Nayan Shankaran ‘24 COVID-19 vaccinations are now available to teachers in Delaware County, but EA will not require them for faculty members. Instead, receiving them will be voluntary. Human Resources Manager Cindy Nichols declined to comment regarding the percentage of vaccinated Upper School teachers, citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).\ In early March, President Biden announced that all Pre-K-12 educators and child care workers would be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, along with Phase 1A individuals. In Pennsylvania, the Janssen one-dose vaccine, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, is reserved for Pre-K-12 educators and staff and is…
Author: TECHALERT
Nayan Shankaran ‘24 COVID-19 vaccinations are now available to teachers in Delaware County, but EA will not require them for faculty members. Instead, receiving them will be voluntary. Human Resources Manager Cindy Nichols declined to comment regarding the percentage of vaccinated Upper School teachers, citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).\ In early March, President Biden announced that all Pre-K-12 educators and child care workers would be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, along with Phase 1A individuals. In Pennsylvania, the Janssen one-dose vaccine, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson, is reserved for Pre-K-12 educators and staff and is…
Fiona Riley ‘22 Nick Schreder ‘22 is March’s Artist of the Month for his impressive work in photography and dedication to making it a substantial part of his life. Schreder first got into photography during the fall of 8th grade when he broke his ankle playing football. “I was left with nothing to do for the rest of the season except stand on the sidelines,” explains Schreder. “I borrowed a camera to take some pictures of friends, and I’ve been taking pictures ever since.” After gaining some sports photography experience, Schreder decided to apply for an internship with a media…
Eshika Tangri ‘23 Theater for Change, taught by theater department member Kelly Bertucci, will be a new course offered in the 2021-22 academic year and will focus on a variety of theatre-related topics in the context of society. According to Bertucci, “This new class is looking at art, specifically theatre, and the role it can play as an agent of change.” To do this, “Theatre for Change” will give students the space to look at other cultures, histories and experiences. Bertucci adds, “We will also do our own identity work and reflect on the stories and art we consume as…
Kat Barber ‘23 | Gianna Trala ‘23 Prom will be outside and on campus this year instead of at an exciting site like the Constitution Center or the Aquarium, but the fact that it will happen at all is big news during this pandemic. The combined junior and senior event is also going to be moved to June 10th, after graduation. Michael Letts, Head of Upper School, says that moving the date back makes the administration “feel a little more comfortable, in the sense that if students were to have to go through COVID protocols afterwards, they wouldn’t miss class…
Kat Barber ‘23 | Gianna Trala ‘23 Prom will be outside and on campus this year instead of at an exciting site like the Constitution Center or the Aquarium, but the fact that it will happen at all is big news during this pandemic. The combined junior and senior event is also going to be moved to June 10th, after graduation. Michael Letts, Head of Upper School, says that moving the date back makes the administration “feel a little more comfortable, in the sense that if students were to have to go through COVID protocols afterwards, they wouldn’t miss class…
Kat Barber ‘23 | Gianna Trala ‘23 Prom will be outside and on campus this year instead of at an exciting site like the Constitution Center or the Aquarium, but the fact that it will happen at all is big news during this pandemic. The combined junior and senior event is also going to be moved to June 10th, after graduation. Michael Letts, Head of Upper School, says that moving the date back makes the administration “feel a little more comfortable, in the sense that if students were to have to go through COVID protocols afterwards, they wouldn’t miss class…
Gavin Schmidt ‘24 | Aru Venugopalan ‘24 May Term, an interactive two-week course that students would normally engage in at the end of the school year, has been cancelled for the second year in a row due to COVID-19 restrictions. Michael Letts, Head of Upper School, says that the program is “an opportunity for students to really explore areas of interest in an unconventional academic way,” but planning it proved to be too difficult. Letts explains, “Unfortunately [May Term is] just not possible this year. We would have had to prepare a whole host of logistical things months ago to…
Gavin Schmidt ‘24 | Aru Venugopalan ‘24 May Term, an interactive two-week course that students would normally engage in at the end of the school year, has been cancelled for the second year in a row due to COVID-19 restrictions. Michael Letts, Head of Upper School, says that the program is “an opportunity for students to really explore areas of interest in an unconventional academic way,” but planning it proved to be too difficult. Letts explains, “Unfortunately [May Term is] just not possible this year. We would have had to prepare a whole host of logistical things months ago to…
We’re so happy to announce the first of hopefully many E-Scholium exclusive content. With the shift toward digital media, it is only fitting that scholium, with its long and storied history, start moving beyond solely a print medium. We hope you enjoy this interview with EA Squash’s new charismatic men’s coach, Lyall Paterson.
