WRITTEN BY LEONARDO BLACUTT
The Grumps are a group that performed at VAAS Music Festival along with other groups such as Malform, Nathemm, The Back Room, and Almighty Alpha X Jalen X Vincent. They were interviewed for The Ssssource to get a behind the scenes perspective on being a band to perform at the VAAS Music Festival. BEFORE VAAS Music Festival The Grumps are run by their lead guitarist and singer Isaac Ramirez who is a 12th grader at VAAS. Isaac says, “We have been a group for 2-3 months, and have been putting in time and effort after long school days to practice and perfect our performance.” They have been putting in work to put on a great show for the attendees of the VAAS Music Festival. “We're not going to have the worst performance, but we definitely won’t have the best. We’re breaking apart after, but it will definitely bring the group closer together as friends. I’m excited to see the other groups/bands because they’re all playing good songs.” When asked about his favorite song, his response was, “‘Break’ by Alex G is my favorite song that we will be performing. I listen to this song every day and I love Alex G. He inspired me to bring this band together and to play music.” AFTER VAAS Music Festival Although the group was brought together for greatness, Isaac says “I see the group breaking apart in the future but I will still be performing and playing at shows with a new group I will be joining and we will be writing our own songs which has always been a dream of mine.” Issac’s self-assessment of his performance was,” I don’t think we had the best performance. The song I think we performed well was “Barely Legal” by The Strokes. We messed up a couple times on multiple songs but we definitely weren’t too bad. I didn’t meet any new people, but VAAS Music Festival allowed me to get closer to my friends that showed up for me.” When asked who performed the best, Issac said, “Overall, I think Malform definitely had the best performance because they are known all around the valley and I enjoyed their performance too. The song I think we performed well was ‘Barely Legal’ by The Strokes.” WRITTEN BY VANESSA DUENAS
Every year our school plans many events for our students, staff, and community to enjoy. On April 28th of this year, VAAS Senior Leadership held the VAAS Music Festival. Committee leaders Joseph Lowman and Angelina Felix had to do a lot of prepping and planning in order to make this amazing event happen. Preparation and planning had to start months in advance for this event. When planning this event, Joseph and Angelina said that the first thing planned was, “the location, time, and maximum attendance because we had to have administrators sign off on the paperwork to even begin planning the rest of it.” According to Joseph, the process of planning this event went very smoothly, with just a bit of a challenge. The hardest aspect of planning was, “...the food trucks because we had to reach out to them and get… insurance [information] for the district.” On the other hand, “The easiest part to plan was the decorations since all we had to do was make a list on Amazon.” As all of you know we have amazing talent here at VAAS and some of that talent was showcased at this year's music festival. “Finding a band was pretty easy…As soon as Joseph and I became the committee leaders we automatically went to Joseph’s band, Mal Form since they played last year at the same event and everyone loved them and they have played at many shows in the past years. One of the teachers here at VAAS, Mr. Chan, is in a band called Anathemma and he reached out to Ms. Peyton about playing so that was a good way to include others instead of just students performing,’’ Angelina Felix told us. For other performers it was a different process. “Then the Backroom and The Grumps found a way to reach out to us too. Some of their band members are from Kennedy so we felt like that was also a good way to bring different communities to our school. Lastly was Almighty Alpha x Jalen x Vincent. They have been coming out with music so they asked us if they [could] perform, we added them in between sets since they only wanted to play 2-3 songs. What they will perform is different music then the bands we have so it’s a good way to include different genres.” Angelina and Joseph had some goals for this year's music festival. Angelina wanted “... to bring the community together and for everyone to have a good time. We are close to the end of this school year and having VAAS Music Festival just lets everyone have fun and take a break from school or work!” And the festival did just that. Everyone was able to enjoy a night of great music while bringing the community together. None of this could've happened without the two amazing committee leaders along with the help of senior leadership. WRITTEN BY ANGELINA BESHARA My opinion on the Into the Woods play was I thought it was an understandable and enjoyable play. I think the play was very well rehearsed. The actors were playing their roles very well. I went into the play not knowing what this story was. Then I walked out of the play having a full understanding of what Into the Woods was. This play was a comedy. It kept me hooked the whole time. I never got bored. My favorite character would probably be the little red riding hood girl because she played her role very well and she was very pretty. I loved her. The plot of the play was very understandable. I was never confused because it all came together at the end and they had a good ending. I really enjoyed watching this play. I think it was worth those 7$. I recommend this play to a lot of people because I enjoyed it.
