Just like how a knife isn’t inherently bad, Ssmartphones are not dangerous for teens because they are not inherently bad. It depends on what the owner decides to do with it. There is no denying that teens who grew up with phones and use them regularly have various mental health problems and struggle to function properly with their peers and the rest of society. “Studies show that the more kids use social media, the more likely they are to experience anxiety and depression; girls, Black children, and L.G.B.T.Q. youth are hit hardest. (Boys over all, hypnotized by porn and video games, don’t fare hugely better than girls.)” I think that we need to be more aware of the dangers and start enforcing screen time more, especially with younger kids., It’s not the smartphone that is dangerous, it is our ignorance and lack of cautiousness that is. 

By Aadeetri Pandey
Capybaras are the world’s largest rodents that are native to South America. Willis Hall now has a few ourselves in the form of plushies in Autumn Coleman’s class. Coleman first saw a capybara when she went to study abroad in Mendoza, Argentina, and ever since then she has loved them.  
     Coleman is the new Spanish teacher. She recently earned degrees in education and Spanish from Roanoke College and then went to be an assistant teacher at Glenvar middle school. She was born and raised in Roanoke and went to Salem High School.
     She is excited to be teaching in the Upper School and is impressed with her student’s Spanish speaking abilities. She doesn’t have a favorite class because she enjoys the different subjects they have discussed so far. In comparison to her middle school students she feels as if they can have more deep and impactful conversations while also being on topic. 
     Coleman didn’t always want to be a Spanish teacher. When she first went to college she hoped to be an English teacher. While many of her professors said she should minor in Spanish, it wasn’t until she talked to one of her teachers that they convinced her to major in Spanish. She hopes that one day she can go back to school to get her master’s degree. 
     While Coleman isn’t a native Spanish speaker it has been a big part of her life. She first started to learn Spanish in sixth grade. It wasn’t till she went to college she realized that she truly loved the language. A lot of her close friends she met during studies abroad don’t speak English and she wouldn’t have met them if she never learned the language. 
     “My host mom spoke no English. And I adore her. I miss her. I still talk to her. And if I didn’t speak Spanish, I wouldn’t be able to communicate at all with her,” Coleman said. “So those relationships are really special.”
     She hopes to continue being able to teach in North Cross but understands if she can’t. She says her welcome to North Cross has been very positive and is excited to see how the rest of the year plays out.  
     “I love it here,” Coleman said. “Have you ever had that feeling when you go into a room or a new place and you kind of feel like the oddball out? I have not felt that way at all here. That’s great. It’s been really enjoyable. The faculty has welcomed me with open arms. They treat me like I’ve been their friend for a long time.”

By Aadeetri Pandey

Most kids think AP Physics is the hardest class anyone can take in high school but Bach 'Jason' Phan ‘25 loves it. 
Most commonly known by his peers as Jason, he explains that  while physics is a hard class, the physics teacher, Dr. Tim Naginey, helps explain it in such a way it is easier for him to understand. 
Jason is Vietnamese born and raised. When he was younger he went to an English speaking kindergarten because he was adept at the language at a young age. It wasn’t as difficult for him to learn English. This doesn’t mean he didn’t face a language barrier when coming to the United States. 
“It’s really tough for me when I first was here,“ Jason said,” because people were speaking faster than I can hear.” 
He does later on explain that just listening to how people speak here has helped him a lot with his English. In total Jason speaks three languages: Vietnamese, English, and Mandarin Chinese. 
In terms of differences, Jason thinks the way the classes are set up is the biggest. In Willis Hall and most other high schools in America students switch class by class. In Vietnam and some other countries in Asia the student will sit in one class while the different teachers come into the class to teach, then leave. 
He went to Washington D.C. to visit his aunt for Thanksgiving. This was his first all American holiday. While he did enjoy spending time with his family he also liked the food. He said his favorite was the turkey. 
Jason has had a positive experience with the Boxley Building, the dorm building for North Cross. “I adore my dorm; it’s excellent and equipped with all necessities,” Jason said in an email. “The community is both diverse and welcoming.”
Jason found North Cross through an agency that helps students find schools for them. The one he used was ILU education Vietnam. They are relatively new, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good. Agencies make finding schools for students who plan to study abroad a lot easier  because they do all the work of finding and researching schools. 
“When I was young, my dream was to study in the United States. I was chasing my dream, looking for some ways to study abroad, it kept bringing me here, [to] North Cross School.” After graduating from North Cross Bach Phan, plans to continue studying abroad in an American university.

