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Features
Philly Teachers Fundraise Unconventionally
By Marina Stuart and Jason Davis
Staff Writer and Guest Writer
In recent months, budget cuts has been the primary issue circulating around the politics of the School District of Philadelphia. Despite losing 276 million dollars in funding from the state, 103 million of which supported basic education, the school district potentially faces a 200 million dollar deficit going into the the fall 2012-2013 school year.
The deficit has affected all throughout the city, including the district’s teachers, disabling them from using funds to purchase resources for the classroom and develop educational projects. However, In an effort to make up for the cuts, many educators and supporters throughout the area have started or taken part in initiatives that focus on fundraising for the loss.
These initiatives target fundraising from multiple different angles. PhilaSoup, founded by Nikka and Claire Landau, is a monthly microgrant dinner that is meant to bring “innovative and dynamic Philadelphia-area educators together and highlight the great work they are doing and fund some terrific projects,” they said in an e-mail interview.
The idea for PhilaSoup came from another group, based in Detroit Called Soup that Nikka Landau was part of. “At their dinners people come from across Detroit to share a simple soup supper and hear about innovative projects that individuals are trying to get off the ground to improve Detroit.”
Even though there was already a group called Philadelphia Soup with a similar intention, Nikka and Claire Landau wanted to focus on teachers.
“Our hope was to make a microgrant dinner like the Detroit Soup that would highlight projects that Philadelphia educators are doing and would also help connect and support Philadelphia educators.” Says Landau.
A typical gathering goes something like this:
“For the first half hour (6-6:30) attendees have appetizers while they mingle together and meet each other. At 6:30 soup is served and everyone sits down to eat. At about 7:00 presenters come to the front of the room and pitch their project proposal.” Says Landau.
“Presenters have three minutes to make their case and then the audience can ask them questions. When all the presentations are done, dessert is served and everyone votes for which project they would like the night’s money to go to. At the end of the night, the winning project goes home with the night’s money to be put directly into helping Philadelphia students.”
PhilaSoup is only a year old but has grown immensely.
“At our first dinner in October there were about 20 people present. Now, just 7 months later, we have anywhere between 50-80 people coming to each dinner.”
With so many creative projects being presented, Landau says “it is impossible to choose a favorite.” One she really enjoyed was called “ “Fairy Tale Remix”, presented by an English teacher who was having her students rewrite traditional fairy tales in new and creative ways. This teacher read some of her old student’s stories and they were just great. She ended up winning the night’s microgrant and used the money to bring in an author to help workshop her students’ stories.”
This is not the only initiative that benefits students. Donors Choose is a national program where teachers and educators can submit grants for materials and have private citizens fund them. Many teachers at Science Leadership Academy use Donors Choose to fund their various projects and endeavors.
Science Leadership Academy physics and ceramics teacher Rosalind Echols has used Donors Choose many times. “They helped us get glaze for ceramics and lots of tools. I’ve gotten a bunch of sci fi books for physics, also legos and k’nex.”
The way Donors Choose works is teachers submit grants to the donors choose website and anyone can go to the website and fund projects they like. The groups that get the funding can also write thank you notes to their funders and a way of interacting with them more.
“I like having it [Donors Choose] because you get essentials but also get things that aren’t in a school budget that make our classes better,” says Echols.
“I like that it’s funded by private people, because it helps people who are not involved in education get an idea about what going on in the classroom.”
At most Philadelphia schools there are Home and School or Parent Associations that use the help of parents and community members to fund initiatives in the school. At Science Leadership Academy, the Home and School Association uses donations to fund “Students trips, sports teams, SAT fee support, prom support, college application fee support, naviance, food for interview weekends, science fair, books, scripts, an Americorps position, and after school clubs.” says a member of Home and School.
However, within SLA’s Home and School program there is another funding initiative that grew out of the recent budget cuts to the school district. Faced with losing extracurricular programs and teachers alike many parents came together to raise money for their school. They did this through fund raisers, car washes, auctions, phone-a-thons and donations.
Sarah Stuart, a member of the Home and School Association at SLA, was part of helping organize Fuel the Rocket. “Last year, Mr. Lehmann told us that because of the budget cuts we were likely to lose three staff members and two teachers,” explained Stuart. “In addition to that there would be little money for overtime, which pays for teachers to be coaches and run after school programs.”
Stuart and other members of Home and School reached out to parents and other community members to raise the needed funds. “We made a goal to reach fifty thousand dollars and we set up a paypal account and we set up a blog.” Says Stuart. “We announced we wanted to raise fifty thousand and we made it so people could pay online and held an emergency meeting so parents could understand what was going on with the budget. We raised thirty eight thousand dollars.”
SLA isn’t the only school who has had to turn to parents and outside help to fund their schools. Many schools in the Philadelphia School District have had to resort to this measure to keep teachers and afterschool programs.
Organizations like PhilaSoup, Donors Choose, and “Fuel the Rocket” fundraising are all examples of inspiring initiatives helping soothe the effects of the recent cuts in the area. They share the passion and determination for education along with a recent influx of students, parents, teachers, and other community members throughout Philadelphia, and have proven to be able to take action against these new challenges. The potential deficit of 200 million dollars in the upcoming school year poses a new set of issues for funders, but outcomes like these show that hope is practical.
Seniors elect first Prom King and Queen
By Isabela Supovitz-Aznar
Staff Writer
Many people were surprised to hear that Senior Alexis Beckton made her senior capstone creating the first Prom King and Queen at SLA.
