The Loudest Roars: Feature Articles

Earlier in the year, Governor Murphy almost cut funding for a vital student assistance program called SBYS, or School-Based Youth Services, down to less than $5 million. 30,000 students rely on SYBS across New Jersey in 91 districts. This would have had an incredibly negative impact on the help that is normally provided to students on a day-to-day basis. Thankfully, due to some public outcry, Governor Murphy decided not to cancel the bill and in fact took part to vote for the increase in funding to $15 million.

The effects of such a significant cut could have been drastic. SBYS offers essential resources like supportive counseling services, employment counseling, job placement services, and recreational programs as well as local, county and state resources to meet the needs of students and their families. These services supply preparation for life with college and career, fun for the community, and other programs that people depend on--whether it be mental health services or services that help families.

According to Karen Kenney, the director of Pinelands SBYS, this was the first time in 32 years that Pinelands was afraid the program was going to be cut; however, the Board of Education, students, teachers, administrators, and politicians all came together to advocate for the program. It was successfully saved thanks to the community, and now the student assistance program lives to see another day, helping students and families.

When asked to give a message about the importance of SBYS, Kenney says,¨Sometimes people think that seeking help is a weakness...we see it as a strength. It’s not easy to ask for help but everyone needs help sometimes.”

SBYS is a program that is very useful because of its accessibility to students, their families, and the community.

Kenney concludes by saying,“We are here to provide a safe place for students to come and get assistance with any challenges they may be experiencing. At SBYS we want to see all of our students progress through their educational experience as seamlessly as possible and upon graduation be ready for the next phase of their lives.”

The Cat Eye, introduced in 2015 to the Pinelands School District, has become a huge tool for keeping students and members of our community up to date on new things in and around the “Cat Dome.” Featured on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, The Cat Eye is celebrating five years of helping its followers keep track of sports, clubs, academics, staff and student life, and even alumni of the school through pictures, posts, videos, and other forms of communication.

The concept was started by James Ardoin, a science teacher, and soon he reached out to Shari Saks, an ELA teacher, to assist him in its creation. Since the beginning, Scott Beaton, a special education teacher, was in charge of taking pictures for their social media sites, but has since retired from his position. Kamryn Barr, a 2018 Pinelands graduate who graduated from Thomas Edison State University with a Bachelor's degree in English, has since taken over as photographer.

The Cat Eye was created during the time the school district was going through a lot of agitation from within as well with the community. Shari Saks explains that the goal of the Cat Eye was “to promote the positivity within and around the Pinelands community.” Saks also explains that they “wanted to be able to shine a light and highlight the awesome things that were taking place regardless of the negativity that the school was dealing with.” The Cat Eye has been quite successful in its goal of bringing light and positivity throughout the school, according to student and staff members.

Since its conception, The Cat Eye has taken off to heights the curators never saw coming, with posts coming out almost everyday and having special features that include “Staff Sunday”, “Teacher Tuesday”, “Throwback Thursdays”, “Alumni Fridays”, and “Classic Cat features”.

Mr. Ardoin reflects on his first posts on The Cat Eye’s Instagram, stating “it was well received, as were the next few posts--about 200-300 people interacted with each post.” He also mentions his first Teacher Tuesday post, and how “the post reached over 10,000 interactions in the first 24 hours.” This amazing response is what has kept the Cat Eye running successfully for over 5 years.

Now that The Cat Eye is celebrating 5 years of continued and growing success and support, many people have been anticipating new projects and ideas for the future. The teacher/photographer who worked with The Cat Eye for many years, Mr Beaton, explains that he saw The Cat Eye being more student driven in the future.

“We were 3 people with families and could only be in so many places at once. It is already starting to go that way with the student crew. But I really think being able to have students guide the conversations and generate the content with guidance from Mr. Ardoin, Ms. Saks, and Ms. Barr is the future of Cat Eye”, he states further.

Having the creators help and guide the students who are working for The Cat Eye now will prepare them to one day take a bigger role behind the scenes as well with their own future projects.

When interviewing the members of The Cat Eye crew, they were asked what they believed to be its greatest accomplishment, and none of them could pinpoint one post or caption that was most successful. Instead, they talked about The Cat Eye as a whole, and how they believe the accounts have changed perspectives and brought positivity.

Kamryn Barr, The Cat Eye’s current photographer for almost a year now, explains “The Cat Eye's greatest accomplishment to date is not rooted in any singular act or event. The Cat Eye's greatest accomplishment has been its consistency in spreading the word about all the wonderful things our students, alumni, and staff are doing.” This is a creative way of putting it, and the staff, students, and members of the community that follow The Cat Eye can agree.