Today when I got to school, it was in an uproar. The Washington Post had written a very defamatory article about my school. Here's the article:
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Pick Your Clique
At Paint Branch High, Groups Provide an
Identity
By Scott Wilson and Raja Mishra
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 28, 1999; Page A01
For the Trenchies at Paint Branch High School, the day
starts at 7 a.m. on a patch of trampled grass known
informally as the "Dead Zone."
Nothing threatening or Gothic about it. Just a gathering
point beneath a stop sign in the school parking lot to
smoke Marlboros before first period, while the car buffs
turn doughnuts in a burgundy pickup nearby. The grass
died long ago, crushed each morning by more than a
dozen pairs of combat boots and tennis shoes.
In dark T-shirts, fatigues and the occasional knee-length
black jacket, this cadre of self-described misfits is as
close as it gets to a Trenchcoat Mafia within the Paint
Branch student body, a blur of suburban ethnicity in
Montgomery County. They listen to the bands Slayer and
Fear Factory, trade insults with the Preppies and the Yos
and the Jocks, and wear overcoats that are suddenly
symbols of schoolyard violence.
"We have nothing against other people," says Skunk, a
brooding 19-year-old senior known to his teachers as
John Pizzuto. "They just have something against us."
The tragedy last week in the hallways of a high school in
Littleton, Colo., has inspired a reexamination of the
complicated social hierarchy that confronts students
during their most formative years. Cliques and clubs
have defined school days for decades, providing a
framework for friendships and prom dates and booked
weekends. But for parents, such groups have always
seemed alien, and counselors worry that the maze allows
troubled children to mask loneliness and disaffection.
At Paint Branch, the social scene is as typical and
unfathomable as that of any Washington area suburban
school. A few days' wandering its maroon-and-gold
hallways and cinder-block classrooms reveals a staff
and student body that are proud of the school's tolerance
and diversity, but are confronting new fears about what it
means to be unpopular.
Just two weeks ago, only a dozen parents showed up at a
meeting about school security. Fred Lowenbach, the
school's popular principal, received at least that many
calls the day after the Littleton shooting and has
scheduled another meeting for next month.
The Trenchies have faced hallway threats and hushed
cafeterias in recent days, while the school tries to
memorialize the 15 deaths at Columbine High School
with white lapel ribbons and a pledge "to prevent
destructive decisions for myself and my community."
"You and your friends are responsible for the deaths and
you're going to die for it," read one note left in a
Trenchie's textbook last week. Taunts of "Oh, don't shoot
me!" followed Trenchies in the cafeteria.
Lowenbach denounces the insults and calls this "a
teachable moment" to help Paint Branch's 1,600 students
get along. But some students says that in the wake of
Columbine, they are wary of classmates in dark clothes
and trenchcoats.
"I immediately thought of Paint Branch and the people
we have here, because it's so similar," says Jenny
McCarthy, 16, a sophomore whose circle of friends
comprises cheerleaders such as herself and members of
the pompom squad. "We have outcasts. A lot of those
shot [in Colorado] were in popular groups. So what if
we are targeted?
"I don't think any Trenchies would want to hang around
with Poms or cheerleaders," she adds. "We just don't
mix."
Jereme Musgrove, 17, wears a necklace with beads
spelling his name and "420," the police code for
marijuana. The Littleton shooting happened on April 20,
Adolf Hitler's birthday, but to Musgrove and some of his
friends, the date is more notable as the national
marijuana smoke-off day. Preppies, he says, are shallow
and preoccupied with looks. His right eyebrow is
pierced twice, his tongue once.
"In seventh grade, I withdrew from people. I didn't have
any friends. I started doing bad in school. I was probably
more depressed. Then it kind of developed into anger,"
says Musgrove, smoking a morning Marlboro. "I just try
to keep my distance from them [Jocks and Preppies].
They're more outgoing. Most teachers like them more."
The 30-year-old Burtonsville campus draws students
from both sides of Route 29, a road that serves as a
demographic dividing line separating lower-income
housing to the east from spacious neighborhoods to the
west. Eighty-five percent of Paint Branch's graduates go
on to college.
Among them are Preppies and Yos (students who favor
"gangsta" fashions and music), Jocks and Trenchies.
There are Headbangers who favor heavy metal music,
Skaters who are partial to skateboards, Techies who
man the drama department's backstage crews, Nerds and
honor students -- all part of an array of irregular social
groups that operate beneath the school's more formal
network of school-sanctioned clubs.
