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Restaurant Review: Mix Restaurant & Bar

April 30, 2013 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Jenn Wright and Sam Lovett-Perkins

Staff Writers

There is a certain warmth that attracts us over and over again– because as soon as you walk in it is so hot inside Mix Restaurant & Bar.

This is a weekly haunt on Wednesday afternoons for our friends. We’ve been going to Mix on the regs since freshman year and have let many people in on the not-so-secret spot at 21st and Chestnut.

Sitting outside eating and people watching when it’s warm is a delight, and when it’s not so warm the inside brick oven makes the place positively toasty. On Wednesday afternoons expect plenty of suits, and after-school on weekdays you might see a few in the good-looking neighboring back room bar.

Mix has the multi-purpose of being a pizza place and a ‘real’ restaurant depending on the clientele. If you come here after school with a rowdy group of friends, the fastest and most comfortable way is to order at the counter and then choose your seat. Mix definitely has pasta dishes and sandwiches, but we can speak highly only on their behalf about fries, wings and pizza. We’ve had practically every type of pizza, highlighting the regular buffalo chicken drizzled with hot sauce and bleu cheese or the Hawaiian with pineapple, ham and bacon.

The staff is ghostly at best, but for boisterous high school students this has never been a problem– except if you go in expecting a sit-down meal. There is a certain sense of age-ism when it comes to the quality of service. We have never been offered a menu, not that we wanted one anyway.

So that became the tradition, ordering quid pro quo: they get regular business and we get delicious no fuss pizza and plenty of courtesy cups of water. They never kick us out, but they never talk to us either.

Atmosphere Super hot, the “brick oven” is natural heating

Service Not super attentive, expect to have to signal or ask for attention

Sound Level Lively between lunch and 4, quieter during early dinner

Recommended pizza and wings, any kind

Prices fair but worth it, 2 specialty pizza slices and a soda: $10

Open M-Th lunch to 10pm Fr-Sa lunch to 11:30 Su 10-10

Michael Dell visits SLA

April 26, 2013 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Jesús Jiménez

Staff Writer

Through the SLA-TFI partnership, Founder and CEO Michael Dell of Dell Inc. came to speak to juniors and seniors on Thursday, April 25th.

Mr. Dell was in Philadelphia to receive the Bower Award for Business Leadership. Every year, The Franklin Institute gives this award to an individual who has revolutionized their field of work and has been an active philanthropist.

In the days prior to the event, news spread around the community that a special guest would visit the school this week.

Franklin Institute Liaison Luke Van Meter was excited for Michael Dell’s arrival, although the details of his visit were kept under wraps until the day of the event.

SLA’s current seniors might remember when the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, came on a similar visit in 2010. Gates was toured around the school and eventually spoke with students about a variety of topics at the end of the day. This time around, Mr. Dell visited an Engineering class and then addressed the upperclass half of the SLA student body in the cafe. Students asked Dell about his company and had a lot of questions regarding the evolution of his company through his career.

Dell was very elaborate with his answers, as he covered the work he did in his college dorm over 20 years ago, to the work he does in his office today.

When questions were over, Principal Chris Lehmann gifted Michael Dell an official SLA lab coat, a tradition that has been done for every guest speaker who comes to our school.

“You’re invited back anytime,” said Lehmann as he handed over the coat to Dell’s hands.

Student reactions to the visit were mixed. Senior Matt Rinaldi told SLAMedia that “It didn’t seem like he cared, I understand that he has things to do, places to be, but it seemed like he didn’t want to be here.”

Senior Annisa Ahmed had a more positive outlook. “Seeing Michael Dell … made me think that SLA is starting to become more acknowledged in the fields of STEM that the school is trying to promote to us.”

Locker Talk: What college are you going to and why?

April 25, 2013 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

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"I really want to go to Colorado, but I also got accepted to Madrid, which would be cool because I could continue my Spanish learning." -Senior Sasha Sapp

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"Lebanon Valley College. I fell in love with the school once I started really looking at it and it's really similar to SLA." -Senior Mecca Sharrieff

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"Temple, and I'll probably row for them!" -Senior Imani

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"I'm going to take a gap year." -Senior Mohamed Marzouk

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"U Penn for me" -Senior Shamarlon Yates "I got wait listed at Georgia Tech, but if I get in there then I'll go. If not, Penn State." -Senior Winston Wright

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"I really want to go to Colorado, but I also got accepted to Madrid, which would be cool because I could continue my Spanish learning." -Senior Sasha Sapp — “I really want to go to Colorado, but I also got accepted to Madrid, which would be cool because I could continue my Spanish learning.” -Senior Sasha Sapp

"I'm going to take a gap year." -Senior Mohamed Marzouk — “I’m going to take a gap year.” -Senior Mohamed Marzouk

"Temple, and I'll probably row for them!" -Senior Imani — “Temple, and I’ll probably row for them!” -Senior Imani

"U Penn for me" -Senior Shamarlon Yates"I got wait listed at Georgia Tech, but if I get in there then I'll go. If not, Penn State." -Senior Winston Wright — “U Penn for me” -Senior Shamarlon Yates
“I got wait listed at Georgia Tech, but if I get in there then I’ll go. If not, Penn State.” -Senior Winston Wright

"Lebanon Valley College. I fell in love with the school once I started really looking at it and it's really similar to SLA." -Senior Mecca Sharrieff — “Lebanon Valley College. I fell in love with the school once I started really looking at it and it’s really similar to SLA.” -Senior Mecca Sharrieff

SLA Plans Expansion for Next Fall

April 24, 2013 by lpahomov 3 Comments

By Jenn Wright

Staff Writer

Starting in September 2013, Science Leadership Academy is set to increase its student body from 500 to 625 on a new campus.

