News

SLA and The SEPTA Strike

November 2, 2016 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Aaron Watson-Sharer

Editor

For most Philadelphia students, SEPTA is like water: We need it to keep going. On November 1st, SEPTA’s Transit Workers Union began a strike over their contract.

SLA prepared for the strike days before, asking for carpools and contacting families. On Monday, an announcement in the advisory memo asked students who couldn’t make it to school to sign into Canvas and complete assignments to be marked present.

How did they get to school? Students reported different strategies.

I took an Uber to school, a method many others also used. Due to the SEPTA strike Uber and Lyft are in high demand and they hiked up the prices.I would have much rather saved money and time by using SEPTA. So I walked home after school.

The last strike occurred in 2009, which lasted six days. Losing that much effective school time would be extremely inconvenient. Many students drove to school, but in the heart of Center City, students almost never drive because of the expensive parking rates.

So how is this affecting SLA?

On Tuesday, attendance at schools was at 63% as of 12PM. Much lower than the average that’s above 90%. Wednesday’s turnout was just 62%.

For SLA seniors, the SEPTA strike has already postponed Senior Breakfast from Wednesday, 11/2 to the following Wednesday, 11/9. This is a time of celebration for seniors and it has already been postponed due to the strike. Lesson plans that teachers spend hours preparing are being pushed back, help on benchmarks is now more difficult to come by, and retakes are not being postponed. With the quarter ending students are faced with a difficult decision.

Some feel that this strike is nothing but an inconvenience. Others feel that SEPTA workers have a right to protest. SLA principal, Chris Lehmann, recognizes that “it’s an inconvenience for everybody,” but hopes “the two sides come to an agreement.” He also wants students to see this from the union’s perspective because there are “real issues on the table.”

Teachers are happy that many students made it to school, but some are convinced that the other 37% could have put in more effort to making it to the building.

Ms. Pahomov gave her input on attendance. “I live in West Philly, and lots of teachers biked or walked in from that neighborhood, but kids who live near us stayed home.”

“If you can walk three miles, that takes under an hour. Plenty of SLA students spend that much time–or more–traveling on the bus every single day.” – Ms. Pahomov

Back to School Night & What’s NOT Back To School

October 11, 2016 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Darius Purnell

Co Editor and Chief

On Monday September 19th and Wednesday SEptember 21st, SLA welcomed parents and students to Back to School night. Families teachers, staff, and faculty all joined together to enjoy food and answer questions to give a rundown of the plans for this new school year.

Orientations and sharing of food wasn’t the only highlight of the nights, the Student Union and Home and School Association prepared a campaign to gain awareness from teachers to gaps in the school’s budget, to show what the school is still missing and needs help fulfilling. The event was called “What’s Not Back to School Night.”

SLA Reflects on Teacher Diversity

October 11, 2016 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Tamir Harper

Staff Writer

What should the teaching staff at SLA Center City look like?

Teacher diversity affects the entire school community in some way, shape, or form. Racial diversity in education has been a huge topic in recent years. Publications like Mother Jones have reported about the pushing out of black educators in Philadelphia and other cities. So how does SLA Center City ’s staff stack up? Should it be more diverse than it already is?

Currently, 40% of SLA teachers are people of color. However, 11% of SLA Center City teachers are African American, and only one of them is an African American male. This is higher than the national average, where only 7% of public school teachers are African-American, but lower than the Philadelphia average, where 25.32% are African-American. And it’s proportionally much smaller than the student body at SLA, where 34.9% of students identify as African-American.

Teachers have mixed feelings about this situation. Physics Teacher BJ Enzweiler said that SLA Center City is “not as diverse as we would like to be”.

Junior Saamir Baker is an African American male who feels his education is impacted by this situation. “I wish there were more Black male teachers that could relate to what I was personally going through on a racial scale.”

White students also wish for more diversity. Junior Eli Block was asked if SLA Center City had enough Black teachers. “I wish we had more teachers with different backgrounds so that could mean more diversity, or people who aren’t so generic — Black, White, Hispanic or whatever.”

All students interviewed for this article has the same viewpoint: that the SLA Center City teaching staff is not as diverse as it could be.

So how does the administration feel about this?

Principal Chris Lehmann agreed with the students: “I don’t think it’s a good thing that we only have three African American Teachers.” He noted that nationwide, fewer African Americans are going into the teaching profession, which makes it harder to find new staff to hire.

When asked about maintaining the diversity of SLA Center City teaching staff, Principal Lehmann stated “it’s something that we [the hiring team] have been working hard at.” He also explained that “we [the hiring team] have made it a priority to recruit African American Teachers, but it’s not easy, there are fewer African American going into the profession.”

Mr. Lehmann described that the hiring process at SLA Center City is very particular. The hiring team usually consist of everyone from that subject department, any other staff that choices to sit on and one SLA Center City Student and parent. In describing this process, Mr. Lehmann stated that there has been times where the hiring team came to a consensus to not hire an African American teacher that Lehmann was very interested in.

Acknowledging that SLA is small, with at most a couple of teachers hired every year, how does it balance its need for educators qualified to work in this kind of school with it’s need for more African-American teachers?

“Hiring is never a perfect process, it depends on whoever is available during a given season.” Said English teacher Larissa Pahomov, who sat in on most of last year’s hires. “Last year was made even more difficult by the fact by some positions we could only hire teachers that were currently employed by the School District of Philadelphia.”

