SLA Media

SLAMedia is a publication of the news for the Science Leadership Academy community. Writers come from the student body in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. We work in unison to create a functioning paper with biweekly postings on a variety of events.

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Column: Do Clothes Affect How Someone Is Treated?

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Leticia Desouza

Staff Writer

SLA is one of many Philadelphia high schools who doesn’t have a uniform for their students. Though having the ability to wear any type of outfits can be a good opportunity for students to fully express themselves, how others react to our clothes can  be quite uncomfortable and even traumatic. 

Photo by Leticia Desouza

During this current academic year of 2021-2022, students have been back in person where they share the building with Ben Franklin High School. A staircase is shared by both schools, and Throughout the year, many students from the SLA side have been harassed while using the staircase. Some students have reported they’ve been catcalled, others reported that they were verbally assaulted, and others have reported being touched inappropriately or even followed out of the stairwell and into the halls — cornered, blocked, and even grabbed. 

I don’t have comprehensive evidence about what the girls were wearing when they were harassed — but based on my conversations, there does seem to be a pattern of girls getting harassed when they are wearing more revealing clothes. However, I do personally have experience with how your clothes can impact how you are treated. There were a couple of times where the weather was warm so I chose to wear something more revealing to keep my cool during the school day, but when I went to use the shared stairwells, I got unwanted attention that felt uncomfortable. Weird looks and stares make up most of my experience. There weren’t any verbal harassing comments, just weird stares that often felt uncomfortable. I noticed that this only happens when I wear something more revealing than usual. When I dress more down and casual, I don’t get the unwanted attention.

Many girls at SLA also speculate that the reason why these events happen is due to what people are wearing, but in my eyes, I find this claim places the blame on the wrong party. As a very diverse society, people have different views and likes when it comes to how they like to express themselves with clothes. Some people enjoy dressing more formally, while others enjoy dressing more casually. Some like showing more skin while others don’t. This preference is up to the person who is going to wear it. In my eyes, this shows that the current harassment can happen to anyone no matter what they wear.

There is no problem with a specific style of dress. Someone’s preference of clothing shouldn’t affect how they are treated by individuals around them. If one is comfortable in their skin with what they are wearing, it shouldn’t be a problem as they are dressing the way they want for themselves.

The problem isn’t the clothes, but the people who judge others because of what they are wearing. In today’s time, we often see people who think it is necessary to make comments about what others are wearing. This is often present in social media like tiktok, instagram, snapchat, and many other big platforms that allow users to comment. It is clear that people are often treated differently or judged by what they are wearing which can often cause dangerous and uncomfortable situations.

Many have reported these instances to school staff but most cases go unheard of. Throughout this academic year, students have been constantly experiencing the harassment that comes with the outfit they chose to wear. To make students more comfortable, school staff should become more aware of these situations and take steps to reach a goal that will decrease the numbers of harassment. As of recently, nothing has been done to stop these harassments. If they continue throughout the next academic year and are more heavy, parents might have to step in to make sure their children are safe. Staff should also educate those who are the ones who are harassing as no one should be mistreated just because of what they are wearing.

Life After Being Separated From My Dad

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Staff Writer Dinah Soloway

During the 2020-2021 School year my dad had a severe case of COVID-19. It started in November of 2020, and he spent over 3 months in the hospital, finally being released in February 2021. 

To this day we do not know the real reason he got COVID. I also later caught COVID myself, with all my family having to take on the challenge of self-isolating from each other and the outside world in our apartment.

After just about two weeks of first contracting  COVID, my dad was rushed to the ER at PENN’s hospital by ambulance because he couldn’t breathe. To have my dad in the hospital in an induced coma with a breathing tube in, felt like the worst thing in the world. 

But even when this was all happening, I still attended online school from my bed. Each morning I would get up, fix my hair and stay in my pajamas and realize that my parents weren’t there or healthy enough to go to work while I had to stay at home in school.  

