The New York Times - USA (2020-06-29)

A4 MONDAY, JUNE 29, 2020

Tracking an Outbreak

N

Curtis High School

NORTH SHORE, STATEN ISLAND

April 3 to 18.
Those were the foreign-ex-
change program dates that
Cheyanne Richardson had kept
circled for months. She had
bought gifts in preparation for her
planned stay in Milan. She and her
father had dreamed about visiting
Italy together before he died a few
years ago, and the high school trip
would have been her first out of
the country.
But then...
“It’s my senior year,” she said,
choking up. “I can’t do this again.”
The exchange program was one
of many milestones that vanished.
Lacrosse, softball and all the other
spring sports, gone. The spring
musical, “Legally Blonde,” and
dance show, gone as well.
Yet Cheyanne and other editors
had little time to process their col-
lective loss. As the stewards of the
school’s yearbook and newspaper,
both endeavors of the journalism
program, they had to cover the
crisis that was upending their last
semester of high school.
It was a daunting pivot, espe-
cially with everyone in quaran-
tine. But one by one, students be-
gan contacting the editors, said
Nadia Chin, another editor, with
questions like, “Are you guys still
doing yearbook? Am I in the year-
book? Do I need to do anything?”
Yes, everyone agreed, the year-
book had to be done.
“Our job is to make memories
for everyone,” Nadia said, “and if
everyone is not included, then
what’s the point?”
Curtis, near the St. George
Ferry Terminal, is Staten Island’s
oldest high school. It offers an in-
ternational baccalaureate pro-
gram and career tracks like nurs-
ing for a diverse, immigrant-
heavy student body of 2,500,
three-quarters of whom qualify
for free or reduced-price lunch.
Cadence Turner oversees the
journalism program. A 1985 Curtis
graduate, Ms. Turner is one of
about two dozen alumni who now
teach or work at the sports-crazed
school, whose graduates include
the baseball legend Bobby Thom-
son. She is also the soccer coach
and a Curtis parent. Her son, Da-
vid Garvin, the senior class presi-
dent, will play soccer for Skid-
more in the fall — if there is a fall.
Even before the pandemic, edi-
tors had talked about the poign-
ancy of this school year. As mem-
bers of the first high school class
born after the Sept. 11 attacks to
graduate, they have grown up in a
world shaped by school shootings,
climate change and racial divi-
sions.
Their sense of urgency intensi-
fied in April when Ms. Turner be-
gan setting up Google meetings at
least twice a week with journalism
students, and even more regu-
larly with Nadia, Cheyanne, Greer
Gerney, the only junior, and other
top editors.
With as many as 22 people on
some calls, the students were de-
termined to work first on the year-
book, which is more like a maga-
zine, with longer, reported arti-
cles.
Nadia said that one usual fea-
ture, “A Day in the Life” of a typi-
cal Curtis senior, should be re-
vised to reflect “A Day in the Life
of Quarantine.”
“Every day is important,” Nadia
said.
One student suggested an arti-
cle on the dress code for virtual
learning.
Another suggested one on how
students had celebrated their 18th

birthday in quarantine.

Yet another proposed some-

thing about the first time a Curtis

senior gave blood.

“The camaraderie in the class

— I just miss it so much,” Ms.

Turner told the students. “When I

sit down and do work by myself, it

really sucks, but unfortunately

that’s the way it is.”

The student newspaper, The

Curtis Log, is normally printed ev-

ery month or so, and distributed at

the school. The switch to online

publishing presented logistical

hurdles.

“Some people who have been

writing for us before are not quite

as involved because they don’t

check their email,” Greer said dur-

ing one call.

The students wrote about

sports and the musical being can-

celed, as well as the unexpected

death of an R.O.T.C. instructor.

Nothing made as big an impact as

an article on Ed Latourette, a his-

tory teacher who died of Covid-19,

according to a GoFundMe page

his family established. Most Cur-

tis Log articles do not get com-

ments, but 37 students, teachers

and alumni paid tribute to Mr. La-

tourette.