This situation continues to get attention not just within the school, but nationally. Now-graduated student Noah Caruso was interviewed by Melinda Anderson in the Atlantic Magazine.

“Now a rising senior, Caruso looks back with appreciation on his ninth-grade year in Kay’s class. “He’s the most inspiring teacher I ever had by far,” Caruso said, recalling Kay’s emphasis and commentary on fraught topics such as present-day racism. “He definitely pushed us to really think about these social issues [that] weren’t talked about before in my life because everyone grew up in the same area,” he continued. “We were all white … and everyone had the same opinion.”

This article is the first in a series exploring issues of diversity at SLA Center City . A future article will talk to the African-American teachers on staff. Keep checking SLAMedia.org and follow us on twitter for a follow-up interview on the lack of teacher diversity at Science Leadership Academy at Center City and in the School District of Philadelphia.

Juniors Process Recent Thefts at SLA

September 28, 2016 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

By Kia Dasilva

Co-Editor in Chief

On Monday, September 19th, the junior class of SLA met in the drama studio during advisory for an emergency grade-wide meeting about recent thefts in school.

The theft in question, which was recorded on school cameras, happened the previous Friday. A phone and some money were taken out of backpacks that had been left outside the fitness studio during Physical Education class.

Principals Aaron Gerwer and Chris Lehmann met with the student on Friday, and negotiated an outcome of restorative justice: instead of being removed from the school community through suspension or expulsion, the student would publicly apologize to the entire junior class in a grade-group meeting.

Many students did not know the reason for the meeting until they arrived. After Lehmann and Gerwer briefly explained the situation, reactions were varied.

“There was lots of yelling going on. It was very uncomfortable,” said Junior Kaamil Jones after the event.

“There were people who weren’t taking it seriously, and it’s a very serious issue, and then there were also people taking it super seriously. Some people took it too far.”

Several students expressed outraged and verbally objected, including one student who challenged the meeting, viewed by some as “public shaming.”

“Personally, I thought it was wrong. It went against my morals and what I believed in,” said Zahirah Poree.

“I felt like if no one was going to stand up and say anything, then I should”

When asked why she thought it was wrong, she cited a combination of anger towards unfair punishment (although the student had admitted to the theft, she believed the student was innocent), and the way the meeting was conducted.

“I just think that that’s not cool, to publicly humiliate someone like that in front of their peers, their friends, everybody… Then people are going to look at you like ‘What’s wrong with you? Why did you do that?’. It could’ve been handled in a different way.”

Other juniors tried to understand both sides.

“I think they were trying to enforce that we’re a community, and that if you do something wrong to one person, you hurt everyone,” said Junior TK Saccoh.

“I don’t think their intentions were bad, I think that it all became misconstrued.”

In an interview with SLAMedia, Principal Lehmann explained the rationale behind the meeting.

“More and more research shows what we at SLA have long felt – suspensions and expulsions are blunt instrument tools that are minimally effective when it comes to school discipline. Restorative justice, while unquestionably hard, has proven to have a far more positive outcome for both the student and the school community. The public nature of restorative justice creates a need for hard conversations that can be hard in the moment, but SLA has never been a community that has shied away from hard conversations.”

This event comes after a series of thefts last school year, including the theft of Mr. Kay’s iPad and Chromebook from his classroom, and items from many seniors in Mr. Block’s English class during their Art in the Open performances.

A common thread through all these thefts is that property was left unattended. In the case of Ms. Martin’s gym class, she warned students that leaving their backpacks outside the room does not ensure their safety.

Officer Byrd, sitting by the backpacks outside a gym class as a result of the recent theft, gave some words of advice to students:

“I recommend locking your items in a locker that has a lock on it. Stop leaving personal items out in the open. Keep money, laptops, and cellphones close to your person, meaning your body.”

Keeping Up with Capstone Presentations

June 10, 2016 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

As a senior, you are required to go to three capstones a day, not including your own, for the entirety of capstone week. I have, so far, completed two days worth of capstone presentations and have also already presented my own.

From what I have seen so far is that the presentations seem to be going extremely fast. With a few exceptions of those that actually filled up their full 10 minutes worth of presenting, everything seems very rushed. I guess that is just from nerves, though. But, what seems to be true for all of them is that not a single presentation lasted the ten minutes of questioning. At the most, I seen a presentation followed by 3 questions, but for the most part, as the presenter asked “Any questions?” the room fell silent. I think this is because the room was always filled with the presenter’s friends who knew everything about their capstone already. Also, a lot of mentors struggled to even come up with questions I guess because of how much they already knew about the project as well.

Advice I can give future presenters about the process based on my experience is that I would highly recommend putting in some time to your slideshow. Set it up in a way in which shows pretty vague slides, leaving you with lots to talk about. Also, spend some time really talking about where the idea came from, what it means to you, and what your initial intentions were. This will really help you fill up your time slot. Also, don’t be nervous. I know that’s easier said than done, but your nerves will cause for you to speak very fast and leave you with lots of leftover time. Just take a breath and slow down. It’ll really benefit your presentation.

Some suggestions to enhance the questioning portion of the presentation is to fill the room with people who know nothing about your capstone. This will leave you with a more engaged audience all throughout the presentation and a lot of great questions at the end. Also, maybe meet with your mentor to help them come up with some questions for you before your presentation.