Many people in Willis Hall might be wondering what that smell is. It smells like pumpkin pie whenever people pass by room 13. 
Whether students have Jennifer Sprouse as a teacher or not, they can certainly smell her favorite fall scent and see the posters she hangs up in her classroom bringing a much-needed light and a fresh fun feeling to the Upper School. Perhaps all the decor and smells helped her feel more comfortable in her new situation.
“I’m always nervous on the first day of school,” Sprouse said. “Just because I don’t know my students. I don’t know how it’s gonna go.”    
Sprouse has a very vibrant personality that is shown in her room. She has many math posters in her room along with other things she likes like Harry Potter. Her favorite book is Prisoner of Azkaban, however her favorite movie is “Order of the Phoenix.” 
She grew up in south Alabama and attended a large high school that had around 2500 students, but the summer before her junior year she moved to little Christiansburg. 
“I remember the first football game, “ Sprouse said. “The football team ran out on the field and I was like, ‘Is the middle school doing an exhibition?’ But it turned out that it was the football team. I felt so bad because you know, I’m used to seeing people walking down on the field and seeing nothing but numbers. And their guys look like they were all ninth graders or something and I’m like ‘Where are your football players?’”
One thing most people don’t know about her is that she likes 3D printing. She has a few of her creations in her room, and she hopes to have a 3D printing class in the near future. 
This is her first year as a high school teacher. Before this, she had been teaching pre-algebra and geometry at Cave Spring Middle School. In the Upper School, she teaches Geometry, Algebra 2, and  AP Statistics. She has over 100 students, about half of the Willis Hall student body. She hasn’t taught Algebra 2 in a while and has never taught  AP Statistics. This doesn’t discourage her from trying her best. 
“I don’t necessarily have to be liked by every single person,” she said, “but I want to make a good impression. So where they’re not going home and saying let’s drop that class,
Her favorite type of math to teach is geometry. While she has always been good at math, she believes that her teacher’s support helped her love for the subject to flourish. In particular, her fourth-grade teacher gave her more advanced worksheets in class so she was never bored. 
“I’ve always kind of challenged myself to do math as fast as I could, “ Sprouse said. “I would make stupid mistakes. But math has always been the one thing that I don’t know. I get really, really, really weirdly nerdy about it.”
Sprouse went to Virginia Tech to get her bachelor’s then she got her master’s at Radford University. She has 15 years of experience teaching. She did take a six-year break when her children were born but jumped back into teaching after they were old enough.  
She expressed that she always wanted to be a high school teacher, however, she was stuck teaching middle school, which she still enjoyed. She felt that the Roanoke County school administration never took her concerns into consideration. Because she could handle the “bad kids” they kept on giving her more, so she felt that she never got the respect she deserved. 
She interviewed for the job in March and was offered the position of an upper school teacher on the spot. It was a hard decision for her to make, but ultimately she decided that it was for the best. 
“I started telling people and letting them know that I was not coming back around May,” Sprouse said “I was super excited about it.”
It’s expected that things will be different when moving to a new school. A few things are the grading system, the classes, and the schedule. However, for Sprouse, the biggest difference is the students’ behavior. 
“The biggest thing that I’ve noticed between the students here is there’s a level of respect and a level of pride in their school here,” Sprouse said. “Over there we were dealing with kids ripping the handles off of the sinks in the bathroom, and as soon as they got refurbished, they would rip them off again so we never could keep soap dispensers in the boys bathroom because they would just rip them off the wall.”
Her relationship with the other faculty members is different as well. Although she is friends with some of the faculty like Tiffany Sakaguchi because they both used to teach at Cave Spring with each other, most of the faculty is new to her.
“Everybody has been very warm and welcoming,” Sprouse said. “I’ve spent more time with the other teachers than I did in previous years because a lot of times we would be so overwhelmed. We would just kind of have lunch locked in our classroom with the door shut, trying to get something done. And here it’s like going outside and eating with the other teachers and just kind of chill. It’s just really nice.”
Although she no longer works at Cave Spring she still is an active member of their community. Her husband still works there and her children go there. She is in charge of the marching band costumes so she is required to be there for every home football game. This means she can also see some of her old students whom she still loves. However she is super excited for this new chapter of her life at North Cross.
“I get to see my former kids from there and they ask how it is at North Cross and I’m saying it’s amazing,” Sprouse said. “I love it.”
​

Here I am with my friends and sister at the Festival of India on Aug.12. I also ran into faculty members Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Basile. While the three of us waited in line for mango lassis, we chatted about mundane things, like how hot it's been this summer.  That day was no exception. It felt like I was being boiled alive because of the sweat mixed in with the summer heat. Suddenly, it started pouring down rain. It was refreshing at first, but then I realized my food would be wet and soggy. I, along with many other people, took shelter underneath the front entrance of the stage at Elmwood Park. We talked about the unexpected but much-needed rain. After five minutes the rain ended. You could never tell it was raining because our hair still looked incredible. We decided to take a photo to remember the moment, but mainly because the lighting was exemplary. Photo taken by Naisha Jain Cave Spring High School ​