They are organized in a loose hierarchy -- Jocks at the
top, Trenchies near the bottom -- and form around
common interests: ethnicity, neighborhoods or
friendships carried over from days together at Benjamin
Banneker or Briggs Chaney middle schools, which feed
Paint Branch. Some of the labels are slurs, applied by
rival cliques, while others are worn with clubby pride.
McCarthy, the cheerleader, says: "They call us ditzes,
snobs. But we're not, and I hope we wouldn't be
stereotyped."
In the crowded cafeteria and parking lot, students point
out the Korean Corner and Chinatown, derisive terms
used to describe the patch of blacktop or lunch table near
the Frutopia machine populated by Asian students. Son
Nguyen, a 19-year-old senior, sits with two fellow
Vietnamese students and a girl from China. "We all went
to Briggs Chaney," he says. "And we go to the same
church."
The Preppies, known by critics as the 90210s after the
television show popularizing lavish high school
lifestyles, carve out a spot at the center of the lot to listen
to rappers Cypress Hill and plot after-school plans.
Several are wearing Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts. The
Trenchies have the Dead Zone, the Jocks the weight
room. Kelly McDonnell, a school security guard, says
"the Jocks rule the school."
Duane Frazier, a social studies teacher, views group
membership as a natural part of the way students form
values and an identity. He compares it to the way an
adult selects a political party -- sounding out members
and deciding to join based on common interests.
"Kids pick friends and groups in much the same way,"
Frazier says.
Yet some group members may be more devoted than
others to the clique. At Columbine, the two students who
killed 12 classmates, a teacher and themselves appeared
to be fringe players of the loosely organized Trenchcoat
Mafia at the school, if they belonged at all. Their actions
showed they hardly were representative of the group.
At Paint Branch, many students blend in and out of
different cliques. Jocks and Preppies who play on the
school's moderately successful sports teams socialize.
Trenchies work with Techies backstage on the spring
production of "Dirty Work at the Crossroads," a
Victorian-period spoof.
The school's rich ethnic diversity further blurs the
groupings. One student notes that the senior class portrait
is a study in segregation with blacks in one cluster,
whites in another and Asians in another. The parking lot
looked just as segregated last year, students says. This
year, though, students must park in assigned spaces.
As soon as freshmen arrive, counselors encourage them
to join school-sponsored groups, whether it is varsity
football or the award-winning literary magazine.
Counselors work with English and social studies
teachers to identify troubled students. "This stuff pours
out in compositions," says Jack McKeon, a Paint Branch
guidance counselor for 27 years. "These are often a cry
for help."
Most students make friends and join groups in more
unconventional, ageless ways. Common bonds may range
from step dancing to shared struggles in honors
chemistry. Most of them understand they are typecast
based on whom they call their closest friends.
Senior Mike Kahn, 17, is among the leaders of the clique
students call the Preppies. For the most part, they keep
their hair short and spiked, wear designer clothing and in
some cases sport sideburns. "People think we are the
cliquiest of the cliques," says Joanne Chow, 18, a senior.
"I hear they call us 90210s."
Kahn calls his group "the Fam," a cohort that includes
students from other area high schools. "We think of it as
kind of a high school fraternity," says Kahn, who says he
plans to attend the University of Maryland-College Park
next year. "We all had to do the same kind of things to
become friends. We wear the same kind of clothes.
"The Jocks are known more, but I'm not sure they are the
kings of the school," Kahn adds. "I think if you ask our
friends, they would say we are. Everybody knows what
we do on weekends."
When the last bell rings at 2:10 p.m., the trenchcoat
crowd gravitates from the Dead Zone to the cars of
former trenchcoat students. There's Skippy and Chandler
and Boris ("because he's German," one explains). Some
have graduated, some have been expelled, but they still
return to hang out. A black car pulls into the lot with a
rear-window sticker that reads: "We are the people our
parents warned us about."
Jason Barnes, 18, says he graduated last year but not
before he had a serious run-in with school administrators
for carrying a utility knife on campus. He works at the
nearby Pizza Hut, but returns to the Paint Branch parking
lot.
He is tall and lean with a shaved head. He wears a long
black leather trenchcoat, black baggy pants and combat
boots. In addition to heavy metal music, he immerses
himself in Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy
role-playing games.
