Author: Alexis Gerulis

Colleen Paige, animal welfare advocate, began national pet day in 2006 in order to celebrate the great amount of happiness brings into the lives of many.

This national holiday also came about to raise awareness for the rescued animals that still need a place to call home and to allow for a day of appreciation for the multiple ways pets positively affect the lives of people.

Many Providence Academy students either have pets or want pets.  In honor of National pet day, Providence students share about their own pets or the pets they want and the way they think pets impact the lives of many.

Ehson Souresrafil ‘18 shared that he has a cat named Tiger.  Tiger, two years old and an American short hair silver tabby, positively impacts the Souresrafil household.

Describing this, Souresrafil says, “with Tiger in the house, the environment is more lively and it is fun to have a companion when you are alone at home.”

Shannon Rajkowski ‘19  has a golden retriever named Shadow.  She thinks that having a pet really helps give rise to responsibility, especially in younger children.

Rajkowski describes what she believes to be the best pet by saying, “I think that a dog is the best pet to have because they definitely are a man’s best friend.”

Maddie Austin ‘18 has three dogs and a chinchilla.  The dogs are named Angel, Princess, and Paige and the chinchilla is named Pudge.  She think that animals are a great addition to the household because they lighten up any given space.

Austin agrees with Rajkowski that dogs serve as the best pet to have because she thinks that “dogs are the best because they are so affectionate all of the time, they love being around you, and they’re just adorable.”

Krysia Anderson ‘18 has four pets as well: two horses and two bunnies.  Her two horses consist of Tess,  a 31-year-old Saddlebred and Peter, a 3-year-old pinto rescue horse.

Describing Peter, Anderson says he, “ was an orphaned foal that I have for the summer to train for a rescue challenge to try and help him find his forever home.”

Her two bunnies are named Skippy and Snicker.

Anderson believes that, “the horse is the best pet to have because with a horse, it’s a partnership of learning that consists between the rider and the horse and the sky’s the limit.”

Anderson also commented on the  importance of pets in her own life and the lives of other.  She believes that although pets sometimes make for more work and responsibility, the rewards are priceless.

Describing this she says, “it teaches a family compassion and responsibility among many things and not only changes your own life but the life of that animal too.”

Lastly, Jess Ahlers ‘17 has a Yorkie Poo named Lulu, whom he says he likes a lot.

All in all, pets help foster responsibility in younger children, lighten up any household, and provide love and allow for families to be united through something.

The March for Life allows the nation to march for a great cause at all of the state capitals to support the life of the unborn babies targeted by abortion.

This year, the March occurred on January 22, marking the 43rd anniversary of the supreme court verdict of the case of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion for all 50 states for all three semesters of the pregnancy.

Many PA students traveled to either Washington DC or Minneapolis to partake in the march. Not even the cold temperatures and snowstorm derailed this year’s march.

In the past, big newspapers have not paid a large enough tribute to the march, and either refuse to put it into their papers, or give it a tiny section on the bottom of the last page. The students of Providence Academy and pro-lifers everywhere believe that this event deserves so much more publicity than it previously received in order to spread the flame of the pro-life cause across the country and change the laws allowing abortion.

Bridget Murphy ‘18 traveled to Washington DC on Jan. 21, along with other PA students and faculty, to participate in the March with the school.

Regarding the march she said, “I loved being a part of the march because it allowed me to see that there are others actively fighting for an end to abortion”.

Every year the march gets larger, gathering more support from the country as a whole. The first March for Life, which was founded by Nellie Gray, was held on Jan. 22, 1974. An estimated 20,000 people came to this first march. An estimated 800,000 people attended the 2015 march, demonstrating the exponential growth of active pro-life supporters.

Regarding the growing size of the march, Maggie Koepl ‘18 said, “This is my second time going to the March and there were even more people this year.”

Koepl continued on by gushing that, “it was an amazing experience, despite the heavy snow, and I recommend everyone to be a part of the March at some point in the near future.”

The March for Life, a growing event, serves as a great opportunity to spread the pro-life mentality nation wide and attempt to override the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.

The length of the Providence Academy lunch period has been widely debated and discussed by both teachers and students.

Currently, PA has a 25 minute lunch period. This does not mean, however, that the students get to sit down and eat for 25 minutes; the students have to walk down to lunch, stand in line, which sometimes tends to be massive, especially when Crispy Orange Chicken is being served, pay for their lunch and finally sit down. By the end of this process, students often only have 15 minutes to eat their meal while trying to carry out various conversations with their friends.

By taking off 3-5 minutes from each of the seven classes, the lunch time increases from anywhere from 46 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes. This would give the students time to relax and the ability to eat at a more leisurely pace and not suffer from choking due to the combination of cramming food into their mouths and talking.

Other schools similar to PA in rankings and academics have longer lunch periods, and they are still able to maintain their status of academic success. For example, the Blake School gets anywhere from 35-45 minutes for lunch, depending on the day, and they also get a free block period, giving them abundant free time per day, and yet they still maintain their high level of academic success.

A lot of students believe that this alteration will not have much of an impact on classes and on school in general.

Maddie Austin ‘18 said this 3-5 minutes, “wouldn’t make a huge difference in the amount of things we learn.”

Further on this, Isaac Von Dohlen 18’ said that, “it seems like there is a lot of unused time in class due to ending the lesson early [and] disruptions in the classroom.”

According to Von Dohlen, this would have a positive effect on the student body and on individual students because it, “would positively affect the student body by allowing more time to both eat and socialize, removing both from the classroom and making it more of a learning environment in the classroom.”

Though many students want a longer lunch, a few students and teachers dislike this idea for various reasons.

According to Mr. Jonathon Janz, this would negatively affect both the student and teacher bodies because, “shaving off time from each class does add up over the course of a semester, resulting in less teacher student interaction for a given course.”

Mr. Janz also questioned why the school would change something that worked well in the process of rendering one impressive graduate class year after year. Like Mr. Janz, a few teachers and students believe that subtracting time from any given class would affect the class as a whole, and cause teachers to cram more information into every given class.

Further on what this new period would look like, students said that they thought that it could resemble that of a lunch combined with a study hall in a relaxed environment. Brock Lahr ‘18 thinks that this new lunch period could also give students the option of getting some fresh air for 5-10 minutes, rejuvenating the body after sitting in school for six hours.

“This new lunch period would look like a normal lunch but with the option to sit at designated tables for school things after you finish,” said VonDohlen.

Students in extracurriculars thought that they could really benefit from this because most can sometimes struggle to get homework done while maintaining at least six hours of sleep due to the time consumption of the extracurricular.

“It is hard to balance homework, soccer or track, depending what time of the year it is and still get at least six hours of sleep,” Austin said.

Both positive and negative feedback has been given in response to the idea of cutting off 3-5 minutes from each class to provide students with a longer lunch period, but overall the majority of PA students look upon this prospect with approval, hoping that in the near future, this may occur.