Volume 88: Issue 9

Page 1

THE SYLVANIA NORTHVIEW

STUDENT PRINTS

Sylvania Northview High School

5403 Silica Drive Sylvania, Ohio 43560

Volume 88, Issue 9

April 15, 2014

NV teacher Sylvania Schools rally for big levy Campaign kick off to pass levy on May 6 ballot to study abroad Kaelynn Knestrick News Editor

Opportunities to study abroad are not only for students. Psychology teacher Sarah Rhine will be traveling to Europe this summer from June 23 to July 24. Mrs. Rhine was selected to be part of the Walking Witness: Civic Responsibility in the Shadow of the Holocaust of Bowling Green State University. This research trip is funded by a Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad grant. “I had to submit an application, as well as a lesson that showed civic responsibility and a piece of digital media. I submitted my ‘out of the social norm’ project and a recorded lesson of operant conditioning,” Mrs. Rhine said. “I was then selected for an interview and chosen after the interview.” Mrs. Rhine will be traveling with BGSU professors Tim Murnen and Heather ElliotFamularo, as well as seven other teachers from Northwest Ohio. “We will be traveling to Poland, Hungary, and Greece, and will be following six Toledoarea Holocaust survivors’ lives. The goal is for the participants to learn skills and methods to authentically teach the Holocaust in class,” Mrs. Rhine said. On the trip they will be learning about European Jewish history, the Holocaust, events that led to it, and exploring postHolocaust challenges that communities and schools faced, according to Mrs. Rhine. Participants will attend classes the week before they leave, and then go to the Detroit Holocaust Museum, according to Mrs. Rhine. “It will be a great experience to get a deeper, better and personal understanding of what happened around the Holocaust. To be able to go to Europe and do something like this, especially when it relates to my career, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Mrs. Rhine said. After the trip, the participants will come together to help develop lesson plans and curriculum material that can be used by other teachers when teaching about the Holocaust, according to Mrs. Rhine. Mrs. Rhine and the other participants will help create lesson plans for Northview classes that teach the Holocaust, such as World War II and World Studies. The lesson plans will be available for other schools that have classes that teach the Holocaust as well.

STEIRER “PASSAGE OF THE LEVY will preserve the quality of the educational experience for students and continue to make Sylvania an attractive place for families and businesses,” Superintendent Brad Rieger said. Dr. Rieger and many other community leaders spoke at the Celebration of Our Schools levy campaign.

occurring in all 12 of our schools and to kickoff the campaign to pass Issue 3.” Staff Writer The celebration started off with the cheerleaders and bands from both high schools There was no major holiday, but community greeting the crowd of about 1,200 people, members from all over Sylvania came to a according to Dr. Rieger. celebration in the ”It was a great feeling Northview gymnasium to represent Northview on the evening of March by playing in the band, The purpose of the rally 18. especially with all the The school board was to emphasize the other schools there,” organized a communitysophomore Gina Murphy great achievements wide rally called “The said. Celebration of Our occurring in all 12 of “The cheer teams Schools” to kick off from both schools did our schools. the levy campaign for a cheer together for the -Superintendent passing Issue 3 on the crowd,” senior Emma May 6 ballot, according Hawley said. “It was Brad Rieger to Superintendent Brad exciting to be a part Rieger. of something that brought the whole district “This was an energetic start to our levy together.” campaign,” Dr. Rieger said. “The purpose of the Sylvania Executive Director of Curriculum rally was to emphasize the great achievements

Claire Goecke

and Assessment Adam Fineske emceed the rally and allowed each school in the district to make a brief shout-out, capturing their major accomplishments throughout the year. Many community leaders, including Dr. Rieger, Mayor Craig Stough, and Sylvania Township trustees Neal Mahoney and John Crandall, were also given the opportunity to address the crowd to stress the importance of passing the levy. Mayor Stough emphasized the importance of the levy by stating that many families choose Sylvania over other areas of Northwest Ohio because of our excellent school system. To close the celebration, the NV Dance Team and the Southview Cougarettes performed for the crowd. “I think the levy rally was a wonderful opportunity for the dance team to showcase just one of the many amazing things that the schools have to offer,” NVDT member junior Emily Lu said.

District outlines plan to make up missed days Lauren Lewis

Features Editor

When students miss two and a half weeks of school as a result of snow and low temperatures, it is no surprise that this winter has been the worst one in history. What is a surprise is how the Sylvania Schools are going to make up all those missing days. On March 19, the administration decided to add an extra hour onto the school day for 11 days after spring break. There will be an extra hour added on to school from April 7-10, April 14-16 and April 21-24. “I think it’s frustrating because I think that it’s extending the day too long and it’s making it too hard to focus. By ninth period I’m already exhausted, and I don’t want to add an extra hour to the day,” senior Olivia Wisner said. Before this year, adding on an extra hour to the school day as a result of so many school days was unheard of, according to Sylvania Education Association President Perry Lefevre. These 11 extra hours will give back two school days. By increasing the school day by an hour, each class period will have an extra seven minutes, except lunch periods, which will only have six extra minutes. “It’s dumb,” said freshman Afif Mourad. “They could’ve added just one day at the end of this year or two days. It’s not helping

because we usually just stop at the end of classes.” Although schools have had problems with snow days this year, next year there will not be any snow days. Instead, there will be contact hours, according to Mr. Lefevre. “The state had already committed to changing the schools from contact days to contact hours. That is for next year, for 2014-2015, we won’t even have snow days anymore. We’ll have a required number of contact hours with our students,” Mr. Lefevre said. “Anything we fall below, we have to make up. But, we go so much longer than what the state minimum day is, we’ll never have a snow day issue again.” While these extra hours bring back two school days, Northview has to make up at least four. For the next two days, the administration has decided to eliminate the rest of the two hour delays, which gives NV one six hour day. The last day will be made up before exams as an instructional day. This means that exams will be pushed back one day and students will get out on June 5. Other options to make up these days included ideas such as having school on Saturdays, to having school on Good Friday and Memorial Day, according to Principal Steve Swaggerty. In addition to the school days being longer, AP testing dates are in the process of being changed as well. Due to the excessive amount of snow days at NV and SV, the AP Testing Board emailed Mr. Swaggerty giving him permission to move the dates back in

the best interests of the students, according to Mr. Swaggerty. The schools and teachers are still in the process of deciding whether or not to move the AP testing. “Between the schools we don’t really care what we do, but we need to be on the same page,” Mr. Swaggerty said. “What we don’t want is AP US History at SV going on the initial schedule day and our kids getting moved back two weeks and their parents and kids are all upset about that because they didn’t get the extra two weeks to study.” While moving AP testing back gives students extra time to catch up on what they missed during those 13 school days, there are also consequences to the testing being moved back to a later date. One of these consequences includes a smaller testing pool. A smaller testing pool means that the scores will not be compared to as many people and rate of scores will be more drastic. Another reason NV is reluctant on pushing back the AP testing dates is that graduating seniors will not know their scores until after orientation day and scheduling their classes, so they will not know which classes they test out of, according to Mr. Swaggerty. Events such as the Senior Awards Assembly which is now May 30, the senior ice cream social which is now to May 23, and ‘Senior Skip Day’ is now a prospective date of May 19, all have been moved from previous dates to ensure that NV students still receive an education and are able to participate in school activities.

Opinions

Features

A&E

Sports

New doors around NV: secure or scary? pg. 4

TSP reviews restaurants indigenous to Sylvania, pg. 7

NV Choir spent spring break in NYC, pg. 9

How did your bracket do in the Homeroom Challenge? pg. 11


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