The January exams are very important to graduating in New York State. Students have to pass a math, science, American history, global history, and English to graduate from high school. The Regents that are set up in January are important to students who have failed the regents the previous year or for those who are graduating high school early.

While there was confusion for a while over the January Regents, many teachers were not sure about giving midterms since the midterm week seemed to be cancelled. Now that the Regents are definitely being given, some teachers are opting out of giving midterms, while others are asking students to take the test during their normally scheduled classes. Those who are giving midterms are giving them within the last two weeks of the marking period. Teachers are considerate and asking their students what other subjects they are being tested in and which day so that they are not overwhelming the students with multiple tests in one day. The school has asked that math teachers give their tests within the first week, if they decide they want to give a midterm.

This new schedule can be stressful for some students, especially waiting to hear if they will have a midterm in certain classes. Students who do not have any tests will be thankful. For those students that do have tests, they may be worried about how they will study when they have homework to do for other classes after getting home from school. Students are advised to talk to your teachers and make sure you have the correct day for your tests. Also, ask teachers if they will be doing in class reviews, as well as after school. If they are not doing after school review and you feel that you need more time to review the material, ask them if they will help you one on one. The nice thing about being in a small school like Voorheesville is that the teachers have more time to spend one on one with the students for extra help. Good luck to all students taking any Regents in the upcoming weeks as well as those students taking regular midterms for your classes!

Throughout the week SADD members did different things each day to try to make kids more aware of the choices they make and become drug free. On the first day all the members of SADD wore a red ribbon to show who was in the club and show that they were against destructive decisions, and then gave them out to all the faculty members to wear. Then on Tuesday kids were allowed to make a pledge against the usage of illegal drugs and underage drinking by signing a sheet of paper during periods 6,7, and 8 in the Commons. The paper said “I would make a stand against destructive decisions” and then all names were hung up on a poster board to show everyone who had signed up and to join them. On Wednesday, SADD then went to all the students and handed out candy; attached to all of the pieces of candy were little notes, on the Dum Dums it said “don’t be a dumb dumb don’t do drugs,” and on the smarties it said “be a smarty and take a stand against destructive decisions.”

There was a poster contest too during the week called the “Kick Butts Poster Contest.” The students had to make a poster to encourage people to stop smoking, not start smoking, and help create a world with less cancer and more birthdays. The winner of the contest was given a $25 dollar gift card to any store they wanted. Last, on Friday was the Great American Smoke Out, which encouraged smokers to use November 18 to make a plan to quit, or to plan in advance and quit smoking that day. To celebrate this day the members of SADD went around again to students during lunch and make a pledge to take a stand against tobacco companies and tobacco, they were all given a paper to sign, which again was hung up on a poster board during all the lunch periods. Over all the week was a great success with many people signing pledges and taking a stand against destructive decisions.

Although the weather in the Northeast is almost always uncertain this time of year, we rarely have to worry about snow on Halloween like we did this year.  Mr. Simmons warned everyone involved in the Fling to watch the weather forecast and dress appropriately because the Fling was going on no matter what.  So the students launched their catapults and trebuchets with extra caution because some of the parts were so cold that they became brittle and easily could have broken.  Don’t worry, no one was seriously injured in the making of this Fall Fling.  Everyone was clutching their cups of hot chocolate just to get a little feeling back in their hands.  The 2011 Fall Fling was the first ever to be held while there was snow on the ground.

Fortunately the weather wasn’t the only aspect of the Fall Fling that set a record.  The Fall Fling is made up of two contests, one that measures accuracy and one that measures distance.  The device that won the distance portion of the contest blew the standing record out of the water.  The combined efforts of Troy Brock and Everett Hart  resulted in a tennis ball cannon that used pressurized air to launch a tennis ball over 150 feet while most other teams capped off at around 70 feet.  Although theirs was not the only tennis ball cannon on the field that day it was by far the most effective and the team received their prize for winning the distance portion of the contest; five points added on to their Fall Fling grade.

By now most of the devices built for the Fall Fling have either been thrown in the dumpster or saved for a particularly competitive snow ball fight.  But the results of the 2011 Fall Fling will not be discarded so easily.  For the sake of future students I hope that this year will be the last Fling that has to be held on a football field covered in snow.  But it will be interesting to see how long it will take future students to fling a tennis ball quite as far as this year’s champions.

The audition that Mrs. Abba-Gleason, the head of Voorheesville Select Choir, mailed to
WMHT, was videotaped by Mr. Turski, and included “Christmas Time is here”, from Charlie
Brown’s Christmas, and “Ding-a-dong”, a unique carol that is not well known, but probably set the Voorheesville Choir apart for the others. As a choir, we were up against other schools that have the opportunity to rehearse together on a daily basis, for a full period. Our select choirs, however, can only rehearse after school for a half hour each Wednesday.

The female portion of Select Choir at Voorheesville, also called Phoenix Club and the
male group of Select Choir singers, called the Testostertones, joined together during the first few rehearsals of the school year, even though the choirs usually rehearse separately, and sing different songs. The choir prepared for Music for the Holidays together, auditioned, and was recently told that it has been accepted onto the show!

