March 2

020

Volume 1, I
	
ssue 6

STEELER Nation News

Pennsylvania School Districts shift to distance learning
Health and safety information is changing on a daily basis. Your teachers, administrators, staff and “family” at Farrell Area School District hope that you remain healthy and vigilant. Look out for one another and keep current on news up-dates. Study hard, do your best on your lessons and look to make yourself YOUR BEST SELF. Make informed, smart decisions, stay positive and keep your teachers updated on your pro-gress! Attendance is being taken daily and weekly!

Senior Projects showcase STUDENT LEARNING and ACHIEVEMENT
On the afternoon of Thursday, March 12, 2020, Seniors, looking their professional best, took center stage to present their highly anticipated, individually planned and executed, Senior Pro-jects.

Initial phases of this culmination of learning begin during the students’ Junior Year, with the completion of the research pro-ject and writing of the Career Paper. From this time until the begin-ning of their Senior Year, students choose, get approval for and exe-cute a Senior Project that relates to their future plans.

Senior Project Faculty Coordinator, Senora Torres, met with students in September to lay out a timeline and expectations. In
addition to the project itself and documentation, students select a Xavier Savage (above) explains the faculty advisor and service hours.
Saniyeh Thomas, Jaxavier West
and Chris Renn (below) impart
their expertise. Contd. on page 3.
process of building a computer.		Students, in addition to relief, expressed pride and a sense of accomplishment upon completion of presentations. Senora Torres was pleased overall and noted that Seniors evidenced tre-mendous growth and achievement throughout the process.

Inside this issue:

Students of the Month / Contest Winners
	2
	
Senior Project / STEAM collabo-ration
	3
	
Selfie Montage
	4-5
	
19-20 Student Announcers
	6
	
Future Focus
	7-8

St. Patrick’s Day 2020 was celebrated in isolation as citi-zens nationwide observe the “Slow the Spread” recommen-dation of President Trump and the federal government. So-cial distancing and “shelter in place” orders to continue until April 30. STAY HOME and STAY SAFE.

Volume 1, Issue 6	Page 1

Winners receive a cash reward of $100 funded by Mr. Ted Pedas. Mr. Pedas has been generously funding this award to Farrell Students for the past 15 years.

Dwight snags first place at YSU Physics Olympics

February Students of the Month are, from left to right, 7th Grade -Zoee Mishata, 8th Grade - Kaylnn Long, 9th Grade - Lamont Samuels, 10th Grade - Tyree Odem, 11th Grade - Tyree Justice, 12th Grade -Laven Day

Senior, Dwight Ravenscraft, shows off his First Place medal for his balsa wood bridge that held over double the weight of the 2nd place contender! Also, placing 3rd in the Flying Machine event, were Juwon Samuels and Tyree Hammonds. A job well done to all who represented Farrell High School!

Zoee places in essay contest
use it to put down those who they think
“What Does Freedom of Speech Mean to Me?”     speak their mind, even if it's not good. Some

What is my opinion on Freedom of
ing they won’t have a consequence. And for
everyone who does this it seems like they
Speech? To everyone, Freedom of speech has a	aren’t average. They use this, to bully, think-different meaning. To some it's a way of express-
they think of the downfalls about it.
To me, Freedom of Speech, is the way
ing yourself through conversation. To others,	don’t ever get caught. Some, say things that cause others to become depressed and sui-
dom of Speech.
Due to the fact that many people
to express yourself through your choice in words. cidal. This is one of the downfalls of Free-To me, some people, such as myself, use this as a
Zoee Mishata, 7th grade student at Farrell
Middle School competed in a writing essay
take this for granted, in a good way, it is the
reason we all live how we do, it helps some
build off of it to a better life, and it also
helps show some people how having this
privilege, due to the fact that not everyone in the world has this opportunity. Most of us, use this freedom to express ourselves, to speak our mind when needed. Some use it as I do to help others
where they need help.
To me, some people take this as an
advantage. I believe some people use this to
through the Elk's club. Her essay earned her	when their down, or when they're in a situation	freedom is not something to take for grant-3rd place. The competition was open to                                                                                                               ed in a bad way. It corresponds to how we the Western District of PA and it includes Pitts-                                                                                                   have the different levels of wealth, and burgh counties, Lawrence , Mercer, and Butler                                                                                                    opinions in life.
counties.

