FFA Week Features Penn’s Future Farmers

By Trish Vo

Last week, William Penn’s Future Farmers of America (FFA), led by William Penn teachers, Karen Ferrucci, Kelly Vaughan, and Kathleen Pickard, celebrated FFA week—an event meant to identify opportunities available to students in a way that engages them, all while celebrating the club’s history and the skills learned within it.  and The National FFA Organization is dedicated to making a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education. It is the largest Nationwide Youth Organization in the world.

FFA week was planned and executed by the student officers—Nicole Webb, Laura Hernandez-Ojeda, Sydney Poe, Semaj Bungy-Carter, Damien Cook, and Ashlyn Jordan.

During FFA week, club members have fun dress up days. The themes decided upon were College Gear Day, FFA Gear Day, and Blue and Gold Gear Day, with an open house held on Friday.

A Greenhand Mock Training was led by the student officers within the club that highlighted the history and opportunities of FFA, and, in interest of community involvement a leadership training workshop was held, put on by their FFA President: Webb. Another meeting was open in the evening for parents to make gratitude flower arrangements. On Friday, other classes had the chance to look in on the class and get involved in agriculture.

Participation in FFA lets students gain leadership and teamwork skills, helping students become college and career ready. Their students gain knowledge in class about their chosen career, which they can apply to a more specialized area of interest through their Supervised Agriculture Experience projects (a self-chosen project that they complete outside of school.) FFA gives them the opportunity to attend leadership workshops and participate in various Career Development Events throughout the year. Career Development Events are competitions that are directly designed based off of career required skills expressed by employers.

Through FFA, parents can learn about the different opportunities available to their students. FFA Officers earn requirements towards higher degrees and awards through the Delaware FFA. The students earn high level degrees with FFA; two were earned last year, and seven were awarded this year. The club cultivates a relationship with George Read Middle School and considers itself very diverse.

William Penn’s FFA is still growing, though—the number of members have increased from last year to this year, and they also have more students attending the upcoming FFA State Convention in March. FFA is always welcoming new members.

Struggling Students With Jobs

By Josie Taraskus

As a student with a job, keeping up with school work and actual work may be difficult. There are plenty of these students throughout William Penn experiencing this struggle called “growing up.” 

A school wide survey was conducted collecting data from 120 students. 30.8% of those students have jobs and out of that approximately 40.7% have had their grades drop since getting a job.

Junior Amanda Hopkins, who works at California Pizza Kitchen, works 2-4 shifts per week and her hours can include getting off anywhere between 8:30 and 10:30pm.

She can reach up to 20 hours a week which meets minors laws but for some students that isn’t the case. A small amount of the students, around 4.1%, reported working 30 hours a week. Those who selected the other option in the survey had hours per week varying from 25-60 hours a week. That was selected by 49% of the students who completed the survey. Actually with the amount of hours per shift only 20.8% said they work 5 hours per shift. The larger outcome for this was the 56.3% of students who chose other. Within that, two students said they work seven hours, five said they work eight, and two said they work nine per shift.

Working this much has to somehow affect the work of students. Students are able to find time to squeeze in for projects and homework assignments.

Most students get off from work pretty late at night. Many of them are faced with a decision: to stay up and do the work and be tired in school or not do it at all and get the sleep. Choosing sleep leads to the bigger problem. That’s when you ask yourself, “Do I just face the consequence of not turning it in?” or “Should I try to finish it in another class or in the beginning of the class?” No matter what, there is a consequence in there somewhere. 52% of students turn the work in late some of the time, 14% turn the work in late pretty often, and 8% turn work in late all the time.

“Teachers assign homework, but when they do on the nights I work, I am just way too tired to do it,” Hopkins said.

This leads to another point. Are students getting a good amount of sleep? A poor amount of sleep can lead to a pretty rough day at school the next day, from not being able to focus to just plain falling asleep in class.

It is a known fact that on average a human being should be sleeping 8 hours a night. A small 10.2% of working students are getting 9 hours of sleep each night. 32.7% of working students get 5 hours a sleep a night.

“I only get 2-4 hours a sleep a night,” Hopkins said. A small amount of sleep is accomplished after a night of working and completing homework and projects.

