By Camieka Amons
 
Since the mid-1940s, healthcare has become a major issue in impoverished communities. People think the most common problem with healthcare is implicit bias and healthcare avoidance and high healthcare costs. A study showed that, from 2008 to 2020, the percentage of Monroe County residents under 65 without health insurance declined by 4-9 percentage points in all the regional counties. The poorest areas in Rochester are 14605, 14608, 14611, 14613, and 14621 which are the regions with the worst health outcomes with cancer and heart disease being the leading causes of death in Monroe County. Many insurance companies don't always cover everything you need, and it leaves the patient to pay out-of-pocket costs including copayments, coinsurance, and deductibles.
 
 My grandma is 70 years old, and she has many health problems like diabetes and high blood pressure. Her insurance doesn't cover the cost of certain medications like her blood pressure pills and some of her insulins. So, if she wants her medication, she will have to pay the remaining balance that her insurance didn't cover. Poverty blocks access to proper healthcare. Depending on what zip code you live in you can expect to live 3 more years or die 10 years sooner. If healthcare costs are reduced it would improve health outcomes with access to necessary medical services, people can receive timely treatment, and maintain better health outcomes. Health insurance is critical to families' and individuals’ access to care, financial security, and peace of mind. Those without insurance may delay getting needed care and forgo preventive care altogether, which can lead to medical problems that are more serious and expensive to treat. The 4 beneficial ways to fix and make healthcare more affordable would be cutting down the price of medications, expanding insurance to cover healthcare costs, extending telehealth services, and investing in mobile clinics. These changes could create lasting improvements for our most vulnerable communities.

By Alexis Beach
 
The Rochester City School District is considered one of the most underperforming districts in our state. A part of the reasoning behind that is the RCSD School Board. Our school board is one of the few PAID boards of education, the issue with it being paid is that there's an underlying reasoning to why those people are even on the school board. Are they doing what they really think is in the best interest of the students? Why is their main focus money? Do they even care about the actual problems going on? 
 
The Greece school board page says on their website “The Board of Education consists of nine members who are elected by district residents and serve unpaid, three-year terms.” I wonder why for our school board they have 4-year terms and it's paid. Paying people for bare minimum duties and to look out for residents' children?  For as long as I can remember as a student in the RCSD our needs have been consistently undermined and ignored by most of the school board. I remember the teachers being cut when I was in the 8th grade because of the budget cuts and deficit that we took on. There were kids protesting, many students crying about losing their favorite teachers that they had built amazing bonds with. East High School had the third highest amount of teacher cuts with the amount of 8. Then now about 4 years later they're taking our EPO away which has improved graduation rates tons over time and has a bunch of other benefits. Along with the graduation rates increasing, the suspensions have decreased. The EPO saved East High School from being on the direction of closing, no one notices the tremendous positives that have come out of the EPO with the University of Rochester because all the school board mentions is the money and cost of it. 

By Kerel Cooper

Youth being on drugs is something that affects many of our peers. As a student in the city, it’ll introduce you to a lot of things from Marijuana to shrooms. This doesn't just affect the older teens anymore but now you'll spot the kids in the city and sometimes the suburbs of Rochester ranging from around 9-18 are affected with the influence of drugs. This happens when kids are raised around drugs, so they think it's okay to do them or do it to be cool and look older. Drug use within the family can disrupt attachment bonds and interfere with the establishment of secure relationships. In an article I read it said that this will start affecting a child's ability to form healthy connections later in life. On top of that, exposure to drugs during critical periods of brain development can alter neural pathways. Drugs also have the chance to give you brain damage.

This happens both inside of our school walls with kids sneaking products in to use in the bathrooms and outside with our students buying these products from dealers of the streets, relatives, or even making it themselves with their parents’ and/or friends’ full support. In an article I read dating back to 2020,  “782,000 adults aged 18- to 25-years-old used drugs in the last month. 112,000 or 8.31% of 12- to 17-year-olds report using drugs in the last month.”. This is important because if the numbers were this high just 4 years ago imagine how much it has raised ever since the pandemic ended and a half a generation of kids went 2 years with no guidance or role models. We should care because our youth is our future and if our future has the chance to become a bunch of drug addicts that can't go a minute without picking up a weed pen or eating a mushroom, we won't have a future to depend on. Ways we can tackle this problem is by making it harder to obtain drugs and the materials to make them while also bettering the neighborhoods and giving our kids mentors, they can communicate with in and outside of school. Another way we can tackle this problem is by Giving upcoming and current Parents classes on drugs and why they should prevent drug use and convince their students to stay away from them.
 

