students

Students React to Mask Mandate Changes

May 5, 2022 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Biran Mahmoud, Leo Braveman

Staff Writers

**Since the mask mandate was lifted students now have an option to not wear their masks**

After an entire school year, the masks came off — for a few weeks

When mask mandates were first lifted by the district on March 9th, the effects of students wearing masks were not immediate. We noticed that when this happened, most students kept their masks on, while fewer took their masks off.

We started by asking program manager Jeremy Spry about the effects and new emotions of the mask drop. “Masks are not something anyone wants to be wearing,” he said, referring to the discomfort. He told us about how his own opinions have shifted.

“There are places where I still feel uncomfortable like in grocery stores I will still keep my mask on,” Mr. Spry explained he feels different in the office where he stays around mostly the same people. Mr. Spry also recognized how people might feel about their own individual situations. “If I was a classroom teacher I would probably feel differently.”

This interview was completed before the school district returned to mandatory masks for the week following spring break, only to have Philadelphia drop its mask mandate the week after that.

Although the school district announced its plan to reinstate the mask mandate in march, many students including us were surprised to hear this news shortly before returning to school.

We asked the school nurse, Chris Banchs about the new mask mandate and his knowledge relating to it. The first time he heard about the mask mandate returning was “around 2 weeks before the spring break”.

“I took it seriously, I was very sure that we would all be wearing masks when we came back Monday”.

After we learned more about the effects the re-imposed mandate had on him personally, it went pretty smooth for him. Because Nurse Chris wore his mask whenever he was “around colleagues and peers” it made for a relatively easy adjustment.

After interviewing nurse Chris we became more interested in finding students and negative aspects of the returned mandate.

Responses were mixed

“I feel like it makes sense, it’s just kind of annoying” Said Junior Jave Kelman.

But he wasn’t the only one who agreed in terms of covid but still felt the annoyance. Freshman Dove Smith told us that it made sense to him, but “I had to adjust because it was obviously hard to breathe in and I used to break out with acne and stuff”.

After telling us about the annoyances Dove was sure to explain: “I’ve gotten used to breathing in masks now and adjusted in that way”.

All of the changes have not been easy, especially for some, but with all things considered our SLA community has done a good job of always working together to move past inconveniences.

The Faces of 440

November 22, 2019 by Owen Grzywinski Leave a Comment

By Marnae Penn

Have you ever wanted a friend who was so thoughtful? Someone who listens to you and cares for you. This girl will play alternative music, bring you chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, and watch That 70s show all night. Her name is Avery Buglione. Her last name is pretty hard to pronounce so, for now, we’ll call her Avery B. Avery B. is a girl who keeps you smiling. She’s sweet and nice. Whenever you’re around her you’ll be surrounded with pets, from cats to dogs to a cute guinea pig. Need a morning refresher well she’ll have Dunkin waiting for you. Want to go shopping? She’ll take you to Brandy Melville in downtown Philadelphia on Walnut Street. Want to grab a quick bite to eat? Well grab her and get some Chick-Fil-A but only those waffle fries. She’s a vegetarian. What’s your sign? Like Pisces? Well, that’s her sign! Her birthday, which is in the heart of spring, is the perfect time for her hobbies. Her favorite hobby is frisbee and she can teach you the correct way to throw and the proper way to catch. Another one of her hobbies includes homework. Avery would be an excellent person to ask for help in English and history. Avery plans her future well. Before jumping to adulthood she attended The Waldorf School of Philadelphia, which she called a “cult.” Now she attends a school she loves which is Science Leadership Academy. She wants to get married and work in the medical field.

The Faces of 440

November 22, 2019 by Owen Grzywinski Leave a Comment

By Dougie Oliver

Tristan Mayberry is a junior at Science Leadership Academy. He’s lived in South Philly his whole life and was born on July 9th. He grew up with older and younger siblings. Before transferring from Central High school he played baseball and SLA asked him to come to join the team; he went into depth about his time at his previous school. “It was big, people didn’t know each other.” When coming here he spoke about how it wasn’t too bad as he knew some people from previous clubs he played for. He spends his days going to his friend Nuala’s house, eating Mexican food, going to the gym, or practicing baseball. When he’s out of high school he may pursue contracting as a profession instead of his childhood dream which was to be a professional baseball player. When discussing the SLA move to Ben Franklin, Tristan didn’t seem to mind the move at all to a new building as he didn’t attend the previous one.

Combatting Stress at SLA

October 5, 2015 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

Arielle Moore

Staff Writer

It’s one-thirty in the morning and you’re still up writing that essay for your History class, but the time doesn’t even phase you. Aah, good ol’ benchmark season and your teachers were not the slightest bit generous this year. Ever since school began, you’ve been moody, tired, antisocial, and irritable. These are symptoms of stress; the one word that affects us high-schoolers the most.

But why is that? What causes all of this stress in teens?

“Receiving school work I don’t know how to complete even after asking the teacher about it causes me stress,” says sophomore Siani Davis. “It affects my attitude towards my friends and generally how I feel throughout the day.”

At SLA, stress also has a four year course. Many upperclassmen say that their stress comes from more specific areas, such as standards and college applications. “Tests stress me out the most,” agrees junior Vaughn Matthews.

A universal stress factor among students of all grades is the amount of schoolwork they receive. SLA mentor and advisor Zoe Siswick says: “Students have a high level of stress at times, but in some sense it’s also kind of stress free. They don’t have a ton of responsibilities outside of making sure you’re getting your schoolwork done. The amounts of stress in students sort of ebb and flow depending on the time of year.”

