Avi Cantor

Cold Hands and Warm Talents

December 6, 2017 by Avi Cantor Leave a Comment

Amelia Benamara

Staff Writer

Science Leadership Academy will kick off 2018 with a new tradition: a winter concert organized by Digital Video Teacher Anna Walker-Roberts and Biochemistry Teacher Steph Sessa.

Sophomore Grace Conley shared her opinions on the concert as a performer, “I was motivated to join because

I’ve been looking for an opportunity to practice performing in front of

others and this is a perfect time. I’m excited to see it through!”

Conley’s goals for the concert are to gain more experience and confidence in performing, forge a tighter bond with her peers and of course, to have fun. However, she sees the benefit that the concert brings to others saying:

“I think the concert will give SLA a platform for its many talented students to express themselves musically. [She hopes this can] open a door for SLA to start having more events like this to showcase the students’ skills.”

After years without an opportunity for members of the SLA community to display their talents, the teachers wanted to

give the students an outlet to exhibit their abilities. The idea to have a concert was originally thought up by Digital Video and Photography teacher, Anna Walker-Roberts.

Ms. Walker-Roberts was initially inspired by the amount of musical talent she sees on a daily basis.

“My classroom is right by the music room so I hear kids playing a lot. I have Senior Lyle Seitz, Senior Gabriel Garcia-Leeds, and Senior Nat Hilton, who are all in a band. They have been playing their music for me,” Walker-Roberts explained.

Walker-Roberts has also gotten the chance to hear music made by seniors Opoku Kwateng and Christian McCormac who are in her Digital Video class. Both seniors create rap music, Kwateng a producer and McCormac a rapper, and she loves it. “Just hearing people’s stuff they have been making, I have been like oh my god, we have really good musicians here and why is there not enough music performances happening!”

Ms. Walker-Roberts is a perfect person to spearhead this concert given the fact that she has experience with the arts and music.

“When I was in high school I was in Jazz bands and I did musical theatre. Then in college, I received my masters in producing arts and business type of stuff,” Ms. Roberts explained. She then emphasized how much she enjoys putting on events like this in order to give students an opportunity to show their craft to a broader peer group. However, the Dig Vid and Photo teacher isn’t the only one involved in the organization of this event.

Biochemistry teacher Steph Sessa has experience in the arts as well. In 2017, Sessa held an acapella workshop for SLA’s mini-course program, Week Without Walls.

While an exact date for the concert is not yet set, the winter concert to take place on a Thursday night at the end of January or early February.

The First Unitarian Church, located at 2125 Chestnut Street is where the event will be held due to the generous donation of space from the church.

Admission will be free, with an optional, suggested donation that will fund the Home and School Association.

The main goal, however, is to bring people together.

“I would never keep anyone away from coming to the concert because they’re like, ‘I don’t have enough money to pay for this,’” Ms. Walker-Roberts stated.

Whether it’s tomorrow or on the first day before break, look out for flyers and announcements in the advisory memos for any information on the winter concert and make sure to mark your calendars and save the date!

Responses from the candidates for Treasurer

November 3, 2017 by Avi Cantor Leave a Comment

Questions organized by Staff Writer Avi Cantor

This survey was created by SLA Media in order for the students of Science Leadership Academy to be informed about who their presidential candidates are and what they represent. We decided not to endorse certain candidates in order to provide the students unbiased information about the people who have the potential to change the SLA community.

NOTE: This survey had a maximum of 50 words FOR ALL ANSWERS. Any other words were deleted. These responses are in order of who responded to the survey first. These answers were not spellchecked and therefore any spelling or punctuation errors that occur in this article are a product of the candidates.

Gregory Tasik

Junior

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“I want to figure out the financial situation of SLA. Why is it so hard to have grade – wide events? School trips? How much of an impact are the bake sales having? As treasurer I want to figure out what is the best way for our school to maximize our financials.”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“I recognize that the way SLA was created allows students to have a direct line of communication with any of the adults in the administration. My job is to not mess up this system, but to essentially be an outspoken student and set a precedent for future student government positions.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

“Moving to Ben Franklin will open many doors of opportunity for SLA, one being the financials. I will identify the current financials of our school and from there we can figure out what methods should, and should not be brought over to Ben Franklin.”

