Uncategorized

Andre Doyle

Staff Writer

Starting in the fall school year of 2022 – 2023, The School District Of Philadelphia has voted to shift  the starting time of high schools to 9:00 a.m., and an end time at 4pm.

In making this announcement , The District cited  research conducted The American Academy of Pediatrics in the spring of 2021, who states “ by starting high schools at a later start time it’ll enable them to be more alert, and ready to learn, especially since the majority of our high school students are responsible for making their own ways to and from school.”

I personally do not have a concern with the later starting time — but I believe the later end time will result in a lot of parents questioning their kids’ safety, es especially during the winter months 

When it gets colder and the nights come quicker, the loss of daylight means that students are at risk of…  This gets even worse during daylight savings time when the clock goes back one hour and light is still out.

Also important is that many schools will end after 4PM. For example, with SLA we personally get out at 3:45  on advisory days ( Mondays, and Thursdays) , but if the time limit gets pushed back, and school hours get adjusted, we´ll then be released at 4:30. , 

In addition to traveling in the dark, the changed start and end times will lead to a longer commute. For  some students they get home quicker than others whether they’re being picked up, or dropped off, or own a car. But, for others it takes them a little longer for their commute of an hour or more just to get to school alone, so they would arrive home until close to quarter to 7 or around 7 pm, especially when rush hour is happening. 

Personally, it takes me an hour, and 30 minutes on a one way trip going home during rush hour, which means I won’t be home before 6PM on advisory days. 

Speaking for myself, I wish that the District wouldn’t push back school hours for the safety of the students and faculty.

By Staff Writer Leo Braveman

          Right before covid started my dad started playing a smaller version of tenis called pickleball. He would take me to go early in the morning on some weekdays, and we would go on weekends. When covid hit, the gym we would play at closed, giving us no place to go and play. A few weeks later we went to a park in Cherry Hill NJ where there were pickup games. 

            Although we started playing before covid, there were constantly new players who would come and learn the game. From that point, the search word “pickleball” has doubled in terms of times googled per hour. 

           Some time later I was getting tired of pickleball. I had nothing to do, there weren’t people hanging out in the same way, there weren’t sports events to go to, and there weren’t even public parks open. As you can guess, I was on my phone most of the time, and one day I saw a tik tok that said “Favorite course in the Philadelphia area?”. 

I looked in the comments and the name of the golf course was “Riverwinds”. In the next few days I thought about the idea of golfing, it’s funny to think about now but to be honest I wasn’t really interested in the sport, but the idea of getting to drive a golf cart seemed really fun to me. 

          Later that week me and my dad went to the golf course to play. With golf being such a unique sport, there weren’t the same regulations stopping people from playing like with other sports in the city going online, or parks closing. When I played I was awful, not only at playing but also at driving the cart which I would not be allowed to do after the first minute of it. Even though I played really bad, I ended up going back to golf with it being such a perfectly fit sport for covid, playing a couple times a week now. I wouldn’t say i’m good, but compared to my game when I played only to drive the cart I’m amazing!

            Recently I have been playing golf, but in a different way. Covid, which made me start playing, also made me stop being able to do the commute to the course with it decreasing and life getting more normal. Because it’s hard to get a ride to the course, I shifted into playing in a simulator, which some gyms have and it’s a much closer drive, being able to stay in the city. For me I know I have drastically improved. Of course I only have the data I can get from the simulator, but I hope that when the time comes on the course I’ll be able to enjoy the game more with the hopefully new way I’ll play. 

Students are censoring opinions due to fear of backlash and consequences. 

They say school is supposed to be a safe place but is it really safe if students fear what might happen to them if they speak their minds? 

Giving power to your voice is important and one of the many things you have the right to do no matter where you are. Students not feeling safe or secure enough in school to voice their opinion in fear should be taken seriously. 