One example: “Wow, I’m at a

loss for words. He put up with me

my freshman and sophomore

year. He passed me and saw po-

tential in me.”

Even as the school year wound

down, the student journalists met

regularly, with plans to publish ar-

ticles over the summer to keep the

Curtis community informed.

One article might focus on the

killing of George Floyd, and note

that Eric Garner was also killed in

an altercation with the police not

far from the school, and that one of

his children attended Curtis. An-

other might report on undocu-

mented immigrant students at

Curtis, or students with undocu-

mented relatives, and the eco-

nomic fallout caused by the pan-

demic.

At times, the student journal-

ists, with their own plans for the

fall uncertain, said they felt as iso-

lated and exhausted as their

peers. In late May, Ms. Turner in-

vited Curtis alumni who had

worked on the yearbook and

newspaper to a virtual party with

the current students. More than

40 people attended, with former

students offering congratulations

and advice.

“I’m sure a lot of things that

were planned for this year were

thrown out the window and had to

be reinvented at the last moment,”

said one graduate, Cana Sarnes,

who is now a photographer. “But

that will stand out as being even a

little better because you had to be

creative.”

Townsend Harris High School

KEW GARDENS, QUEENS

“Is everyone doing OK?”

Samantha Alzate, an editor at

The Classic, was met with ner-

vous laughter from the paper’s

writing staff when she kicked off a

Zoom meeting with a greeting

that once would have been innocu-

ous but has become one of the

most loaded questions of the pan-

demic.

Propped up on her bed and

wrapped in a white blanket on a

chilly April morning, with Christ-

mas lights strung in the back-

ground, Samantha spent a few

minutes ticking off the ways the

group could try to recreate some

of what they were missing with

each passing day.

Spring at Townsend Harris, one

of the city’s most academically

rigorous schools, brings college

acceptance season and, with it,

the annual college video. For

years, students have come to

school on a specific day decked

out in the gear of the college they

have committed to, and Classic

editors film hundreds of seniors

dancing, high-fiving and embrac-

ing.

This year, the paper had to im-

provise. Over the past two

months, editors virtually re-

corded and edited dozens of Tik-

Toks of seniors revealing their col-

lege choices.

Every Friday morning since

late March, those responsible for

the video met online and went

over every piece of minutiae they

could control to make the video

feel special.

Students occasionally called in

to the 11 a.m. Zoom meeting a few

minutes late, from bed, having

just woken up after a late night of

working on the video.

All the meticulous planning,

Samantha said, “makes me feel

like I never left school.”

When Usha Sookai, the arts edi-

tor, took on the responsibility for

trying to recreate senior events

online, she quickly realized how

much she and her classmates

would never get to experience.

“You have to come to terms

with what you’re not going to get,”

she said, “and think of ways to ful-

fill that desire and meaning with-

out being able to do it.”

That message has resonated for

the editors at Townsend Harris, a

fiercely independent school.

In 2017, students, many of

whom live in Queens and are first-

or second-generation immigrants,

staged mass sit-ins that helped

oust the school’s principal at the

time. The Classic, which played a

major role in the revolt, is one of

the new student newspapers in

the city that boasts a free press

charter, which ensures that school

administrators cannot review ar-

ticles before publication.

The virus has given The Classic

a moment to flex its journalistic

muscles.

Every year, the paper runs a se-

ries called Introducing, which fea-

tures Townsend Harris seniors re-

flecting on their years at the

school. This year, in addition to

seniors offering advice to their

younger selves, Introducing in-

cluded stories about essential

workers who are related to

Townsend students.

In March, shortly before Mayor

Bill de Blasio closed the city’s

schools, the Classic team spent a

weekend pulling together what

Samantha called a “pretty awe-

some” public records request

seeking information from the De-

partment of Education about how

many students had been sent

home sick from school earlier in

the month.

