Alice Myers, 10Westmont, QC, Canada A Different Kind of Chapter Alice Myers, 10 Imagine life as a book. A really interesting book. There are those chapters that make you smile, but there are also chapters that make you cry. There are chapters that end on a cliffhanger, and chapters that don’t. While this certain chapter of our book of life isn’t one that makes you smile, you should find comfort in knowing that everyone in the world is reading right along with you. This chapter will end sooner or later, and all these readers are doing their best to skim the pages and get to the end of the chapter, to ensure that it ends sooner. But sometimes there’s nothing you can do but keep reading and hope for the best. In so many books you want to skip to the end. Does your favourite character get back home? Do they survive their thrilling adventure? Many authors do that on purpose. They want their words to be suspenseful, they want you to lie in bed awake, wondering what happens next. Maybe whoever writes our story wants it the same way. Sometimes something tells you not to skip to the end in novels. If you know how it all turns out, the story won’t be as interesting. The author, however, always knows the ending of their novel. They might cut the main character out at the last minute, or everything might go as you predicted. The story might have a happy ending. It might not. Whatever the author does, they do it for a reason. But whatever happens, good or bad, is meant to happen. There’s no way for you to change what’s already printed. Sometimes, all you can do is come along for the ride and cross your fingers. I’ve never liked reading a sad chapter alone. You have no one to lean on. But I’ve never liked reading a happy chapter alone, either. You have no one to share the joy with. No matter what the ending is, no matter how many bumps there are in the road, everyone else is reading. We might have different understandings depending on our age, or our beliefs. But you–and everyone else on the planet–are reading the same words. This chapter will end. And I don’t know about you, but after it does, I’ll still be using Zoom.
opinion
Why Every School Should Have Gender-Neutral Bathrooms
Did you know that 60% of transgender people in the U.S. avoid public bathrooms for fear of being harassed? That is one reason why gender-neutral bathrooms should be made available in every school. Three main reasons that gender-neutral bathrooms in schools are important will be included in this essay. One reason is that non-binary people can face harassment in gender binary restrooms. Another reason is that people who are non-binary often have to choose a “side” every time they go to a place with only gendered bathrooms. The last, but not least, reason is that if non-binary students can go to a gender-neutral bathroom, they might be less likely to fear harassment and more likely to focus on school. Those are the three major reasons why schools need to have gender-neutral bathrooms. Non-binary people can face harassment in gendered bathrooms because they dress differently than the way people who typically use the bathroom they’re in, or because they do dress the same, but their sex assigned at birth doesn’t match their gender. No one should have to worry about their safety when all they want to do is use the toilet. If every school had gender-neutral bathrooms, non-binary students can just use those and skip the whole harassment deal.People who are non-binary often are forced to choose between male and female bathrooms. If someone feels that they are neither of those, then it is unjust to make them use one of them. That’s like making someone who doesn’t like skirts choose between wearing pencil skirts and loose skirts their whole lives. If someone is non-binary, then they should be able to go to a bathroom that is for their gender. If there are gender-neutral bathrooms that non-binary students can go to, they might be less likely to fear harassment, and more able to focus on schoolwork. Non-binary students should be able to focus as much as any other student on their work, and having only gender binary bathrooms can cause those students to have to worry about being intensely bullied. Every student deserves to be able to focus entirely on school. Gender-neutral bathrooms in schools are important because non-binary students can face harassment in gendered bathrooms, non-binary students have to choose which bathroom they belong in when they often don’t feel like they belong in either and because if there are bathrooms that non-binary students can go to, they might fear harassment less, and be able to focus on schoolwork more. If all schools provide gender-neutral bathrooms, maybe we can lower the statistics of transgender Americans who avoid public bathrooms because of harassment from 60%.
