Category: News

Seniors Sihyun Ahn and Lily Seitelman were announced as 2015 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists this month.

In this highly coveted recognition, Ahn and Seitelman are only two out of about 16,000 semifinalists.

Over 1.4 million juniors took the PSAT, putting Ahn and Seitelman in the top one percent of the highest scoring juniors in the nation.

However, there will only be 15,000 finalists out of the 1.4 million that applied.

Because of their high scores, Ahn and Seitelman are eligible for college scholarships.

Assuming Ahn and Seitelman are named finalists, they will be considered for thousands of scholarships that are estimated to be worth around $33 million.

“All finalists are considered for a single-payment scholarship for $2500, and there are other, more specialized scholarships only available through NMS. They try to match [scholarships] to a dream school you name in the application,” said Ahn.

With that kind of opportunity, Ahn and Seitelman could get a vast amount of funding for any college they want to attend.

“Being a finalist would give me the opportunity to help pay for some of my college expenses. I’d appreciate the chance to contribute in this way,” said Seitelman.

New finalists are named each year and become eligible through PSAT scores. Rising sophomores and juniors should study for the SAT and take the practice SAT in order to qualify.

Ten students from LBUSD earned gold medals in this year’s Afro-Academic Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO). Seven out of those ten were Poly students.

Poly’s seven winners include senior Krystal Ball in the short story category, senior Neyah Barbee in the drawing category, Poly alumni Nia Barbee in the categories of instrumental music and classical poetry, senior Kandise Le Blanc in vocal classical and contemporary music, senior Zori Ray in entrepreneurship, senior Monica Rodriguez in painting, and senior Amber Russell in instrumental contemporary music.

The ACT-SO is a program in which African American high school students work with mentors over the course of a year to promote and experience high academic and cultural achievement. During this enrichment program, each student creates a project that becomes eligible to win a medal in one of 25 artistic or academic categories.

ACT-SO participants are empowered and enriched with opportunities to attend workshops, tutorials, and field trips. The competition provides valuable skills that are applicable beyond ACT-SO.

The competition’s ten gold medalists have displayed their hard work on a local level, but will take it one step further by entering their projects into the National ACT-SO Competition next July at the Annual NAACP Convention.

“I’ve been participating in ACTSO for 3 years now and it’s really become a highlight of my time in high school. I get to travel with my friends to compete for art and English, my two favorite subjects. Not only is it fun, but I also know that it is going to help me in the future. I get better at my crafts and get to know other kids across the country who are striving to do the same. I would recommend it to everyone I know,” said Barbee.

Any high school student of African descent who is an amateur in any of the 25 competition categories is encouraged to join ACT-SO. Applications are available online at www.actso.org/howtoapply.shtml.

A smartphone app designed by junior Stephan Kaminsky won the 2014 Congressional Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Academic Competition, or the “House App Challenge.” Kaminksy created his nucleic converter app specifically for the competition.

The House of Representatives website describes the challenge as “…designed to engage students’ creativity and… allow high school students from across the country to compete by creating and exhibiting their software…on a platform of their choice”.

This is the first year the competition has been in place; there were 26 winners in California. Kaminsky won in California’s 47th district, which spans Long Beach and Orange County. Kaminsky’s app was submitted to the district representative, Alan Lowenthal, and was reviewed prior to a selection by a panel of experts.

“I thought maybe I could make an app to help build strands or help find restriction sites, because that can be a pain,” said Kaminsky.

Kaminsky became interested in programming from videogames like “Minecraft”. He enjoys the problem solving involved in creating and maintaining apps, and he’s even made some for his personal computer. “[Programming] is fun because it’s amazing to see what you can do with just a few words,” said Kaminsky.

Stricter nutrition and fundraising guidelines have been implemented throughout the district, limiting the number of snacks and beverages sold on school premises.

In support of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, the California Department of Education recently imposed several food and drink restrictions that must be enforced in the state’s school districts.

