News & Features

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.”

Name: Phillip Annas Occupation: Director of Middle School Boys’ Athletics Where he works: Shimada Athletic Center offices Reason profiled: The staff of The Phoenix Inquirer profiled him because we wanted to feature someone in the Athletic Department, and at the time that we chose him, there were more females than males chosen to be profiled. We wanted to profile a more gender-diverse group of staff. Mr. Annas’s message to the community: “Okay, well… Happy Thanksgiving! 1, 2, 3… Go Cowboys! Oops…” This is classic Mr. Annas!  

Name: Carl Bradley Occupation: Music teacher. Mr. Bradley runs the jazz band and orchestra for the Middle and Upper School. He teaches music to sixth and seventh graders. Where he works: Orchestra Room Reason profiled: We are lucky to have a music teacher at all. We should be very thankful for him. Mr. Bradley’s message to the community: “Making music for others is one way of expressing your love for the world we live in.”

Name: Dianne Forman Occupation: Middle School Learning Specialist and Director of Support Services Where she works: Middle School Room 20 Reason profiled: Mrs. Forman was profiled because she helps students catch up with missed work and stay organized. Mrs. Forman’s message to the community: “For me the glass is always half full. I am an optimistic person almost always!”

Service-thru-Art is a service led by Ms. Maw-Deis in which students collaborate to decorate our school. They paint, draw, and build. A few weeks ago, we had a No Name-Calling Week. Students were challenged not to call anyone a name. The No Name-Calling banners all around the Middle School were made by the wonderful artists from Service-thru-Art. If you haven’t seen them, you should look in the Middle School building. If you see an art project anywhere in the Middle School, it might have been Service-thru-Art. After being with the group for one morning of Service, I know that their brains work like clockwork when it comes to art. In just a few minutes they have an amazing idea. When interviewing Elliott Gross from Service-thru-Art, he said, “I really like making decorative signs so they stand out.” Their artwork is spreading across the school, and everyone should be very excited for…

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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…

by Caroline Bartholomew ’15, Anthony Candelori-Moraglia ’16, Sophie Geagan ’18, Beth Pipes ’18, and Evan Sweitzer ’20 As the Middle and Upper School newspapers worked together on this collaborative issue, we realized that there were many things that we did not know about each other. Until now, the different parts of our school have been separated, but now we are joining together as “OneFCS” to learn and share, respectively, about life as an upper schooler from the writers and editors of FOCUS. As middle schoolers who will soon be going to upper school, we were curious to learn what the upper schoolers had to say about life in the Upper School. SG, BP, and ES: What is the most important thing you have learned in your Upper School experience? CB and ACM: Learning to have an open mind. There are a lot of opportunities in Upper School, so students learn to…