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“The SLA core value that I identify most with is inquiry. If you were to ask anyone that is close to me, they would tell you that I am always asking questions. Whether it be in or out of the classroom, I want to know how and why things work.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“As a candidate, my weakness is realizing you cannot please everybody. When dealing with large group of people, there will be conflicting viewpoints and I realize I will have to take a stance and stand firm with it. It will be my job to find some middle ground.”

Cynthia To

Junior

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“The first thing I think of when asked what matters to SLA is making the students feel comfortable. That being able to secure my school financially, so we would be able to do enjoyable and bonding activities is the most important idea on my agenda.”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“I will make my job meaningful by managing finances and developing fun ways to fundraise for our school. Most importantly to use the money wisely for our school. Also thinking of the student body first before making any rash decisions.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

“For SLA to share buildings with Ben Franklin, it seems as I SLA is not going to be the same anymore. That case is wrong, I strive to make more traditions and to allow the lower classmen to feel that SLA is still their own and unique place.”

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“The one core value I identify myself with the most is collaboration. I like working as a group because in that way we are able to come up with more ideas and have more opinions in planning activities that fit and unfit for the school.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“My weakness as a candidate is being a perfectionist because I like to have everything to be right and organize. I feel that even though I completed something for the school, it doesn’t stop me from striving for better things to achieve for the school.”

Ariana Flores

Junior

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“My main concern is creating and collaborating with others to make original ideas for fundraising that incorporate the SLA community in a fun and productive way.”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“I feel that because I am a dedicated researcher and use my time wisely, this will help put fundraising ideas into motion sooner rather than later. That way students can look forward to and reap the benefits of the events to come.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

“I plan to make a document of ideas (used and unused) from students and myself to possibly be used in the years to come. Just because the move does not affect me, does not mean that I won’t share fun and profitable ideas to help future students.”

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“I feel as though I identify with reflection the most because you can give proclamations or even put your ideas into action. However, I would feel the need to step back to see what I could have done better and the students’ responses to my actions.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“I feel that my weakness as a candidate is that I don’t necessarily have experience dealing with any finances. However, that does not mean that if I’m elected, I won’t fulfill the role to the best of my abilities.”

Responses from the Vice Presidential Candidates

November 3, 2017 by Avi Cantor Leave a Comment

Questions organized by Staff Writer Avi Cantor

Laila Kerbag

Sophomore

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“The most important thing on my agenda is to give the students a voice for once. My partner, Assirem, and I went around asking students from different grades what type of changes or improvements they would like to see here at SLA.”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“I hope to make such an impression that the students here at SLA would never have to say they regret voting for me or that they do not notice a difference in the school. Student Government will be my number one priority.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“I identify most with collaboration because I believe the only thing I know is that I do not know everything. Working with others and combining ideas in order to create something bigger than all of us is truly something remarkable.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“My one weakness would be time, my schedule lately has been full but I plan on quitting my job if I win the election because like I said before, this job will be my number one priority.”

Naima Debrest

Junior

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“We already know that SLA has a very open environment and student voice. In our campaign we would like to accelerate the students wants and give them a platform to make changes themselves. We would also like to make the relationship with the students of Ben Franklin the best that it can be.”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“I will make it meaningful by advocating for student needs and making students feel that there opinion and want matter and that my team and I will do anything we can to work with them to be the best student that they can be in this environment.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

“I will help with the bridge between students. Tamir and I will try to organize events with the current 10th and 9th graders so they will feel more comfortable with the environment of their new sister school. We will also try to plan social events with the two schools.”

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“I think that I identify the most with the core value of inquiry. I love to find out the answer to question and love learning. I was even voted “Most Inquisitive” in middle school. If a student has a question, as vice president I will do everything in my power to answer that question.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“I think that my one weakness will be making too many promises. I know that as vice president I will want to please the students at SLA and make them know that I care about their desires in the school, but because of certain reason those desires might not always be able to be met.”

Responses from the Presidential Candidates

October 31, 2017 by Avi Cantor Leave a Comment

Questions organized by Staff Writer Avi Cantor

NOTE: This survey had a maximum of 50 words FOR ALL ANSWERS. Any other words were deleted. These responses are in order of who responded to the survey first. These answers were not spellchecked and therefore any spelling or punctuation errors that occur in this article are a product of the candidates.

