzalez summer was like.