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Above: The new handbook.
An Old-School Solution for a New School Year
Brockway High School students were likely surprised on their first day when they received a new and improved handbook, complete with an organizer, student resources, and a comprehensive guide of school policies.
In the past, the Brockway Student Handbook was issued solely to incoming seventh graders, but this year, the school’s officials decided to make a change. Mr. Jeff Vizza, one of the school’s principals, was reached for comment on the matter.
“Before, seventh graders were the only ones who had access to this resource,” Vizza said. “It left other, older students in the dark on school policy changes, so we decided to give all students an updated one this year.”
The handbooks serve as more than a simple rule book. They also contain a calendar- oriented organizer, resources such as a periodic table, and numerous sign-out sheets for leaving the classroom. Furthermore, they were designed with portability in mind.
“They are meant to easily be kept in a back pocket,” Mr. Vizza explained.
When asked what the inspiration for such a change was, he pointed out that this is not a new concept.
“Many other schools have handbooks just like this,” he said. “Even some elementary schools.”
The handbooks are also intended to reduce school spending, which Mr. Vizza highlighted as a driving force behind his decision.
“The money and time that we spend on buying and writing passes can be saved with these handbooks. We can then use the money we save to fund other things around the school.”
The handbook hasn’t received praise across the board though. It was released to mixed reviews from students, specifically due to the severity of losing the handbooks, and the new restrictions it was purported to impose. Students feared losing their handbooks, which could carry heavy costs. Fears additionally mounted over an apparent new restriction that raised some eyebrows and opened some mouths. Vizza addressed both concerns.
“The simple solution to losing the books is to put your name on it,” he said. “We just found one just the other day, and we returned it to its owner since a name was on it.”
He outrightly denied the latter concern, which was mainly in regards to a rumored bathroom break limit. The handbook only makes room for two restroom breaks per day, which left some questioning the perceived limit. Vizza immediately responded to this notification by stating that there is no limit, and that the book only includes two lines because that’s all it can fit comfortably. He also said that he’s received no negative teacher feedback in regards to either concern.
Vizza then went on to say, “[The handbook is] meant to be a resource, not a nuisance.”
The handbook, like all new things, will take some getting used to, but Mr.Vizza clearly has an optimistic view on its implementation. And while some others are less enthusiastic, the system has been working fine, and no notable issues have arisen.
In the grander scheme, whatever your opinion may be, one thing is for certain: the Brockway Rovers are proving wrong a classic proverb.
You can, in fact, teach “old dogs” a new trick.
-Brendan Allison ('18)
Above: The Brockway FFA at ACES
FFA Attends Leadership Events
Brockway Area Junior-Senior High School’s chapter of the FFA had a busy three-month period.
Not only did the student members attend the Pennsylvania Farm Show, have new officer trainings, and host the school’s annual FFA Week, they also sent several young students to FFA’s leadership events.
FFA is an organization that was founded in 1928 to help young people with farm-related leadership and activity. As the organization grew, it became a place for people who “aspire to careers as teachers, doctors, scientists, business owners and more,” according to its website. To reflect this, the organization updated in 1988 from Future Farmers of America to FFA, reflecting the way the industry of agriculture had changed and diversified.
“FFA isn’t just for people who live on a farm or plan to work on a farm,” explained Kyle Norman, Brockway agriculture teacher. “It’s for anyone interested in any agriculture-related activity.”
According to the Pennsylvania FFA website, FFA holds two conferences every year. The first is the State Legislative Leadership Conference (SLLC), and the second is the Agricultural Cooperation Establishes Success (ACES) Conference. The website says 2,400 students attend these conferences.
“Both conferences are basically about leadership,” explained freshman Emily Roush. “ACES is for grades 9 and 10.”
“We will take any FFA member who signs up and is in 9th or 10th grade,” FFA Adviser Matt Holt added. “Anytime I take students to ACES, I always look forward to seeing how the kids are going to do meeting other members from around the state and being separated into groups that do not have members from our chapter.”
The FFA offers workshops at these conferences to develop career skills as well as life and leadership skills trainings. The students also go to activities like breakfast with legislators, listening to keynote speakers, and workshops on community service.
“You have huge group activities where you learn about other FFA members from other chapters,” fellow freshman Kylee Fink said, saying there could be 600 people there. “We learn some kids’ names, a fun act about them, their chapter, and we make up a cool handshake.”
The focus of the activity, though, is to help FFA members become leaders in the community. This gets students out of their comfort zones and meeting new people.
“You learn how to talk in front of a big group as well as one-on-one,” Fink said. “They try to put you in a group with people you don’t know. You really come out of your comfort zone when you meet new people.”
“During this, you learn not to judge everyone,” Roush said. “You try to build up each other and learn how to work together.”
“After going to ACES, I have seen students get much more involved in the FFA and other organizations,” Holt said. “I have seen students start talking about plans in leadership positions and think more carefully about the careers they plan on doing.”