"Security harassed us. Students harassed us. What's the
point of coming to school?" Barnes says. "They think
we're freaky. They don't understand why we do this."
Musgrove, in baggy jeans and flannel shirt, stands among
a group of Trenchies, not far from a security guard who
is whispering into a walkie-talkie. High fives, packs of
cigarettes and lighters are exchanged. Two Trenchies
engage in some mock wrestling. One wears a black
leather trenchcoat. It's 73 degrees.
Fred Lowenbach, the principal, says cliques can cause
friction between groups as well as provide a kind of
safety net for young people trying to make friends.
Lowenbach says one of the chief challenges of high
school is "finding their place, finding where they fit in
and figuring out the pecking order."
Ugh. Isn't that horrible? Here's my email in response (sent to Scott Wilson, the writer):
I'm now a senior at Paint Branch, and have been attending all four years
of my high school career. I've been happy here and thought I knew my
school very well, but your article raised some questions to me: Who are
the "preppies" (or 90210's) the "jocks" and the "trenchies"? What's the
name of my group? I think its only fair we have a name too. And since
when is there a "dead zone", a "Korean corner" and a "Chinatown"? I've
never heard this. All I see when I look around my school are people
hanging out with their friends with similar interests. I've never felt
I was below any of them or scared of them either.
I am sure there is tension between some people. But not how your
article made it out to be. You don't see these groups staring each
other down in the hall and hating each other because one wears
Abercrombie & Fitch and the others wear trenchcoats. Your clothing
doesn't make you who you are. I thought that was the message we were
always taught as children. There are mean people in every single group
in my school. They're just like that; not because they wear
trenchcoats, not because they play sports, and not because they're
nerds. But in every single part of life you'll find that. Not just
Paint Branch High School. Luckily the majority of people are nice,
friendly, or at least indifferent.
I was very upset at something else about your article, the fact that you
briefly mentioned the other "cliques". Wasn't this article about
cliques? Or was supposed to paint the picture of a school filled with
shallow hatred? So little of the school was misrepresented. It seems
you must have come in with an angle and only gotten quotes that would
fit that angle. Why weren't there quotes in there from kids who get
along with everyone? I know they're out there, I am one of them. Also,
I know many people (including myself) who do not distinguish
themselves, and cannot be distinguished by others, with a certain
group. Who are these people? It's only fair they have a name too.
Another worry this article brought was that parents of middle and
elementary school children are going to pick up their newspaper and read
the front page and say, "That's it, my kids are definitely NOT going to
Paint Branch High School!" I think that is very unfair. Paint Branch
is a wonderful place to go to school. I've always felt safe and
secure. Plus the academics are stellar. No one should be worried to
send their children to school because of a sensational article that
depicted everyday life at my school completely blown out of proportion.
And here's his email in response:
Dear Julia:
Thank you for taking the time to write and comment on my story today. Your
articulate your concerns very well. Let me try to address them.
I spent a lot of time at Paint Branch over the past week, and managed to
talk to more than 40 students, teachers, counselors and administrators. I
was repeatedly told about the distinct groups of friends at the school, and
then sought them out and interviewed them myself. Keep in mind that many of
these groups don't call themselves by these names, but are labeled that way
by others (as I noted in the story). This could explain why you haven't
heard of them; you may travel in circles that do not apply such labels.
It was certainly not my intention to make the school look bad. On the
contrary, Paint Branch struck me and my colleagues as a fairly typical high
school in this area with a lot of different groups that usually get along
quite well with each other. Some of that has changed in the days since the
shooting at Columbine, and that is what the story sought to capture (If you
don't agree, I would encourage you to discuss this matter with counselors
or administrators.) I have received dozens of e-mails today from people as
far away as Berkeley, Calif, that have said Paint Branch seems like a
well-adjusted school that behaves much like schools in others parts of the
country. Many of the letters I received applauded the school and its
students for tolerance.
Keep in mind, please, that I came to these conclusions through numerous
interviews. I did not make them up (indeed, I wouldn't know where to
begin). It is heartening to find someone such as yourself that takes such
pride in their school. After spending a few days there it occurs to me that
you have every reason to be proud of Paint Branch.
Thanks again for your comments. They are very useful.
Best regards,
Scott
Well, that was an exciting experience. But I plan on writing a ton more letters.