By Tiana Hodge 
 
For many decades, American cities have been home to a disproportionate share of people living in poverty. Poverty has been destroying a lot of communities around the world. This issue has had a very dramatic impact on Rochester residents. Many families are being affected by poverty, especially families with children. People of color and people with disabilities are also affected by poverty. Families do not have enough money to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. The extremity of poverty manifests limited local employment, housing, food deserts and the isolation of the residents in the affected neighborhoods. Rochester, New York’s poverty rate is ranked the fifth overall among the United States metropolitan areas. Discriminatory housing has played a big role in the rate of poverty increasing. The overall poverty rate has increased over the past three years. It has increased for every ethnic group. Nearly half of the families in Rochester live in poverty. Poverty is distributed unevenly by race and ethnicity. Many families that are affected by poverty are Black, Latino, and indigenous families. Most women lead households, especially those with children, experience more poverty than other household families with both parents. Most of the Rochester city school district students are economically disadvantaged.
 
The increasing rate of poverty is affecting a lot of people. Especially the states that have the highest rate. Such as Rochester, New York. Poverty includes standard housing, hunger, homelessness, inadequate childcare, unsafe neighborhoods, and under-resourced schools. People who live in poverty experience mental and physical health issues at a higher rate. Researchers have discovered that children who live in poverty can develop differences in brain development. Children living in poverty have a higher chance of attending under-resourced schools. These schools lack educational opportunities, books, supplies, and technology due to funding. This can lead to an increase in high school dropout rates. A lot of people are being affected by poverty. At the rate that poverty is continuing to increase more people are going to be affected by poverty. As more families start to live in poverty, they are more likely to experience the harsh realities of this issue. They will live far away from grocery stores with fresh foods. The lack of transportation in these neighborhoods makes it hard for these families. This also makes it hard for families to get the medical help needed. Many residents in Rochester who live in poverty have a hard time finding hospitals that accept Medicaid. In the United States there are almost thirty-eight million people living in poverty. In Rochester, New York fifty-six thousand six hundred ninety-five citizens are living in poverty. 28.9% of this population are adults, 15.4% are seniors. There are more than twenty-five thousand children living in poverty in Rochester, New York. 
 

By James O’Neil
 
The more that we look around Rochester the more problems that you can point out and acknowledge and one of the biggest ones is poverty. Almost every corner that you step on has someone that was put out or did not have the privilege to even try to live their own life. And due to the high prices, that make it hard for people to do better for their families more and more people are losing money and their family’s homes.  The poverty rate as we speak is currently 29.3% that is 59.5k out of 203k people in Rochester NY in my opinion that is still too many people to be suffering without any place to live or have anything period to survive.  And it is not getting better by any means at all and that is the sad part about it all is that our economy makes so much money from the state taxes and the prices of things like gas and groceries so the fact that we as a community should be more open to helping others but choose to only worry about ourselves is so upsetting.  In 2013-2017 is when the poverty level seemingly increased making us 3rd on the poverty rating scale.

By Ewan Craddock
 
In 2019 the students of the RCSD walked out of their classes, the reason being 150 educators were being cut by the district while the central office budgets and employees were untouched. This action was done without the taxpayer and local community input as it was done outside of the window for budget drafting, in the middle of December just before the winter break. This is important now more than ever as the district is shutting down the partnership between East High School and the University of Rochester, which brought great gains to the graduation rate and the literacy of the students. The reason why the district is shutting down the partnership is because the district believes that it is too expensive and that the district could do as good of a job doing what the EPO has done. Rochester homeowners have one of the highest property tax burdens in the country and yet there is a budget deficit in the district.

By Samareia Moton

As a scholar who has personally been affected by this, I will tell you it's not easy. I have been bullied since about 6th grade. I didn't have much growing up. My mom is a single mom with two kids, so she tried to do her best. I was mostly bullied about my clothes and my body…I wasn't everyone's cup of tea or perfect picture there's points in my life now where people still talk. Bullying has affected me so much that I've stopped coming to school, I isolated myself and became very depressed. Bullying for me lasted up until now which is my senior year. It was super hard to deal with. I do feel I was affected long term by this issue. I suffer from depression, insecurity issues, and self-doubt. There are plenty of types of bullying such as cyber, racial, social, verbal, etc. StopBullying.gov states “bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems.”

