EAST GREENWICH- High School English Teacher of 16 years announces she will not be returning the following year to students on Wednesday January 2nd.
Elaine Moscardi of East Greenwich High School (EGHS) told her Contemporary Literature class that this will be her last year teaching at EGHS. Jamie Fugere, EGHS junior was upset that Moscardi would be leaving, “I’ve only had Mrs. Moscardi for one semester and I love her and was so sad to hear she was leaving.”
Last spring, Moscardi made her decision that the next school year at EGHS would be her last. She revealed that she will definitely miss the students the most, “it [teaching] does keep you young in terms of how you see the world.” Moscardi does not think that it will be difficult to adjust to not teaching at EGHS, saying that she will have a lot to keep her busy in the following year. Moscardi plans to continue her career by teaching college classes at the University of Rhode Island (URI) and the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI).
In fact, Moscardi has worked at EGHS for 16 years, URI for 14 years and CCRI for 23 years.
Moscardi confesses there are things she will not miss at EGHS, explaining that she did not like to have her life dictated by bells and added that the schedule was hard on both students and teachers.
However, Moscardi admits she will miss her students most when leaving the EGHS community. “Kids are always the great equalizer in the classroom and kids are the reasons why teachers teach,” she states.
The Parking Lot and Other Nightmares
EGHS parking lot
by Caleb Gladstone
It is universally idealized that the safest place for kids to be is at the public schools that they attend. Well, how far does that statement extend? Does it only apply to the school building itself? Does it apply to the fields? The parking lot? Well, if the unrivaled safety of public schools is supposed to apply to the parking lot, then I might just need to wipe a tear of laughter off my face.
In driver’s education, they are sure to teach every driver-in-training that the most dangerous place to drive is in a parking lot. How about one in which no driver has more than a year of driving experience? In fact, accidents happen on a regular basis. Just this year, one driver spun-out and flew his jeep into the woods, wedging his car tightly between two trees. Another driver rear-ended a mother in her car who was driving her child to daycare. And there have been more collisions between students than anyone could count; even if one tried, they would have to account for the two or three hit-and-runs that happen on a weekly basis.
But don’t worry, guys; it’s all right. The school hired a police officer to take care of all of the collisions that happen on school grounds. Everything is golden now. You can all drive in the school parking lot with the reassurance that when some 16-year old girl side swipes you when she’s putting her make-up on in the mirror, the police officer is right there to make sure the morgue is speedily notified.
This is the classic American practice; treat the symptoms and ignore the disease. But this cannot continue, something else needs to be done. This country cannot mandate that every teenager in the country report somewhere that exposes he or she to great danger on a daily basis. It is simply unjust. Even if you are the most careful and skilled driver, that barely minimizes the risk. You still have to worry about the other 300 amateur drivers that are in the highest risk categories as deemed by every insurance company in the nation.
I have an idea. Why don’t we just scratch that whole parking lot idea all together? In fact, the best way to minimize the risk of collision is simple: not driving. There are already buses that reach every corner of East Greenwich and which are fully capable of driving licensed students to school. Why doesn’t the school actually utilize this? Well, that is a great question.
If students were forced to take the bus to school instead of driving themselves, that would really inhibit the students from reaching their potential. How would students manage to skip class? How would students manage to arrive late? How would they manage to double, triple, quadruple the speed limit on Avenger Drive? Some believe that this should never be instituted; it would upset the students.
Every parent knows that the answer his child wants to hear is rarely the answer that is best for him. If the school puts its students’ desires before its students’ safety, then we may just need to find a new School Committee.
Avenger Hockey Loss
By: Leticia Luz
EAST GREENWICH—High School sports team loses to rivalry with a score of 3-0 on Friday January 18th in the Thayer Arena in Warwick.
On Friday, East Greenwich High School’s boy’s hockey team played hard but could not come up with a win against North Kingstown High School’s Skippers. The Avengers could not keep up as the Skippers scored three goals. However, goalie Connor Finn defended the Avenger net along with defensive seniors Jack Trutza and Dan Josloff, only allowing three goals out of the 20 attempted goals made by NK. In the end it was NK’s game as they scored three points leaving them with another win against the Avengers.
