'SUP AT SCHOOL
High school hoodie meets lab coat
Marie Jean Louis is a biotech whiz. She wants to be a pharmacist and is taking an unusual route to dispensing pills and potions. She is a student at CityLab Academy. “It was a steppingstone for me,” she said.
CityLab Academy is a competitive program sponsored by Boston University, according to Sophan Sok, a recruiter at the institution.
The free, two-semester program is for high school graduates and GED recipients interested in the field of biotechnology who cannot afford to pay tuition at a regular college. CityLab is a nine-month commitment which awards its students 12 college credits towards their undergraduate degrees.
It was designed due to the growing popularity in the field of biotechnology and to meet the high demands of biotech employers, said Sok.
“[Students] don’t understand that science is so broad, you do not have to be scientists at all,” she said. “There are so many other options.”
Louis, 22, will be graduating in 2012. After getting her high school diploma from Community Academy of Science and Health in Hyde Park, she enrolled at CityLab. “I was overwhelmed going from high school to college, but I was able to manage it,” she said.
Louis said she feels only good things came out of this transition. “I think that if you work hard, something good comes out of it,” she said. “If you’re able to do the work, and pass it in, and know what you’re doing, it’s ok.”
Latoya Boman, 25, a graduate from Charlestown High who went to CityLab, has nothing but praise for it.
“I wouldn’t change anything,” said Boman. “It affected my life in a positive way and it helped me establish relationships.”
After graduating from the program, Boman was able to obtain a job within four months, and is currently working as a facility technician at Merck Research Laboratories in Boston. She is taking classes at BU to finish her undergraduate degree.
Both Louis and Boman said they were a little intimidated by the program at first, but once they got into it, each succeeded.
“It was moderate, not too hard, it wasn’t too easy, as well,” said Boman.
“It had a lot of challenges.”
Sok believes that CityLab Academy has benefits beyond its student body. “The more educated people you have,” she said, “the better your community will be.”
photo by Ping Zeng // Artists for Humanity
Topic: West Indies
Teens flunk geography
What island we come from? West Indies. Answer de call. West Indies.”
These lyrics are from the song “West Indies Cricket” by Soca artist Alison Hinds and dancehall star Sean Paul, and it calls on all people from the West Indies to identify themselves. Whether you’re from the British West Indies, the former Dutch West Indies, or the French West Indies, you’re all part of the Caribbean.
The thing with many people these days is that when they think of the West Indies, maybe only Jamaica, Barbados, The Bahamas, and Trinidad come to mind. But what about the places that are not so known, such as Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and, even though it is not geographically part of the West Indies, but culturally is -- Guyana.
Native Jamaican islander Yanique Edwards, 17, of Dorchester, says that the more familiar areas overshadow the more obscure ones: “Because some are well known, and others are not.”
One reason is the advertisements that the media send out through television. Jason Martinez, 18, from Boston Community Leadership Academy, a native of the Turks and Caicos Islands, thinks so: “Some are bigger, and have more things for tourists to do.”
Schteiner Alexis of Guyana, who currently lives in Dorchester, says that by now people should know more than the common spots. “They should do research,” says Alexis, 16. Some teens wonder: What are schools teaching in geography? Aren’t teachers educating their students about places other than the United States? Why do so many teens think that the Caribbean only includes the most so-called “vacation spots”?
The West Indies is different than the United States in many ways, and so are teens with West Indian roots who were born there vs. those who were born here. The culture of the West Indies involves about four main genres of music that people from the states might not have heard of. They are: Soca, Chutney, Calypso, and Reggae. But this is not what makes the teens vary. It’s the experiences. “You don’t know that much about your culture, and kids in the Caribbean follow up on their culture,” says Alexis. Edwards agrees. “Kids that are born there have more knowledge than kids who have parents from there,” she says.
Most people think of the West Indies as an oasis. But like any other places in the world, they have their struggles. They go through poverty, and discrimination among different races. This is often covered up by TV ads that only show beautiful beaches and happy natives, but not the poorer areas. “People should know,” says Edwards, “it’s not all resort and paradise.”
Where in the world is the West Indies?
Here’s a pop quiz to test your geographical know-how:
1) Which one of these places does not belong to the West Indies?
a) Palau
b) St Kitts and Nevis
c) St Lucia
d) Cayman Islands
2) Even though it’s geographically not an island, which of these areas is considered culturally part of the West Indies?
a) Dominica
b) Antigua and Barbuda
c) British Guiana
d) Bahamas
3) Which one of these countries brought about the popularity of Soca?
a) Trinidad
b) United States
c) Guyana
d) Martinique
To find the answers, click here.
painting by Nathan Waldron // Artists for Humanity
Discipline 101
On March 24, 17-year-old Tyshawn Lewis-Smith, a student at Odyssey High School, in South Boston, was arrested after bringing a loaded gun there and pointing it at two police officers, according to published reports. Although no one was hurt, this is an example of the kind of non-academic problems that Boston Public Schools has to deal with every day.
Every year, Boston records disciplinary actions from schools around the district. Based on a per student analysis of the city’s high schools done by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University and obtained from the latest data, Monument High School in 2008-2009 had the highest percentage of major disciplinary incidents besides the McKinley Schools – which specialize in at-risk students. The numbers show that, McKinley aside, Monument in South Boston has the distinction of being the worst-behaved high school in the system. Boston Latin Academy and Boston Latin School tied for best-behaved.
Christopher Ramos, a 16-year-old freshman at Monument -- which draws students interested in professional fields that focus on public safety – said that his school contains a lot of violent and negative activity. Ramos rated Monument a 5 out of 10 on the safety scale, saying that "security should be more on point.” The data show that Monument disciplined students for incidents ranging from drug possession to having a knife to sexual assault.
