1--Secret
2--The Mayhem If the Dissapearing cookies..........................................(10)
3--Change is on the Horizon for Arts Students in 9th grade..........(12)
4--Dresscode
6--Struggling in Silence: The Stress of Meeting Parental Expectations...(20)
AINSLEY GORILLA, ALAYNA PRESSMAN, AND SOPHIE SMITH
Mr. Watt lived and worked in Senegal as the Media Affairs
the U.S. Embassy in Dakar and in Bissau. He and his family moved U.S., settling in Philadelphia, and after working at the Embassy for years, Mr. Watt began a new career as a French teacher at SCH.
SCH students freak out over cookies disappearing during snack
Mmmmmm. That is often the first sound you hear when SCH Middle Schoolers bite into a cafeteriabaked chocolate chip cookies. To the shock of many, these cookies disappeared on the morning of Wednesday, January 7, 2026. It was totally out of the blue, no warning, no preparations. You may be thinking “Why is this?” Well, I decided to take it upon myself to get to the bottom of the disappearing cookies.
To start, I interviewed some students about the matter. When asked how they felt when the cookies disappeared, many students said that they were shocked and upset when they saw there were no cookies. “I was waiting for the cookies to brighten up my day a bit because I look forward to it every week . . . and I went to the cafeteria and the first thing I thought was, ‘Is this a joke’?” Olivia Syrcle, an 8th grade MSG student explained. She noted how the cookies make people happy . . . and, added how upset people were to learn they weren’t there.
A week later, the cookies came back to the cafeteria, but only during lunch. I wanted to know if students were satisfied with this decision. When asked, multiple students said they didn’t like it because the cookies aren’t as fresh. Sixth grade MSB student Miles Toconita voiced: “I usually can’t get them because 7th and 5th grade eat first and they usually take all of them.” With the cookies being back at lunch they aren’t as good because they aren’t fresh, and some people aren’t able to get them because they don’t make enough.
I wanted to know how important these cookies were to the community, so I asked if the students think they are a crucial part of SCH. When asked, all students I spoke with stated that the cookies were definitely an important part of SCH. Lastly, I wanted to know what the students would say to the decision makers about the cookies. When asked, all confirmed that the cookies absolutely needed to be brought back to the cafeteria during break.
After gathering the emotional aspect of the cookies, I decided to dig deeper into the facts. So I interviewed Chef Budd. The first question I asked him was: “What was the main reason for taking the cookies out of the cafeteria?” He explained that it was a decision made by school administrators in response to parent complaints. Parents, in Budd’s words, were “saying those cookies are too big for the students to be eating it at snack time,” adding that “the same thing happened with the donuts.” Ultimately, this was not the food services staff’s call.
After finding out the main reason I wanted to know how the cafeteria felt when they first heard of the decision. Chef Budd stated: “I have a very mixed reaction about that. Actually, I think that you guys shouldn't be eating a quarter pound of chocolate and sugar all the time, at snack, at break or whatever, or, you know, even sometimes once a week, that's a lot. On the other hand, I feel like you ' re very active, and you guys deserve to have fun . . . and you guys got pleasure from eating those cookies.” He added that while “they were brought back now at lunchtime on Wednesdays, just doesn't seem to have the same kind of impact.”
Could there be a cafeteria compromise, with the cookies coming back in a smaller form?
Understandably, the cafeteria staff were put under a lot of pressure due to the backlash of the cookie disappearance, when they really didn’t have a choice.
By: Charlotte Eagles & Avery Kizner
That leaves two. One of them is CEL and the other block is your arts block. So that's why you can get one arts class in there very easily. The challenge becomes that there's not enough real wiggle room to an 8/8 block… And that's what we ' re missing.”
Photo by: Avery Kizner
Which would you choose: music or visual art? For the past several years, eighth graders at SCH have had to make this choice when selecting their first Upper School courses. Why the need to choose one over the other?
We spoke with a range of community members to find out more, and ultimately learned that things are changing for next year.
To hear more about why SCH students have had to make this choice in the past, we spoke with Mr. Noricini, head of the upper school. He explained, “We have seven blocks in our schedule, same as middle school, and five of them are your core academics: Language, English, Math, History and Science.
