Rank & File

People skip class to go. Others say they went before anyone else did.

No, this isn’t Chipotle. It’s Unique. The massive store located in Merrifield is a mecca for serious thrifters, but students are increasingly going to find their own clothes.

However, the store still elicits mixed reactions because of varying responses to buying secondhand clothes.

On April 10, Rick Santorum dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. This was a sad day for politics. Let me explain:

I find Santorum’s social policies odious in the extreme. I feel that his crusade against abortion and contraception represented, whether he viewed it this way or not, an attack against women’s rights. Which are, in fact, human rights.

The girls varsity soccer team played strongly against Madison on April 20, drawing with a score of 0-0.

“[The girls] were competitive,” girls varsity soccer head coach Ann Germain said.
The game went into double overtime, each five minutes long.

“We just need to work on communicating better,” freshman Caitlin Dickson said.
“We’re pretty strong on defense,” junior Ayumi Matsuda said. “Our main weakness though is pushing up on offense like creating space and taking shots.”

The team has about ten new varsity players, according to Matsuda.

FCPS needs to stop relying on other online course providers without testing them against its students. Although it can do a decent job with online classes, it is in FCPS’s online offerings for AP where it just failed.

FCPS’ provider for online classes, Apex Learning, has caused me more stress than IB. I am taking AP Calculus AB online and I had been told that it would be easy, especially since I took IB Math SL 2 last year. However, the general failure in teaching me the concepts behind the math have made me question why FCPS decided to use Apex Learning.

The orchestra’s yearly Pops concert will be held much earlier this year due to renovation demands. According to choral director Catherine Bond, this will be the last orchestra performance held at Marshall until the new auditorium is finished.

Rescheduled for May 3, this free concert will also be the final performance for 12 seniors, who will be honored either through solo performances or renditions of songs chosen by the honoree. Cellist Brendan Metzger, senior, chose to be in the solo performance and will be playing a part in the Orchestra’s rendition of “Pavone for a Dead Princess.”

The Fairfax County School Board approved a measure to investigate moving school starting times from 7:20 to 8:00 a.m., a motion that has resurfaced since it was intiatlly voted down by the board in 2009.

Although no plan currently exists to change start times, there is an intent “for the School Board to study how later start times could be achieved,” school board chair Jane Strauss said.

The revival of this issue can be partially attributed to the Start Later for Excellence in Education Proposal.

Marketing teacher and DECA adviser Jen Hendrickson received an Outstanding Virginia DECA Advisor award on March tenth at this year’s Virginia DECA State Leadership Conference, making it the third time she has received this award in her career.

“To be the only one from Fairfax County really surprises me because I work with a ton of other advisers who are awesome,” Hendrickson said.

These awards are based on a point system where advisers can earn points based on their participation in events at the local, district and state levels.

The most memorable thing about Lockout were the nachos I had at the theater.

What I expected from the movie was an action-packed experience and a ridiculous story line, but Lockout was an absolute failure. The story line was completely stolen from Escape from New York, a far superior movie. Even the main character’s name from Lockout, Snow, sounds just like the Escape from New York character’s name, Snake.

Following in the footsteps of the book series by the same name, the movie The Hunger Games was an overnight success. It is third in the box office for most money made on an opening weekend.

Despite this success, the movie has received unnecessary controversy from fans due to casting choices. Rue, a character described in the book as similar to the main character Katniss’ fair skinned sister Prim, but with dark skin, is played by African-American actress Amandla Stenberg. Over Twitter, some fans expressed discontent and shock over this casting choice.

“Even though I didn’t know you, I always saw you as the kid who never stopped smiling.”

As students filled out notes in the cafeteria last week memorializing freshman Sam Solomon, they remembered a classmate who, despite his two-and-a-half year battle with leukemia, did not want to be defined by his disease.

Instead, friends, family and teachers will remember him as an excellent student, an avid reader and someone whose positive demeanor was acknowledged throughout the Marshall community, both by students who knew him and those who merely passed him in the hallways.