At Boston Latin School, meanwhile, students interviewed appeared to be pleased with the security conditions there. "The school is full of really nice people and tends to take in really nice workers," said Hannah Sears, a sophomore.
Boston Public Schools spokesman Matthew Wilder said he is confident that the system’s schools are not in harm’s way. “Overall, we are trying to teach students to be respectful to one another in and out of school,” he said. “It is our responsibility to run these schools and make sure students feel safe.”
Mobray prepared this story as part of her Teens in Print internship at The New England Center for Investigative Reporting at Boston University. NECIR is the first non-profit, university-based investigative reporting center in the country dedicated to local and regional issues.
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BSAC BUZZ
Have you ever worked extremely hard on a certain project? The suspense you have when you get it back is even greater because you want to know how other people felt about it. Well, imagine working on four policies and having to wait months to hear if they were passed or not. They are: student- to-teacher constructive feedback; student involvement in teacher hiring; homework policy; and having a BSAC vote on the school committee.
Well, we have some great news to report: The Boston Student Advisory Council’s proposal outlining reactions about teachers from students was passed by the Boston School Committee earlier this month.
Beginning in school year 2010-2011, high school students will be evaluating their teachers anonymously about how well youth are being taught. Thanks to all the BPS students, teachers, administrators, school committee members, and the superintendent for their support.
As many of you have read in The Boston Globe, there recently was an article entitled, “Boston gets an F in teacher appraisals.” The article states: “About half the city’s approximately 5,000 teachers have not received an evaluation in the past two years, and a quarter of the city’s 135 schools have not conducted evaluations during that period.”
Now that this policy has passed, Boston Public Schools will hopefully get a more pleasing headline: “Boston gets an A in teacher appraisals.”
If you are interested in joining BSAC or getting more information about our work, please contact Maria I. Ortiz at mortiz@boston.k12.ma.us or at 617-635-8079 ext 104.
Is your school bus on the highway to hell?
So you’re sitting in class and finally the bell rings. You run from the room, through the halls, and out the front door and there it is: the school bus. The school bus rescues you from school and brings you to your designated stop. The bus driver is like your savior, but what if your savior was putting you in danger? Unfortunately, that is the situation in some cases. Running red lights, talking on cell phones, and arguing with students -- these are things that, teens say, some school bus drivers are doing all the time.
“Every morning my school bus is constantly driving fast, to what I believe is over the speed limit. Along with that he ran multiple red lights,” says Mikhaila Watson, 17, from Media Communications Technology High School.
Watson is one of many students to make these kinds of complaints. “I had a very bad experience with a bus driver once,” says Myles Pruitt, 17, from the same school. “There was a fight on the bus and the bus driver did absolutely nothing to stop it.”
Teens say these types of incidents are very unsafe because they put the driver, the students, and everyone else on the road in danger. According to First Student -- the company that provides transportation for Boston Public Schools -- all bus drivers are given a two-way radio in case they need to contact HQ, or in case of an emergency. The company says the use of cell phones while driving the school bus is strictly prohibited and punishable by termination.
When asked about the disciplinary action taken against drivers for arguing with students, reckless driving, and undesignated stops, a First Student representative says these situations are dealt with on a “case-by-case basis.”
First Student says that to prevent these problems, it gives its bus drivers extensive training before employing them, and afterward they are required to go to monthly safety meetings. In addition, the company says it also has surveillance cameras in most of the buses, and that by the end of 2011, all buses will have something called “Zonar GPS,” a type of technology that will let First Student know where each bus is, how many stops the bus makes and where, and even how fast it's going.
First Student also says that there has not been an unusual amount of negative reports about its bus drivers in Boston. But Watson believes she knows why that may be. “I think they haven’t received many complaints from Boston residents because,” Watson says, “we feel they wouldn’t be properly dealt with.”
photo by Kat Morgan // Artists for Humanity
High school selection time: public vs. parochial
Many students who are preparing to enter their high school years wonder if they should continue on with their public education, or transfer to a Catholic school. With the registration dates for both public and some Catholic high schools upon us, many are forced to decide now. There is some sort of transition involved in both; however, moving to a Catholic school takes some adjustment. From the uniforms to the academics, the differences between a public and Catholic school become clear.
Laurin McGee is a 16-year-old sophomore at Cathedral High School near downtown Boston. When asked how students stand out when it comes to clothing because of their uniform dress code, she replied, “The sneakers and backpacks make people look different from each other.”
In terms of academics, McGee stated that the homework load is usually “alright,” while Cassandra Dieudonne, a 15-year-old Cathedral sophomore, disagreed. Dieudonne said she gets homework in five of her classes. She said that when grades are unsatisfactory, students must stay for mandatory study, which is like an afterschool class where homework assignments are completed and checked. Many students at Cathedral may not know what the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is because they are not required to take the exam.
Jaquan Wallace, 16, is a sophomore at Boston Community Leadership Academy (BCLA), a Boston Public School in Brighton. Although students can wear what they like at many public schools, they must still follow a dress code that bans clothing that may be considered inappropriate.
Academically, Wallace said the homework he gets at school is simply too much. He can monitor his grades with regular progress reports. In addition, Wallace thinks that the teachers prepare everyone for the MCAS just weeks before the test. He said he is happy to be in his Boston Public School, though, because “I wouldn’t say we’re like family, but everyone knows each other or at least has seen them around.”
Picking which high school to attend is often overwhelming. Decisions should be based on the school environment the students wish to be in, which for them can include policies, location, and reputation.