News

Tamir Harper

Editor

When it comes to college acceptances, The Class of 2018 students is making history.

The school hit a new milestone when three students won a Liberty Scholarship at Drexel University. Seniors Tk Saccoh, Athalia Tan, and Seyni Ndaw all were granted the scholarship. Tan, and Ndaw will be attending while Saccoh attends Columbia University.

From the looks of the college wall outside of the third-floor college office, the class of 2018 will keep the school’s numbers up and will be sending students to institutions like Philadelphia University, West Chester, and Community College of Philadelphia. some great institutions. Like students in previous years, graduates are also discussing other post-secondary options like trade school.

95% of the class of 2017 went on to attend a 2-4 year college or university according to College Counselor Karina Hirschfield. Just like previous years, the students who decided not to pursue a 2-4 year degree went on to other programs, such as traveling, and going straight into fields that they love.

Three students were accepted as liberty Scholars and others received some very prestigious scholarships.

To celebrate all of these accomplishments, students came together on May 1st, 2018 thanks to the planning of  Science Leadership Academy Senior, Fatoumata Camera. Camera planned a college signing day inside SLA’s cafeteria with many great activities. Students ate, danced, and showcased what they will be doing next year.

Where Our Students are Going

Senior, Mekhi Granby was accepted into many universities but last minute decided to pursue Philadelphia University, a fairly new university which is a combination between Jefferson University and Philadelphia University. Mekhi is one of three attending Philadelphia University.

“I am excited to explore the many opportunities that will be presented to me,” Granby said.” He will be pursuing a bachelors in fashion design, to hopefully pursue a career in sneaker design.

Senior Destiny Patton will be attending Loyola University studying Mass Communications. She is really excited to start her new journey outside of the city of Philadelphia.

Senior Nick Shaw is thrilled to be attending Johnson & Wales University in the fall studying Business Economics.

Below is a list of confirmed schools that the class of 2018 will be attending.

Adrian College | American University | Columbia University | Cedar Crest University | Community College of Philadelphia | Delaware State University | Drexel University | Indiana University of Pennsylvania | Johnson & Wales | Kutztown University | Penn State University | Philadelphia University | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | University of Pittsburgh | West Chester University

Matthew Milligan

Staff Writer

On February 2 there was an incident in which a student at Science Leadership Academy posted a distasteful video on Youtube. Said video entailed the student “coming out” as gay to a friend as a joke. In addition, as part of the joke, the creator of the video suggested that he was talking to openly gay Sophomore Carlos De Jesus, even though no such thing had occurred.

The video elicited a strong response from both students and administrators at SLA, and the creator was suspended for several days.   

The video opened up a larger conversation: is SLA a safe space for LGBTQ students?

The school has an active Gay-Straight Alliance, and many classrooms have “safe space” and “ally” posters hanging in their windows.

While students can attest to SLA being a safer place than some others, that does not mean that there aren’t times were students have felt unsafe.

De Jesus thinks there is work to be done.

“I don’t feel like SLA is completely a safe space, mostly because . . . a safe space for me is where you can be yourself, and I am myself most of the time,” he said, “but there’s other times where I feel like I can’t completely be myself around certain people because I am worried about what some people might think or might do. It’s always like that. I just don’t feel safe.”

He elaborated further by explaining how his sexuality plays into how he presents himself to the world.

“I’m gay, and sometimes I can be a little bit too much about it, and I just like to be able to just talk about whatever I want, if it’s my sexuality or if I just wanna talk about makeup with someone. I do feel like I can do that type of thing around certain people.”

Sophomore Sanaa Scott-Wheeler also feels as though the way she presents herself affects how she interacts with SLA as a safe space.

“At certain times more than others it’s a safe space, it really depends on who you surround yourself with. I know that as an African American female who is pansexual there are a lot of issues, like people only see me as a black girl sometimes they don’t know that I’m pan.”

Scott-Wheeler feels as though, at SLA, people may not always be aware of who they are talking to and how what they say could be offensive.

“People outwardly hate on transgendered people and gay people at this school. They’ll say the things to you but they won’t know that you have a connection with them.”

SLA is known for priding itself on its the diverse community of students. However, some students find that automatically assuming widespread tolerance from the student body can be problematic, because it can allow a lack of awareness of the internal problems that the community has when it comes to student interactions.

“I feel like the community is aware to a certain extent. The other extent is that they don’t want to address the fact that some people are uncomfortable because they don’t know how to fix it . . . we kind of beat around the bush,” said Scott-Wheeler.

