Painting Parking Spaces

Handy Art

Please, Write on Your Desks

Three sophomores are chatting and scribbling on the tables with markers during math class. The teacher notices what they are doing and quickly walks over. “Do you need help?” asks high school teacher Lauren Pizzolla. The students are in an Algebra 2/Trigonometry class and writing on the desks has become not only acceptable but encouraged. The three small tables have whiteboards for surfaces and the students finding working together much easier. “They’re easier to write out work and to help someone else without ruining their paper,” says Sara Murphy. “In the past we’d have to walk over with our notebooks and lean over to help.” Pizzolla got the idea for the whiteboard tables from a teacher she follows on Instagram. She applied for and received the tables through a mini grant from the Somers High School Parent Teacher Association, all within six weeks.

Stitching Class Together

Stitching together a semester’s worth of fashion when you have not spent a semester’s worth of time in school is difficult. Typically, at this time of the year the students in the Fashion Marketplace class at Somers High School would be putting finishing touches on their creations for the annual fashion show. But like so many traditions, this one had to be modified. “Some of these students were in the Fashion Fundamentals class last year when we shut down for COVID, so they didn’t have a lot of sewing experience to begin with,” says teacher Chrissy Brooks. “It would be asking a lot of them to create outfits now, so we are making the most of it.” The students who are not yet ready to design and sew articles of clothing are instead working on a beauty and fashion blog, www.SomersStyle.blog.