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. WRITTEN BY: ZACHARY BUENAVENTURA
Did you know that there is a way that you can have a voice in most of the rules or policies at VAAS? VAAS is a school that provides its students with a safe space to express their intellectual skills and creative talents. It's a community that fosters personal growth and teaches students how to integrate everyday life into their studies. At VAAS, there are many ways to express your own voice and concerns about school issues and contribute to the community. One of those ways is through the monthly school ESBM meetings. VAAS is able to “operate under the school plan developed and approved by both the Board of Education and UTLA through the Public School Choice 2.0 program” (Valley Academy of arts and sciences, https://www.thevalleyacademy.net) “As part of this plan, it was established that VAAS would be governed according to an Expanded School-Based Management Model,'' (Valley Academy of arts and sciences, https://www.thevalleyacademy.net) meaning that VAAS is able to work in a community wherein we are all allowed to have a say in how this school is operated. ESBM allows all teachers, parents, staff and students to help contribute to make the school more engaging and overall a better space for education Every second Tuesday of the month (unless there are conflicts in schedules that cause a change in the second Tuesday Schedule) from 4:15 pm to 5:15 pm the ESBM meeting is held and is open for anyone to attend, even students. The great thing about this meeting is that if any member of the school community has an issue or concern. They can address it during the meeting and it will be discussed in search of a resolution. Firstly, you would send the agenda of your idea that you would like to present during the meeting to Ms Hanock. Then you would work your way from there leading to your presentation at the meeting. An example of this is when the school first opened, Mr. Harris says “students were not allowed to wear hats.” However this topic was brought up during the meeting and the issue was later resolved. Now students are able to freely wear hats on campus. The ESBM meeting is a wonderful opportunity for students to express their voice about the school on a more in depth level that can cause positive change. We are the only school within LAUSD that is part of this ESBM plan and “Ultimately, the school plan guides all decision-making and programs.” (Valley Academy of arts and sciences, https://www.thevalleyacademy.net) This meeting is open to all, whether to just attend and listen to or to bring up a topic that you are passionate about and to reach a level of consensus with the members of the ESBM group. |
EditorZachary Buenaventura Author
Yuliana Altamirano CategoriesArchives
June 2023
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