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Olivia Olson
The Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD) held a virtual mock election for K-12 students between Oct. 27 and Nov. 2. Every student was allowed one vote that had to be submitted on campus.
“Mock elections are a common way to teach about citizen rights and responsibilities,” Director of Curriculum Darren Dennis said. “I am a former social studies teacher, so I was thinking about how we could tie the election in with our curriculum when I put this together.”
Due to COVID-19, the election was held electronically via E-voice voting — the website students submitted their ballots through.
Each student ballot included voting options for the President, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. Meant to simulate a real Kansas ballot, candidates from Republican, Democratic and Libertarian parties were present for the races in which candidates were running.
In order to mimic the national Electoral College system, SMSD assigned each school a proportion of the total number of electoral votes for a total of 527. Shawnee Mission East was given 31 electoral votes.
Sophomore Libby McShane supports SMSD participating in another mock election in the future.
“Not being able to vote in this election sucks because this is one of the most important elections that our nation has ever seen,” McShane said. “But [this mock election] encourages us to be able to exercise our right to vote, even though it doesn’t really count for anything. And especially for kids who’ve never thought of voting before, it plants a seed in something that will hopefully get bigger and grow by the next election.”
In the coming weeks, Overland Park is looking into adding safety measures across Metcalf Avenue between both 75th and 79th street.
According to Fox 4 News, that stretch held a recent fatality this past summer — a hit-and-run in July — which put new urgency on finding a short-term solution for this busy stretch of road.
“I want action towards a more walkable Metcalf,” City Council Member Logan Heley said in an interview with the Shawnee Mission Post. “But we need to make sure we’re doing it in the right way. I don’t want to see any half-funded or half-thought-out initiatives just to show we’re trying to do something.”
In the same interview, Council Member Faris Farassati suggested that the city get pedestrian-friendly input from nearby residents before they move forward with any decisions.
“If the community strongly feels their safety is at risk, we should plan on fixing the problem with any amount of dollars,” Farassati said.
East senior Thomas Voorhies feels that adding safety procedures — such as an additional stop light — would improve the walkability of the area.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been a pedestrian, just walking around, but as someone who does go around in that area a lot, it’s very clear how that whole area is pretty outdated and very barebones compared to everything around us,” Voorhies said. “So I don’t know if I can say specifically what would be the ideal solution, it’s probably going to be a couple of years before we see anything massive, but I think [a stoplight] is a good place to start.”
On Oct. 30, after months of restrictions, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that cruise ships will be allowed to set sail again — with strict safety protocols.
This new order is called the Framework for Conditional Sailing, which senior Elisa Byer feels is a selfish and risky move.
“I just think with the amount of cases that are in the world right now, especially in the United States, the last vacation someone needs to go on is a floating death trap like a cruise,” said Byer.
The CDC reported that procedures will include extensive testing, quarantine measures and social distancing, however they have not disclosed whether or not masks will be mandated.
According to the CDC, cruise ships will be required to restart operations in phases. The first phase will focus on ensuring that ship operators have enough substantial health and safety protocols to build the laboratory capacity needed to test future passengers.
Later phases will involve simulated voyages, where volunteers will test out the safety procedures before passengers are allowed to board. Cruise ships will not be allowed to launch passenger operations until they meet all the requirements and are granted a COVID-19 sailing certificate from the CDC.
Once passengers are allowed to come on board, cruise ships will be required to provide testing of all passengers and crew — both on the day of departure and the day of arrival. Passengers who test positive for COVID-19 before the voyage will not be allowed on board. Those who test positive before disembarking will be required to be isolated from the rest of the passengers and crew and then transferred to a hospital on shore. All the remaining passengers and nonessential crew will be required to undergo a 14-day quarantine.
Most cruise companies — such as Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Disney — have canceled all U.S. cruises through the rest of the year despite the lift on the ban. However, American Cruise Lines is planning to reopen and set sail on Dec. 5. Cruises will not be allowed to exceed a seven-day trip.
Because many cruise lines have reported major losses in revenue over the last seven months, the CDC reasoned that the benefits of the new framework outweigh the costs of not allowing cruise ships to sail.
“This framework provides a pathway to resume safe and responsible sailing,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in a CDC media statement. “It will mitigate the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks on ships and prevent passengers and crew from seeding outbreaks at ports and in the communities where they live.”
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