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One example is the Louvre
Other monuments creat-
chose to create gargoyles, a spooky

Senior Project showcase

Seniors, Ben King, Tyree Hammonds, Camryn Gipson and Ronald LaCamera present projects and field faculty and student questions.
2019/20 STEAM Collaborative Projects

The brand-new STEAM Laboratory has been a focal point of collaborative learning and innovation throughout the first three quarters of the school year. Mr. Gaines’ students researched 9/11 quotations and made wood engraved tributes using the Epilog en-graving machine. Students were excited to see the impressive product of their work; you may have seen these in the new display case outside of Mr. Gaines’ classroom.
Mrs. Bolyard’s Family Consumer Science classes made use of the Clothing Embroidery Ma-chine and are now sporting personalized aprons. Most recently, Physics students, Eric Hopson and Kal-ia Knight used the 3D printer to make a boat. In the end, they discovered that the material was a bit too heavy to place with their Physics Floater.

French Club Cultural Enrichment

By MELONN WELLS	visit that museum; I would love to French Club students did a	just go visit the city of Paris.
ed by students include Notre
Dame, The Eiffel Tower, the Opera
Garnier, Mont Saint Michel, the Arc
de Triomphe and Sacre Coeur Ca-
thedral. Several students also
cultural project in collaboration with Mr. Lewis and the STEAM Lab. Students learned about monuments and archi-tecture from all over the French speak-ing world. Under the guidance of Mr. Lewis, they searched a program called
sonalize a monument of their choice
using the 3D printer.
TinkerCad in order to design and per-	feature of Gothic Architecture that was made famous by author Victo-ry Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre
movie of the same name.
Pyramid, which is a large glass and	Dame and, of course, the Disney metal Pyramid. This is the model that I
chose to create and personalize. The large Pyramid serves as the main en-trance to the Louvre Museum. The Louvre Museum is also the most visited museum in the world. I would love to

Tamara Slater, Natasha Marcella, Gabrielle King (front), Michaela Wilson, Tyleigh Steindurf, Mon-tea Fairfax pose in embroidered aprons. Josiah Tarver and Maria Haynes check out 3D printed models (right). (3D Model details in photos)

Volume 1, Issue 6	Page 3

Your teachers MISS YOU...

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And we BELIEVE in YOU...

Volume 1, Issue 6	Page 5

And those announcement voices

belong to…. Faith Zagotti

Marcus Green Jr.

Grade: 11
How long have you been doing announcements? Since April 2019
What have you learned / gotten better at?
I have gotten better at projecting my voice and being more con-fident. Before I started doing the announcements, I was very soft spoken, insecure, and very sensitive. Now, I have learned to understand criticism, speak my mind, and not to be so self-conscious.
Most embarrassing “on air” moment:
When I mispronounced a student’s name and said a dirty word. It was rather embarrassing on my part, but I also felt bad for the said student because that was quite embarrassing. Another was on my first day announcing and at the end, I cackled.
Most fun part:
A fun part for me is saying the birthdays, I love saying “Happy Birthday!” to people. It fills me with so much joy because birth-days are super important to me. Just geting to make someone’s day is fun to me.
Advice for new student announcers:
Do not worry about how you sound or the MINOR mistakes you will make. They are no big deal. Just cover them up well or crack a joke about it. Moreover, know that we all make mistakes sometimes; it is just a fact. DO NOT be scared to speak “on air”. Lastly, just have fun with it, crack a joke and play the songs YOU want to play. I am ALWAYS here to help and guide you with any of your announcing needs! Cannot wait to work with you all!