WRITTEN BY DANA BARBEE AND JADEN FISKE
On March 9th, the Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences hosted community members, primarily from the Museum of Tolerance and Los Angeles area, for an event of inclusivity and community called Combat Hate. Starting in the gym, students, teachers, staff, and speakers alike gathered for a dinner catered by Los Toros. Having arrived early, we got the chance to meet briefly with some of the speakers for the evening. A few of those people included Scott Schmerelson, Liebe Geft, Emily Thompson, and Jeff Schoep, the keynote speaker. As dinner progressed, we got to know the people at our table, who had all heard of this event from either neighborhood news and/or their children in community groups taking part in the event. Through our conversations with them, it was clear that members of the community care about the subject matter at hand. As the meal concluded, the director of the museum, Liebe Geft, briefly introduced herself and guided us towards the VAAS theater for the remainder of the event. It was during this portion of the event where various speakers from the community brought up topics such as: preventing hate, protecting yourself and loved ones, and sharing kindness with the people around you, as well as some personal experiences relating to the topic. Gathered in the theater, we had the opportunity to listen to some very interesting stories about experiences with hate and hate prevention. Though many of these stories were saddening, it was inspiring to hear what people in our community are doing to help handle the spread of hate. Some of these speakers included LA City Council Member John Lee, Alan Hamilton from LAPD, Liebe Geft from the Museum of Tolerance, VAAS sophomore Dana Barbee, and primarily, Jeff Schoep. Each speaker had a specific aspect of hate in their community that they wanted to address, spanning over a wide spectrum of experiences, further proving that hate affects everyone differently. John Lee shared stories of hate he has seen friends of his children experience as well as people in the Los Angeles community. His goal is to take a “full active approach to addressing these issues” and he believes that “one of the first steps is having honest and interactive dialogue together as concerned citizens.” Mr. Lee worked to share his thoughts on the best actions we can take towards ending the spread of hate, then proceeded to introduce Deputy Chief Alan S. Hamilton of LAPD who works with the Los Angeles community to end the spread of hate in the LA area. As a member of LAPD, Deputy Chief Hamilton shared some statistics about hate crimes/incidents in the San Fernando Valley, precautions to prevent them from happening in the first place, and actions that people can take to protect themselves from hate crimes if they do occur. He mentioned that at one point last year, within the city of LA, the rate of hate incidents had risen 118%. Hate crimes, though, were not up as much, yet still increased 40%. Over the span of the past couple of years they’ve done nothing but increase. Expressing acceptance for people of all races, genders, religions, etc. leads to a stronger connection in the community and less hate expressions towards groups in the area. As the sixth largest city in the USA, it is important to stand together to prevent the spread of hate. Deputy Chief Hamilton emphasized, “We are only going to fight this if we fight this together.” He also focused a lot on the importance of our generation as teenagers and the future of our community. As we grow up, we are going to be the ones who make the decisions in our world, government, and communities. Deputy Chief Hamilton believes that expressing love to the people around us is a great way to ensure acceptance in the community. He says that preventing hate crimes and hate incidents starts with a shared understanding of inclusivity and diversity. He encouraged us to, “Find strength in our diversity.” It is sometimes hard to decipher the difference between a hate crime and a hate incident. In Deputy Chief Hamilton’s speech, he explains, “Hate incident is an incident that espouses hate that may not reach the level of a crime.” He proceeds to give the example of a poster that expresses hate against another group posted on a wall is a hate incident but if taken to the extreme of vandalism on a car or property, then it is classified as a crime. The most important point he wants the community to know is, “You want to make sure that everyone understands there is no tolerance for hate.” The phrase “See Something Say Something” is often dismissed by students after hearing it on a school campus, but more attention must be brought to this phrase. LAPD often knows about instances before they evolve into a hate incident and a hate crime but that is only because of the communication skills of the people in the community. Keeping your eyes open for hateful activity is always beneficial to the community. What Deputy Chief Hamilton warns against, however, is getting involved if you see a hate crime unraveling in front of you. He encourages you to be a good witness if you are ever in this position. By saying “good witness”, he asks that you make sure to pay attention to the details of the occurrence and to report the information you collect to LAPD. Getting involved in the situation though, no matter your intentions, is strongly advised against. It is important to keep in mind that you never know if the people involved have weapons or have other people that you cannot see, meaning that your involvement may pose a physical threat to your own wellbeing. The most important thing you can do is be a good witness and call 911 to get professionals in law enforcement involved. Sharing the information you’ve collected is the strongest power you have to be able to stop these hateful acts. If you are involved in the incident yourself, Deputy Chief Hamilton recommends you remain involved through the whole investigation process and do not leave until it is complete. Exiting the prosecution prevents law enforcement from being able to stop that individual from committing further crimes. (click "Read More" to continue article) WRITTEN BY JADEN FISKE