Alexis was confident in her capstone idea, but didn’t feel completely secure with it. “I didn’t have a lot of support between staff and some of the students,” she said. “I was nervous that my capstone wouldn’t be completed.”
Earlier in the spring, she took a poll of all of the seniors during a grade-wide meeting, asking how they felt about having a prom king and queen. The majority of the grade was for it.
“Anybody could submit applications, but there were requirements you had to meet at the gate,” Alexis explained. The requirements included “good GPA, good presence on social media, no suspensions this year.”
As her project progressed, people at SLA began to accept and embrace the idea of a prom court, and in the end it became a very rewarding experience.
At prom on Friday, May 18, things went well. Kyla Carden was elected Prom queen, and Dia Johnson Prom king. The runners up were Johniera McLain and Sam Kabangai.
For the crowning, the court stood in the middle of the dance floor, and the prom court “crowned” the winners from behind. The runners up then hugged the winners, and they were applauded.
“Being named Prom King was really cool, but nerve racking,”Johnson said of the experience.
The winning pair then had a slow dance on the floor, which gave them a chance to show off their moves and their outfits.
Beckton was pleased that her project was a success. It is known whether another student will turn Prom Court into a tradition by picking up the project next year.
Photos by Bach Tong
Building Biowalls at SLA
By Kristi Bezhani
Staff Writer
When SLA sophomores visited Drexel’s 22-foot wide, 80-foot tall Biowall, it inspired them to build their own.
The moment of entering a room with an immense wall covered in tons of greenery, has caused a lot of commotion amongst SLA sophomores.
“The biowall at Drexel looked so earthy and inconceivable,” said Sophomore Jalen Smith. I had never imagined the existence of an entire wall consisting of tropical plants. It was like a jungle stepping inside, the air was warm, there was lots of greenery, my class and I quickly got inspired by it.”
Another inspiring trip was to the Grunman Greenhouse. The Grunman Greenhouse, located at Broad and Arch streets, is a wrecked navy airplane which has been turned into a greenhouse to provide herbs and greens for local low-income families in Philadelphia.
“There were living plants inside of this artfully looking plane, that doesn’t happen everyday,” said sophomore Victoria Yarborough. “I wanted to make something like that.”
Another key part of the inspiration for the bio-walls was Earth Day, which reminded students of how they should nurture earth. This made it even more exciting for sophomores to make the bio-walls happen.
“When we visited the Grunman greenhouse, I was just like wow… How does this plane collect water because judging from how it is locked up, I don’t think that people open the plane and water plants daily.” said Sophomore Tsion Habtamu. “So then we learned that it collects rainwater from the top and flows down to the plants… that system was pretty cool.”
“I loved the science behind the bio-wall regardless from how cool it looked, I loved how it had a purpose other than being a decoration, it is such a functional way of purifying indoor air.” said Owen Grzywinski.
Both trips presented them with creative ways in which plants could be used against global warming. After gaining determination from experiencing the authentic development of a bio-wall, it was a perfect combination with the righteousness that each person felt towards improving this earth.
The students collaborated to create their own system of teams for a functional foundation.
“The building part of the process was the fun part.” Antonio Reveron commented. “Being creative in making the bio-wall with my teammates was sometimes difficult because there were so many different ideas on how to build it. In other words, to build one bio-wall that would suit everyone’s opinion was time-consuming.”
Ultimately, groups came up with different strategies for their final products.
“There was this one group who came up with such a creative idea where they used denim pockets as plant holders. It looked like a quilt, it was really cool.” Niyala Brownlee said. “ And the function of it was even better because the fabric would soak the water through the whole quilt providing water for all the plants inside the pockets.”
The completed bio-walls were featured at this year’s Science Festival, and are currently being displayed in front of SLA’s office.
SLA Welcomes new Learning Support Teacher
By Nia Berry
Staff Writer
In the small community that is Science Leadership Academy, people know everyone. However, many people may not have noticed the new addition made to our faculty : Learning Support teacher Ms. Beth Menasion.
Ms. Menasion was hired just three months ago due to the additional need for teachers in the Learning Support class located in Room 206. Because she doesn’t teach a traditional subject class, many students have yet to meet her.
Ms. Menasion says her overall interest in child development and how the brain works stemmed from a childhood job as a high school camp counselor. After she graduated from her high school in North Jersey , she attended West Chester University for a year and later transferred to Temple University to receive her certification in Special Education.
Prior to coming to SLA, Ms. Menasion taught Pre-School at the Parent Infant Center in West Philadelphia. Before that, she worked at John Welsh Elementary, a district school in Northern Liberties.
She has also been a longtime friend of SLA through Art and Technology Teacher Marcie Hull, who she has known for fifteen years. She has two young children and lives in West Philadelphia.
This is the first time Ms. Menasion has taught high school students. When asked how the transfer from pre-school students to high school students was going, she commented, “it’s fun! It’s interesting hearing their thoughts and opinions.” Some of the techniques she uses for learning support include listening to meet needs, mnemonic devices, and use of graphic organizers.
Ms. Menasion’s goal for her work at SLA is to help students create strategies for being successful. She finds SLA’s program “amazing” and believes the environment is ideal for teaching and motivated learning. Ms. Menasion says that she is “in awe” of the other teachers at SLA, and looks forward to learning more from them.
She looks forward to her future in the SLA community and is open to student and teacher ideas for a better Learning Support class.