![Broadcast, yearbook and newspaper combined for 66 Interscholastic League Press Conference awards this year. Yearbook won 43, newspaper won 14 and broadcast took home nine. “I think [the ILPC awards] are a great way to give the kids some acknowledgement for all of their hard work,” newspaper and yearbook adviser Paige Hert said. “They typically spend the year covering everyone else’s big moments, so it’s really cool for them to be celebrated so many times and in so many different ways.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/edited-ILPC.jpg)
![Looking down at his racket, junior Hasun Nguyen hits the green tennis ball. Hasun has played tennis since he was 9 years old, and he is on the varsity team. "I feel like it’s not really appreciated in America as much, but [tennis] is a really competitive and mentally challenging sport,” Nguyen said. “I’m really level-headed and can keep my cool during a match, and that helps me play a bit better under pressure.” Photo by Kyra Cox](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/hasun.jpg)
![Bringing her arm over her head and taking a quick breath, junior Lauren Lucas swims the final laps of the 500 freestyle at the regionals swimming competition on date. Lucas broke the school’s 18-year-old record for the 500 freestyle at regionals and again at state with a time of 4:58.63. “I’d had my eye on that 500 record since my freshman year, so I was really excited to see if I could get it at regionals or districts,” Lucas said. “ State is always a really fun experience and medaling for the first time was really great. It was a very very tight race, [so] I was a bit surprised [that I medaled]. [There were] a lot of fast girls at the meet in general, [and] it was like a dogfight back and forth, back and forth.” Photo by Kaydence Wilkinson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Kaydence-2.7-23-edit-2.jpg)
![As her hair blows in the wind, senior Brianna Grandow runs the varsity girls 5K at the cross country district meet last Thursday. Grandow finished fourth in the event and led the varsity girls to regionals with a third place placement as a team. “I’m very excited [to go to regionals],” Grandow said. “I’m excited to race in Corpus Christi, and we get to go to the beach, so that’s really awesome.” Photo by Addison Bruce](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/brianna.jpg)
STAAR-Gazing
High School Students Prepare for the English STAAR Test
A sample essay prompt for the English II STAAR exam is shown. English Teacher Lauren Madrid said believes that her students are prepared to take the exam. “I will give my students all the material they need to succeed – grammar assessments, opportunities to read essays from the past, poetry analysis and more,” Madrid said. “To me, it’s realistic that some of my classes can all score above 80, even if the district isn’t graded by results this year.”
April 21, 2021
Tomorrow, high school students will take the English II STAAR test. All eyes are on the Texas Education Agency as they plan to administer the STAAR digitally at monitored test sites. Even though many students across Texas are stuck learning remotely, the agency went forward with its plans.
Some critics of the test, like the Association of Texas Professional Educators, are citing how transmission rates of COVID-19 will potentially rise if kids are required to take it physically. Students like sophomore Kai Gray are also questioning the decision.
“I think it’s a sensible decision to take the STAAR test,” Gray said. “But why are we meeting physically, while the test is still taken on computers? The administrators of the test should have planned this better, especially with reports of how their site is working.”
Statewide reports are coming in that the website students from elementary to high school are using is running slowly, or not allowing users to log in. Although it seems the TEA will take steps to improve the situation from April 6, the technical issues and transmission risk have been a major point of contention for many. Should students miss this test, their only other opportunity is next December. The day before the test, students are also required to load the STAAR Online Testing Platform on a district-owned computer.
“Yesterday was the first time in months I used my district-owned laptop,” sophomore Caleb Taylor said. “The TEA should allow an at-home option, but since this is the format they decided I can only hope it runs smoothly.”