The experience usually drives FFA members to do other conferences as they get older. Some have go onto larger FFA events in Harrisburg, usually around the time of Farm Show. Speaking skills they learned at ACES help some students go onto speaking competitions.
“For most of these students,” Holt said, “if they continue with the FFA, their next natural step is going to be SLLC, which is a three-day conference in March.”
“I really hope to do something like this again,” Fink said, looking ahead to this year or next year.
“This is a great way to learn to be more outgoing and see what you can do,” Roush concluded.
Above: Perry Winker, Kria Fry, Bryce Grecco, Morgan Rendos, and examples of Winkler-style watercolors from Brockway students.
Brockway Kicks Off Winkler Gallery Art Show
Melanie Oknefski’s art classroom at Brockway Area Junior-Senior High School buzzed with activity and excitement one Friday evening in January.
After school, Oknefski planned to transport these original works of art to the Winkler Gallery of Fine Arts in DuBois to kick off the gallery’s student showcase.
Art work from Brockway was on display in the Winkler Gallery of Fine Art’s Education Center Showcase on Brady Street in DuBois from January 16 through February 17.
Students anxiously filled out paperwork, squeezed art into frames, and made finishing touches to artwork that anyone visiting the fine arts gallery could see and even purchase.
Morgan Rendos, a senior at Brockway, had finished a black-and-white landscape and tried it out in a frame to make sure it got the right fit. Junior Logan Bauer’s metal armor gauntlet perched in a shadowbox while Oknefski determined the best way to display it. Overlooking the bustle was a portrait sketched by senior Kira Fry.
Oknefski and Perry Winkler discussed the possibility of having Brockway start the student showcases, but when working with a student population, participation is not always a guarantee.
“I knew I would start this showcase with Brockway because I’m always impressed with what Melanie’s students produce,” Winkler said. “I told her what I needed, and she said it might be hard to get students interested. She called me back the next day and said she had a lot of interest in the show!”
To get the show ready for a January start time, Winkler and Oknefski had students working for a couple of months on artwork. That presented a challenge that many art teachers have to deal with in their own classes.
“A lot goes into making a show like this happen,” Oknefski said. “But the biggest challenge is getting kids to commit to doing the show, follow through with the work, and actually submit artwork!”
Commitment and follow through turned out not to be a problem. Students worked hard to get the work done. Winkler had an added bonus to working with Brockway as the first show: the frames are also original works.
Kyle Norman’s shop classes at Brockway volunteered to make frames for the artwork out of the wood they work with in the shop.
“While the artists were working on their submissions, we also had to get sizes of the pieces to Mr. Norman with enough time to make quality frames!” Oknefski said. “The students had to commit to a size and they could not change it once they started working.”
“It’s exciting to see that the shop classes made the frames,” Winkler added. “These frames show how the whole school got involved in this process.”
The Winkler Gallery show looked for noncontroversial, family-friendly pieces, which were done in any manner. The open-ended media requirements meant that the Brockway showcase has pencil art, watercolors, block print, 3D metalwork, pottery, and more in both full color and black and white.
“We have a nice range of expression in these subjects,” Winkler said. “These students have a lot to say. The variety of work is impressive, and Brockway has a remarkable body of work for halfway through the school year.”
Winkler is a master of watercolors, and his work is, of course, on display at his gallery in DuBois as well as in North Carolina and elsewhere in the country. He is a working artist, frequently doing shows and experiencing critiques from fellow artists and the general public. He is a two-time Biltmore Estate Wine Label Contest Winner. In his career, he has learned a lot about the fear of putting art on display, and hopes to pass his experience on to budding artists in the Tri-County Area.
“It is a vulnerable, frightening experience,” Winkler said. “But you learn to be resilient. You need to be true to your vision and who you are. Not everyone will like every aspect of your art. It’s funny – art is not all about if a piece is technically accurate. It’s about the expression in that art.”
When studying the Brockway art to determine how to display it, a particular expression stood out to Winkler.
“If I had to give all of these works a one-word title, I would say ‘Sensitive,’” he said. “These are all sensitive pieces. Take that portrait” – he indicated Fry’s piece – “it’s not a photo. It’s an expression of what the artist senses in that photo. That black-and-white landscape” – he gestured toward Rendos’ piece – “is a moment out of time, but it’s edgy, maybe a little dark.”
Winkler praised each piece of art as he discussed it. He concluded, “I hope people don’t visit this showcase and just take the work at face value. I hope they look deeply. I hope they daydream a little. There is so much more in this art that what you see at first. Good artwork can express different things to different people.”
Oknefski also enjoyed seeing her students find that deeper meaning in their artwork. While Winkler gets the opportunity to enjoy the finished product and study the intricate details of the final composition, Oknefski got to see the whole process.
“I enjoy when students doubt themselves at first, but when they finish, they step back, look at it, and say, ‘That turned out better than I thought it would,’” Oknefski said. “They all had the opportunity to shine.”
Above: Vans shoes for the art competition.