Horace Ryans

Sophomore

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“Making our students voices heard. There are issues in our school that go unheard. As student we shouldn’t rely on teachers to relay our message when we are fully capable on doing it ourselves. We have voices, they deserved to be heard.”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“I’ll make my job as president meaningful by creating the most change while I hold my position. I will make myself available for all my students because I will be the conduit for their problems taking, amplifying their voices, and getting the job done.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

“I actually am on the student representative team for the move to Ben Franklin so fortunately I have access to the input of my fellow students. Taking a step down and focusing locally on SLA can help me further understand what my student need to make this move better.”

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“I identify most with inquiry. My personal philosophy is, how can this be better? There is always room for improvement especially in our schools. I’ll continue to ask questions until I am satisfied with the answers.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“My biggest weakest as candidate is me being a sophomore. People tend to overlook the fact that I have experience in leadership that goes unnoticed because I am younger than other candidates. “

Kwan Hopkins

Junior

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“While all the issues I plan to address are important to me, my VP candidate and everyone at SLA, the one I’m most eager to address is the creation of an anonymous staff grading/complaint system. When staff isn’t working for students, it’s the government’s job to step in.”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“To make my job meaningful, I plan to bring my strong voice, persistence, and dedication to the office. This job needs someone who is willing to put themselves on the line to push their agenda. That’s what’ll make the position meaningful and that’s the candidate I intend to be.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

“Like many SLA students, I’m saddened by the move. As president, I want to attend every meeting regarding our move and poll student opinion often. It’s both the job of the administration and the government to make this transition as smooth as possible and to make everyone comfortable.”

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“Not just as a candidate, but as a person, I believe I most identify with our core value of collaboration. Everyone should be honing their ability to collaborate. As a presidential candidate, it is my responsibility to be able to work with others to get things done for our community.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“I’ll be honest: I speak my mind when I see a problem or see something unfair. Often, to my own detriment. It’s just really hard for me to hold my tongue when I see things like lying, hypocrisy, or something that’s downright absurd. This can get me into trouble.”

Andrew Rodebaugh

Junior

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“Trying to get recycling to the school, better lunch line system, community events, a better, and more clear way to get more clubs, and bring the library back (student run… gonna do a book drive soon).”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“I am going to try to make a great community impact and get the advisory leaders to help me make policies to help the school. We already made some connections with some people running.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

“As I said we will be coordinating with the home and school to see what they need for the move if it is funding or events to help the move.”

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“Collaboration because I could not do this on my own without my brother Jonathan Rodebaugh and obviously my Vice President Chloe Hart who actually convinced me to run in the first place.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“I am not that known throughout the school and I hide away in the engineering room so it may really hurt me on my way to try to win but I will try to do a town hall to get people to know me.”

Assirem Hosni

Sophomore

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“To start off there’s many things that need to get addressed and changed at SLA. Although there are some very significant ideas that should matter, these are Student Voice, student value and student appreciation.”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“I have got a plethora of ideas from student themselves. My partner and I have personally went and asked students what they want to see done and changed at SLA. Your ideas are what Laila and I are fighting for.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

I am currently a sophomore, this meaning i will be the first graduating class of Ben Franklin. I am adopting ideas from SLA and also partnership with ben franklin students, and then collide ideas.

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“Out of the five core values, one that i can identify with as a candidate would be collaboration for sure. I believe nothing can flow swiftly in a group of people with many different beliefs, perspectives , identities raising to achieve goal without collaboration.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“A weakness that I posses is that i’m a little too much of an overachiever and perfectionist.”

Tamir Harper

Senior

Give a brief overview of the most important idea on your agenda. What matters at SLA?

“The most important I think is school store hours even when parents are not able to have a representative at the store. I will work with SLA Home and School to see how we can have student government assist with opening the school store during all of X & Y band.”

Since student government is a new thing at SLA, how will you make your job meaningful?

“It’s not how will I make the job meaningful it’s how we the SLA community will make the job meaningful. I will work with the community to define the role of the President if elected. But I know I will continue to be a voice for SLA students.”

What role do you plan to play in the move to Ben Franklin?

“Currently I serve on the building committee for the co-location. I plan to continue to advocate for the needs and wants of SLA. Once we move I will continue to hopefully work with Principal Lehmann and the School District to ensure the co-location fits the needs of all students.”

Of the five core values at SLA, which one do you identify with most as a candidate and why?

“Collaboration. As a candidate I continue to want to hear what the students want. This isn’t my campaign for President this is our campaign for President because I want to listen and collaborate with you all to make your dreams come true.”

What is your weakness as a candidate?

