Science Leadership Academy

Bernecia Guercio, an SLA Biochem 9 student, received an honorable mention for her entry in an essay contest entitled, "The New Green Economy."

Her submission, called, "There is a New Thing Called the Green Economy" can be found by scrolling down on this web page.

Special thanks to the Lit Lab for helping Bernecia proof her essay.

The Science Leadership Academy and The Franklin Institute hosted EduCon 2.2 this weekend. Over 500 educators from all over North America came to SLA to learn with us. For more information, be sure to read the Philadelphia Inquirer story about the conference! Thank you to all the teachers, students and parents who helped make the conference an incredible success!

Free Dance: Philadelphia Youth Create the "Hidden City Festival"

by Abe Louise Young

Walkers in downtown Philly must have been astonished. On a rainy day in May, the streets were alive with dancing teenagers.

Sixty-five students in teacher Joshua Block’s English classes at Science Leadership Academy teamed up with Leah Stein Dance Company, to “make dances spontaneously, rigorously, on location, in collaboration, in connection with the moment.”

Click here for complete story and video. Congratulations all for creating an amazing experience!

Science Leadership Academy has been named an Apple Distinguished School for 2009-2010! SLA is one of 54 schools across the country given such a designation and one of only five in Pennsylvania. For the full note from Dr. Ackerman, sent to all School District employees, click here.

Please enjoy this movie of Biochem 9th students during lab last week. Please click on the "1attachment" link below.

Congratulations to Nia Berry and Lamaya Mapp, two tenth graders who participated in this year's Philadelphia Young Playwrights Monologue Contest! They are among the sixteen winners of this year's competition. Their monologues were selected from over 400 submissions, and their monologues will be performed by professional actors as a part of the Young Voices High School Monologue Festival in February. We look forward to seeing their writing brought to life!

If you were scheduled for an interview for the snow weekend in December -- we have called everyone in an attempt to reschedule. If you have not yet heard from SLA, please be aware that your child has been rescheduled.

If you do not yet know when your new interview is:

If your interview was December 19th at 10:00 am, your interview is Jan. 9th at 10:00 am.
If your interview was December 19th at 2:00 pm, your interview is Jan. 9th at 2:00 pm.
If your interview was December 20th at 10:00 am, your interview is Jan. 10th at 10:00 am.
If your interview was December 20th at 2:00 pm, your interview is Jan. 10th at 2:00 pm.

We look forward to meeting everyone!

On Saturday, February 13th, 2010 and Saturday, February 27th, 2010, the Free Library of Philadelphia will offer ACT workshops to high school students applying to college. These workshops will introduce students to the ACT and its benefits in the college application process. The students will also receive ACT booklets to prepare for the test. Through generous funding by the Library Services and Technology Act, the Free Library is able to offer these workshops to the public.

SLA will be hosting make-up interviews the weekend of January 9th and 10th. We have called all the families for whom we have working numbers, but if you need more information or you need to contact us about admissions, you can call the school at 215-979-5620 or email us at admissions [at] scienceleadership.org

Attention SLA Community -- there is no school on Monday, Decemeber 21st due to inclement weather. See everyone on Tuesday!

SLA WILL NOT BE DOING INTERVIEWS THE WEEKEND DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER! WE WILL BE OPENING ANOTHER INTERVIEW WEEKEND IN EARLY JANUARY. STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS.

Please enjoy these two poems from Biochem 10 Iron Students!

 The Table is Like Humans 

On Saturday, December 5th, Chris Cassise and Andre Serrano debated six different teams to become the 2nd place finisher in the Perpectives Debate Tournament at the University of Pennsylvania.  They are also in 4th place in the ASAP All-City Debate League.  We will finish our Fall season next week at Central.  Congratulations!

¡Felicitaciones! Congratulations to Elona Myftaraj, Sildia González, Thea Farah and Emilisa López! Their poems have been selected for publication in the next issue of Motivos magazine. www.motivosmag.com 

Congratulations to Amira Young and Taylor Valentine who have been selected by buildOn to travel to Malawi over Spring Break. They, along with other buildOn members from schools around the country, will be building a school. Help raise money to buy the bricks by purchasing Vitamin Water for sale in Srta. Manuel's room (207). www.buildon.org More info about community service opportunities through buildOn: http://buildonpa.blogspot.com/

In the span of two days, the 9th grade English Red Stream students ventured
into the world of blogging. We wrapped up our exploration of Homer's The Odyssey and Niki Caro's Whale Rider by linking to our 9th grade Essential Questions: Who Am I?, How do I interact with the environment?, How does the environment effect me?. Students paired up to co-author and compose blog posts
that make connections between the text, film, and the overarching ideas
that guide our year.  Enjoy, and comment if you would like!

In the span of two days, the 9th grade English Orange Stream students ventured into the world of blogging. We wrapped up our exploration of Homer's The Odyssey and Niki Caro's Whale Rider by linking to our 9th grade Essential Questions: Who Am I?, How do I interact with the environment?, How does the environment effect me?. Students paired up to co-author and compose blog posts that make connections between the text, film, and the overarching ideas that guide our year.  Enjoy, and comment if you would like!

Today, Mr. Chase was awarded the Learn Return Scholarship from Liberty Mutual to fully support his pursuit of a Master's degree. Well done. 

Parents, please remember that Parent-Advisor-Student conferences are Monday and Tuesday. If you have not yet scheduled a time to meet with your advisor, please call or email immediately.