The choir will be going to WMHT’s studio to record the previously mentioned two
songs, and a third, which has yet to be decided on November 17th. The week before Christmas, and during Christmas, the songs sung by Voorheesville will be shown during the evenings on WMHT, randomly mixed in with songs sung by other schools. The Voorheesville choir has not been able to participate in the holiday show for two years, and is, as a whole, delighted, and looking forward to the recording session of the music, and the showing of their songs on television during December.

Look for us to expand our offerings by bringing you increased sports coverage, more editorial content, and original photos that are updated! Keep looking back for more information and new stories. You never know, it could be you on the front page!

If you are interested in writing for the Helderbarker, we meet in room 124 of the high school every other Wednesday. See Keira Glasheen or Mr. Stumbaugh for details.

Once there were enough projectors in the middle school Mr. Chaize and Ms. Birch agreed to help the students make their broadcasts.  When they asked if students would be interested they got a huge response.  Now over thirty middle school students are on the staff of Blackbird TV.  This group is actually a good size because it means that the kids can take turns being on camera.  But there is much more that goes into these announcements than can be seen on screen.   The students write their own scripts, film, and edit the segments with the help of their advisors.

Although the first edition of Blackbird TV only came out on February 11, the students started filming nearly two months before.  Each announcement includes the same sort of things that high school students hear every morning.  They get the next day’s announcements the day before and start writing and filming skits to inform their peers about the lunch menu, club meetings, teen nights, and anything else the students need to know.  They even record their voices reciting the Pledge of Allegiance while a flag blows on the screen.  All of the recording and editing is done after school and then Mr. Chaize sends out a mass email to all of the middle school teachers who will play them before they start teaching during first period.

The students involved in this project really enjoy the experience because they get to spend time with their friends as well as see themselves on TV.  When asked if they enjoyed watching the announcements rather than hearing them the students replied, “It makes mornings less boring.”  For any high school students wondering why they can’t do something similar in the high school, the first hurdle would be to get overhead projectors in every room, but it would be harder in the high school because of the first period gym classes.

As in previous years, the Winter Wave is also used to demonstrate the students’ knowledge and application of Physics. This includes, but is not limited to, the principles of buoyancy, density, and Newton’s Third Law (for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction).

The event, an in-school field trip of sorts, excused Physics students from any seventh to ninth period classes. Seventh period was used for set-up, with eighth and ninth period reserved for the actual event. Those in participation went in groups of three, in accordance with the size of the pool. The groups were judged on a variety of factors, namely whether or not the boat floated. With myriad designs at hand, the students were also tested on their speed across the pool and back.

Once the events showcasing the Regents classes had taken place, all students, faculty, and onlookers had the opportunity to witness something new: the AP Physics students! Indeed, for weeks the AP students were hard at work designing their own hulking crafts, complete with water cannons and the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean. Once placed on the water, the two massive boats were locked in a “duel,” with the purpose to retrieve the other team’s doll and bring it back to their own side. Call it a water polo, capture-the-flag hybrid.

After all business affairs had settled in the dust, a majority of students involved in the day took to the water with what remained of their already soaking boats. In a scene akin to a West Side Story number, the pool was filled with shouting, splashing, and an all around good time. A special thanks should go out to all faculty members and students involved in the Winter Wave this year. With the event marking the beginning of Winter break, anyone can safely say you’ve all earned it.

The music department first asked the Art Club to make a mural to go above the band lockers in the LGI four years ago.  They won a grant from Humanities to pay for the supplies and then the students sketched designs which were then submitted to the music department to choose which one would go on the mural.  They made a transparency of the design that was chosen and then traced it on to four canvas panels that the students stretched themselves.  Then they painted over the pencil marks with acrylic paint.  Over the years the design has changed a bit and adding the color of the paint really brings the mural to life.

In order to make sure that everyone gets an opportunity to see the mural it will be on display in the Middle School lobby during the holiday concerts, then it will move to its permanent home above the band lockers in the LGI.  Originally the plan was to paint a second mural in the hallway of the music wing, but due to the incredible amount of time that it took to put the first one together if another mural is made it will probably not be made by Art Club because of their time restraints.  This mural is the product of the hard work of dozens of students that current and future students will cherish as a celebration of music and art.

Ms. Lyons gave her students the task of recreating horrible scenes from history in the form of a pumpkin.  The prize was a house point, which every student wants for their group.  Groups compete throughout the year to earn the most of these house points; whichever group earns the most points per quarter gets an extra five points added onto their quarterly averages. The groups worked on their projects outside the school and brought their final product in to be judged by Mr. Abbasi, Mr. Lawrence, and Mrs. Young.  The final products showed creativity as well as historical accuracy.  The topics could be at any time in history, so pumpkins were brought in portraying the human sacrifice of the Aztecs, the use of the guillotine in the French Revolution, and the violent assassination of Leon Trotsky with an ice pick. But the gruesome scene that won the judges over portrayed Henry VIII of England who had six wives; all (including the two unfortunate women who were beheaded for not producing a male heir) were represented in the group’s project.

Not only was this contest an opportunity to earn extra credit, but it was also a chance for the students to combine the material that they’ve studied with something a bit more enjoyable than DBQ essays.