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SLA Deals With Budget Cuts

May 10, 2013 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Nomi Martin-Brouillette

Staff Writer

April 18th, the School District of Philadelphia announced all school budgets for the 2013-2014 school year. The SLA budget was cut by about 23%, or $700,000.

This could mean the loss of up to 10 staff members, no after school sports, no Engineering program, no Digital Video classes, no Computer Science classes, and a downsizing of Calculus and Statistics.

It could mean that all Spanish classes would be online, all upper level drama would be cut, and there would be no college counseling.

“This is going to take everyone at SLA to be incredibly creative and incredibly flexible to get through this.” said Principal Chris Lehmann. “This is not a manufactured crisis, this is real.”

On Tuesday, April 30, SLA held an emergency Home and School meeting about the cuts to our schools budget. Mr. Lehmann assured the audience that if any teachers were laid off, they would go to teach at SLA-Beeber, guaranteeing that everyone would have a job.

“One way or another there is money to make sure that each SLA teacher has a place to teach at SLA.” say’s Lehmann. “We are just not sure which campus.”

So what will the SLA community do in the face of these budget cuts? Something the community is very familiar with: fundraising.

The Home and School Association will be fundraising among families, Mr. Lehmann will collecting grants and private donations, and a new Drexel summer teaching institute will all help SLA attempt to close the gap.

Mr. Lehmann also started a petition online “to try to get all the sports team to fund the athletics program.” The goal is to get professional sports teams in Philadelphia to fund the school districts after school sports programs.

SLA is also organizing to speak up about the budget cuts and demand that city and state sources provide additional funding.

Pennsylvania is 1 of 3 states that doesn’t have a funding formula, allowing these kinds of cuts to the budget to happen. Last year, The School District of Philadelphia borrowed $300 million so the budget didn’t have to be cut, but this year, with the district in increasing debt, no money is being borrowed.

“To continue to borrow money just would continue to put the district on the path to bankruptcy.” said District Superintendent Dr. William Hite.

The next SLA Home and School meeting about the budget will happen May 21st, all are invited to attend.

Restaurant Review: Crumbs

May 8, 2013 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Leah Kelly and Nomi Martin-Brouillette

Staff Writers

Stumbling upon Crumbs was one of the best discoveries that we have ever made on a Wednesday afternoon prior to our ILP.

Located on 18th Street near Rittenhouse Square, this hip, colorful cupcake bakery has become a favorite of ours. With over twenty different cupcake options as well as cake pops, Crumbs is sure to be able to satisfy your sweet tooth cravings.

Favorite cupcakes include their Red Velvet cupcake with thick cream cheese frosting, “Happy Birthday” which consists of vanilla cake, vanilla frosting, rainbow sprinkles and a thick buttercream filling and “Cookies and Cream”, which is a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting mixed with Oreo crumbs and topped with an Oreo cookie. If those don’t make your mouth water, then I don’t know what will.

Another positive aspect about this bakery is the atmosphere. When you walk in, they greet you with a smile and a hello and ask how they may help. With very pleasing decor and a great background music level, your entire experience at Crumbs is sure to be an incredible one.

Atmosphere: Friendly, bright and a good temperature

Service: Ready to help, makes good suggestions about cupcake flavors

Sound Level: Quiet, with good background music

Recommended: Red Velvet, Happy Birthday, Cookies and Cream, Mint Chocolate Chip

Prices: A little pricey, $4 per cupcake, although the cupcakes are huge (bigger than my fist) and filling

Open: Mon-Thurs: 8am-7pm, Fri-Sat: 8am-9pm, Sunday: 10am-7pm

Philadelphia Students Protest Against School Budget Cuts

May 8, 2013 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Sam Lovett-Perkins

Staff Writer

Students of the Philadelphia School District spoke out against the proposed extracurricular cuts for the 2013-2014 school year by leading marches from their respective schools to the District building at 440 North Broad Street at 4:30 PM this afternoon.

The marches were in observance of Teacher Appreciation Day. “There is no teachers involve, there’s already a rally for teachers–this is a student-led protest,” CAPA Junior and co-organizer Teyin Tseng maintained.

Feeling that there isn’t enough representation from students, organizers aimed to raise awareness within the student body by showing the public that they take the budget cuts personally all in hopes of attracting the attention of Harrisburg.

The march was a result of a discussion between CAPA students Gregory Coleman, Maureen Smith, and Teyin Tseng in the wake of CAPA being unable to fund their annual musical.

By use of social networking, the three expanded their reach to find leaders who could rally students at each school. What resulted was a Facebook campaign that involved students from CAPA, Central, Masterman, Furness, Delaware Valley High School, Upper Darby, Palumbo, Bodine, and SLA.

The proposed cuts by the District include Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett cutting public education funding and a $300 million deficit for the Philadelphia public school system. Multiple teachers, counseling staff, and nursing staff are to be laid off as well as the cutting of afterschool sports, arts and music clubs, which would have a immense impact on many students’ school experience.

“It’s like the school district is telling students that becoming a musician or an artist is less important than becoming a doctor or a lawyer,” said J.R. Masterman representative Anea Moore, “Some students only come to school for sports, art, and music.”

SLA’s voice on the matter was less vocal at the onset as there was no formal representative at SLA to communicate with other organizers.

