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Name: Christina Barnum Occupation: Custodial staff Where (and when) she works: In the Middle School building after school Reason profiled: The staff of The Phoenix Inquirer chose to profile Ms. Barnum as a follow-up to our “Behind the Scenes” article, which discussed members of our community who help us without receiving much recognition. Because Ms. Barnum works after school, students do not often get to thank her for the effort and energy she puts into keeping our building clean and tidy. Ms. Barnum’s message for the community: “Everyone should take pride in their community for a better upliftment of the entire city.”

by Julia Barr ’15 and Jessica Miller ’15 This spring, FOCUS editors Emilia Weinberg and Peter Dissinger approached the Middle School newspaper, The Phoenix Inquirer, about bringing our two school newspapers together. What began as a workshop coordinated by our soon-departing FOCUS editors resulted in this collaborative issue, created by the staff of both newspapers. More important and memorable for us than the product of this collaboration, however, is the experience and knowledge gained from having worked together. The process of putting together this issue was a learning experience for both middle schoolers and high schoolers in working together as a team, seeing how the other’s newspaper is run, and gaining knowledge and experience to apply to their own newspapers in the future. For us as the new editor-in-chiefs of FOCUS, this was also our first try at publishing an issue, and we are so glad that we were able to share this…