Beeber Middle School, the new campus of SLAPhoto courtesy: phila.sd.org — Beeber Middle School, the new campus of SLA
Photo courtesy: phila.sd.org

That’s just the beginning of a major venture to create a second campus of SLA, located at Beeber Middle School in the Wynnefield neighborhood of the city.

The new campus will begin the same way SLA began, first with only freshmen, and then adding students each year.

Beeber Middle School, which currently only occupies a part of their building and was recently removed from the district’s potential closure list, will share the space with SLA.

Principal Chris Lehmann said, “This represents an amazing moment in time for the school district to put a stake in the ground and say these are the kinds of schools we value.”

For all intents and purposes, SLA-Beeber will function in the same way that SLA does now by maintaining the pedagogy that makes for the unique environment. The process for admission will also remain the same, with one central interview process to attend school at either building.

For next year, the freshman class of the SLA-Beeber campus will consist of students who are currently on the waiting list to join the class of 2017. The faculty will be completely new as well.

This announcement comes in the wake of the bleak budget announced by the Philadelphia School District last Thursday, as well as the scheduled closure of 24 district schools at the end of this year.

SLA-Beeber won’t have any extra start-up money from the District, but the expansion is being supported by a 1.9 million grant from the Philadelphia School Partnership. The grant will allow the school expansion to begin with a new faculty, but revised from original projections.

“In a perfect world,” Principal Lehmann said, “we wouldn’t be doing this a time when we had such budgetary challenges, but at the same time that doesn’t change the fact that there are literally hundreds of children who wanted spaces that we could not offer.”

SLA is one of three schools receiving a total of 6 million in grants from PSP for next year. The other schools are Hill Freedman Middle School, expanding as a high school, and The Workshop School, an expansion of a project-based alternative senior year program called Sustainability Workshop.

The Philadelphia School Partnership’s press release said they, “selected the schools for investment after a thorough due diligence process focused on academic outcomes, leadership quality, and capacity for growth.”

This is the first time PSP is working with schools in the Philadelphia School District, formerly only investing in charter and parochial schools

As for the partnership with The Franklin Institute, Principal Lehmann told SLAMedia that “both schools will see a change in the way we do Wednesdays at the Franklin.” He spoke of TFI’s excitement and their enthusiasm in seeing the reach of SLA expanding.

Other opportunities to collaborate and still be unified as one Science Leadership Academy take shape using the technology SLA students are familiar with, like sharing things over Moodle and potentially doing joint projects.

This expansion has not yet been revealed to current students at SLA, but Principal Lehmann anticipates that they will be excited — especially by the fact that SLA will now have a home gym to play in at SLA-Beeber.

Extracurricular Worship, Part Three of Three: An Interview with Jasmin Hussain

April 23, 2013 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Jacob Lotkowski

Staff Writer

This interview is a part three of a three part personal interview series on what religion means to students in our school. This series sets out to answer what role religion plays in our lives and if how we think about religion has changed as we have grown through grade school and moved onto high school.

Jacob Lotkowski: What religion were you raised as?

Jasmin Hussain: Muslim–I think we’re called the Sunni Muslims. A lot of Asian countries are Sunni and the Middle East is divided–some are Sunni and some Sheiite–but I’m a Sunni. We follow the prophet Muhammad.

JL: How Strong are your families beliefs?

JH: On a scale–like eight or nine.

JL: What was that like growing up?

JH: Growing up I had a lot of freedom actually. There are a lot of holidays involved with bring a Muslim. There’s Ramadan which is like fasting, then we get to eat after–which is my favorite part.

JL: Do you still feel a connection to your religion?

JH: Yes definitely.

JL: How have your feelings about your religion changed?

JH: When I was younger I took Arabic classes and tried to read the Qur’an. I was brought up in a Bangladeshi culture so we would read it and later we would learn translations. As a kid I didn’t know what I was reading, but as I got older I wanted to know what I was reading so I started looking up the meaning behind the texts so that’s what has changed.

JL: What are some customs of your religion that you want people to know about?

JH: We pray 5 times a day. There is one month of fasting that goes by the lunar calendar, so it changes. At the end there is a holiday–it marks the end of Ramadan. Then there’s the Hajj which is in Mecca. I’ve never done it–I’ve gone to mecca when I was little but never participated. Then there’s charity which is a principal of the religion.