Sophmore Nikki Adeli believes in fighting the budget cuts but doesn’t agree with this course of action, wondering, “What is the point [of the march]? Yes, the district knows that no one likes these cuts, no one does,” noting that if students wanted to fight the cuts they should sign SLA Principle Chris Lehmann’s petition that would ask local sports teams to help keep school athletic programs active.

“The protest today showed a strong sense of purpose, unity, communication, organization and passion in the youth of Philadelphia, ” said Freshman Leo Levy, who managed to tell his story publicly at the rally about SLA’s school nurse who spends her time tending to three different high schools. “The plethora of represented schools showed how this threat is being felt across the entire city, and even outside.”

The protest has galvanized Philadelphia youth, as rumors of a walkout on Thursday May 9^thstart to arise. The supposed walkouts are, however, not supported or affiliated with the organizers of the 440 March.

More is to be expected as Central High School representative Afaq Mahmoud told SLAMedia, “Plans are already going underway,” but noting they are unassociated with Thursday’s rumored walkout.

A Broad Street Play-by-Play

May 7, 2013 by lpahomov 1 Comment

Broad Street Run Play-by-Play from SLA Media on Vimeo.

By DeShawn McLeod

Staff Writer

Broad Street on May 5, 2013 was surreal.

We had to be at school by 6:30 AM if we wanted to get a bus ride to the starting line. I

Start of the race. Photo Cred; DeShawn McLeod

accidentally woke up at 5:57 AM. Wonderful morning, right?

Once everything was situated and the bus nearly came, I realized I didn’t have my knee brace. Wonderful morning example #2.

My corral started at 8:50 and we were off! I remember seeing City Hall from Broad and Olney and I imagined how long it

would take to get there.

Me and my running buddy Dejah Harley agreed to keep the same pace. We got to Temple Hospital and soon we reached Broad and Cecile B. Moore. There was a parade of bystanders, Temple Owls, cheerleaders, bandmates, and football players cheering us on. That was between miles 3 and 4.

Once we got to mile 5, there were hundreds of people out supporting us. The water-givers were cheering, the spectators were cheering, and even the runners themselves were

cheering from all the hype.

And then we got to City Hall. I couldn’t believe it.

Once we were on our way to South Philly, things started to look up hill. (Well, downhill, because the whole course was literally all downhill.) My legs weren’t hurting and my knee was doing just fine.

But then we hit mile 8, and that’s when the soreness started to kick in – everywhere. My partner and I kept the same pace and felt the same pain.

To get me through, I remembered practice. We had two miles left and I just reminisced about running to Lloyd hall and back during after-school runs at SLA.

Mile 9! Once I saw that we had half a mile left, I pictured myself running from Lloyd Hall to the Viking Statue. I was thinking in my head… the finish line is not far away.

When the Navy Yard sign confronted us, we knew we had just a quarter mile before we

After the race, with friends. (Left to right.) Daniel Varnis, DeShawn McLeod, Dejah Harley, Ellen To, Vannary Kom. Photo Cred; Aaron Tang

were able to stop. Dejah grabbed my hand and we jogged the last bit in stride with each other. Then we saw our coach, Internship Coordinator Jeremy Spry. He had already finished, so he jumped the fence and grabbed my friend’s other hand and picked up the pace and we crossed the finish line hand-in-hand.

“Was that the hardest thing you ever had to do?” Spry said.

Breathless we responded, “Yes.”

I want to give a shout-out my running partner and friend, Dejah Harley for keeping the pace and going farther than ever before.

App Review: Candy Crush

May 7, 2013 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Sam Lovett-Perkins

Staff Writer

Recently smart phone and tablet users have been indulging their electronic sweet tooth with the addicting and multicolored entertainment app: Candy Crush Saga by King.com.

Commonly referred to as just Candy Crush, the game is a Bejeweled-style matching game where lines, of three or more, similar colored candies must be made by switching positions of one with another on a grid board.

This style of gaming is not a new one, most notably seen in Bejeweled, but what sets it apart is the addition of “special candies” that act as bonuses and that each level could have one of many different tasks required to beat the level.

Like many apps, if you haven’t downloaded it–a friend surely has and its popularity is singularly passed around by touch of finger. Before I downloaded this app I was well aware of its addictive qualities, but it wasn’t until I had played for an hour and a half in bed did I fully realize what a monster I had let into my life. Luckily for each failed attempt at a level, one loses a life that is only regained by waiting an aggravating 20 minutes.

In truth I’d say it is a very addicting game, but after about an hour and a half I have to say it isn’t necessarily fun. There is a certain overwhelming frustration when you only have 5 more moves left and you know you have no chance of winning the level. It only gets more infuriating when you have to keep looking at the happy go lucky characters in the game smiling at your repeated failure.

Senior Callie Monroe holds a similar opinion. “On the first day I’d give it a 10 out of 10, but by day 5 I’d give it a 4 out of 10, I had to delete it because I got so frustrated.”

Meanwhile on the opposite side of the spectrum Physics and Spanish Teaching Assistant Mr. Gray is an avid Candy Crusher. “It’s a really fun game, it’s addictive”.

It is clear to me that this game is for those with a little too much time on their hands, and should be avoided by those wishing to be productive.

Play at your own risk, the initial sugar rush to complete all the levels fades fast leading into an infuriating crash.