The penalties started early in the first period. As the Skippers went in strong scoring two goals promptly, they were also awarded two penalties, one for roughing and one for slashing. The Avengers stayed clean but could not catch up to the Skippers. Things were looking bleak for the Avengers.
As the second period began so did the Avenger penalties. Skippers acquired the first penalty at the twelve minute mark for contact to the head. This was followed by another Skipper penalty for tripping. Then Avenger player Pierre was sent to the penalty box for tripping. Avenger senior Jack Trutza joined him after receiving a penalty for cross-checking. The second period ended 2-0 Skippers.
By the third period the Avengers looked a little discouraged. Senior Dan Josloff was sent to the penalty box for elbowing, but his place was quickly covered by Jimmy Dunwoody. The Skippers did not let this stop them. In the last thirty seconds the Skippers scored again leaving the score 3-0. Avengers entered the locker-room with no comment, just disappointed looks. The Avengers continue the season with seven wins and four losses.
The Avenger Hockey Team
East Greenwich Boys Get Huge Win
By Ben Chester
EAST GREENWICH-East Greenwich High School basketball had a major upset win over Cranston West with a score of 57-54 on Friday January 4th.
EG came out of the gate firing on all cylinders, playing great basketball on both sides of the court. “Our defense was outstanding,” said Coach Matt Records. “We have been doing heavy conditioning which has made our defense much better. We also took very smart shots all night which helped us greatly.” East Greenwich had heavy pressure on the Cranston west ball handlers all night, making it difficult for them to run any plays. They kept that up until the final buzzer sounded, and everyone was involved. Everyone off the bench had the same intensity as the starters and they never let up.
The focus is not completely on East Greenwich however, Cranston West made a lot of simple mistakes in the upset loss. “Our defense was weak and we did not convert much on offense at all,” said Cranston West junior Mike DeJesus. “Losing to a division three team is not a good start to our season, and we have to step up.” Brandon Eckles and Ben Chester, who had 17 and 9 points respectively, led East Greenwich. The Avengers are back in action Friday in a home game against North Smithfield.
Laptops Here All Along
By Maddie Eustis
EAST GREENWICH- Promised access to school laptops in the library at the end of last year, East Greenwich students were denied access until November of this year. Yet, the laptops have actually been at the school since August.
East Greenwich High School (EGHS) started construction on a new $1,000,000 library last year during the middle of the year. With the library renovated a few months later, the only thing left to complete the EGHS library was new computers. Promised the MacBooks would arrive soon, students and teachers waited patiently. However no one received access to the laptops until the end of November, when they had been in the school since August.
When first asked why the laptops took so long to arrive at school, the EGHS Librarian, Shelley Avarista, at first answered, “money!”, then proceeded, “the real reason is that the Wi-Fi wasn’t completed in the library.”
Apparently configuring the MacBook Airs takes quite a long time. Mr. Mello was in charge of this process and he is also the computer technician for all of EG’s 6 public schools. Mr. Mello could only configure and image 5 laptops a day because of the longevity of the process and his obligations to all 6 public schools.
Elaine Moscardi, an EGHS english teacher, had trouble adjusting her curriculum to the inconvenience of the absence of laptops, “[the] core curriculum requires use of technology... almost 3 months of school time that could have clearly benefited from the use of technology” Mrs. Moscardi explains, “now we’re playing catch-up.” When asked how she thought the inability to use the laptops effected teacher’s class plans, Mrs. Avarista identified, “Yeah I felt bad for them. I can empathize with them.”
Jamie Fugere, an EGHS junior was not surprised the process took so long, “I was used to dealing with our school’s horrible technology plan,” Fugere laughed, “our school is 37 years in the past.” Fugere played a fall sport and found it difficult to have to do extra work at home that could have been completed in class time with access to computers, “you just have to do more work at home.”
Caroline Neupauer, also an EGHS junior shared similar views with Fugere. Neupauer explained that she had not done as well in her classes without class time with the laptops, “there has been limited access to computers and it has been challenging for me.”
Annoyed from the delay, teachers and students are just happy to finally have access to the new laptops in the EGHS library. Hopefully this incident will solely be a one time hiccup and EGHS is already back on track and thriving as a school community.