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Grade: 11
How long have you been doing announcements? March 2019 - Present
What have you learned / gotten better at?
Since doing the announcements, I have learned to talk louder and to enunciate when I am speaking, and doing so has really helped me with situations where I have to speak publicly. Most embarrassing “on air” moment:
As we all know, I am sarcastic and passive-aggressive. So of course, my most embarrassing moments would be whenever I make a remark at a situation and Madame would come in and talk to me about my comedic sarcasm. One time I got in trouble for commenting on the middle schoolers’ behavior (even though it was completely true).
Most fun part:
I feel that the most fun part about the announcements is how creative you can be with everything. I took inspiration from Ra-chel Owens-Gilbert from last year when I played music, memes, or iconic quotes at the end of the afternoon announcements. I even went the extra mile to take requests from other students to play songs that most people would want to hear, I mean, we all mostly listen to the announcements, so why not have fun while we are at it?
Advice for new student announcers:
As soon as you type in that code and that music plays, the spot-light is on you. Except it is your voice. It is your time to show your true colors and be completely unapologetic about it. Of course, it will take time, as doing the announcements becomes a part of your daily routine in school. Just talk to the phone as if you are talking to your friends, but keep it PG, or PG-13 at the most.

Volume 1, Issue 6

Focus on YOUR FUTURE

L.T.I. field trip:

TRADE PROGRAMS for students

By DASHAWN RICHARDSON

Laurel Technical Institute, better known as LTI, is a trade program that will get you certified in many different fields. Select Juniors and Seniors visited the Hermitage cam-pus of LTI with Guidance Counselor, Ms. Titus. There are also campuses in Meadville and Sha-ron, PA. They all offer similar programs, with specific options varying slightly by location.

LTI has many different fields such as nursing, message therapy, pharmacy techni-cian and cosmetology that many prospective students are interested in. The two main pro-grams they showed us during this February field trip were welding and electric, because they are the two biggest programs they offer. The experience included hands on demonstra-tions and Farrell students participated and learned about the importance of the safety measures and equipment involved.

LTI will accept any student that has a high school diploma or GED. students do not have to take the SAT or ACT in order to be ac-cepted. The most important requirement for this training program is attendance. As long as you can show up, they help you to learn your trade.

Once high school is over I plan to go to Laurel technical Institute because it is a “hands on” trade school. Originally, I thought that I would have liked to be certified in cosmetology and am now looking more seriously at welding because I love this type of hands on work. Weld-ing is 10% book work and 90% hands on. I would like to pursue this career because it suits me as there are many different styles. If you don't want to go to a 4 year college, a viable alterna-tive is trade school. They have a lot to offer and programs take much less time.

Junior and Senior High School students may CONTINUE to connect with guidance coun-selor by email:

jtitus@farrellareaschools.com

Also, continue to check your email and google classrooms for updates!

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Focus on YOUR FUTURE

Post Secondary Plans… REPRESENT!

Junior and Senior High School Teachers and Staff brought back college, trade and Military day on Friday, Febru-ary 28, 2020. Teachers wore university apparel and posted college, trade, military information outside their classroom doors. Information included acceptance rates, tuition, average SAT and ACT scores and other fun facts about various institu-tions.

Several teachers lead question and answer sessions and found that students were very interested in a wide variety of topics. Students wondered about major and minor areas of study, pros and cons to going to a small versus a large institu-tion, navigating financial aid, scholarships, ASVAB scores, study abroad opportunities, Military branches, future career de-mand projections, and campus life in general.

Art Teacher, Mrs. Munnal, shared not only some of her impressive artistic creations from her time at SRU, but seized the opportunity to emphasize the importance of so called “soft skills” in the future work force. Soft skills include, leadership, teamwork, communication, problem solving, work ethic, flexibility, interpersonal skills and more. She shares the view of many employers and career studies that development of these skills is vital to becoming a highly func-tioning member of the workforce.

Mrs. Armour, high school lead teacher, orchestrated this event and was very satisfied with the outcome. The en-thusiasm was shared by staff and students alike as many ex-pressed a desire to make the event an annual affair.

Mrs. Latzoo presents her alma mater, IUP, while Mr. Marasco sports US Air Force gear and Ms. Taylor and Ms. Sharper support Howard and Pitt Universities.

Penn State, Westminster, North Carolina, Kent State and Slippery Rock Universities represented by Mr. Lewis, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Dye, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Munnal.

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