Something else that these students face is whether or not they get the opportunity to do after school activities. Would they rather be working or doing a sport? Although only 37.3% of working students are not able or cannot handle doing after school activities, it is still a difficult task to accomplish. The average schedule for a working student in one day could be getting up at 6 a.m., going to school, getting off at 2:15 p.m., going straight to practice, and by 5:30 p.m. they are working and not getting off till much later that night. Finally going to bed but just to wake up and do it again. Being able to have a weekend with your friends or family can even vanish. From either practicing all Saturday or even working all weekend around practice. Where is there time for a life, let alone school work?

Hopkins says she is able to do it by “working with teachers and the managers to get around hard scheduling.”

But not all things that result from being a student worker are bad. Some students reported better grades after starting working. It may have come up as just 8.2% of the students, but that shows with the right amount of effort it gets better. You hear many students in the halls complaining about dealing with the newest assignment in their English class and then having to go to work before getting to have the chance to do it. But in many cases working has led to having the motivation to do it, having the motivation to keep pushing. If you can juggle school, sports, and work then you’re going be just fine. If you work harder, besides the lack of sleep, you’re focused to keep going. You learn the lesson and what it is like growing up and doing things for yourself being independent.

Hopkins says her grades got better as she began working. In fact, she stated, “The way work is impacting my school performance is that it makes me do better. I am working harder.”

We need more students who can get to this. The question is not if students should be working, but what can be done to make students have an easier time being able to work and succeed earlier in life. Isn’t that what is expected? We as teenagers to finally grow up and become independent and mature? To be given more responsibility. 49 of 52 students said that there should be something done in order to help students maintain having a job and going to school. Some say there should be a program in school to help with studying and homework that work around your schedule, maybe even have teachers give out less homework in general, others just want a way to keep up motivation in general.

Having a job and going to school should not be something a teenager dreads having to deal with, but something a student thrives in doing and feels confident enough in themselves to do.

Armed with Art

By Trish Vo

The thing about students in the art field is that they are never done learning.

Being an artist means that one has to continually practice their skill, continually learn, continually improve, continually get experience, continually create.

William Penn offers visual arts courses to those who are interested in developing their inner artist,“artist” referring to anyone who practices any of the various creative arts, and includes fields such as Graphic Design and Art.

“Most of our students come to us with limited experience and exposure to many differing aspects of Art as a whole, so the courses are designed to give them a range of opportunities,” Kimberly Davis, one of the art teachers at William Penn, said.

William Penn provides many opportunities for students to present their work and gain real-world experience.  Students have the option to take Graphic Design or Art when they are a freshman, or whenever they decide to pursue the visual arts field. Each class has levels 1, 2, 3, and 4, and there is an AP Studio course for art..

Davis stated that William Penn joined the Artisans Gallery, which she said gives students the opportunity to “work and gain hands on experience to be an independent artists, and working in a business to meet clients, communicate and conduct sales.”

Graphic design students have access to professional programs to develop their skills, and can complete commissions from clients right inside the William Penn’s computer lab.

Annmarie Novack, who teaches graphic design, said that while William Penn provides equipment, guidance, and opportunity, it is still largely up to the student whether they will succeed or not. “The field is competitive and, with any career, a student who is passionate about what they are involved in and is willing to put in the effort will succeed,” she said.

Just passing the courses does not mean success in the future, Davis believes. “Too many think: just take classes and that’s enough. Never!”

Like any other field, job security is not guaranteed. “There are hundreds of others out there doing the same thing,” Davis said. “So ask yourself: what am I doing to make myself stand out? If you don’t, you won’t!”

If it is truly the path that the students want to follow, William Penn High School will be sure to pave the path for them, to give them the tools for success.

A Wintery, Musical Event

By Sandy Soriano

At William Penn High School, the concert choir will be holding a winter concert December 1st and 7th to help the music department. This show is an opportunity improve not just the music department but the members of the choir themselves.

Sierra Carol, a sophomore choir member, described the song selection process and how every year the song selection is different.

“The teacher has all of us write down three to five song choices and then she looks over them next class period and then whichever songs that most of us chose that were the same we go through and they have to be school appropriate,” Carol said.

