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“If you ask any of my students if I’m weird, they might say yes.” Correcting himself, English teacher Jason Tamborini said, “They will say yes.”

Tamborini, a new teacher this school year, recently moved from Massachusetts, where he taught special education after earning a master’s degree from Emerson College.

“I just felt like I needed a change of venue,” he said. “It was time to do something different.”

Here, Tamborini is involved with theatre, and he helps “build sets [and works] with some of the students.”

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It is sprawled on the bathroom stalls in sharpie and on the tops of desks in pencil. It covers everything it touches — roads and bridges and garage doors. Sprayed by artistic teenagers or painted by gangs to claim territory, it can be found from downtown DC to rural Great Falls.

“It’s a misdemeanor to do graffiti,” school resource officer Tom Harrington explained. “You can be charged with the removal of it, and that can go into the thousands of dollars, depending upon … how big it is.”

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There has been an influx of former Marshall boys basketball players into Vienna Youth Incorporated’s high school boys basketball league.

At least ten boys who had stopped playing for the Marshall team are now playing with each other again in the local house league.

The high quality of the league has players happy to return to their pre-high school league junior Jeff Townsend said. “I’m really loving my return.”

Players agree that the quality of play in VYI is what they are looking for in a league.

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As the Republican primaries build to the presidential election, there has been a burst of politically-themed clubs, both online and in school organizations that had lain dormant since the 2008 presidential election. Sophomore Alex Nesterczuk founded the Young Republicans Club again after he “noticed that there were a lot of debates on Facebook that were sparked by the race.”

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Rather than informing the public about current issues the government is facing, this year President Obama’s State of the Union address focused too much bipartisanship and patriotism.

Much of the hour -and-a-half-long speech was spent trying to encourage both parties to work together in Congress. Obama used examples in history to create a sense of patriotism that would overpower the divide the two parties are experiencing.

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Kanye West, Steve Jobs and Yo-Yo Ma may not seem like they have much in common. However, they have all been recipients of the most highly regarded award in the music industry: The Grammy.

Something can be said for any ceremony that invites rap artists, music technology visionaries and classical musicians to the same hall.

But in recent years artists such as Maynard James Keenan, the lead singer of the band Tool, have challenged the concept of the awards ceremony.

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Virginia legislators are on the verge of passing a bill that would change the way schools deal with serious student offenses. Principals in FCPS and throughout the state are not required to call the parents of a student who is in a situation where he or she could be suspended or expelled.

“Parents need to know when our children are in serious trouble, and I believe that this bill eventually will bring state law closer to that critical goal,” Virginia Senator Chap Petersen said in a statement.

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In President Obama’s most recent State of the Union Address, he spoke of keeping students in school until they turn 18 and of making laws against dropping out of high school. While it’s true that research shows a direct correlation between how long one stays in high school and income later in life, making dropping out uniformly illegal is not the best way to help teens. In fact, it’s the wrong way.

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Black History Month sparks annual debate over its existence—a debate alive and well at Marshall, where the month is primarily recognized via facts on the morning announcements.

Senior Micheas Atkilt said he finds the announcements “demeaning.”

“It appears to me like African-Americans had a bad past so let’s give them a month to go over things that nobody cares about,” Atkilt said. He added that this sentiment was patronizing.

Senior Maha Hassan said she disagrees.

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The English department will be adding in IB English Standard Level 1 as a course option for next year. English department chair Martha Noone said the decision came as a result of the FCPS School Board’s vote to add English Honors classes.

The school then looked at “what would be best for students” and decided to add IB SL English as a result, Noone said.

The program was not added before due to Marshall’s small size. Noone said that the course would be accessible for students coming out of English 10.
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