Jayla Wright

Brendan Hall

Staff Writer

Traditionally, senior year is the most memorable year of a student’s high school experience. This is because events that occur such as the senior breakfast, graduation ceremony, and senior trip. While these events may be filled with excitement it also comes with a price. Senior dues, which covers the graduation ceremony, cost a total of $250, other costs include $105 for Senior Prom, $35 for the Senior Breakfast, and a $140 fee for the trip.

Inevitably, multiple payments can cause inconveniences. Some senior students wish that the school could communicate more clearly what the costs cover. “If I knew exactly what the costs were specifically covering for I would feel more comfortable asking my mom to lend me the money for something like the trip,” Senior Ameer Johnson claimed.

Other seniors back this claim that clarification would be useful towards future  payments. There were more who stated it’s difficult to constantly keep track of payment deadlines throughout the year. “It’s overwhelming at times trying to organize the finances of senior year,” Sean DeSilva said.

Furthermore, the senior expenses have lead to an unfortunate lack of participation within the 2019 graduating class. There are several students who wish to pay for senior dues, trips, and other events, but cannot at times due to financial hardships. However, there are also members of the grade who refuse to meet payments because of their own resistance.

“If you can pay and you choose not to because you don’t feel like it I think that’s selfish to everyone else and you’re doing something that could impact your high school career very negatively,” Avi Cantor expressed.

Senior year at SLA illustrates that great experiences may come with a burden on them.

Staff Writer

Brendan Hall

Harsh weather conditions are expected to happen during the winter, especially in an east coast city like Philadelphia. Since the change of the calendar year, there has been canceled school days, delays, and early dismissals. While it may appear that the school district has this under control, there are also students who have their commutes drastically affected by poor weather conditions.

The first instance this happened was on January 30th and 31st. Both days had low temperatures under 10 degrees while school still took place, which resulted in low attendance. The senior class had the highest attendance, with just over 50% of their students being present.

One of the students in attendance during the cold front, Avi Cantor, stated that him walking to school was more reliable than public transportation. He claimed, “I don’t trust SEPTA at all… it comes at very inconvenient times for me… it’s always late and the apps aren’t good,”. The vast majority of public school students rely on SEPTA for transportation to and from school. Its unpredictable nature likely was a major contribution to the low turn out those days.

Aside from the extreme cold front, snowfall on February 11th and 12th affected the ability for students to arrive in school. February 11th did not have a two-hour delay, this led an inconvenience in transportation.

“I ended up being 15 minutes late to school because my train got stuck in the snow,” Senior Lucien Hearn claimed about his commute. He furthered his statement by saying that is not typical and was due to the snowfall.

Other students were not even fortunate enough to make school during those two days. “I had to miss Monday [February 11th] and Tuesday [February 12th] because buses weren’t being sent to my stop,” Senior Matthew Reed explained. Another senior, Ashton Reigner, confirmed this to be true because they would take the same bus route for transportation.

Mo Kelley

Staff Writer

On Friday the 25th, SLA students were greeted to guests visiting their classrooms and asking questions. Some kids were confused; who were these people and why are they in my biochem class? But to most of the SLA students, this could only mean one thing: Educon has begun.

Educon is a conference where educators from all over the country can gather in one place and talk about the way that their teaching style. Principal Chris Lehmann describes Educon as “a progressive education conference where the pedagogy of the conference, and the way that we think the sessions should run, are similar to what we hope to see in classrooms.”

On the 27th, Educon attendees had the opportunity to tour around SLA, observing many different classes. Later that night, Junior and Educon co-chair Assirem Hosni gave a speech that introduced a panel full of educators from across the country. This marked the official start to Educon.

On Saturday and Sunday, people attended conferences with topics ranging from racial discussions in classrooms to meditation techniques for teachers. Some of SLA’s own teachers, such as Mr. Kay, Ms, Walker-Roberts, Mr. Kamal, and Mr. Lehmann, gave presentations.

Over 400 educators attended Educon that weekend. Educon Co-chair Amal Giknis was excited to see so many people in attendance this year.

“It’s really cool to see in the middle of January when it’s really cold outside and it’s the middle of the school year and everyone’s already exhausted and everyone’s coming together because they want to keep thinking about this work in meaningful ways.”

Educon has been happening at SLA for ten years, and it is the largest fundraiser for the school. This year, over 40,000 dollars was raised for the Home and School Association. But, fundraising is not the reason Educon is important for the SLA community.

Sophomore Taj Walter volunteered at Educon both last year and this year and stated, “People who teach me and people my age are there. People who will teach my kids are there. It’s fun to be around educators who actually care about what they’re teaching and how they’re teaching.”

Mr. Lehmann also says, “Twelve years into Educon, thousands of educators have come to it and it deepens their understanding and knowledge of what modern education can be and how that manifests in the ways that we teach.”

With the move to Ben Franklin so close in the future, many SLA students are wondering what will happen to Educon. Both Ms. Giknis and Mr. Lehmann assure that Educon will continue at Ben Franklin.

“The conferences are part of people’s expectations now, it’s become a tradition in the ten years that we’ve been doing. It’ll be nice to have our own space and a bigger space and an auditorium to use as a conference space next year,” Ms. Giknis states.