When there’s a big group of people in a room, throwing different ideas, there tends to be some crashing opinions, but surprisingly not so much in the choir room.

“People’s opinions are different from each other so we do kind of argue a little bit on what songs to chose but other than that we pretty much agree with everyone else and what everyone else is saying,” Carol said.

There is a lot of preparation that has to be done in order for them to be on that stage. Carol said choosing the songs to sing is just the first part in preparation of the performance.

“She teaches each section soprano, alto, tenor their part and then after that we just keep practicing over, over, and over again until the concert and then we have to practice posture and how we stand and how we act,” she said. 

Carol as well as some other member of the choir are serious about a career in singing and performing. They want a career after high school and while they’re here they try their best to join clubs in the music department in school and maybe things their community may be doing to give them that push or jump start to a serious career.

“We get help with things like that. Our teacher wants to do a songwriting class. We can teach each other how to play instruments, or write music together, read music, and we work together to figure out what we want to do.”

Performing this winter concert may be more important than just standing on stage and singing words, it means something to them that may impact their lives outside of schools.

Carol said, “ Music can help relieve stress and it’s fun so I think it makes them a little happier. For me, I think it helps me learn a lot personally I learn how to read music and you can experience emotion with music so it’s helpful and fun because you get to sing and have fun.”

The concerts William Penn have always raise money for important matters going on in school, and this year the money is going towards the music department to help them with new clubs they are hoping to have and with possible field trips being planned that the choir members truly deserve. Hopefully, people in the community will give the time to get more into the Christmas spirit and go out to see this wonderful concert at William Penn.

 

Mock Trial Team Offers Real-Life Experiences

The mock trial team at William Penn is lead by Francis Lusch, the criminal justice teacher. It is comprised of students who are split into two groups of six; one the prosecution, the other the defense to simulate a court case in the real world. The team helps students to just get a feel for the world of law and how it works but it builds public speaking skills, organization skills and it also helps the students make coherent arguments, all skills students need for the future.

“Mock trial team is now a statewide program where students are given either a criminal or civil case and compete against other schools legal teams to mock court 20 years,” Lusch said.

Lusch has been teaching in Colonial School District since 2001 and has been at Penn for 14 years. He teaches all students who major in legal studies at William Penn with Criminal Justice 1 & 2, Forensic and Genetics with a science teacher Jeffrey Bosco and Applied Legal Studies.

Students who are thinking of joining mock trial should possess certain interests and qualities.  “The students need a sense of commitment, a willingness to speak publicly and they must also have academic eligibility,” Lusch said.

The mock trial team can also help students to just get a feel for the world of law and how it works but it builds public speaking skills, organization skills and it also helps the students make coherent arguments, all skills students need for the future.

The mock trial has one competition they prepare for. This competition is in February over at the courthouse on 6th and King Street in New Castle County from early morning until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. The competition is over a two day period.

The competition include four rounds of court cases, with either defense or prosecution team competing. Lusch said, “Students also get an opportunity to meet a bunch of bright kids from other schools.”

In addition to the students getting these real life skills, William Penn gets to show off some of its students. Lusch said, “It strengthens the rep when schools get an opportunity to see what some of our students are capable of doing particularly since we are competing against charter schools, private schools and the like.”

Mock trial is a good opportunity for students who are interested in law to get experience in the field. Mock trial is open to all students grades 9-12. In order to sign up all the students would have to do is listen to the announcements in the morning or they can have teachers recommend it to them. However students do not have to be in the legal studies major in order to take his classes, the students would just have to sign up for the classes when the scheduling process starts at the end of the year.

Homecoming Highlights

By Opemipo Giwa

Every year in William Penn High School, William Penn celebrates the homecoming dance in the school for the students.

 Oyinkansola Kehinde is  a student of William Penn , she is always excited to attend the William Penn high school homecoming dance because she feels it brings the teacher and student together.

It is not Oyinkansola first time to attend the homecoming dance but her second time and she is in eleventh grade. She said she thinks the event is fun and it help to change people’s mood.

“Some people might be having a bad day, the homecoming can make them feel better by dancing and making them forget their problems,” Kehinde said.

She is always happy to be in the homecoming dance because she always have time to spend time with her friends.