This is where we discovered that the required CEL courses in ninth grade prevent a second block for an additional art class. The choice to prioritize CEL vs. art was hard for everyone involved but was decided on because CEL, in Mr. Norcini’s words, “ gives you opportunities to learn about different things that are related to what you might experience in academic class… for example, like the public speaking element… which is a good life skill and a good work skill.” CEL also gives students the opportunity to apply knowledge that they’re learning in a range of classes to real-world settings, in business, design, engineering, music, and film. At the time we interviewed Mr. Norcini, he was helping to figure out how to fit an option for 9th grade Orchestra students to also do visual art.
In the meantime, we interviewed strings teacher Ms. Givler. She helped us further understand why Orchestra was a full year course in the first place. She said, “...the idea of doing both at a level that's casual is okay, but to be really good at something, you have to make a choice ”
She explained the importance of having art in one ’ s life, whether music or visual art. “I think it's the concept of mastery in any discipline, so being good at something takes hard work, no matter what it is… but visual art and music are both based on skills that you build upon constantly. So just learning to build a skill base that way, in any discipline, can have positive effects across whatever you ' re doing ”
We surveyed 33 students in 8th Grade and found that more than half of them would take an art class in addition to a music class
For one semester next year, students will be able to take Orchestra in addition to taking a drawing and painting class Students wanting to take this new option would lose most or all of their study halls for the semester. The semester in which this will happen has also yet to be determined and this course would only run upon enrollment
This option will undoubtedly be demanding of the kids who choose it, but it is a step forward. SCH is listening to the many voices who have expressed interest in the arts, and is responsively improving offerings for next year ’ s 9th graders and those who will follow.
All of this feedback has been heard, and several members of our community including our scheduler Ms. Zalasky, Mr. Norcini, and the head of the arts, Dr. Monaghan, have worked hard to make it possible for students to get to take one semester of both music and visual arts. 13
Hoodies, Uggs, non-SCH branded sweaters, and quarter-zips. These are all reasons why SCH middle schoolers sometimes receive a conduct reminder in their inbox. We wanted to unpack how rules about dress code get made by the faculty, how they get changed, and also how they affect different groups of people. We started with the hypothesis that many students in our MSG “Digital Publishing” class believed to be true: MSG students get dress-coded more often than the MSB students.
To learn more, we interviewed five 8th graders to get their opinions on the dress code and also to compare their individual experiences. Ava Houston, an 8th-grade girl, stated, “If I were out of dress code every day a week, I would get conduct every day that week” in response to one of the 8th-grade boys claiming that he is out of dresscode at least twice a week without being given consequences.
We then sent out a form to two 8th grade CEL classes: one MSG and one MSB. We received 22 responses, 11 from each group. The questions we asked included, “Have you ever been out of dress code?” and “If so, what was the consequence?” Of the students polled, four from both sections received conduct reminders for being out of dress code, with three MSG students reporting one violation and one reporting two. On the MSB side, two students were issued one reminder, while the other two have received two and four conduct reminders. Seven MSG students self-reported being out of dress code at some point in the year, while five MSB students stated they'd been out of uniform, with two MSB students confessing that they'd been out of dress code more than five times.
Problematically, one of the students who'd been out of dress code 5+ times never received a conduct violation. Our survey also showed that the girls who got dress-coded were given immediate conduct reminders, while several of the boys getting dress-coded were given warnings instead of real consequences. While we understand why we have a dress code, we want to create a space for conversation to make sure that it is applied equitably across both divisions.
By Classie, Aida, and Maya
This season for SCH girls high school basketball has been one of the best in almost five years. Some of the major highlights were an improved record form last year (the team went from 4-14 to 11-11) and qualifying for the PAISAA State Tournament! The team also achieved the status of champions at BAA (Best Athletic Association), with our two captains Kendall Schnee tournament MVP and Pia Swammy making the All tournament team.
Another really big accomplishment was forming a partnership with the American Cancer Society and helping donate over ONE THOUSAND dollars to those in need from our Coaches vs. Cancer initiative. And, one of the biggest was creating a family out of our new tradition of team dinners and a dine and donate night all together to strengthen our team bond all together.
“Become 1% better as a team each day through consistent court time, film study, strength, conditioning, and mobility training, and camaraderie.”
“In the future, I would like to see more equality between the girls and boy teams as I think we both deserve the same amount of attention.”
-Kendall
“One day, for example, we had a double header with the boys team and they only announced their game, not mentioning ours once. ”Kendall
“Next year I would like us to utilize timeouts more and bring more fans to our games because I believe they helped us win games and bring the energy!“ - Finley
The beat doesn’t care who’s holding the sticks. Neither should we...