Staff Editorial EA students, especially seniors, should not be required to take AP exams. Forcing students to sit for many hours of exams is completely unnecessary, especially for seniors who will not gain any benefits for taking an exam. While this is true every year, the burden of taking the AP exams is especially high this year. The entire point of seniors taking an AP exam is because certain colleges award college credit to students who earn a score of a 3, 4, or 5. By March 8th, however, the deadline for AP exam registration, many members of the senior…
Riya Mukherjee ’23 | Alex Groban ‘23 As FDA approved vaccines roll out and cases start decreasing, Episcopal is deciding what guidelines will be implemented in response to COVID-19 for the upcoming academic year. Michael Letts, Head of Upper School, says, “We’re tentatively planning…that we’re really kind of back to normal. We may still have some restrictions where you might still need to wear a mask, perhaps. We might still have some distance issues, like distancing policies, but I think that would be reduced.” EA’s Director of Health Services, Laura Hurst, believes predicting the changes on restrictions will be difficult…
Isabel Rozes ‘24 Recently, the Ivy League announced that they will delay their regular decisions until Tuesday, April 6, 2021, at 7 pm, the official Ivy Day 2021. Ivy Day has historically occurred in late March, occurring on March 26th in2020 and March 28th in 2019. The Ivy League schools have also extended their reply date to accept or decline an offer of admission until Monday, May 3, 2021. The Ivy League schools announced the Ivy Day delay because of the record-high increases in applications received. Harvard’s website stated that its undergraduate college received more than 57,000 applications from high…
Isabel Rozes ‘24 Recently, the Ivy League announced that they will delay their regular decisions until Tuesday, April 6, 2021, at 7 pm, the official Ivy Day 2021. Ivy Day has historically occurred in late March, occurring on March 26th in2020 and March 28th in 2019. The Ivy League schools have also extended their reply date to accept or decline an offer of admission until Monday, May 3, 2021. The Ivy League schools announced the Ivy Day delay because of the record-high increases in applications received. Harvard’s website stated that its undergraduate college received more than 57,000 applications from high…
Rohith Tsundupalli ’24 The 2020-2021 academic school year, which began on September 1, 2020, will extend through June 4, 2021, due to the pandemic and the elimination of May term. This unusually long school year will force students and teachers to adapt to a prolonged learning plan and a postponed summer. During the summer of 2020, Episcopal worked on a plan to move learning from a virtual to an in-person environment. Instituting necessary guidelines and restrictions, the school chose to start the year virtually – a week earlier than planned – to plan for future transitions between in-person and virtual…
Nayan Shankaran ‘24 During the past year, EA’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has committed to researching best practices and designing new professional development guidelines for EA faculty to rapidly cultivate the skills needed for online education, according to Dr. Erin Rehel, EA’s Director of Institutional Effectiveness. In 2020, every EA teacher participated in professional development for online teaching. Dr. Rehel explains, “I don’t know of any other independent school that offered the rich, diverse summer programming EA did in 2020. Almost 1,000 students took over 100 different classes across all three divisions. Teachers designed brand new classes from…
Aaron Tang ’24 Under a new presidential directive, EA teachers and educators nationwide will now be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Phase 1A. On Tuesday, March 2nd following President Biden’s directive for all states to prioritize educators for the vaccine, Governor Tom Wolf confirmed the decision to move Pennsylvania educators (K-12, private and public) to the 1A group in an effort to keep schools open for in-person learning for the rest of the school year. While some Upper School teachers have already received both doses of the vaccine, most qualified due to their age, as according to health.pa.gov,…
Michelle Jiang ‘24 “This year with my harder course load and prepping for my SAT, the amount of sleep I get is significantly less than what I used to get.” – Mia Cabral ‘22 “I usually get around eight hours of sleep, since I go to bed around 10:15 and wake up around 6:45.” -Ava Roberts ‘24 “For senior year, I get about two hours [of homework] tops but in past years I had three to four. I usually go to bed around 11:30 to 12 because I finish my homework around 10 and then watch a few Netflix shows…
The newest addition to the Upper School’s variety of clubs is the Community Service Knitters Cooperative, which teaches students how to knit so they can use their skills to make hats and scarves for service-based projects. The club is led by Rebecca Brinks, EA Community Service Coordinator, and Amy Brotschul, Upper School French teacher. Getting involved with the Community Service Knitters Cooperative is easy. Brotschul explains that “anybody is welcome to just show up and sign in. The club normally meets on Tuesdays during domino, but sometimes on Fridays too, if enough people want to.” Anika Kakarla ‘23, an active…
The newest addition to the Upper School’s variety of clubs is the Community Service Knitters Cooperative, which teaches students how to knit so they can use their skills to make hats and scarves for service-based projects. The club is led by Rebecca Brinks, EA Community Service Coordinator, and Amy Brotschul, Upper School French teacher. Getting involved with the Community Service Knitters Cooperative is easy. Brotschul explains that “anybody is welcome to just show up and sign in. The club normally meets on Tuesdays during domino, but sometimes on Fridays too, if enough people want to.” Anika Kakarla ‘23, an active…