The Music Program at VAAS was something that most of the students here looked forward to participating in and was often a reason some students attended the school in the first place. Unfortunately, it was removed for this year. This program gave students here a community to belong to and an out-of-school hobby that could turn into a career. The Music Program would participate in pep-rallies, and would occasionally have concerts of its own as well. It collaborated with other programs, like Leadership and Theatre, expanding the arts part of our school. The Music Program has a lot of benefits to students as well. As mentioned earlier, students who were in the music program could have made a career out of it. Finding their interest in that early on and having a class that can help teach them how to become better musicians helps them mentally plan out their future. Playing instruments has positive effects on the brain as well. “Playing a musical instrument has been shown to increase cognitive ability through enhanced neuronal communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, resulting in positive effects on learning, memory, fine motor skills, verbal and non-verbal reasoning, resulting in an overall more capable brain to apply in a multitude of settings.” wrote Anna R. Stoklosa in her article Instruments of Knowledge: Music and the Brain. She mentions in that article that introducing music lessons to children and a young age helps enhance neural connections developing in the brain. Anna talks about how listening to music helps boost your mood, physiological functions, (heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure) and behavior. According to Anna, “Thomas Jefferson used music and his violin to help him write the Declaration of Independence when he couldn’t come up with the right words. Music helped Jefferson get his thoughts from his brain onto paper.” and “Albert Einstein, one of the smartest men in history, was also a violin player. His mother bought him a violin in grade school and he attributes his intellect to his ability to play Mozart and Bach on the violin. His friend, G.J. Withrow, said Einstein figured out problems and equations by improvising music on the violin.” When a child is learning to play an instrument their brains learn to hear and interpret sounds that are different from just listening to it. Playing an instrument helps connect sensory, auditory, visual, emotional components and more of the central and peripheral nervous systems. It even helps improve memory! The Music Program was a great addition to our school, especially with high school students' brains not being fully developed yet. The Ssssource collected some data on this through a google form. We passed the form around through friends and some classmates. We got a total of 61 responses. 82% of students are in 10th grade and 18% are in 9th. 55% of the responses were enrolled here at VAAS when the music program was around, though 92.3% were not involved with the program. Out of all 61 responses, 91.8% said that the music program should be added back. When asked what instruments they play, if any, the majority of students responded with string instruments like Guitar, Ukulele, or Violin. A few said other instruments like the piano or flute, and some students played none. The love for the Music Program doesn’t stop there either. When it was first announced that the Music Program was being cut from VAAS, students passed around a petition on change.org to try and bring it back, with only 30 signatures missing from reaching the 200 signature goal. A few students have left the school because of the lack of our former Music Program. “What is VAAS without music ?” One student commented on the petition. In conclusion, as much as the program is missed, they can’t deliver what is not asked for. The reason for its absence is due to lack of interest, not enough students signed up to take it. The only way we can get The Music Program back is through us. We, the students of VAAS, have to sign up for the class. Not only does it benefit possible career choices, but benefits the brain and neurological connections as well. WRITTEN BY RIELLE CHLOE CANLAS AND JILL LUNA
