News in Brief: Catch up on local, national and school news

The rising change.org petition “TRUTH over Troost” aims to rename Troost Ave. to Truth Ave. due to the unjust background the current name holds.

Just a 14-minute drive away from East, Troost Ave. was named after Kansas City’s first resident physicist Dr. Benoist Troost — an owner of six slaves.

This movement was established by activist Chris Goode in June 2022. He argues that using the name Troost doesn’t appropriately represent the current state of the street as many Black-owned businesses reside along the street. 

“It seems like the fair thing to do is let the people of Kansas and Missouri make that decision by voting, though It would require education,” Race Project KC co-sponsor and English teacher Samantha Feinberg said.

Since the 1920s, Troost served as a racial dividing line with the majority of Kansas City’s white residents living on the west side of Troost and the majority of Black residents on the east side.

Since then, Goode has taken his idea to the City Council of Kansas City and Mayor Quinton Lucas. Currently, Goode’s petition has received over 1,700 signatures from various supporters — most located in the Kansas City area — working towards its goal of 2,500 signatures. The more signatures the petition receives, the more likely the street will be renamed, according to Feinberg. 

Former U.S. President Donald Trump and dozens of his associates were indicted on August 14, 2023 on 41 charges.

The 98-page indictment handed out by a grand jury in Georgia contains charges of election fraud, racketeering and accusations of possible efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump has also been accused of calling Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in an attempt to eliminate votes he felt were unfairly cast, according to the Associated Press. Trump allegedly pressured Raffenspberger to reduce the number of Biden’s votes, claiming that people voted more than once. Raffensberger stated the Georgia secretary of state’s office had reviewed the voter records and found Trump’s claims to be false. 

East Government teacher Benjamin Hendricks thinks the current alternatives to in-person voting — mail-in and online — are good ways to increase voter turnout, as long as the results are not manipulated.

“Obviously, we have a situation here where someone is indicted for lots of different things,” Hendricks said. “I don’t know what evidence they have. I’m not a lawyer either. But I’d say that I hope it will take care of itself.” 

Georgia officials have scheduled the trial against Trump to begin March 4, 2024 but that is subject to change based on his similar trials in New York, Florida and in federal court.

A new policy restricting phone usage at school was implemented by the district at the start of this school year, with intentions of making students more present and attentive in class.

In previous years, teachers had their own classroom policies regarding phone usage. Many have used a phone caddy in the classroom or had a classroom “phone jail” but there was never a set school-wide rule about how phones could be used appropriately in a classroom setting— until now.

The new policy states that cell phones are not to be taken out in the classroom unless explicit permission has been given by the instructor, according to principal Jason Peres.

“I think as a district we recognize the distraction that phones create for students during the learning process and we know that it’s not a good thing,” Peres said. “We want students to be engaged and focused in school and this is a way to accomplish this.”

Math teacher Jenifer Horn has a creative approach to the new policy: if a phone is out when she is teaching, the student has two options: the student has to either bring treats for the entire class or serve a detention. 

“I think kids are way too attached to their phones, because they’ve grown up with it,” Horn said.