By: Alayna Pressman
A 2021 study performed by a student at Columbia University showed the effect of gender stereotypes while picking an instrument. Out of eight choices, there was very clear data showing how some instruments like drums were very heavily associated with maleness, whereas flutes had little to no association with maleness.
In music performance, this imbalance persists into adulthood. A study coauthored by Beatriz Nunes examined the participation of female jazz musicians at a Portuguese music festival. This study took place between the years of 2003 and 2018. During this 15-year period they found that only 7% of the performing musicians were women, and that the underrepresentation begins early in the school competitions.
Breaking these norms requires a different perspective and different opportunities to participate in music making. Ms. Lee, a classically trained pianist and one of the Spanish teachers at SCH, said that she joined a very welcoming Afro-Brazilian drum group after a female co-worker invited her to an open practice. This drum group known as Batala Philly is an outlier, as it is made up of mostly women. More opportunities such as this could bring more women into the world of music.
So smash your own stereotypes, crash your own cymbals, and pursue your own dreams.
By: Sophie Smith, Olivia Syrcle
Question 1: What is day to day life like in Dubai?
Answer 2: “Dubai trends have not affected our life much, however lots of people eat Dubai chocolate, some have even made art projects on it.”
Answer 3: “We do all kinds of activities, like dance, rock climbing, net ball, ceramics, and cooking. We also have a track and field for playing football.“
Question 2: How have Dubai trends, such as “Hello Dubai” and Dubai chocolate affected your daily life, if at all?
Question 3: What kind of activities do you do at Arcadia?
After concluding our video, we edited it and sent it out to our international partnership school in Dubai, (Arcadia School). They then wrote back with their own personal video, exploring their school and answering our questions. The areas they showed included, a cooking class, a textiles class, a rock climbing wall, and a mini model of their whole school.
After watching their video, we were so excited to talk to eachother about their school and lives. We both noted how remarkable it was to see someone else’s point of veiw from so far away. They also stated that they were so excited to see our video for the same reasons.
From their answers, it’s easy to tell that they enjoy their community. Aside from the sunny and warm weather almost year round, they also have the ability to do many activities. It’s also clear to see the Dubai trends are just funny and not hurtful to them.
This interview helped open our eyes to the realities of life at Arcadia, as well as our classmates, who happened to see the video while we were doing our article.
We were truly so happy to do this interview, and as of writing, we hope that our friends in Dubai are staying safe and happy with all the conflicts happening around them. We also hope that as readers, this article opened your eyes not only to Dubai trends, but to the reality that actual people live behind the snippets of places Dubai and elsewhere that we see on our phones.
In this giant fancy school, they only have one
From what we heard, almost everyone has apartments in the city.
By: Maeve Astheimer and Adriana Jacobs
According to the Pew Center, 68 percent of students face a “great deal” or “fair amount” of parental pressure about grades. SCH students and their families are not immune to this stress. For teens, it can be hard to know when your friends are going through this and need support. While some kids don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents, there are strategies they can use to improve communication.
Navigating misunderstandings is a big part of the problem. Kids and parents often struggle with topics like grades. A lot of times, students are stressed out about their classes and feel like their grades aren't good enough. Because of this, they don’t want to share them. They worry they won't live up to their parents' expectations and are too nervous to even try.
Ms. Jeanine Cicotti, an SCH school counselor, says the key is looking at things differently. "So the big, and main thing: try to figure out perspective," she advises. "For example, with grades, if parents have expectations that differ from their child, figuring out how to meet the student where they are and determining if they can meet those expectations."
When parents and kids don't see eye-to-eye, it can be really upsetting. Two 8G students that we spoke with explained that it feels like, " you ’ re trying to make someone understand it, just they don’t." They mentioned that it gets "frustrating sometimes when you can’t get your feelings out and you feel like you can’t tell them [about grade challenges]."
To fix this, students can work on being clearer communicators. If they don't, the relationship can turn into a "push and pull" dynamic. Ms. Cicotti warns that this might cause "either the parent or the child to back down and just avoid having the discussion all together." When that happens, bad feelings can stop everyone from wanting to work things out.
Even though parental pressure is a huge issue right now, learning how to share perspectives and talk through the stress can help SCH students and their parents get back on the same page.