The California Scholarship Federation, otherwise known as CSF, is an organization that awards and encourages students’ academic achievement during their time at the Valley Academy of Arts & Sciences. High school principal, Mr. Charles F. Seymour first proposed this idea at a convention of high school principles in Oakland in 1916. He led an active campaign to support his idea and it resulted in schools organizing similar societies. As an honors society that recognizes academic excellence, CSF has a series of requirements to join. You must have a GPA of at least 3.5 and have taken a few core curriculum classes each semester. Memberships to the program are only by application which is available at the beginning of each semester. There is a $5 donation when the application is completed and this helps fund membership awards. Late applications are NOT accepted. When in this program, a 10 hour minimum of community service is required each semester, outside of regular school hours, to keep the membership in CSF. During your fall semester in sophomore year, your freshman year grades first determine if you can join. Mrs. Kidwell, the advisor of this program, will send a paper to notify you about CSF. It’s not necessary to join but it’s a great opportunity for those who would like to add this on their future college applications. If you wish to achieve the highest awards from this program, you must complete 6 semesters, but joining your Junior year will still bring benefits, and has 4, the minimum amount of semesters required to receive these benefits, with your sophomore grades determining whether you are eligible for the program. As for rewards, the life membership (sealbearer) is awarded to those who qualified for four or more semesters, at least one semester in senior year. Those people would earn a CSF Gold Seal on their diploma and graduate with special honors. They’ll also be eligible to be nominated by the advisor to earn the Seymour Memorial Awards. According to the official CSF website, it states, “Over $100,000 is awarded to a group of 50 graduating Sealbearers each year. Each spring, regional subcommittees of five advisers choose outstanding Life Members (Sealbearers) from among candidates nominated by their advisers by the February deadline within each of the five regions. Each year, 50 finalists receive awards of $2,000 each, and five of these (one per region) each receive an additional $3,000 as the regional award recipient. The award is now regarded as one of the highest scholastic honors given to secondary school graduates in the state of California.” Overall, the California Scholarship federation assists with college expenses through the help of volunteering within your high school years. WRITTEN BY MELINA DE LA CRUZ
Digital Portfolio Night took place on December 6, 2022. The event only lasted from 5 to 7 PM, but it took students months of work and preparation to complete their portfolios. These are shown off to their parents during digital portfolio night. Digital Portfolio Night is a night exclusively for students to present their proudest assignments from the fall semester to their families. A digital portfolio is a portfolio including eight different pieces of work each from one class period that they have categorized and put into four categories according to our schools SLO’s (School Learning Objectives). Every student here at VAAS was required to compile their work into an organized and legible Google slide they would then present to their parent or legal guardian during digital portfolio night. Leadership students made sure this event was not only about work but also included fun events like food trucks and games in the quad for students and families to enjoy after presenting their work. WRITTEN BY YULIANA ALTAMIRANO and VANESSA DUENAS On Friday January 12th, 2018, Miranda Araya was skating down Balboa Road, ready to cross the intersection of Balboa and Plummer, when she was tragically struck by a vehicle. She suffered multiple broken bones and a brain injury. The initial investigation disclosed that the driver was not under the influence of any substance. After two days in the hospital, on Saturday January 14th, Miranda Araya was pronounced dead. Miranda was an extraordinary person. So full of life and always radiating with positivity and love. She was an extremely caring person. Miranda brought so much light and love to everything and everyone and never failed to put a smile on someone's face. Ms. Hernandez, the mother of Miranda, said, “Miranda lived to the fullest and made the most of every day, every opportunity…She wanted to experience everything possible.” Miranda had a love for many things. She loved music, her dog Pugsly, and had a great passion for skating. She also loved going to concerts, museums, and parks. Miranda was never afraid to try new things. Miranda was always open to trying new experiences and constantly lived life to the fullest. “Live like Miranda” was a phrase that Mr. Tyni (the former vice principal of VAAS) came up with during his speech at the 2019 graduation ceremony, the year Miranda Araya would’ve graduated high school. “…it stands for what Miranda embodied and the impact she had on everyone…” says Lesly Altamirano, a friend of Miranda’s. Miranda was greatly loved by the community, as over 100 kids showed up to the memorial to celebrate Miranda’s life. After the accident, a bench was put up at the back of our campus. It is lined with blue and yellow skateboards, two of her favorite colors. There is also a plaque, made from one of her very own skateboards, that stands next to the memorial labeled with her name and more information about her. Multiple tiles lay, leading a pathway to the bench. Each tile is painted to represent a piece of her life and who she was as a person. The memorial was full of color and light just like Miranda, with