Senior Jeans school undergoes changes to accommodate growing student body
Senior Senior class class displays displays school school pride pride with with decorated decorated jeans jeans
THE Conestoga High School, Berwyn PA
Volume 69 No. 1
Oct. 23, 2018
Spoke.news
PUTTING IT IN PARK
Four-day student parking system implemented for 2018-2019 school year
Olivia Thompson/The SPOKE
Squeezing in: Seniors Emma Susas and Clare Mongeluzi share a ride to school on Thursday Oct. 18. Susus purchased an orange pass, because she wanted to be able to drive to school on Mondays and Fridays.
By Avery Maslowsky Co-Editor-in-Chief
Senior Everly Kase steered her red Volvo into the Conestoga parking lot the morning of Oct. 5. Her eyes spotted flying apple cider corks and flashing cameras angled at seniors atop truck
beds. But as Kase slammed her door and ran into the crowd of tailgating seniors for homecoming weekend, the last thing on her mind was the parking pass left in her cup holder. Following second period, Kase prepared to leave school for her Allied Health class at the Paoli Hospital. Once in the parking lot, she reached
into her backpack to fish out her car keys and looked up to see a yellow “WARNING� label plastered across her driver’s side window. “It said, ‘you are parking in a restricted area. Your license number has been recorded and if you park again we will tow you.’ I didn’t know what it meant until I saw I didn’t have
New CCT course gets mixed reactions
my parking pass on the dashboard,� Kase said. The new plastic student parking pass does not fit around Kase’s rear-view mirror. She said every morning she must remember to put the pass on her dashboard, and on Oct. 5 it slipped her mind. The sticker stuck to Kase’s window is just one of the enforcement
News Editor
Maddie Lamonica/The SPOKE
Sophia Pan
Staff Reporter
In response to the increase of student stress, juniors are now required to take a College and Career Transition (CCT) course aimed at giving students tools to help cope with stress in high school and beyond as well as consider colleges and majors. “I think that the district saw that we weren’t getting enough hands-on time with students to really work through their strengths and their interests and then to look at majors and colleges,� CCT teacher Rachel Reavy said. “They felt like this class will be very helpful for developing a student who’s really ready after high school for their next step.� CCT is a mandatory, one semester course that meets two days a cycle. Students are taught how to manage stress and learn life skills to prepare them for college. Discussions revolve around resilience and wellness, with students participating in stress-relieving activities like
coloring, and learning relaxation techniques like square breathing. “I was very excited about the course because all the topics we are covering are very necessary,� Reavy said. “To have it built into everybody’s schedule is a huge benefit in terms of being able to deliver all of the content and make sure we get to focus on the college and career aspect as well as the resiliency and decision-making and problem solving skills.� Junior Grace Kim believes it’s good that the school is providing students with a means to manage life. “I think it’s cool that the school is enforcing (CCT) instead of, ‘oh, we'll give you all this work to do, but go figure out how to deal with everything yourself.’ I thought it was interesting that the school would do that — take time out of our day and our schedules and actually arrange a whole class around it. I was like, wow, they must really care,� Kim said. However, not all students share Kim’s opinions. One complaint surrounding CCT is the resulting loss of a free period.
Students like junior Allison Lee are frustrated with the course taking up time in their schedules. “I was at first indifferent about it and then later, when I realized that it had to take up my free period, I was really upset,� Lee said. “I’d rather relieve my stress during my free period and finish all my homework and get my work done.� Similarly, junior Alex Caristan believes that while CCT may be beneficial to some, others may not have problems with stress management and should not have to take it. “I definitely think some students would benefit more than others,� Caristan said. “I think it’s a good start to getting students more prepared for college." According to Reavy, life beyond high school will be vastly different and CCT serves as a way to ease students into that reality. “I think that our society is really stressed so we are very much focused on making sure that students have the ability to be resilient when things go wrong,� Reavy said. “I’m just very excited about it. It’s a great opportunity.�
Continued on Page 3
Chinese program transfers to online class Maddie Lamonica
Study to success: CCT teacher Rachel Reavy addresses a class of juniors. CCT is a new mandatory class that focuses on managing stress and preparing students for college and beyond.
measures within the four-day student parking system. Seniors, except those in Allied Health or the Teaching Academy, are now only allowed to park four days a week to accommodate larger numbers of student parkers.
As you walk down the foreign language hallway, you may hear sounds of Spanish, French, German, Italian and Latin. This year however, there is one language you won’t hear: Chinese. This year marks the first in which Chinese is only offered through an online course. As a result of a limited number of certified Chinese language instructors in the area and decreasing student interest at Conestoga, the district opted to place existing Chinese language students into an online course for the new school year. “Although Mrs. Lee, who is an amazing teacher (and) was the first certified teacher in this entire area for Chinese, built and grew the program, unfortunately the program didn’t sustain itself due to student interest,� Curriculum Supervisor of World Language Dr. Oscar Torres said. Former Chinese teacher, Judy Lee, began teaching at Conestoga in 1988. For twenty years, Chinese was a staple in the foreign language department. Lee retired last school year, leaving her position vacant. The transition to online teaching is not new for the language department at Conestoga, as the school’s online learning program, Educere, already includes classes in Arabic, Japanese and American Sign Language. For junior Catherine Hoeffner the new course has been an adjustment, but she said she believes that it still may be valuable to anyone who wants to learn Chinese. “Although the Chinese class online is a bit tougher than the previous class, since it’s a bit harder to communicate with your teacher and
you have to make your own schedule for it, I would still definitely recommend this course,� Hoeffner said. But for junior Jack Hyams, who has taken Chinese alongside Spanish since his freshman year, the transition was noticeable. “We never had to memorize (characters) because our grades didn’t depend on them,� Hyams said. When beginning the online course however, Hyams was frustrated as the teaching style was different than he had been used to. Lee had taught her classes using pinyin, the Romanization of the Chinese language, in order to help students pronounce words correctly. The online course however, places a larger emphasis on characters. “I loved (Chinese) class. It
was a great learning environment, a small-ish class taught by a native speaker, so it was an awesome way to learn a language,� Hyams said. “I really love the language but the change has been so abrupt that it has been really hard to learn the information.� Because of this, Hyams elected to take Chinese at a local Chinese school rather than continue with the online course. According to Torres, Conestoga will continue to offer Chinese as an online course to all students, not just those who have taken it previously. “I think we are very fortunate that we’re in a district where we do allow students choice and passion in taking a language.� Torres said. “The proficiency that our students acquire at Conestoga is really remarkable.�
Olivia Thompson/The SPOKE
Self-taught: Junior Jack Hyams studies Chinese through the online language program, Educere. Hyams has taken Chinese since his freshman year.