Funding Our National Parks: How America’s Best Idea is Being Left in the Dark by Daniel, 10
$11.9 billion is the cost of the NPS deferred maintenance. This is because funds keep getting cut, and not a lot of measures have been taken by the government to continue to preserve “America’s Best Idea” – a name given by many to our national parks. Our leaders simply don’t seem to understand how severe the consequences are of underfunding national parks. Because national parks aren’t getting enough funds from the government, NPS staff’s wages have to be lowered and maintenance continually gets pushed back, which will ultimately cause entire parks to go out of order. A lot of the money that is supposed to be allocated to national parks is not being given to them. A SmartAsset article written by Amelia Josephson states that the NPS needed $11.5B for proper park maintenance in 2014, but the government only appropriated $3B: a little over just 25% of what the parks needed. In addition, a bill passed in 1965, called the Land and Water Conservation Fund, is supposed to provide national parks with at least $900M each year, but a lot of that money is used for other things before it even reaches the NPS. Because of this, Josephson says, “from year to year, funding is unpredictable.” As the modern economy grows and humans begin to revolve around technology, many forget about nature and its wonders. Money is used for other things, and national parks are often put at the bottom of the priority list in many different categories, especially funding. A lot of the money that is supposed to be appropriated for national parks is not being provided at all, and the health and condition of national parks is rapidly deteriorating. This significance of this underfunding is that it forces NPS staff wages to be lowered, in addition to causing urgent maintenance to be continually pushed back. Park staff are underpaid because the NPS simply can’t provide for them, and this lowering of wages will cause significant safety breaches. On Glassdoor, the stats the website has compiled shows that the average annual pay of a park ranger is only $46K, and that the average annual base pay is just $43,412. Assuming that park rangers work 365 days a year and 40 hours a week (the latter assumption is based on information from iresearchnet.com), their hourly base pay would only amount to around $20.81, and their average hourly pay would only total to $22.05. Of course, this assumption is flawed because park rangers most likely don’t work 365 days a year, but they often have to work extra hours, so these assumptions balance each other out. Obviously, the NPS doesn’t only consist of park rangers. There are also maintenance workers, laborers, forestry technicians, heavy equipment operators, etc. However, retaining the assumptions above, the highest salary listed for the NPS on Glassdoor is just a little over $30. These salaries can be compared to the salary of an average American citizen: $27/hr. It is quite shocking to think that, in terms of income, rangers are actually below average, even though they work tirelessly to preserve some of nature’s best. Wages this low will definitely not attract new rangers, and it might even cause current rangers to leave their position. Since rangers are the main enforcers of law at national parks, without them, many safety rules may not be enforced. Because of this, the safety of tourists is being compromised. During one accident in Joshua Tree National Park, because rangers were not present, volunteer workers, who undoubtedly did not know as much as an experienced rangers, were told to handle the situation. This inexperience greatly increased the chances of death; luckily, during this particular incident, that did not happen. However, it did show how important rangers are to the health, safety and continuation of a park. In addition, with no one to enforce the rules, vandalism is becoming more and more common, from teens toppling natural monuments to people doing their business on park grounds. However, a lack of rangers is only one factor of safety breaches of national parks – insufficient preservation of key park sites and places that have the potential to be dangerous is also playing a role in slowly dismantling our national parks. The National Park Service has a lot of maintenance to perform, but due to underfunding, they are unable to do so. At national parks, the expense of backlog maintenance overwhelms the amount of money that the government actually provides. According to the Joshua Tree National Park’s superintendent, David Smith, “Here at Joshua Tree, we have about $60 million in backlog maintenance. And to put that in perspective, our annual operating budget at this park is a little over $6 million.” The supposed maintenance would be performed on historic sites in the park, most notably Key Ranch and roads surrounding and passing through the park; because Joshua Tree is located on a fault, road damage is inevitable. The bottom line, says Smith, is that “[the park] doesn’t have enough money to provide the level of service the public expects.” While many parks aren’t quite as underfunded as Joshua Tree, nearly every national park needs more than what they actually get. However, Joshua Tree is not the only national park that’s underfunded. According to NPR author Nathan Rott, Yosemite needs $500 million for repairs ($100 million for critical ones), and Grand Canyon needs at least $330 million for water system upgrades. Combined with the need of other parks, this cost totals to around $11.9 billion. Given these statistics, it seems like the government is investing in everything but national parks. According to the author, most parks need at least two times the money the government provides for proper maintenance. In the case of Joshua Tree, this scale is exaggerated; the park needs 10 times of what they actually receive for backlog maintenance. While the NPS director Jon Jarvis is hopeful that the government will eventually provide, neither Trump or Biden have shown that they might do so,