beautiful flowers planted around it. Today the bench still sits at the back of our campus, unfortunately not in the same condition. Sadly, the bench has not gotten the care it deserves and needs to keep it in presentable condition. Some of the skateboards have been stolen and the paint of the tiles have started to fade away. The beautiful flowers once planted beside Miranda’s memorial are now gone. In order to maintain the legacy of Miranda. Members of The Ssssource will work with the senior leadership class to get the memorial repaired and vibrant again. We will start documenting the progress of the memorial as soon as the repairs start. Miranda’s memory is something that we would love to keep alive here at VAAS. The love and light that she brought to our community should never be forgotten. WRITTEN BY ZACHARY BUENAVENTURA, RIELLE CHLOE CANLAS, SAMARA CHAVEZ, and JILL LUNA
Edited by Kyle Abadilla Here at VAAS, graffiti has suddenly become an active occurrence in our school bathrooms. In the beginning of fall 2022 semester, various tags were seen in the girls and boys bathroom. This has led to the closure of bathrooms on the first floor. Due to this inconvenience, the VAAS custodians have had to spend extra time on cleaning up this disarray. However, in the Spring 2023 semester, more of these tags have been appearing in the boys bathroom rather than the girls. Graffiti has been an issue before at VAAS. However, this issue has evolved from when it started. When interviewing Ms. Hanock, she informed us that this issue has progressed to happening four to five times more than it would have in previous years. This change became noticeable from the first week of school. At the beginning of the school year, graffiti could be found in multiple locations all in one day. In the past, the graffiti issue was easier to tackle. When asked about how graffiti was handled in previous years, Ms. Hanock informed us that the school would share that the graffiti issues were occurring, and through word of mouth, students would share how disrespectful these actions were. Ms. Hanock also had this to say towards the culprits of the constant tagging. “I would like to remind everyone that our VAAS culture has been carefully nurtured by members of our school community -- students and staff -- over the last eleven years; it doesn't just happen. I wish the culprits understood the level of disrespect they are exhibiting to everyone else here. It matters that we all care about each other.” She continued, “The vandalism that has occurred this year has been done by just a few students. I appreciate everyone else who has taken the time to care about our community and to treat others with respect. We have the greatest student body in all of LAUSD, and it shows.” In conclusion, school tagging and graffiti is unacceptable for a variety of reasons. For starters, it causes damage to public property and costs extra unnecessary work for the custodial staff to clean up. It’s also considered vandalism and is illegal. It can create a negative and unsafe environment for students and faculty at the school, and is extremely immature for this issue to continue into the spring semester of the school year. Tagging and graffiti detracts from the school's overall appearance, which can have an impact on its reputation and the community's perception of it. Finally, school tagging and graffiti have no positive effects and only add to the problems for everyone involved. WRITTEN BY MICHAEL MCKNIGHT
With credit to Ms. Hanock For about half a year now, VAAS has been lacking a music program, something that has had a noticeable effect on the school. For example, students have left to pursue music at other schools, there is now no outlet for musically talented students, and many of the instruments on campus have been going to waste. The music program was terminated because when course selection came around last school year, only a very small handful of students picked music courses. This did not add up to enough students to fill a teacher's complete schedule. Regarding this, Ms. Hanock said that students need to show interest in a given class. If at least 25 students show interest, then the school will work on getting that class into the schedule. Other schools do not work in this manner. For those other schools, if they don’t have enough students for a given course they will pick students out of other classes to fill it up. This makes for unhappy students in classes they don’t want to be in. If enough students just need to show interest in the class or program, we can bring it back to our school. In an interview we had with Ms. Hannock, she stated that a while back, interest in visual arts was very low so the class was removed. However, due to growing interest in visual arts it was added back. This works for other class subjects as well. If a teacher wants to add a class to VAAS, they would have to get enough student interest in order for that to happen. In conclusion, stay conscious of the special ability given to you here at VAAS, the ability of voice. This is something most people will not get to experience later in their lives but we get to enjoy that now. This is something that we should be taking full advantage of. If you want music next year sign up for music this year. |
EditorZachary Buenaventura Author
Yuliana Altamirano CategoriesArchives
June 2023
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