Monday and Tuesday will be half-days to accommodate conferences. The schedule is as follows:

Adjusted Monday/Tuesday Schedules

8:15-9:20 A
9:25-10:30 B
10:35-11:40 Adv
11:45-12:50 X

8:15-9:20 C
9:25-10:30 D
10:35-11:40 E
11:45-12:50 Y

MESSAGE FROM THE SCHOOL DISTRICT.......(If you know someone who is scheduled to take the test tomorrow, please let them know this information.)

If the SEPTA strike is still on tomorrow, Saturday, November 7, any student that is unable to get to their assigned site because of the lack of transportation, may reschedule free of charge by calling the SAT Hotline but it must happen on Monday.

Again, on Monday, if students who were unable to take the SAT because of the strike, call the SAT hotline, they will be able to "reschedule" their test free of charge. They must call on Monday!

Here is additional information from the Collegeboard. This is what a student can do on MONDAY if the SEPTA Strike continues through tomorrow:

1. Call SAT Customer Service at 866 756-7346 starting tomorrow or Monday (we are not able to waive fees for any date changes made online).
2. Let the customer service rep. know they were unable to get to the test center specifically due to the SEPTA transit strike and that they would like to transfer their registration to a future administration.
3. Inform customer service of the preferred future SAT test date and the transfer should take place without the additional charge of $22.00.
4. If the student is scheduled to take a Language Test with Listening (only offered in November) we will take his/her information and determine how we can accommodate them.

During the SEPTA strike, we are asking students to make all reasonable attempts to attend their ILPs. For example, if a student has an ILP within walking distance of school (Franklin Institute, Mutter Museum, any of the on-campus ILPs) and the student is in school, we expect that students will go to their ILP. If students would have to take public transportation to their ILP, then we ask that students contact their ILP mentors and let them know that they will not be attending. We have contacted the ILP mentors and let them know that the SEPTA strike will make attending ILPs difficult.

Any student who cannot attend their ILP must contact their ILP mentor and let them know.

To parents and students of Science Leadership Academy,

As everyone should know by now, SEPTA is on strike. We sent home the School District policies on the strike, but we wanted to also let parents know how SLA will be handling the strike as well.

We encourage famillies to carpool and we have set up http://sla.erideshare.com to facilitate carpooling.
Steps for using erideshare.com -->
1) Register here: http://www.erideshare.com/membership.php
2) Sign in and go to http://sla.erideshare.com
3) either a) click on Post Your Carpool Offer / Request or b) View Carpools.
 The Group Password for the Science Leadership Academy group is: SLA

Responses will go to your email account, so be sure to check it for carpool options.

If students cannot find a ride in, all teachers are posting work on Moodle so that students can keep up during the strike. While nothing replaces being in class, we are making every effort to allow students to follow along from home. Teachers also encourage students to iChat or Skype into classes from home.

Thanks, and good luck during the strike!

Congratulations to Alison Campbell, Shareesa Bollers and Mike Miller for qualifying last Wednesday at the District XII Championship meet as individuals to run in the PIAA Cross Country State Championship. Will MacFarlane is an alternate and will run in the case that a District XII athlete is unable to attend.

For the ladies, Alison finished 4th earning First Team District XII AA honors. Shareesa Bollers finished 36th with Marina Stuart and Aimee Leong finishing right behind.  Congratulations, ladies!  

Due to the finish line offical dropping the only copy in the mud, the results for this meet were delayed and incomplete.  Mike Miller finished 31st and despite the muddy conditions finished with a personal record time of 20.37 - a new school record!  Will MacFarlane finished 35th, only two spots away from qualifying.  Chris Cothran, Sam Beccaria and John Derry all ran tough races to finish the season strong.   Congratulations, gentlemen!  

The PIAA Cross Country State Championship meet will take place this Saturday, November 7th, in Hershey.  Good luck, SLA XC!

In the event of a SEPTA strike, attached are the instructions from the School District of Philadelphia:

If there is a strike, SLA will leverage its technology infrastructure to minimize any disruption for any students who cannot make it to school.

(Adobe Acrobat or Preview is needed to view the file.)

SLA will host a Halloween Dance on Friday, October 30th! Costumes are optional, but encouraged! There will be a prize for the best costume!

Tickets are on sale -- $3 for students, $5 for guests (one guest per person.) All tickets will be $5 at the door.

Philadelphia Young Playwrights and Temple Theater will be performing winning monologues by SLA 11th Graders Marshall Johnston and Aimee Leong. Marshall's monologue is titled "The Way I Think." Aimee's is titled "Torn Between." Each deals with personal reactions to a changing world. They are great!!

Performances are:

Thursday, Oct 15th at 7:30 PM

Friday, October 16th at 8:00 PM, 

Saturday, October 17th at 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM

For more details and directions go to the Philadelphia Young Playwrights website.

    Philadelphia, PA – September 23, 2009 – To celebrate World Space Week 2009,  The Franklin Institute teams up with NASA for a week-long spectacular display of cutting-edge technologies and demonstrations that will allow visitors to see, hear, and feel the future of space and robotics!  The event kicks-off with the fifth annual Robotics Competition on Saturday, October 3 and closes with a special installment of the popular monthly series Night Skies in the Observatory on Thursday, October 8.   Throughout the week, a series of activities and speakers are planned to commemorate the 10th anniversary of World Space Week, the global space celebration which recognizes the contributions of space science and technology.