De Jesus feels as though people do not remain attentive enough because the situation does not always pertain to them.

“There may be the people who just don’t care about others, so they see it [the school] as a safe space, and then there’s the ones who aren’t really an outcast so they see it as a safe place. But then the kind of minorities that feel like they can’t be themselves, it’s just we notice how SLA is not a safe place, unlike others that might not worry as much as we do.”

So, if SLA is not yet a full-fledged safe space, what can be done to make sure it is one?

Scott Wheeler admits that the situation is a hard one to solve.

“The administration handled it as best as they could of, but how could they handle it better? I’m not sure exactly.”

De Jesus, however, thinks that the answer lies within more open communication.

“They need to have more one on one conversations with the people who were the victims and who were the bullies and stuff like that. I just don’t feel like they do enough of that.”

Health and P.E. teacher Pia Martin feels as though SLA is a safe space compared to other places, but she also admits there is work that can be done.

“I would consider it, in terms of schools in the district, as one of the safest spaces for students, but saying that I would also say that I recognize that there are ways that we could be safer for students. I consider it a safe space with room for growth.”

Ms. Martin says that the incident with Carlos is still an ongoing process, but that it can be hard to keep up with when other incidents keep occurring.

“Sometimes the urgent gets in way of the important . . . It’s hard to sustain the long-term energy when the spark is no longer burning. So we’ve got the ember, and it’s still there, we’re working the ember, but these other things have cropped up, these other little fires that need attention . . .”

Ms. Martin, like Carlos, believes that having better dialogue about the issues the community faces is important, even if it is uncomfortable for the parties involved.

“It requires lots and lots of good, authentic conversation, and knowing that people’s feelings are going to get hurt frequently.”

Sarah Berg

Staff Writer

Last Wednesday at 10:00 AM, SLA participated in the 17 minute-long National School Walkout. The crowd consisted of students from every grade, along with parents, speakers, and faculty members.

Originally organized to take place in the PECO lot on Market-Street, plans were changed last minute which ended up in the crowd forming in the alley outside of school on Walden Street. Many students held signs, some of which reading: “That could have been us,” “SLA against gun violence,” “Rise against gun violence,” “You fear we’ll take your guns, We fear you’ll take our children,” “Our lives are worth more than your blood money,” “Our lives are worth more than your guns,” and “Enough is enough”.

Junior Jack Sugrue chose to walk out because he is unhappy with the current political situation in the country. He brought up students who were being prevented from walking out in other schools, saying, “for their sake and for ours, I think this is an important thing to be going out and doing.”

“I feel like this is an issue that hits really close to home though I’ve never been affected by gun violence in my family,” said Junior Bronwyn Goldschneider. “I’ve been watching videos over and over and over again of the survivors [of the Parkland shooting] and it really breaks my heart every time. I don’t want anyone to ever have to go through that again.”

Over the course of the walkout, there were several speakers.

“You got to stand up, send a message, and you gotta shut it down,” shouted Senator Vincent Hughes. He added, “Do not let this be your last time stepping up, standing up, and speaking for truth,” and “If you can register to vote, make sure you get that done before the day is over.”

Actor, Sheryl Lee Ralph, spoke as well, calling out, “Today, you took this moment to leave your classrooms to stand up for some students who cannot stand up for themselves because they were shot down at the prime of their lives- just like you, so young, so smart, so bright, so full of life. For some of you, this may just be a few moments out of the classroom, but for others of you, it will be a moment that you recognize that you are full of power.” Sheryl Lee Ralph is also the wife of State Senator Vincent Hughes.

There were a couple of call and response chants led by Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, which went “Don’t shoot, I wanna live” and “Peace not guns”.

Johnson also told the story of how he became involved in gun control activism.

“In 1998, my cousin was murdered in the streets of South Philadelphia. A young man rolled up on a bicycle and took his life. At that particular time in my life, I took that anger, I took that pain, and I became the change that I wanted to see in my community.”

Along with politicians, we heard from voices active in the Philadelphia community. Director of the Philadelphia Youth Commission, Ricardo Calderón, spoke, sharing a saying from the Youth Commission: “No decision about youth without youth”. Calderón encouraged students, saying “Any time in history, any movement, any revolution, any monumental change, young people were always at the forefront. And that hasn’t changed today.”

Principal Lehmann, who was present at the walkout along with Principal Gerwer, began by quoting Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

He went on to motivate students, “There will be those who say that you shouldn’t speak because you are young. They’re wrong. There will be those who say you can’t vote so it doesn’t matter. They’re wrong. There will be those who say that we have to listen to the money, that we have to listen to those who influence Washington with their dollars. Today you show them that they are wrong.”

