News

Avi Cantor

Staff Writer

For years, The School District of Philadelphia has teamed up with an organization called “Eat.Right.Now”, whose vision is to “end hunger and improve nutrition and health.”

This year, they came to Science Leadership Academy for the first time but their agenda didn’t exactly go as planned.

During one week’s program, advisories were given plain bags of arugula.

At first, members of the Estey advisory thought that this was a weak attempt for Mr. Estey to provide his advisory snacks. This would’ve made sense because many students had complained that they wanted snacks in advisory.

“Mr. Estey, you brought us grass!” Sophomore student Raymond Rochester exclaimed when he saw the bag of limp arugula sitting on a table.

Students later learned that many other advisories had received bags of arugula as well. They learned that the Eat.Right.Now initiative had supplied SLA with those bags, which left students confused. For an initiative that boasts a fifteen year run of “providing nutrition education for a healthier future”, their best idea was bags of plain arugula?

Interestingly, a development in Philadelphia gave SLA some answers about the different angles to Eat.Right.Now’s programming. The high school program is managed by Allison Haughney, a program manager for the Eat.Right.Now initiative, who works in the Department of Nutritional Science at Drexel University. However, there is a more complex version of the program run by ten full-time teachers for elementary school students. These teachers have worked with the Eat.Right.Now initiative for 15 years and helped build a strong foundation for the program.

What’s more, The Eat.Right.Now initiative’s ten full-time employees have recently been forced to write up a petition to the School District of Philadelphia to keep their jobs. The ten employees would be replaced by fourteen employees who would be paid less. The school district is vying to replace the ten employees because it would save money. The replacement employees would cost less to pay because they’d only work part time. According to a petition from the ten existing employees, tearing them away from the program would “take away all the experience, expertise, and the long, successful relationships built over many years with students, school staff members, and the communities they serve.” They are asking the school district to “keep our experienced, excellent nutrition educators and keep the Eat Right Now program a success in so many of our schools.”

If this were to happen, the Eat.Right.Now initiative would much less successful than it has these last 15 years. Even though SLA seemed to get the short end of the stick with the initiative, other schools benefit heavily from this program, especially for lower income students. The initiative provides students with healthy recipes on their website for food that students can cook at home, school trips to farms, a program called ‘Eat the Alphabet’ that every week for 28 weeks allows them to “learn about a new healthy food that corresponds with a letter of the alphabet.”

With the Eat The Alphabet program, “Students practice writing the letter, do a craft focused on the food they are learning about and will be able to taste a sample of the food that they are learning about as they make their way through the alphabet.”

Even though SLA students were not impressed with the high school version of the program, this program is popular among  younger students and has made a strong impact on public schools around Philadelphia. Sign the petition here to keep the Eat.Right.Now initiative as influential and successful as possible.

 

by Maddi Extebeste

Staff Writer

On January 21st,  2017 the “Women’s March” took place in Washington D.C. After the success of this event, the same organizers coordinated the “A Day Without a Woman” event in Philadelphia, which would take place on March 8th 2017, for the same purposes as the previous event: promoting solidarity and liberty. As Technology and Art teacher Marcie Hull said “this events represents human rights from birth, that everyone is born free.”

On the day of the event, the female teachers first met outside of school and stood in front of the main door holding a banner which manifested their support of human rights (especially women’s rights) and solidarity.After the school day started, female teachers went to to English and Creative Writing teacher Amal Giknis’ house, to do research and talk about the points there were presenting at their meeting at City Hall in the afternoon.

Once at City Hall, they met politicians who worked there, and had meetings with the city council to ask more fundings and present the points they wanted to talk about. Each teacher went with the person who represented their neighborhood.

 

Government and administration

The event was partially in response to an expected decrease in federal education funding, which will negatively affected schools in Philadelphia, especially for the children who don’t have many economic resources

As Senior Fatu Castillo stated, “it’s something has been taken to the people who needs it the most.”

The new Secretary  of Education, Betsy DeVos, doesn’t really believe in public schools, and sees them as a waste of money. The policy is that schools should have a certain percentage of progress to keep working, and for example public schools which not meet those expectations could be shut down, or turned into a private or charter school.

Ms. Hull explained: “What if the school can’t progress much more because it has already very good results? This law would be a rule against success.”