“It’s definitely self-care. As some of you know I am an active member of not just the SLA community but an active member of the Philadelphia community. So at times I forget to go for that run because I become so invested in the work that needs to be done.”

New Student Profile: Javier Chuesca-Bosch

October 26, 2017 by Avi Cantor Leave a Comment

Amelia Benamara & Taylor Green

Staff Writers

For the past few years, SLA has welcomed many exchange students from all around the globe. Junior Javier (Javi) Chueca-Bosch (pronounced CHOO-ES-KAH BOH-SK) is one of this year’s additions to the school.

Chueca-Bosch is originally from Mataró, a town located near Barcelona, Spain. He is currently taking part in the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. The program’s agenda is to help students learn a new language, discover another culture, and become global citizens.

Rotary Connections

Chueca-Bosch is living with Senior Chuckie Copeland and his family. Copeland is hosting after going on a Rotary exchange himself to Denmark last school year. Javi was already connected to the program because his father is the youth chairman for the Rotary club in his city.

He decided to take part in the exchange program because he needed a change of scenery. Bosch’s goals include accomplishing being bilingual by the time this year in America finalizes, as well as being a better and mature person in general.

“I was tired of being the typical kid that everyone knows,” Chueca-Bosch said. “I decided to change where I wanted to be and to also learn more English. The languages I speak so far are Spanish, Catalan, French, and English.”

Experiences

Although Javi is a new exchange student at SLA, this isn’t his first experience being in a new country.

Before this year’s exchange experience, he’d been to America twice and had previous experience with exchange programs in France.

He attended school in France where he began to work on his French. In the future, he hopes to return to France, on another exchange program to improve this language and take it to an entirely different level.

“When I went to Paris as an exchange, I stayed with a family with two other kids in my school to improve my French. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out much because us three would speak Catalan.”

While in France, Chueca-Bosch explained that although the experience was a difficult at times, especially with his language barrier, he had the best time with his host family. In contrast to France, the East Coast is very friendly and overwhelming ― in a good way.

“My experience in the United States has been such fun! Meeting all of those people is sometimes overwhelming because I cannot even remember people’s names.”

Adjusting to SLA

Javi reports that SLA is completely different from all of the schools he has attended.

“SLA is a school totally different from a normal school. You have projects and can be with your phone in class. It’s things like that, that make this school great. It is also very expensive in Spain, the school here gives you everything you need. I think that is great, makes people feel well about what they are doing.”

“One of the first things that I told Javi was to go out and meet new people,” Copeland said. As he has spent time here, he has really taken that piece of advice into account.

“I’m in the soccer club. That helped me make friends really easily. In Spain, the sports are different. If you want to play a sport, you have to go to a private club. Also, with the activities here, I feel like the school is more involved in all that and people will feel great doing that.”

He is interested in participating in the student government club, as well as attending the latino club meetings.

Although Javi finds that making friends is the least challenging part of SLA, he confesses that the most stimulating portion of this school is the piles of homework the students are given daily.

“In Spain, the homework is not mandatory. They say if you want to do it, do it, that would be great for you. The most important thing is to pass exams. Homework each night has been very overwhelming, but for the moment I’m keeping with it.”

Looking Forward

Chuckie shared another piece of advice he gives to Javi about being aware of how and what decisions he makes while in Philadelphia is such an environment SLA contains.

“I told him that you have to make decisions here that will affect your life back in Spain and do everything you want to do here before it’s too late. Whatever chance I get, I try to remind him that exchange goes by really fast.”

In the future, Javi hopes to achieve his goal of becoming an Aerospace Engineer.

“After this program, I would like to do my senior year in Spain and then pass my exams to get into college. But before that, I’d like to either do another exchange in France or Taiwan as a gap year. I want to do something in space engineering. I like design and it’s something I would love to do for a career.”

Javi will spend ten months in Philadelphia, and then one month on the west coast with the Rotary Program. When he leaves, he wants people to remember him as the person who was always open to trying new things and meeting others.

Along with having the desires to return to France in the future, Bosch would also love to visit America one day as an adult after he has achieved the academic goals he has set for himself in Spain.

When this school year ends, he wants to keep his friendships no matter where he goes next.

“The most memorable thing that happened at SLA would be the chaos of the first day. No one knows where to go, I was super lost. The first day was chaotic. At the same time, everyone was trying to help me and all that meeting people makes me feel happy!”