In between their online classes,

the staff, with help from student

government representatives, up-

dated an Instagram page where

students submitted photos of

themselves in plaid frocks and

oversize T-shirts for a virtual paja-

ma day.

On graduation day, The Classic

posted a story showing dozens of

decorated mortarboard caps, ar-

ranged in alphabetical order, as

they would have been at a tradi-

tional ceremony. The headline:

“The class of 2020 shares caps

with pomp, despite the circum-

stances.”

The editors who oversaw all

that work were constantly rally-

ing their staff, and pushing for as

joyful a crescendo to their frus-

trating year as possible.

Off camera, they oscillated be-

tween determination and weari-

ness.

Isabelle Guillaume, the paper’s

third editor in chief, worried about

her mother, who had been so excit-

ed to watch Isabelle and her sister,

a college senior, graduate this

year.

Samantha sometimes paused at

her closet to admire the prom

dress she bought the day before

schools were closed and, unless

the event happens late this sum-

mer, may never wear.

And Amanda, who, like many of

her classmates, had spent much of

her time at Townsend Harris

studying, had seen the end of sen-

ior year as a well-earned respite.

“I felt like this was finally going

to be, us, free, going out into the

world,” she said one April after-

noon. “Now it just feels like it’s ru-

ined.”

But by June, the three teen-

agers were buoyed by the fact

they had preserved at least some

traditions they had feared they

would lose altogether.

Isabelle remembered that hor-

rible day in March when schools

were closed, and thought about

how much had changed.

“I thought, wow, my second se-

mester has really gone downhill

and I’m not going to get it back,”

she said. “But the work we’ve

been doing has affirmed that I

have a purpose here.”

No spring sports. No long-awaited trips abroad or senior spirit week.
Proms delayed indefinitely, and graduations switched to Zoom.

Seniors at New York City high schools have spent the past few
months watching as the semester they had anticipated for four years
evaporated in just a few weeks.
Despite what they had lost, newspaper and yearbook editors at two

schools — Townsend Harris High School in Queens and Curtis High
School on Staten Island — had to keep moving.
There was work to do. Since March, they have scrambled to docu-

ment as much of their lost semester as possible.
“Everything is on pause, but not us,” said Amanda Renzi, an editor of
the Townsend Harris paper, The Classic.
Faculty advisers at Townsend Harris and Curtis, acutely aware that

high school papers across New York City have been dying out, have long
urged their students to produce robust and consequential journalism.

For the past few months, they got an unlucky opportunity to do just that.

They have become indispensable beacons of information about can-

celed events and lost milestones as the coronavirus ravaged New York

City. They have tried to make sense of, and cover, a completely disrupted

high school experience that has included teachers getting sick and dy-

ing, family members losing jobs and relatives and close friends battling

the virus on the front lines.

Yearbooks and student newspapers have always defined these stu-

dents’ high school lives, but never more so than during the pandemic,

when writing, editing and designing gave them structure and purpose

as uncertainty swirled.

By late June, even after the Zoom graduations had concluded, the

students, soon to enter college, were still busy.

They still had yearbooks to distribute, a few more articles to publish

and new crop of editors to recruit and train, who themselves face an

unknown, and possibly virtual, fall semester.

By ELIZA SHAPIRO and DAVID W. CHEN

Despite Losing

A Key Chapter,

Seniors Manage

To Fill Pages

With Memories

Cheyanne Richardson, left, and Nadia

Chin, right, worked on the Curtis High

School yearbook in video calls with Ca-

dence Turner, below at top left.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRITTAINY NEWMAN/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Above, an early design for the Curtis year-

book, which has long, reported articles.

Samantha Alzate, left, and Isabelle Gui-

llaume, right, edited The Classic, below,

the independent student newspaper at

Townsend Harris High School in Queens.

The Classic built an on-

line community for

Townsend students with

Quarantine Time, a video

series, above, and an

active Instagram page.

The Curtis Log,

left, is normally

printed every

month, but stu-

dents switched to

online publishing.