She also explained that education could be the “easy-target” for the government because 75% of the teachers are actually women, and that America society doesn’t value women’s jobs as much as they do male’s jobs; Hull added “the government has a too patriarchal reasoning yet; the society wants to continue what Obama and others pioneered, but they don’t let it progress.”

English and Journalism teacher Larissa Pahomov explained “the biggest factor is money, but the government should provide equal funding to all the different departments like law enforcement and the streets’ departments.”

For example, teachers’ salary hasn’t increased in four years. Before these economic “cuts” in education in 2012, SLA had almost twice as many Spanish teachers and a librarian. The lack of languages teachers is one of the reasons why Rosetta Stone program was introduced.

In the summer 2012, all secretaries and counselors at SLA were fired, like 4,000 more people working for the SDP, and didn’t know if they were going to get their jobs back the next school year. 

 

Possible Consequences

These events sometimes have consequences for the people who protest. On “A Day Without An Immigrant” some demonstrators got fired., At SLA, male teachers volunteered to cover their peers’ absence. They got to the building early but t they stayed inside  when classes began. The female teachers appreciated this effort on the part of their colleagues.

“I’m lucky for being in this community and in this union which believes in women’s liberation,” said Ms. Hull.

They finally didn’t invite students to join them in their march to the City Hall because one of the purposes was to make students “have a normal day at school,” Hull said.

Moreover, the teachers who went to protest took a personal day, and as the School District of Philadelphia said, “teachers can take personal days for self expression”.

By Lauren Nicolella

Staff Writer

For high school students across America, prom is supposed to be a very exciting and memorable moment. Unfortunately, Science Leadership Academy almost had to cancel this year’s junior prom due to the lack of ticket sales for the event.

As of mid-March, only 20 tickets had been sold, which did not meet the minimum required sales of 75 tickets.

Luckily for the class of 2018, there was a donor who contributed, which lessened the price from $50 a ticket to only $25 a ticket. Details about the donor was have not yet been  revealed.

The prom is going to be held at Galdo’s, a catering and entertainment complex located in South Philly. According to Ms. Pahomov, the venue had raised their overall price for using the space which caused tickets to be fairly expensive.

Health teacher Pia Martin talked about reserving the space: “when you’re working with a catering company, they ask you how many people you’re going to bring. And you usually low-ball that number, because you can always add more, but you can’t take away.”

There were mixed emotions throughout the class from those who wanted to attend, and even those who didn’t care that much.

Junior Deja Harrison had already bought a ticket in advance, having plans to attend the prom. “I was really upset that prom was in danger of being canceled because we were the first class with this problem.”

Junior Mekhi Granby had a different level of interest, but still shared his reaction. “I was shocked, but it didn’t affect me because I had and still have no plans to attend junior prom.”

Some students believe the junior class has a reputation for not having as much school spirit or unity as the rest of the school. Ms. Martin talked about how she noticed this.

“I’m not really sure if there’s one unified reason why. In terms of cohesion, the junior class is a lot of individuals and I think that they value their individuality and so it takes a while for them to gather momentum and say as a unit, ‘we will do something’.”

Deja Harrison added onto this point. “I do agree that we are very low on school spirit. I try to organize things for us to all do together but it never really works out.”

Then there was a mention of a possible prom committee, but the variety of tastes and the lack of a gym for decorating present difficulties to making that a reality. Instead, there could possibly be a change in where prom is held in future years.

Ms. Martin talked about that plan a bit further.

“If people are interested [in a prom committee] I was going to ask to meet with the juniors sometime this year to perhaps look at another place, since we know that Galdo’s is going to be legitimately $50 a person.”

by Maddi Extebeste

Staff Writer

Many Juniors, Seniors, and some Sophomores at SLA know that the school doesn’t own the building and that SLA might  be “moving” in “a few years.” What they may not know is our contract with the owner of the building ends in June 2018. Current sophomores could be the first class graduating in the new building since  this year’s Juniors would be the last class graduating in present SLA.

The Options

Rumors about moving aren’t new; that’s why two other articles have been written in past years (2011 and 2016) about the same topic. Both articles are quite similar, especially in quoting  Co-Principal Chris Lehmann’s answer to the question “what would you do if SLA lost the building?”

Lehmann has consistently presented three different options: renewing our lease, moving to an old school, or buying the building.

SLA buying the full lease of the building with the School District of Philadelphia would $40 million, “which would become cheap in the long run but would be very expensive in the moment”, as Lehmann was quoted in 2011.