So from hearing all that, you’re probably wondering how you can get rid of this wretched stress immediately. Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that while you’re in high school, the chances of you completely obliterating the stress you feel are slim to none. The good news is that there are some easy and quite effective ways to relieve it. After doing some research, I’ve found some ways to lower your stress levels and help you to breathe a bit easier, even with a huge speech due tomorrow.

Sleep

Yes, another S word, and one that seems even scarier than ‘stress’. To this day, most high-schoolers don’t even know how to successfully get a full eight-hours; it’s usually a five-hour rest with a series of broken up three-hour after school crashes on the couch. We’ve all been there, having our sleep schedule being brutally slaughtered during the summer and having no way to resurrect it once school starts. It’s a struggle to try and fall asleep (and stay asleep) but I urge you, please do it! Sleeping is vital to your health, and it also makes you feel great when you do. Try turning off your phone fifteen or so minutes before bed, to ease the temptation to use it later on. It really does help and the final result is incredibly rewarding, trust me.

Diet

I know, I know, another opportunity for me to sound like your doctor. “A healthy diet and excercise…”. Bleh. I would totally eat a bag of pretzels over an orange any day for a snack. And honey, do it! Don’t skip that 6-pack of oreos to scarf down a head of lettuce. But make sure you’re lessening the amounts of unhealthy foods you eat, and increasing the amounts of healthy ones. Also, make sure you eat a filling breakfast. Eating in the morning, like so many people, makes me feel sick but I have to at least have a banana or a granola bar to start my day. It’s so helpful and it makes you feel great later on, it also keeps your stomach from doing the rumblies before you realize you have late lunch that day.

Manage

Organization is key to having a cleanly and neat life. Managing your time, working space, and even supplies will help you feel more on top of things. I know when everything is in its place I feel a sense of calmness even in a chaotic situation. Keeping a planner is a great way to remember what you have to do and it helps to distribute your time thoroughly for each assignment that you’re required to do.

Fun!

Maintaining a healthy social life is a great way to A. remain sane, and B. enjoy your teen years! I know being social isn’t for everybody (I didn’t forget you, introverts) but you should make sure that you are constantly making time for fun in your life. Like what I’ve said for many of the items on this list, they definitely aren’t easy to do, but they are very worth it. Got a big test coming up? Of course study and make sure you fully understand the material, but don’t let it consume you! Watch a movie, draw; do something that’s therapeutic to you at least once a week.

Stress is a huge part of your high school years, but it’s up to you to determine how it will affect you. Yes, you may have one week to turn a C into a B, but don’t let that be something that you lose sleep over. Understand that school is a very important part of your life and future, but keep in mind that your health is something you should value a lot more. So remember, turn off Instagram a few minutes earlier tonight, drink a few more cups of water, hang out with some friends this weekend, and j u s t b r e a t h e.

Image courtesy of This website

Unexpected Fire Alarm Disrupts Classes

December 16, 2012 by lpahomov Leave a Comment

2012-12-13_12.39.53 (1) — Students waiting outside the school during the fire drill.

By SLAMedia Staff

Interviews by Melanie Thomas and Jacob Lotkowski

On Thursday, Dec. 13th, the entire population of 55 N. 22nd Street was sent outside for the second day in a row.

At around 12:30 PM, during Y band, the fire alarms went off, leading to a full evacuation.

This alarm was a particular surprise because the school had just had a scheduled practice drill the day before.

Students remained outside for 25 minutes while Principal Lehmann investigated the source of the alarm.

There was no fire, but the cause of the alarm is not completely clear. Construction has been happening on the residential side of the building, which Principal Lehmann thinks was probably the culprit.

“The landlords think it’s from students, and we think is from the dust of the workers,” Lehmann said. The workers were kicking up dust during construction. Residents of the building also had to evacuate.

After it was determined that the building was safe, however, the alarm could not be disabled because the code given to the school to deactivate it was wrong.

The fire department did not show up, but that was by design. According to Lehmann, “the alarm calls the fire department depending on the code.” Based on where the alarm went off, the fire department was not immediately notified.

During the time outside, rumors swirled about the cause of the evacuation. Students had many theories, including a mishap in Engineering Teacher Matthew VanKouwenberg’s classroom, or a pulled fire alarm, such as the red box by the front stairwell on the third floor, where the plastic case is broken.

Because the alarms don’t actually go off during a drill, the situation seemed more serious than usual.

Freshman Isabella Mezzaroba stated, “First I thought that it was just another drill because we had a drill the day before, but then I remembered the alarm doesn’t go off when we have drills.”

“Some people panicked,” she said, “but everyone seemed to be pretty chill about it.”

Other students were unfazed by the drill.

When asked how he felt about the evacuation, Junior Anthony Buchnico said, “Pretty indifferent. I didn’t expect there to be a fire.”

One lingering concern is the broken door to the back stairwell on the 5th floor. If the door is not propped open, it is locked shut. A truck parked right outside the back door also created a bottleneck of students trying to exit the building.

“There was a big cramp there for a little bit,” reported Buchanico, “but we got by it thankfully.”

After twenty or so minutes outside, the alarm was finally disabled, and students returned to their normal schedules.

“I was relieved that my school didn’t burn down,” reported Mezzaroba. “And then I was like, ‘Okay. Off to English class.’”