the Southerner S I N C E
HENRY W. GRADY HIGH SCHOOL, ATLANTA
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thesoutherneronline.com VOLUME LXVI, NUMBER 2
OCT. 24, 2011
TEACHERS MISSING FROM EQUATION IN CLASSROOMS
By Konadu Amoakuh ight weeks into the school year, juniors Jori Shorts and Laura Sommerville were on their seventh substitute in their Math III class. With midsemester quickly approaching, three Math III classes, three Math III support classes and three special-education classes still did not have permanent or even long-term teachers. The students in some of these classes have already had multiple substitutes. Shorts said that out of the seven substitutes her math class has
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had, only one had a math background. “The one thing that’s different for APS is that all of our substitutes are certified teachers, but you may have a substitute who doesn’t have math credentials subbing for a math class,” said Keith Bromery, director of APS media relations. The Math III classes were without textbooks before October. Their only resources were math worksheets. Without textbooks and without a long-term teacher, Shorts said the students in her class are not learning the math concepts that her friends in other Math III classes with permanent teachers are learning.
Shorts said her class has not taken any quizzes or tests or had any homework, and she said that, on several occasions, the work they have been assigned has had nothing to do with math. “Right before the GGT writing test, we had a substitute that used to be a language-arts teacher, so she helped us prepare for that [subject],” Sommerville said. While the students in this math class do worksheets or work for other subjects, other Math III classes are preparing for midterms and the Georgia High School Graduation Test, see TEACHERS, page 8
Through Tribulation Trials and Amid controversy, Georgia executes Davis for murder
By Jasmine Burnett fter three planned executions, numerous appeals and a last-minute request for clemency, prisoner Troy Davis was executed in a Georgia state prison in Jackson on Sept. 21. On the day of Davis’s execution, protesters assembled on the lawn and steps of Georgia’s capitol and outside the prison to show their opposition. Literature teacher Scott Stephens was among the crowd at the Capitol that night. Stephens said he was motivated to participate by both his stance against the death penalty and the specifics of Davis’s case in general. “I had read about Troy Davis’s trial and some of the problems associated with the trial and the fact that there was some doubt as to his guilt or innocence,” Stephens said. “But the main reason I went was because of the death penalty and my opposition to [it].” Davis was convicted in 1991 for the murder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. Since his conviction, however, multiple witnesses have recanted their stories, some claiming they were forced to implicate Davis and others naming someone else as the murderer. Despite the change in testimonies, Davis was repeatedly denied requests for clemency. Stephens said Davis’s execution reinforced his stance against the death penalty. “My reaction when I found out that he had been executed was sadness and just a renewed commitment to doing something about having the death penalty in Georgia still,” Stephens said. Senior Eloisa Cleveland, who also attended
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RALLY FOR CHANGE: Troy Davis’s execution brought protesters outside of the Capitol on Sept. 21. “No gun. No DNA. No fingerprints equals no execution,” they shouted. the rally at the Capitol, said that throughout the night of Sept. 21 she remained hopeful that Davis would not be executed. “In the back of my mind I just had this feeling that it wouldn’t happen,” Cleveland said. “I remember when we went home I was talking to my mom, and I was like, ‘I feel hopeful.’ Everything was playing towards it not happening.” Cleveland said one demonstration in particular stood out to her. “It was really moving,” Cleveland said. “At one point they had a list of all the names of
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Two months into the school year, many teachers are missing textbooks in their classrooms. AP teachers have resorted to online materials.
people who had been executed in Georgia, and they passed around the list and read the names out loud.” Stephens described the crowd outside the capitol as having mixed emotions. “There were some people there that were there to be provocative,” Stephens said. “There were some young men, who had signs about ‘The only good cop is a dead cop,’ [who] seemed to be totally against what most of the people were there for, which was not killing people. [But] I think overall the crowd was pretty subdued.”
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Community members and competing theater companies are working to save Georgia Shakespeare. They need to raise more than $500,000.
Kathryn Hamoudah, the chair of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a group that works with Amnesty International and other organizations and individuals who oppose the death penalty, said Davis’s case was different than the other death penalty cases the organization has worked on in the past. She said Davis’s case helped shine a spotlight on the death penalty in Georgia because people were able to see Davis as an individual. “The difference with this case is just the amount of support that he had from all over see DAVIS, page 7
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Science teacher David Olorunfemi is next in line to be king of the Adorkite tribe in Nigeria. His royal roots surprised his students.
During the “It’s the Journey” walk, supporters raised $660,362. “It’s a kinder, gentler walk than the Susan G. Komen walk,” Kimberly Goff said.