Many people skip past cyber bullying because they think it happens less. All types of bullying should get attention. I researched cyber bullying on a website called cyberbullying.org and it states that in 2023 “Approximately 55% of the students reported that they experienced cyberbullying at some point in their lifetimes. About 27% said they had been cyberbullied in the most recent 30 days. When asked about specific types of cyberbullying experienced in the previous 30 days, mean or hurtful comments posted online (30.4%), exclusion from group chats (28.9%), rumors spread online (28.4%), and someone embarrassing or humiliating them online (26.9%) were the most reported. Forty-four percent of the sample reported being cyberbullied in one or more of the eighteen specific types reported, two or more times over the course of the previous 30 days.” Parents, school staff, and other caring adults can help stop and prevent bullying. StopBullying.gov says they can “Help kids understand bullying. Talk about what bullying is and how to stand up to it safely. Tell kids bullying is unacceptable. Make sure kids know how to get help. Keep the lines of communication open. Check in with kids often. Listen to them. Know their friends, ask about school, and understand their concerns. Encourage kids to do what they love. Special activities, interests, and hobbies can boost confidence, help kids make friends, and protect them from bullying behavior. Model how to treat others with kindness and respect.”

By Andres Ramos Soto
 
All the powerful forces in our planet of nature are being put to risk in drastic changes caused by humans. Our temperatures and weather patterns are seeing an unnatural shift, since the 1800s humans have been impacting our planet causing what we know as climate change. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas have been causing this rapid and drastic change of our climates and temperature, putting our ecosystems, communities, and our entire planet in danger. Climate change has created so many health risks in our communities such as respiratory and heart diseases, pest related diseases such as dengue fever, and injuries and even death.  We are causing our own demise and are bringing our planet with us; we keep eating away at our resources and the usage of fossil fuels are speeding our risks. Wildlife around the planet has been affected by the drastic changes we have caused. Animals and plants have been forced to adapt to conditions that are not natural, conditions that we as humans have put them in and those that cannot adapt sufficiently are severely affected and even meet their end: the extinction.
 
Our  planet has been through so many changes, from a floating piece of molten magma, to having  titans during the age of the dinosaurs 252.9 million years ago; A once perfect planet, where life flourished thanks to powerful forces, light from the sun reaching this planet powers our living world, its light reaching every creature on earth. Volcanoes are the architectures of our planet, creating over 80% of our surface. Without these powerful forces, life would not have flourished as we have seen. Our oceans are always in constant flow covering up to 71 percent of our planet, holding some of the most complex forms of life, a world of both horrors and beauty. Our oceans not only hold complex life forms but also influence our planet's weather. From raging mighty storms, from freezing winds, our weather is vital for life, pushing organisms to its limits and shaping them through evolution, to adapt and thrive in the most intense of weather.

By Amazie Riley
 
Food deserts are regions where people have a very limited access to healthful and affordable food sources of food. In those areas they have stores that sell high sugary foods and drinks that aren’t as healthy and good for the human body as main grocery stores. People who live in food deserts are at higher risk of diet related conditions such as diabetes, obesity, micronutrient deficiencies and others. Transportation is a bigger factor to food deserts because people with their own source of transportation can go to any store they want/choose but those who rely on public transportation and/or walk options are limited.
 
In the article “Food Justice” says there are a few main causes of a food desert. Food deserts also may be due to having a low income and a lack of income means a lack of access to healthy food. Also due to fast food prices being lower than what’s in the stores those with lower income might spend their money on fast food rather than in the stores. Grocery store locations are a big factor in food deserts. In the article Food Justice, it says “Grocery store owners avoid opening up shop in food deserts because market research suggests more affluent areas are more profitable. Some common characteristics across food deserts—smaller populations, lower rates of employment, higher rates of poverty”.

By Ne-Yo Marrero
 
Addiction is something many people have struggled with. It continues to be a problem in many places including Rochester, NY.  It affects teenagers, adults, and children. The problem with addiction is that it affects everyone around it. Including kids who may be around it and teenagers also. Now is the perfect time because of the addiction to vapes and how high the addiction rate has been since 2019.  A lot of people sell drugs, and a lot of stores sell things such as vapes and alcohol without any ID to anyone. It can change a lot of people's lives if we focus on this situation. Teenagers in school are vaping in the bathroom 24/7 due to addiction and no one seems to care. The number of middle schoolers that vape has increased more than 2%.  Not that any of this information may matter to you but it matters to me and those who want to stop addiction to anything.                              
 
We are in a society where doing the wrong things is good, or cool, or is what makes us popular and well known. But you are just ruining your mind and body doing things that aren't good. Even adults who can quit addiction tend not to. Due to stress, or any other factors that come into play.  There are many addiction services in Rochester, NY.  We should be able to talk to the public more and bring it up on social media. We can help those people and help anyone who is struggling with addiction. Our words matter and bringing this topic to anyone is important. We can get kids to pay attention in class and not worry about whether they need to vape. Stop parents from drinking or smoking around children and maybe in general. We all can do something about it. But do we want to?