Black Student Union (BSU) was started at the beginning of this school year by Gabrielle Erawoc and Jainaba Conteh. In BSU, students have discussions about Black issues in Andover High School and share their experiences. When students bring up concerns, the club takes action to fix them.
During February, BSU talked about a famous Black person every day in the morning announcements, and they hope to do similar projects in the future.
BSU member Aisosa Oviasogie described the club as a very welcoming place. “[BSU is] a good place to comfortably talk about your experiences,” Oviasogie said.
Andover’s Model United Nations (MUN) won first place at an in-person MUN conference hosted by Tufts University, which lasted from Friday, March 11 to Sunday, March 13.
Students from seven schools in Massachusetts, including Andover High School, met at Tufts University to participate in a MUN conference known as Tufts Model United Nations (TUMUN).
TUMUN consisted of five committees debating five different topics, several of which AHS students were successful in. “Overall, it was challenging and fun,” said AHS sophomore Ria Vaishnavi, who attended TUMUN representing Kenya. “A lot of the weekend was spent working, negotiating, and managing my [committee]. The [AHS] team did really well, [and] a lot of us won awards.”
With nine AHS participants winning awards and the team winning Best Large Delegation Award, AHS MUN did very well at the conference. Junior Oscar Gillette, who is one of AHS MUN’s presidents and also a participant in TUMUN, added that “despite being mostly beginners going up against established teams, AHS delegates won first place in three out of the five committees.”
Additionally, Gillette is excited about the progress of this team. “I saw this [year] as a rebuilding year for the club,” stated Gilette. “Fortunately, I got to see this team grow from asking what Model UN is to winning a major conference!”
COURTESY PHOTO / Michael McCarthy AHS Model United Nations members hold the awards they won from Tufts’ Model United Nations conference.
After hearing about the opportunity to attend TUMUN, AHS MUN members were delighted. “There’s just that face-to-face interaction when you debate and try to reach compromises that can’t be beat—it can’t be replicated online,” said AHS MUN coordinator and teacher Michael McCarthy.
After the team decided against attending Harvard’s MUN conference (HMUN) in January due to public health concerns, AHS MUN applied to other conferences in hopes of finding an opportunity to compete. On February 11, Tufts University informed the club that they were invited to attend the conference.
AHS MUN meets on Fridays 3-4 pm. At a normal meeting, you’d find delegates, or students representing specific counties, debating their countries’ views on a given topic and proposing resolutions. Conferences like TUMUN, which last several days and are hosted by larger schools, are events the members look forward to every year. “[These conferences are] far more formal,” said McCarthy. “[The participants] have to kind of be on their toes a little bit; it’s [the real deal].”
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted many extracurricular activities throughout the year. However, due to the surge in cases after winter break, several extracurriculars have had to take extra precautions.
Since many families and friends gathered over winter break, COVID-19 cases spiked again, almost twice as many as the surge last winter. This is most likely due to the highly contagious Omicron variant. The rise in cases combined with the prior accommodations made for the pandemic forced many extracurriculars to do more to keep students safe.
The Athletic Director of the Andover Public Schools district, Bill Martin, spoke on the impact that the surge in cases had on the district’s sports teams and their fans. “We have had most of our teams affected by the number of athletes and coaches that have been out due to COVID,” he said. To ensure that their teams wouldn’t have to miss any competitions, a few games were postponed.
Additionally, the number of fans allowed at games has decreased. However, Martin said that he was hoping that by the end of the winter season, there will be fewer COVID cases and that the regular amount of fans will be able to return to the games.
In some instances, extracurricular activities have had to withdraw from their programs. For example, the AHS Model United Nations club is no longer attending this year’s Harvard Model United Nations (HMUN) conference. The conference was set to take place in person near the end of January, so the school’s delegates withdrew. Out of the thirty to fifty students at AHS that attend the HMUN meetings, fifteen delegates would have gone to the conference. Other delegates would have been coming from all around the world. Michael McCarthy, the teacher advisor for the program at AHS, said that he was worried about the possible spread of COVID there. “I had a lot of concerns about the delegates’ safety, so we withdrew our participation,” he said. “I was concerned that students would contract [COVID] and would be absent from school and would miss out… it’s a very large organization, and so with some kids out, they would miss out on a fun extracurricular opportunity.”
COURTESY PHOTO / Andover Robotics What a normal in-person robotics meet in the AHS cafeteria looks like
The school’s robotics teams have also had to accommodate for the pandemic. Round one of the robotics tournament was going to be held in the AHS cafeteria in January, but because of the surge in cases, it was postponed. The competition in Canton was also postponed. “We’ll have ‘Practice Judging Days’ instead, which would be done remotely,” said Canyu Li, a freshman on team Thunder. Minda Reidy, the teacher advisor for the robotics program, said that was done “as a general cautionary.” She also noted that the schools of some other teams in the state were not allowed to travel, so several teams would have missed the meet. “We also put into consideration that we were asking a lot of people to be in tighter [quarters] than we should really with a big Omicron concern,” she added. Thankfully, though, the teams will still be able to take part in their Practice Judging Days and were able to host the tournament round in February.
In addition, the AHS math team was also impacted by the pandemic. While the school’s team was able to attend the meet that took place after winter break, some other teams were not able to. Dorothy Power, the teacher advisor for the team, was glad that the team could still make it to the competitions. “We were really fortunate that Mr. Darlington helped us find a way to travel beginning in January, and that all of our mathletes were healthy and could attend,” she said. These teachers and students are hoping that the pandemic will come to an end and their activities will be able to return to normal. “I’m hoping that this is the beginning of the end and that we can eventually—and probably soon—say goodbye to COVID in some way,” said McCarthy.
