Hello, and welcome back to This Person I Met!

Continuing on with our series relating to the public education system, today’s guest is Sara-Beth Badalamente. She is the advisor for Huron High School’s newspaper (called the Emery), which I write and edit for! She’s also the advisor for the yearbook (called the Enthymion), a soccer coach, and also works on the Ann Arbor Public School teacher’s union bargaining team. All these things combined led her to have a very interesting perspective on the recent budget crisis in my school district.

In March, my school district announced a budget deficit of 25 million dollars, 14 million of which was due to an accounting error. A vote from the school board authorized layoffs, starting with Community Service Administrators. This led to protests and rallies attended by teachers and students alike, but additional cuts continued to be made, including the elimination of world language classes in elementary schools, co-director hours in band and orchestra classes being reduced by half, and 141 more layoffs, which was about 6 percent of district staff.

If you’re curious, you can read more about this budget crisis at thehuronemery.com, where my peers and I covered the situation pretty carefully.

Thank you so much for your support, and see you next time!

Hello, and welcome back to This Person I Met! This episode is the second part of my interview with Mr. Sumerton, one of the principals at Huron High School. In this episode, we discuss some surprising effects of technology on students’ mental health, and other pitfalls of high school. It’s funny – we’d only planned to talk for 15-20 minutes, but ended up talking for an entire hour.

Be on the lookout for the next episodes in this school-related series - I hope you enjoyed this episode, and thank you for your support!

Hello, and welcome back to This Person I Met! Today’s guest is Mr. Sumerton, one of the principals at Huron High School. This episode marks the start of a series I’m hoping to do, which will cover common challenges that high school students in my generation face, from mental health issues, to unhealthy academic peer pressure. Mr. Sumerton discusses these themes in this episode, along with how his family life and personal experiences in other school districts contribute to his view of Ann Arbor Public Schools as a singularly unique school district.

Stay tuned for the next part of this interview, where Mr. Sumerton explains how he believes reliance on technology contributes greatly to much of the mental health issues that high schoolers face. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and as always, thank you for your support!