Brockway Competes with Vans Custom Culture
With $75,000 at stake, two art students at Brockway Area Junior-Senior High School had to find artwork that fits like a glass slipper.
Kira Fry and Devin Velez are competing in the Vans Custom Culture Competition. This competition was created by the shoemaker to give schools a chance to compete for money to use for their art program. Previous years have been limited to $50,000, but Vans upped that to $75,000 this year. Schools had to apply to be included, and Brockway was chosen. Of those chosen schools, only 50 will continue. From those 50, an online competition will choose the top five.
“I’m proud that my students encouraged me to sign our school up for this competition,” Brockway art teacher Melanie Oknefski said. “It’s encouraging to see our seniors trying to selflessly give back to our school by entering a contest that can help our arts program for years to come.”
Vans gave the schools two pairs of blank shoes and the topics “Off the Wall” and “Local Flavor.” The first category can be anything the artist wants while the second has to reflect the community.
Fry chose the “Local Flavor” competition. She was inspired by the big mural on the Carnisali’s building in town.
“I’ve wanted to do the shoe project since I first saw the shoes in the showcase last year,” Fry said. “I’ve always loved to design shoes, I have Penn State ones I did, and I’m good with landscapes, so drawing Brockway buildings was nice.”
“Off-The-Wall” could have been anything, and Velez went for dragons and other interesting designs. The freestyle art did not appeal to Fry, who wanted a focus. Although, Fry's competition was off the wall -- the mural at Carinsali's.
“It was a good chance giving it my all,” she said. “I like being detailed in my artwork. It was stressful, not going to lie, but it was really cool.”
Fry’s struggle with the shoe was taking the massive mural and miniaturizing it to fit on the shoes.
“It took me about around three weeks to do,” she said. “The hardest part was probably around the bottom of the shoe. I decided to use red sharpie, and it kept smudging, so I had to paint the entire bottom again. Small details were hard -- where to put things organization wise so you can see the detail and they make sense.”
With the project completed right on deadline, Fry and Velez gave their shoes to Oknefski, who had to photograph them and send them to the Vans Organization for judging.
“I hope people from here will see something that reminds them of home,” Fry said.
Brockway did not move to the second round, but the students had fun trying.
“As always, I’m proud of my students,” she said. “They always do a good job for these competitions.”
Brockway Student Takes First At History Day
“Kodomo No Tame Ni.”
In Japanese, the phrase means, “For the sake of the children.” It’s a phrase that explains why those who were placed in Japanese Internment Camps during World War II tell their stories.
Brockway Area Junior-Senior High School sophomore Shaughny Richardson chose that phrase as the title of her National History Day paper, taking first in the regional competition at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
“Shaughny was chosen to be a part of the competition because several of her teachers talked about her great writing skills,” explained history teacher Shawn Smith. “Her paper requirements were rigorous and required hours of studying documents, analyzing passages, and of course, writing.”
Richardson chose the topic because it is under-represented in American history classes.
“We don’t talk about it much in school,” she said. “It’s usually a 10-minute discussion. I wanted to expand my knowledge on that topic.”
As with all good research projects, Richardson emerged knowing more than she did before. She was also surprised at certain specifics.
“I didn’t realize that it was just people on the west coast,” she said. “I thought it was the whole country. I became really sympathetic on both sides. I could see why President Roosevelt chose to open the camps, but I saw how terrible that decision was, especially when I read memoirs of people who lived in the internment camps.”
Richardson had to turn in her paper and wait for the judges to look it over. She then had a 15-minute interview about the paper.
“I was nervous at first because I didn’t know what they would ask me,” she said. “I as so nervous at first that I kind of repressed my knowledge! I didn’t remember!”
After the mental block passed, Richardson worked her way through the interview and even got compliments on writing a paper on Turabian format.
“I felt like I did really well,” Richardson said. “When they asked about my career choice, I told them I was a sophomore. They were really shocked. One of the grad students said she didn’t understand footnotes and I did those well.”
Because Turabian is rarely taught in high schools, Richardson had to google it and teach herself. That work paid off in the end.
“I felt good about it when I didn’t get third place,” she said. “I thought I’d get second. It’s my first year, so didn’t expect to win.”
The drama increased when her name was not called for the second place paper. Then, when first place came around, the person reading it struggled.
“I knew it was her paper,” Smith said. “I said to her, ‘He can’t say the Japanese!’”
“My title was in Japanese, so when I heard the professor having trouble pronouncing the title of the paper, I knew I won. All that hard work paid off.”
This victory inspired Richardson to try again next year. She expects that to be a little easier.
“They already told us the theme,” she said. “I know what I’m doing now, so it’s an easier process.”
Below: Dalton Hook, Sydney Manno, Shaughny Richardson, and Mr. Shawn Smith at History Day at IUP.
Artisan Market 2018
This year's Artisan Market was held on May 17. Below are the product commercials.
If the embed does not work, go to: https://youtu.be/tKxIAwQEAes