To be distributed on school grounds, the product must abide by the new California Education code, which states the criteria for permitted food and beverages.

These laws are from 12-midnight to one half-hour after the school day ends.

The guidelines promote a healthy lifestyle, a main objective in Obama’s campaign. Benefits include a significant reduction in the caloric, sodium, and sugar levels of food and beverages that are allowed to be sold, which set the standards that must be met before sale.

The additional guidelines pose a challenge for student organizations, as many depend upon food sales as a main form of fundraising. This will make it difficult for many students to raise money without abiding by strict guidelines, which may limit much of their efforts.

Since these laws are in effect during school hours, clubs are now prohibited from selling food and drinks that do not adhere to the new laws. In addition, only one club is given permission to sell during the day.

“The harsher nutrition guidelines, though well-intended, make it much harder for the clubs at Poly to fundraise. Now, we must keep into account the time and day when we want to sell, in addition to the nutrition facts of the products we’re selling,” said junior Kelly Chap, Commissioner of Organizations.

The effects of these new guidelines will be noticed by students and faculty members at Poly, but hopefully will not disrupt the flow of everyday activity.

The two fairs Poly holds throughout the year are not at risk, for a select number of exceptions to the guidelines can be made with administrative approval.

Several Poly students attended the Fire Knife Polynesian Festival in Long Beach on Sept. 6 and 7.

Audience members of all ages and races came to celebrate the diverse culture of Polynesia.

“There weren’t just Polynesians; it was a very diverse crowd,” said Matilda Deadline.

Musicians and dancers performed into the night on a stage decked in hanging string lights and palm trees, while event staff passed out Hawaiian leis to the crowd.

Many forms of Polynesian dance from Tahiti, Fiji, and Tonga graced the stage, but the main performers of the event were the Samoan Fire Knife competitors.

Fire Knife is one of Samoa’s traditional ceremonial dances. The dancers perform with a machete on a wooden handle that is lit on fire at both ends, a tradition that requires skill and focus.

While the competition got heated (literally), so did the food vendors. They sold a variety of cultural cuisine, from chocolate chip cookies and egg rolls to pineapple burgers and spam musubi.

Traditional Samoan food was also sold in plates of chop suey, chicken, rice, and taro.

The annual Fire Knife Polynesian Festival was a big hit with Poly’s students and its community. Poly’s Pacific Islander club will be selling plates of Samoan food at their booth.

For the past thirteen years, Ms. Schwichtenberg’s classes have been saving the Earth one bottle at a time.

The students who developed this program sort, bag, and recycle almost 3,300 pounds of recyclables from Poly’s campus every year. After collecting the recycling, students in the program receive money from a larger recycling receptacle. This money goes towards supplies and activities for Poly’s special needs classes.

Not only does the project help Mother Earth, but it also helps special needs students to attain hands-on experience outside of the classroom.

“We like to encourage students with special needs to be a part of the program to give them specially designed job training and vocational education skills,” said. Ms. Schwichtenberg. “This helps prepare them for finding a job, learning to work in groups, time management, signing in and out, [and] banking and budgeting.”

These students’ efforts have led to the development of well- prepared young adults and a greener campus for Poly.

The program has even received acknowledgments from the City of Long Beach, and participated in the “Keep America Beautiful High School Recycling Contest.”

Poly’s recycling program is a well-oiled machine. Those who choose to participate in the recycling program at Poly have a routine for carrying out the recycling process.

Students can be seen every day during fifth period in their teams, collecting the bottles and cans from the blue bins of the classrooms that opt to have their recycling picked up.

But, what many people don’t see is the effort they put in to process the recycling.

Once a week, this recycling is received by one of Poly’s staff members and then sold to a larger receptacle. The money is given to the students every two weeks.

This process is beneficial because the students learn to record their work in time sheets and their paychecks in budget folders.

Students at Poly may not think about where their bottle goes once they toss it into a blue bin. But Jackrabbits can take pride that they not only help the environment when they recycle, but they help to provide job training to special needs students at Poly.