 Sadly next year will be Oyinkansola her last homecoming dance in William Penn High School because she will be graduating the following year.

 Dance tickets were $10 each for all the students in the school. Students of William Penn were allowed to invite other people from other schools or their friends. Student council  sold the tickets during lunch period.

 The homecoming dance started by 8:00pm and ended by 11:00pm. 

 Temilade Ogunfadebo also thinks organizing the homecoming gives both the teachers and the student an opportunity to have fun within school premises.

She believes that student should be appreciated for the hard work they perform in school by little break and having fun with their friends.”Homecoming gives the students the privilege,” Ogunfadebo said.

She is excited for next year’s homecoming because she observed that it is a different experience every year. She hope to hope and desire to come for next year’s homecoming because that will be also her last homecoming that she will be attending in William Penn.

Colonials Celebrate Art

By Lesliann Boucher and Stephanie Castillo

Photo by Stephanie Castillo Kim Davis, art teacher at William Penn, greets people at the Colonial Art Festival May 7. 

The Colonial Art Festival was held on Friday May 6  from 6pm-8pm, and Saturday  May 7 from 10am-2pm. The show was created to celebrate talented students from Kindergarten to12th grade in Colonial School District. 

The celebration of this festival was to represent heart. “Some people see art as a great outlet. It’s a sign of our humanity, that we create the art so it gives us something to do, in that sense of keeping us real, keeping us human,”  Kim Davis, one of the art teachers at William Penn, said.

In order to be featured in the art festival, work was selected by an art teacher in each Colonial school that was considered the “best of the best”. There were more than 1,000 pieces of art that were displayed in the festival, each teacher bringing in at least 80-100 pieces of art.

Winkler shared, “It represents a year’s worth of teaching for each teacher in the district. It is to celebrate all the creative students in the colonial school district. It’s a time to shine.”
Senior Kylie Wierzbicki played the piano during the Art Festival,  on the right hand center of the entrance.  And along with the pieces of art and music there were William Penn Culinary students walking around with a cart full of small fancy sushi dishes, white rice and spicy sushi right on top. It was indeed “a time to shine,” said Winkler.

Colonials Soccer Improves

By Cairo Chambers and Kevin Martinez

On May 9, 2016, William Penn’s girls soccer team played against Middletown High School. Unfortunately the Middletown game was a disappointing loss for Penn’s girls soccer team. Due to the disappointed 0-8 loss against Middletown, their record dropped to 5-9 in the 2016 soccer season.

Penn’s girls soccer team kicked 4 shots on the Middletown goalkeeper named Anna Eastburn and had 2 corner kicks in the game.

Penn’s girls goalkeepers Schuler Stark and Princess Achobang saved twenty one shots together during the disappointing game. The Middletown goalkeeper Anna Eastburn saves 2 shots in the whole game.

Coach Jason Land said, “We will need to stay healthy. We had a lot of injuries this season that the team had to overcome. Defensively we will need to get better as well as movement off the ball. We have some talent coming back that will have to work hard and improve in the off season.”

The team finished the season 6-9 and with a 6-0 victory in the last game of the season May 11 against Christiana High School.  

Racing to Success

By Jaden Reed and Geman Browne

When Roselynn Burke, fifth grade teacher at Carrie Downing, saw the impact the  “Let Me Run” program could have, she knew she it was an opportunity to help the community, to “teach boys integrity and empathy.”

Burke brought the program March 9th for boys to help them learn how to express themselves, reach personal goals, and improve their overall wellness. Carrie Downing’s program is only one of three in the state. The fourth and fifth grade boys met after school on the playground for about an hour twice a week for seven weeks. 

“I think our society and culture as a whole limits boys and their potential. Without even knowing it, we often send them the message to act a certain way and hide their feelings. We do this with comments such as “Be a man”. We also generally don’t hold high expectations. Hence, the phrase “boys will be boys”. I think our society as a whole needs to change that mindset and stop pressuring young boys to constantly prove their masculinity, ” said Burke.

Each of the seven weeks helped the boys prepare for their big race Saturday, April 30th at the Red Clay 5K. Burke stated that she ensured they knew the race isn’t about winning, but rather about meeting personal goals.