• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

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.

  • News
  • Features
  • Sports
  • A&E
  • Op/Ed
  • Multimedia
  • About

Founding SLA History Teacher Matthew Baird is Retiring

May 29, 2018 by Avi Cantor Leave a Comment

Jeremiah Butler

Staff Writer

Photo Courtesy of Jeremiah Butler

After working at the school since day one, History Teacher Matthew Baird is leaving SLA, at the end of the 2017-2018 school year.

Many at SLA have expressed how they feel about Mr. Baird and it has been nothing, but good things about the teacher all will miss.

When asked what would she miss about Mr. Baird Junior, Nzinga Suluki-Bey responded with “His dumb jokes!”  

“One time he said to me, I was doing SAT prep, and he was like, ‘the answer is always C’. The answer was C.”

“Then he’ll be like ‘what’s uno?’ We would say ‘one’ duh. Then he would say ‘aidos….amigas’. We would say ‘no amigos’. It’s like dumb jokes, but fatherly so you enjoy them.”

“He brings a pretty unique perspective on especially American History and ways of teaching civics education, it’s sad. On the other hand, he’s doing it willfully and is going to succeed in the next thing he does,” said History Teacher Daniel Symmonds.

His leaving has definitely made many students think of the future of SLA and how it will affect their class selections and who will be added to the SLA family. Along with Art Teacher Ms. Hull, Mr. Baird is one of two founding teachers to leave the school this year, which is happening before the relocation to Benjamin Franklin High School in the school year of 2019-2020. SLA will be welcoming new teachers. The new teacher for his class at this moment is not yet decided, but during the summer they definitely will be ready to take on SLA the following year. Many hope for great teachers that are as understanding and considerate as him, but students can only hope.  

“Him leaving has struck a chord. Because he’s like one of the first, he was as people call it the team,” said Suluki-Bey. “So at least three of the first teachers has left SLA. So it’s like the more of them keep leaving, it’s like we’re getting these new teachers so SLA’s culture is changing. It’s not the same anymore.”

“He adopted one of the students at SLA, I think it was the first class or second class [of SLA] he adopted somebody who was having a very hard time in their life and they didn’t have anybody, after that I understood him as a teacher and as a person,” said Suluki-Bey.

The relationship between student and teacher for Mr. Baird has changed him for a very long time and one of the things he appreciates SLA for. She was in the second graduating class of SLA. She was in a situation where she didn’t have a lot of families and she was near leaving SLA forever. Mr.Baird and his wife provided a way for her to stay at SLA by adopting her. She now goes to Howard University and they keep in contact with her almost every day.

Mr. Baird is moving on to retirement and plans to spend his time enjoying the summer where he doesn’t have to plan classes. He isn’t entirely sure, but he knows he will not be teaching in a high school classroom. He plans on trying something new.

“I am proud to say that I have taught at SLA and have been here [SLA] for so long. I knew teaching was something I wanted to do when it reminded me of myself and how much I struggled,” said History Teacher Mr. Baird.

Filed Under: Features

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

* Copy This Password *

* Type Or Paste Password Here *

95,359 Spam Comments Blocked so far by Spam Free Wordpress

Primary Sidebar

FacebookInstagramTwitter Snapchat

Features

Wardrobe of SLA

By Harper Leary Staff Writer Philadelphia is a diverse city, and the student population of Science Leadership Academy reflects that fact— not just with their identities, but also with their fashion choices. If you walk down the hallways of SLA, your head will turn every which way to get a glimpse of all the different […]

How the Pandemic has Changed Live Events

By Maya Smelser & Anouk Ghosh-Poulshock Staff Writers Everyone remembers their first concert. But when the pandemic hit, many tours were canceled or rescheduled. There was a hiatus from live music as people adjusted to their new lives– so many teens missed out on their early concert experiences..  In the past few months, however, concerts […]

How Are SLA Students Are Dealing With Their Last Quarter?

Leticia Desouza Staff Writer After a long yet quick year at SLA, students from different grades have experienced many new things they weren’t able to experience during the 2020-2021 online academic year. After almost 10 months of being back in school, students have encountered difficulties and new experiences that further molded how the rest of […]

Philadelphia High Schools Now Starting At 9am

Lia Dunakin Staff Writer The School District of Philadelphia recently announced that all Philly high schools will start their instructional day at 9AM beginning in the 2022-2023 school year.  The reason given for this huge change is simply, sleep. Teenagers tend to get tired later  at night, and starting school at early hours can be […]

Shared Facilities: SLA, and Benjamin Franklin High School Encounters

Andre Doyle, Cameron Booker, & Leticia Desouza Staff Writers SLA and Ben Franklin began their co-location in the Fall of 2019 — but only this year have the two schools started to truly operate in the same space.  Not all of the facilities are used by both schools — most academic spaces are entirely separate. […]

Copyright © 2022 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in