In the article How Comfortably Can You Speak Your Mind at School?  A college student named [first name] Daniels describes her experience exploring hot-button issues on campus., “Each week, I seek out the office hours of a philosophy department professor willing to discuss with me complex ethical questions raised by her course on gender and sexuality. We keep our voices low as if someone might overhear us.” 

This story alarmed me because I believe that students shouldn’t have to hush their voices in response to what might be thrown at them in the aftermath. And yet, I see students behaving in the same way at this school.

There was a situation a few weeks back where my friends and I were discussing the injustices that we saw in SLA, more to how students from Ben Franklin are treated compared to SLA students. We talked about how students receive different treatment depending on what school they go to and their racial background.  

We were discussing the different levels of treatment we saw towards people of color and white students and how it impacted us. My friends and I started to connect situations we experienced and how both students and teachers at SLA are judgemental.  One of my friends had seen a teacher walk by and said “Hush lower y’all voices. Y’all are too loud. We don’t want them to hear us.”

Personally, I didn’t care about whether teachers heard what I had to say either way my point was going to get across. I am not the type to fear speaking my mind. I questioned why my friends were hesitant to continue the conversation afterward or shut down when a teacher or staff walked by. They said they weren’t afraid of the teacher, but now I know that they are afraid of what might happen if we were overheard.

In thinking about our exchange now, I actually don’t think there would have been a negative consequence if the teacher had overheard us. So why did my friends lower their voices? There has always been negativity in the air when discussing things that impact students. 

The majority of the time my friends seem to shut their voices due to the wrong ear hearing or things being misinterpreted by others who are around us. In response, they’ll change the topic when they see an outsider or when they think that they were being delusional about what they are experiencing. SLA has freedom of speech and I think that it’s important for students who are learning at SLA to be able to speak their truth and figure out how to move forward. 

Students should never be put into a situation where they fear that voicing their feelings or opinions could lead them to get in trouble. Young people’s opinions matter more than ever: Gen zer’s are starting to vote and have their opinions taken into real consideration. 

Judgment and criticism are common but can be very harmful in societies- especially in school. The importance of words should never have to live on the tongue because of fear of the wrong ear hearing. 

Biran Mahmoud

Staff writer

On the 24th of  February 2022, Russia began the invasion of Ukraine. The first invasion started on the 20th of February 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea and took it from Ukraine in 14 days. 

Since the war has started 7000 confirmed Russian soldiers have died according to The New York Post, 1300 confirmed Ukrainian soldiers have died according to The Guardian, this is from March 13 2022 so the number could be higher.

     According to Aljazeera “More than 700 civilians – including 52 children – have been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded but the “actual number is likely much higher”, UN political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council.” 

    Russia has committed some brutal attacks for example “airstrike that devastated a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol last week was three people dead and 17 injured” according to NPR. In a CNBC article, it says that 43 health facilities have been struck by Russian attacks. 

    As a response to this War countries around the globe have started imposing sanctions on Russia to slow down its economy. The sanctions have caused the 1 Russia Ruble to drop from 0.013 USD cents on the 21st of January 2022 to 0.00097 USD cents. These sanctions didn’t just hurt the Russian Economy it has affected the European and American Economies too. 

    The sanctions caused oil prices to jump from 91 dollars on the 2nd of February 2022 to 123 dollars on the 3rd of March 2022 but now have gone down to 95 dollars, according to Market Insider. The average gas price across the country is around $4.33 compared to $3.40 on the 22nd of January 2022.   

    In SLA the war in Ukraine is hardly talked about. It’s really important for students to understand what are the key events that are happening around the world because the stuff that happens outside doesn’t mean it will stay outside it sometimes affects us too. The increase in gas prices is a sign of how things that happen outside of our borders can end up affecting us too. 

     What is going on is really horrible millions of people having to flee their country,  civilians being killed, etc, This is not something that any human should go through. I was born in Syria and had to leave when I was 6 because of the civil war that erupted on March 15, 2011, the horrible stuff that is happening in Ukraine reminded me of things that happened in Syria so I felt that I had to shed light on the situation.