-Founding Farmers Website
Founding Farmers is an amazing restaurant with great food, service, and ambiance I usually order the chicken and waffles or the sliders Both are great options with amazing taste and presentation The restaurant's aesthetic is good and looks very nice overall The service is pretty good, with the food not taking long to come out and the waiters being very respectful and joyous I overall rate this restaurant a 5/5 for a great experience and fun family meal - Ryan Byrd
Address: 255 Main St, Suite 180, King of Prussia, PA 19406
If you live in the city, go to this restaurant Goldie has an amazing selection of restaurants all over the city It has great Mediterranean food, including their delicious milkshakes, falafel salads, and pita bread When you enter the Goldie it looks very relaxing, very clean and has a great ambience There is typically a nice outside area to eat, and has a very cool decorating style with plants and a nice color scheme - Maeve Astheimer
Address: 3401 Walnut St, Philadelphia, PA
Whether you are looking for a sweet snack or a huge, fabulously decorated, six tier cake, the Night Kitchen is the perfect bakery The service is great and the counter service staff are very patient and helpful The atmosphere is profesional while still being cozy with an adorable seating area in the back All the mouth-watering sweets are displayed brightly in glass cases They also have dairy-free and gluten-free options that still taste incredible! - Charlotte Eagles
Address: 7723-25 Germantown Ave, Philadelphia, PA
Bacco is very friendly and authentic Italian restaurant. With a fun bocce ball court in the backyard, it is a nice family friendly restaurant for any occasion. Whether it’s a normal Tuesday, a birthday, or anniversary, Bacco is the place to go for a nice dinner. They serve everything from pasta, salad and sandwiches to wings, seafood, and pizza. It may be an array of food, but it is all equally as delicious. - Lanie Pressman
Credits - Bacco Webiste
When you walk in the door of Momoyama Ramen & Hawaiian BBQ you are greeted by the smell of delicious food and welcoming staff. The ambience is simple but inviting. The service is amazing and the staff are very friendly. The food is Asian-fusion with a mix of Japanese and Hawaiian. The menu features BBQ shortribs, Kim Chee Ramen, Mochiko Chicken, and many more delicious items. - Avery Kizner
Address: 101 E Moreland Rd Ste.# F, Willow Grove, PA 19090
address: 587 Dekalb Pike, North Wales, PA 19454
Credits - Canva Stock
Taku Japanese Steakhouse has really good food and everything tastes fresh Their hibachi strip steak is very flavorful and tender The sushi roles were well put together and they looked amazing The staff was very friendly and entertaining The chef puts good fire shows on the stove The restaurant looks very modern and neat I would definitely recommend this restaurant - Aida Watt
Address: 330 Goddard Blvd, King of Prussia, PA 19406
Credits: Tripadvisor
Maggiano’s is an amazing Italian restaurant that lets you live in the moment with its food and aesthetic Right when you walk in you are instantly relaxed by its low lights and calming music The food goes along with this theme It’s warm and comforting and gives you a homey feeling The service there helps to make you feel this way as well, with everyone being kind and making sure you have the best experienceLogan Conix
Address: Maggiano's Little Italy, 160 N Gulph Rd Suite 205, King of Prussia, PA 19406
Credits: Venue Bar
Suraya is a very nice, well put together restaurant that includes Lebanese and Mediterranean cuisine When I went there for the first time, I had many different appetizers including hummus-based dips, with fresh baked bread It is very delicious and I enjoyed it a lot - Sophie Smith
Address: 1528 Frankford Ave , Philadelphia, PA
Credits - Matiness Cafe
New Leaf 2 is my absolute favorite place to order out from They have a delicious selection of anything from sushi, to ramen, and to boba (my favorite) Perfect for families or group with varying tastes because they have a dish for everybody Also well-priced not including delivery costs I recommend the spicy lady roll an the mango boba tea - Olivia Syrcle
Adress: 4260 Main St, Philadelphia, PA 19127
Matines is a very classy but also casual cafe While you can dress up and get a nice time out, you can also run it for a quick coffee and scone. If you would like a heavy meal, you can get that, but you can also get a little macaron. Even the plates and bowls are adorable and floral! The service was amazing and the bus boys are very quick and very good at their job. - Maya Valentino
Address: 23 W Highland Ave, Philadelphia, PA 1911
Credits - Order Online
Gnocchi on Passyunk is a great Italian restaurant to go with your family of friends. The one room restaurant has a home like air that makes the experience even more enjoyable. Gnocchi has a relaxed feel to it, but might also be nice for a fancier occasion. -Ainsley Gorrilla
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Address: 613 Passyunk Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19147