During the long weeks of online school and covid, I had my best friends to talk to both about my emotions and highlights of the day.  My family was really lucky to have a nice support system of close friends who made food deliveries since we could not break quarantine. Including my bunch of family and friends, I could rely on my advisor Ms. Pahomov with her weekly check-ins during online school.

To make things even less fair,  all my other family members who were already over 16 at the time could visit him in the hospital, but  I could only use zoom to see my dad laying in his hospital bed.  

When he did finally come home after hospitalization, He slept for almost another full day. Then began the long road to improvement. My dad had arranged physical therapy with a Penn doctor who would come to the apartment and work with him to do some stretching. Slowly he got better but there was one thing that never changed: his lungs will always have a harder time working smoothly. Simply put, he is not the same person he was.

My family made it through hell, and now I am back at school in 10th grade. Taking regularly timed classes with my friends trying to look at things with a more positive attitude than last year. There are times when I worry about my dad’s long-term health, but I try to ignore his health issues and just focus on the moment that shows he is taking care of himself after the event.

Even writing this column has been difficult. I’m not used to openly telling people what I have been through in my lifetime. When I tell people these things about me I want it to feel sincere and not intentional.

However, I can say writing this article feels like it gave me the extra push to put myself out there.

Harassment In and Out of The School Building

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Gabrielle Hart

Staff Writer

Since starting in person at SLA this year, my eyes have been opened to a new perspective on different aspects of the school community — But not in a completely good way. 

My first year of highschool was virtual and there was little I could work with when imagining what my life would look like when we returned physically. However, that didn’t stop me from looking forward to meeting new people and understanding SLA as a whole. There are a lot of good things about this school — [list a few of them here] However,I also think some people here tend to use all of this goodness as a way  to sweep the things that need to be improved, or at least openly discussed, under the rug. 

One of these things is harassment, of multiple forms. I realize it’s not  easy for the staff here to regulate issues amongst a school of 500 students, let alone two schools sharing one building. However, all instances of harassment  issues need to  be taken seriously. For example, There are many times where unwanted interactions in the shared stairwell or the first floor — unpleasant moments that I’ve since become immune to — have occurred not just with me, but with people, specifically girls, at this school. 

I can recall a time where I was headed to the fifth floor girls bathroom on SLA’s side when a student from Ben Franklin High school came over through the doors to shout and pound on the girl’s bathroom door for me to come out. I wouldn’t say this situation scared me or made me feel unsafe and this is only because things like this happen all the time. But this did leave me questioning why this is something that me and other people have to experience and have become so accustomed to. 

Whether it be catcalling, following, touching, or shouting  this kind of behavior  would never allow anyone to feel comfortable in a school environment. But despite the fact that these instances of harassment have been brought to both school’s attention, almost nothing has been done to regulate it. It would be safe to say that there is a mutual agreement that nothing can be done so us students have to just deal with it like we have been. 

And while the instances of stairwell harassment seem to mostly be between the two schools, SLA students also turn on each other.  Online bullying in the form of ‘jokes’ is another issue that I’ve specifically noticed at SLA. It seems like students are completely unaware or disregard when the line is crossed. This is definitely not what I imagined would come from any student at SLA — but I also think it’s precisely that mindset that gives some students the space to get away with this bad behavior It’s been bad enough this year the health teacher had to have multiple classes teaching us how these actions do entirely much more harm than good.

Mind Your Business When It Comes To A Women’s Uterus

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Staff Writer:

Aylin Echandy

Men are planning to overturn Roe Vs Wade!

The abortion topic is sensitive to some and open to others, but it isn’t about how people feel but instead about woman rights to make decisions. 

There is an outroar of rage in the U.S due to the leak of a Supreme Court draft decision suggesting if women have the right to decide what to do with and to their uterus; whether they can make the decision of an abortion. 

A quick history lesson: Roe Vs Wade took place in 1973 and was a landmark decision of the U.S Supreme Court in which the Court ruled whether or not it protects a pregnant woman’s liberty and freedom to choose to have an abortion without the government saying it’s forbidden. 