Renewing our lease would also be expensive and not permanent at all. The last option, moving to a building which has already hosted a high school, would probably require renovations at a big cost to SLA. One of the options was moving to the empty Vaux High School, but that building has already been sold to Big Picture by the SDP. Although these possibilities are well-known, there is a lot of uncertainty.

For example, Marcie Hull, Technology and Art teacher, said “I don’t really know about which possibilities we have if we move from this building. I don’t even want to know about it because this topic gets me anxious (laughs).”

This year, Lehmann said he didn’t consider the idea of buying the building, but that they’re still having conversation about extending the contract to be able to stay. He also explained that in the case they lose the building, the School District of Philadelphia would try to find another building in Center City or close by.

Changing the location of the school wouldn’t only have economic consequences. Its present location makes commuting more or less balanced, makes it easier for Freshmen to access the Franklin Institute on Wednesday afternoons, and doesn’t favor any specific neighborhood except Center City.

As Junior Mekhi Granby says, “If SLA moves it’s going to be more difficult and longer for students to commute, this also meaning less hours of sleep and less efficiency when they’re working at school.”

Freshmen Opinions

It’s the Freshmen’s first year here so they may not mind moving. As Ms. Hull said, “it’s going to be easier for them, having spent less time here.”

However,  many of them are unaware of the potential move. Freshman Kai Bradley-Gutiérrez de Terán did not have a positive reaction to the news.

“I don’t think this is a good thing because it is really unlikely for the school to find another suitable space in the same area. By our school being in Center City, it allows for kids from all over Philadelphia to have easier commuting and easier access, making this school more diverse” He said. 

“And we shouldn’t forget Freshmen’s Wednesdays at The Franklin Institute. We can get there walking with our peers from SLA but if we move it will also be more difficult to go.”

Which option would impact the community the most?

“If we finally move it is going to be a big change because this building is like our second home”, declared Lehmann.

If SLA Center City moves to another building, it  would also have a big impact on students across grade levels.  Juniors and Seniors know the SLA community well and “it would be devastating for them” according to  Hull.

She also explained her point of view as a staff member who has been there since “the beginning” of the school.

“I don’t really want to move. It is going to be a difficult transition for everybody and a sad loss, but nothing is going to be bad because we’re not going to let that happen. After some months everyone is going to get used to it. It’s neither good nor bad, just different.”

That’s the key word of Hull’s description of that new environment: different.

Lehmann added that, “The SDP understands how important is this building for us, and they also want the best interests for the teachers, students, and families. That’s why they are trying to find a building with similar characteristics or even better so they can be adapted to  our needs. And if it had a gym it would be perfect!”

 

Caroline Pitone

Staff Writer

On Monday, January 9th, the Stand for Racial Unity campaign kicked off at SLA, with students going around to advisory explaining the emphasis of the work.

Sophomore Bronwyn Goldschneider created the organization after thinking about it for six months. She herself is of mixed race — her father is white and her mother is Japanese — and they felt that there wasn’t a way to bring people of different skin colors and backgrounds together.

“My dad and I discovered there was no symbol for racial unity,” Goldschneider explained, so they decided to make one themselves.  

With the help of her friends and her father, who is a photographer, she was able to produce photos of students with of all different races and ethnicities. In the pictures, each person was given a shirt with the racial unity symbol. The stance everybody was placed in, made the photo very eye catching and powerful.

These photos have been floating around the school and on different social media platforms. Not only have these pictures been hung up on the walls of SLA, but it is also easy to spot stickers on the back of computers from students. They have been the talk of students for these past few weeks. Bronwyn and the rest of the crew have been getting noticed for their leadership and recognition for racial unity.

Sophomore Sydney Rogers was one of the students featured in the picture and appreciated the opportunity that the group gave her.

“It means a lot to me,” Rogers explained. “I’ve never been apart of a non profit organization like this. I’m really involved and invested in it.”

After setting up the campaign, Goldschneider chose the Southern Poverty Law Center as the group that would receive the proceeds of any t-shirt or sticker sales.

“They basically monitor all activity hate groups in the us,” Goldschneider explained. “They try to bring the message out that there are still hate groups and to be heard about and changed. Awareness for this is the goal.”

By donating online, you can order a T-Shirt with the racial unity symbol, and also, you are able to purchase stickers that can be put anywhere you would like.