Education for sophomore Jonah Gold has meant having a school-funded math tutor in second grade to teach him faster than his classmates could learn, a psychologist in eighth grade to address his test-related stress and a spot in the Communication Arts Program (CAP) after his parents—a working father and a mother with a part-time job—advocated for him while he was on the waiting list.
Several high school principals have clashed with Superintendent Jerry Weast on his perceived push to discourage underperforming students from taking the SATs, his redirection of crucial resources from individual high schools to Central Office and his alleged mistreatment of administrators.
Though Oct 31 creeps upon us, it's not yet time to break out the candy corn or creative costumes. So before you carve that pumpkin or bake that pie, get in the mood for the Halloween season with some classic cinematic treats. From the quirky to the creepy, from the funny to the frightening, the quality of the films reviewed here is no trick.
bend it like beckham
Junior Shona Chong, a member of the Blair Safety Committee, scarfs down a french fry as she turns to confront an out-of-bounds sophomore walking up the 220s stairway. The sophomore mumbles an apology as she forces him to make eye contact. But there's more behind her confidence and take-charge attitude than a patrol belt. Armed with a stack of textbooks instead of a royal staff, Princess Sambola, as Chong was called when she ruled over the 300-odd members of the Garifuna tribe of Nicaragua, has learned to keep her stateliness thousands of miles outside her royal quarters.
Ingrid Griffin uses several fingers at once to hold down the shift key, and it takes her three tries to get a capital "I” into her Microsoft Word document. Griffin, who has two daughters in Blair, is helpless before the PC she is using. Perhaps that's because she has never touched a computer before in her life.
"No way, honey; he's booked solid for two weeks," insists Cherrie Avery, secretary of Principal Phillip Gainous, shaking her head at the back-to-back appointments covering her computer screen. He's got staff members to greet and students to prevent from disrupting his school, says Avery, finally penciling in a tentative interview slot.
Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Secretary of Education Rod Paige unveiled a new initiative to assist schools in emergency response plans at Blair today.
"No way, honey; he's booked solid for two weeks,” insists Cherrie Avery, secretary of Principal Phillip Gainous, shaking her head at the back-to-back appointments covering her computer screen. He's got staff members to greet and students to prevent from disrupting his school, says Avery, finally penciling in a tentative interview slot.
The Blair Model United Nations (UN) Club held its first conference ever from Jan 31 to Feb 2. As the only high school-sponsored conference in Montgomery County, the symposium aimed to increase awareness of current events and to raise funds for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
If there's one piece of advice that will contextualize the entirety of Solaris for you, it's this: Bring a watch. Because you will leave the theater swearing on George Clooney's oft-bared body that the film lasted more than the 95 minutes its publicists claim. There are literally full minutes between lines of dialogue, minutes in which we do nothing but gaze at the characters' faces, which are clearly showing a lot more tension than we're feeling.
It happened for senior Jamie Platky when he was a kid who loved G.I. Joes. Junior Denise Sylla remembers the element of discipline from her Catholic education fueling her drive. For junior Chris Zaldivar, it was listening to his dad reminisce about his grandfather's military career. Though their circumstances varied, the outcome was the same: they've all been bitten by the military bug.