News
Graduates urged to confront ‘elephant in the room’
Students were beaming with pride as they strode to the podium to be acknowledged for their achievements during the Acel Moore High School Journalism Workshop awards luncheon. The event, held at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel on Saturday, April 9, capped a four-week program, which taught area students the fundamentals of print, photo and digital journalism. […]
Teens of color see mostly failures in school reading assignments
By Grace Barlow Abington Friends School Teens of color feel a unique sense of enthusiasm when reading texts that represent their cultural identity. “If you look at any of my books from English class, A Raisin in the Sun and Their Eyes Were Watching God are annotated like crazy – then you have the other […]
The Hidden Side of School Board Meetings: The Toll on Mental Health
Milan Varia North Penn High Christian Fusco, the Vice President of North Penn School District’s School Board, had never experienced a panic attack – that is, until last October. As he was vying for reelection, some online discussions reached the point where he faced accusations that caused Fusco to experience a panic attack, and it […]
Book Bans: Limiting Representation and Empathy
By Gabrielle Boone Pennsylvania Home School As book bans sweep across the nation, teenagers and librarians fight for representation and empathy and parents for parental say. Here is what all sides have to say. In the year following national protests around the 2020 murder of George Floyd and increased social consciousness around LGBTQ+ issues, the […]
A new generation has grown accustomed to gun violence
Harper Leary Science Leadership Academy As cases of COVID-19 wane, there seems to be no end in sight to another pandemic in Philadelphia: gun violence. Shootings across the city have led to the loss of hundreds of lives every year, leaving behind shattered families and communities to cope with the trauma and emotional and physical […]
Picking apart the good, the bad, and ugly of a long ‘Spring Break’
By Siani Elliott George Washington Carver High School of Engineering & Science For teens, the 2019-2020 school year felt like a fever dream. One minute they were all in school. The next they were locked away in their houses for what felt like decades, seeing their teachers and peers through computer screens and watching their […]
Young black women are using hair to define their identity
By Sharon “Shay” Tyler Science Leadership Syreeta Scott had a hard time growing up in a household where her mother did not know how to maintain natural hair. As a result, Scott ended up leaving her corporate America job to become an entrepreneur and her own boss. She found that this new sense of independence […]
As pandemic wanes, urgency on global warming persists
By Mia Hail Lower Merion High March 2020 was the month that changed the lives of Noah Barkan and Abby Braslow, two students at Lower Merion High. Within a matter of weeks, schools shifted to remote learning, governors shut down private and state institutions, issued mask mandates, and the U.S. economy went into the tank. […]
Parents fret while experts confront disinformation
By Mariacristina Calcagno, J.R. Masterman On a chilly February Saturday afternoon at Southwark Elementary in South Philly, two signs indicated a vaccine clinic. They led around the corner, where two more banners advertised COVID-19 vaccines. An open door welcomed families into the brick building, where a mix of the Spanish and English languages greeted them. […]
At Lower Merion, clubs working to close the political divide
By Vivian Collins Lower Merion High As the country has become more politicized, so have its high school hallways. Teenagers have become more engaged in national politics, finding ways to advocate for their political beliefs from the comfort of a classroom. Students at Lower Merion High School, in Ardmore, have formed two clubs on separate […]
Are standardized tests a thing of the past?
by Lila Schwartzberg Lower Merion Rakiyah Akins has a strong vocabulary. She’s a stand-out student at Central High School, a magnet school in Philadelphia. But she still remembers taking the SAT and staring down at a word she didn’t recognize. She later learned it was a type of decorative furniture she’d never heard of before. […]
Black History Course at Lower Merion draws mixed reactions
By Connor Kleinman After the recent nationwide protests over inequality and police brutality, Sheyla Street was grateful that her classes in the Philadelphia School District included courses about African American history. But she worries that her peers in suburban districts may not have the same opportunity to learn about this important subject. “If you don’t […]
Generation Z is navigating a war — through TikTok
By Meghan Dougherty Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School Every day, Philadelphia-area teenagers take out their phones, open up TikTok, and scroll endlessly, watching video after video seeing the latest dances or trends. But now with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many of these teens are being shown a variety of chilling videos about the war. Users are […]
Climate change bound to wreak havoc in coastal communities
By Lindsey Catlett Lenape High As climate change causes sea levels to rise across the globe, some coastal communities are dealing with extreme flooding. This flooding caused by extreme weather affects the infrastructure of these communities, Tedesco said. “Houses, roads, fire stations, schools. As infrastructure pipelines, all kinds of things are being floated so that […]
For transgender athletes, policy, culture are high hurdles to clear
By Noah Barkan Lower Merion High High school isn’t easy for anyone. From balancing schoolwork, sports and extracurriculars to navigating social circles to facing real world issues, school students have their plate full. But when some students must face bias, stereotypes and stigmas for merely trying to play a sport they love, things get even […]
At Central, students win the fight for Asian American studies
By Amy Liao Central High School A new Asian studies course is coming to Central High School next year after students in the school’s Asian and Pacific Islander Union fought for more Asian representation in the curriculum. Course content was developed from student interest and co-created by students as part of the growing movement to […]