Over the last few weeks since hearing the news there have been protests all over supporting the idea that women should be able to determine what is done to their body without the consent of men, who by the way don’t have uteruses and will never have to face the question of whether they need an abortion. 

Personally, I believe that having access to abortions is essential because birth can lead to death due to how dangerous giving birth is. In addition, Not everyone can support raising a child, not everyone is fit to be a mother, not everyone’s baby has appropriately entered the uterus, and not everyone has conceived consensually. 

My opinion is influenced by the facts. 

Roe vs Wade is planning on banning aborts at six weeks or more, which isn’t even justice because it can take up to three weeks or more for a woman to go through the process of becoming pregnant. Even if pregnant, the hCG hormone produced by the placenta cannot be fully detected that soon; every woman’s body is different. Pregnancy symptoms may or may not occur that soon, even if this overturning gives women little time to decide or gives no time at all for the decision, since the decision is being made for them.  This act of banning abortions is humane because risks are being overlooked and abortions are being jumped to the conclusion of murder. The government doesn’t know the risks of women being pregnant, they only know what they want to hear. 

Birth is the closest thing a woman can have that is naturally close to death. Women die from giving birth because of the amount of blood that is lost, risks, or from things going wrong. There are statistics that prove African- American women are more subject to death than any other race. To ban abortion would lead to a warcry for those who will lose their relative due to the circumstances of birth. It is unfit and unfair to force a woman into a life or death situation, knowing that the baby is the only thing being cared about. So by women being forced to give birth, the world will lose more women. 

The possibility of women’s lives being put in danger — which includes the challenge of raising an unwanted child — brings up many difficult questions. 

What will happen after the mother dies? Who will supply if the mother is in need? What if it is an ectopic pregnancy? What if the woman is a rape victim? What if it was incest? What if postpartum or pregnancy depression leads to suicide? These are the questions that flow through my mind when I think of the Supreme Court banning abortions. 

What will happen when the Supreme Court rules that women do not have the right to have an abortion, but can’t answer the questions above? Being told that aborting isn’t a women’s right can be a life or death situation for women. 

School District Seems Indecisive With Plans To Shift the Schedule

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Leo Braveman

Staff Writer

Image By Leo Braveman

Back in March I first heard talk about the school having a pushed back schedule for next year. Immediately when I heard this I was surprised and not really looking forward to any type of delayed schedule

As of now, our school officially starts at 8:15, making any unexcused arrival after that marked late. Next year, Philadelphia schools are scheduled to shift to a 9AM start time (the change does not affect any schedule changes such as no advisory, changed Wednesdays ETC, making for a simple schedule pushback). According to Principal Lehmann, our schedule will most likely begin at 9 AM. 

When I first talked to friends about it I heard excitement about the plan. Many students were understandably excited to wake up much later, and liked the overall idea, feeling that it would allow for more sleep. 

Although I agree that it will be nicer to wake up late, I see the overall effect of the plan to be awful for students and even teachers with any type of extracurriculars.

In terms of my own day, I enjoy going to the gym after school, maybe a couple days of the school week. But on days that I have advisory, it would cause me to get home anywhere from 7-730PM, making for a huge inconvenience for when I would normally have dinner, and force me to start homework later than 8PM! 

But this significant day change of course does not only affect me, any students who wish to play a sport, or even spend time with friends after school will experience the same issue, with possibly having to commute much further than I do. 

I see some of the logical reasoning on why the school district wants to push back the day, but I am concerned that with still not enough time for long activities before school, and students getting home much later the effects could be hurtful and inconvenient. 

Hopefully, after a year of this crunched afternoon schedule students will find ways to manage, there is still a possibility that the plan can change but nothing points towards that being definitive. 

As a final note, the day I planned to publish this article the school district abruptly canceled the plan. I do not know more on this but am looking forward to hopefully having the same schedule.