Lehmann thanked the speakers who showed up “for being here, for showing students that yes, you too know that their voice, their ideas, their activism matters.” He also spoke on behalf of the staff of SLA, saying “We are so proud of you today. We are so proud of all that you do. And we know that you will and do change the world.” This attitude was reflected in the letter of support from the faculty that Ella Burrows read.

Black Student Union Leader and Junior Zoey Tweh pushed her peers to go farther than walking out.

“To create safe spaces it just doesn’t take a walkout. Everybody here has the power to do more than that. And being the students that we are, we go outside of this building and we create change in our own communities, we educate our own communities, we go to voting polls and we volunteer. We do more than just walk out because we are students but we are also strong, powerful leaders in our communities.”

When the 17 minutes was up, the majority of the crowd walked back into the school building to resume their day. However, there were a number of students whose priorities were not in returning to school, but continuing to protest. These students walked over to City Hall, then to the School District building.

Goldschneider was one of them. Her rationale was “if I’m gonna skip school, I’m gonna have a good reason, and this is the best reason for me”.

As the protesters were walking up Broad Street, Goldschneider noticed that some students were climbing on top of cars, trucks, and poles, and she described an incident with a police car.

“A cop car pulled up right next to the crowd and a whole group of kids surrounded it. They got in the window, and they kicked the window, and the cop started getting out and they ran.” She said that she, as well as a lot of people around her, didn’t agree with this behavior.

When they returned to City Hall, there were several student speakers from various schools. Goldschneider recounted that “they were given a microphone and spoke, but the group was so large that people couldn’t even hear them, but it was great anyway.” She went on, “We had cars beeping with us, we were screaming at the top of our lungs. We blocked off streets, which some people seemed annoyed about, but we only blocked them for 10 minutes or so.”

Goldschneider’s main takeaway from the protest was the lack of adults. “I didn’t see a single adult, that was a cool thing. When we got to the speaker area, there were some adults trying to organize the speakers, that were teachers or something, but in the marching part of it, there was not a single adult in sight.”

Eric Valenti

Staff Writer

SLA’s lunch line — both its length and the constant cutting — is something that almost every student jokes about. People attempt to make funny excuses to cut in the line, such as: “I’m not cutting, I’m going to the boy’s bathroom,” or “I have to ask my friend a question, so I have to go the front.”

Of course, not everybody finds the situation to be a laughing matter.

“I don’t really cut, it’s rare that I feel the need to cut in the line,” Junior Israt Jahan stated. If I do it’s because I think their gonna run out of food. When I see other people cut, I feel like strangling them!”

The school lunch is important to a lot of students because, for some students, it may be their only meal for the day. Lunch also provides students with the necessary energy for the rest of the school day, and when that is taken away from them, this results in students feeling as though they can never get lunch from school at all. Junior Taylor Green gave her insight on the situation.

“Not everyone has the same economic background, and the fact that lunch is free is what people depend on and it’s selfish that people think its okay for people to cut in the lunch line.”

Earlier this school year, an SLA senior sent a letter to school administrators explaining that this is a big issue that needs to be handled.

Hope isn’t lost. Principal Aaron Gerwer and Engineering teacher John Kamal are working on a solution for the chaos of the line.

“The things we proposed and thought about is to put a divider, so that people have to go single file. In the past we’ve had student monitors,” he explained.

“A long time ago I monitored the lunch line but to me, it felt contrary to what SLA is about, we expect students to work together and work things out.”

While typically students are able to fix school culture problems on their own, the lunch seems to get out of control with the number of people piling up in the line. It seemed like the issue has gotten to the level where faculty needs to take control.

But was there actually any staff members that are told to stop students from cutting the lunch line? Ms. Charnice, one two lunch ladies who work at SLA,  stated that she isn’t told to do anything about students cutting. She usually just tells them if they cut, they won’t be served.

But this doesn’t seem to be enough to stop the trend. Mr. Kamal has proposed a multitude of solutions.

“ I think we should put a camera in the lunch line. If any student cuts in the lunch line, any one of the students in the lunch line could text to a specific number the name of the kid that cut,” he explained. “That name immediately goes up to someone in the office, who can review the video.”

No solution has been finalized yet,  Mr. Gerwer believes that the penalty for cutting in the lunch line should be that the student who committed the crime should be sent to the back of the line. If the student cuts multiple times, they would receive a detention.

In the meantime, the divider will be put in effect in a few weeks.