Mar 14, 2018
One month after the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, students and faculty at Woodlawn High School chose to honor the seventeen people killed in the Parkland massacre.
Hundreds of students and teachers at Woodlawn left their classrooms at 10:00 am and congregated on the football practice field for the memorial and call to action. Student organizers hope that the walkout will be a call to action for Congress to pass gun control legislation while educating students at Woodlawn about how they can inspire change.
Heidi Fendlason and Briana Jacob were first approached about the idea of a walkout by teachers on campus. They quickly took leadership, organizing the event in less than two days, with the help of Hayden LeBlanc and Seryna White.
Senior Kerrington Hill opens the Memorial Service.
“I felt like having a walkout would have a positive change. I felt like these types of topics need to be discussed, but it is difficult to have a conversation about them,” said Fendlason. “The intent was to spark dialogue between students and teachers about gun violence, which has unfortunately become a normality in our country.”
“While we wanted to bring about change and conversation, we also wanted to memorialize the victims from Stoneman Douglas High School,” added Jacob. “By giving a visual representation using students and teachers from our high school, we thought that the impact would be greater on our students. We wanted our students to realize that the seventeen people could have been their best friends or their teachers. Also, because they no longer have a voice, we wanted the seventeen actors to be silent and we wanted to speak for them.”
Members of the Woodlawn faculty and student body stood in all black with their back to students, representing the seventeen people killed in Florida. As Jacob called each victim’s name, the actor turned to the face the crowd. Jacob read a short biography, giving the Woodlawn students and faculty insight into each of the people who had their life taken.
After the memorial, Fendlason took the microphone, emphasizing the importance of the positivity of the movment.
“The idea was to inform people on making change, regardless of your stance on gun control,” said Fendalson. “A lot of people want to help change laws, but they don’t always have adequate resources to do so, or they just don’t know how. I was trying to give them reliable sources that they could use to make a difference.”
Fendlason gave students multiple ways that they could get involved and make changes based on their beliefs. Change.org is a website that she suggested to create petitions. There is also a program called Resistbot, which you can text “Resist” to “50409”, and it will assist you in getting in touch with your local officials. Fendlason gave students information on local Congressman Garret Graves and Senators Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, along with information on registering to vote.
Finally, Fendlason introduced the idea of the “Walk Up Movement.” She mentioned walking up to a student who sits alone at lunch and asking them to join your group, walking up to a disruptive student and asking about their day, or walking up to teachers and thanking them for everything they do.
“Helping lead this movement made me proud to think that we could make a difference in our community,” concluded Jacob. “We hope that students and faculty learned about things that they can do to make a change.”
Jan 3, 2018
Part of being a member in the National Honor Society is doing your part and helping out with service projects throughout the year. Last school year several students expressed an interest in wanting to help the school campus go green by getting a recycling program started. The President, Elizabeth Zhang, tried to contact different companies to see who would be willing to help us and figure out how to get started. Unfortunately, she did not have any luck. As a last ditch effort the sponsor, Ms. Brittney Fetter, contacted the Recycling Office of East Baton Rouge Parish to see if they had any ideas about how the club could get the recycling idea off the ground. Thankfully a glimmer of hope was sparked.
Richanne Caraway at the Recycling Office guided the sponsor to a representative at the Department of Environmental Services (DES) in hopes that we would be able to enter the recycling competition with the other schools in the East Baton Rouge Parish School System. After discussing the idea with the DES representative Michael Lowe, the NHS club decided this was the service project for us this year. The club had an orientation meeting with Mr. Lowe so that he could explain the rules of the competition and get everyone on board. The students were excited about getting to make a difference in their school community.
Later that week, Friday October 20, 2017, the recycling bins were delivered by Republic to aid the NHS in their mission. They received four bins to help collect the recycling, and the bins were placed in different areas around campus to make it easier for the students during collection. The competition started that very next Monday morning on October 23, 2017 and they had four weeks to collect as much as possible. They asked the faculty to place a recycling bin in their classroom, to aid in the collection process. The students and the teachers were very good at making sure that the appropriate material was getting recycled; paper, plastic, cardboard, no food waste. It was decided to pick-up twice a week during both lunch shifts on Wednesday and during the beginning of 4th block on Fridays. Students volunteered to go around and collect the recycling.
Throughout the competition the club members had to keep track of how many bins were put into the recycling dumpster. With the help of the teachers, students, office staff, and the cafeteria staff the club was able to dump 111 bins of recycling. In the end it weighed over 5,000 pounds. It was amazing! Since the students met their goal of 100 carts, the whole school was able to participate in free dress for a whole week. The week after Thanksgiving break the sponsor was anxiously awaiting the news to find out who had won the whole competition. At the end of the day on November 27, 2017 the email finally came through; Congratulations to Woodlawn High School, the winner of the recycling competition! Being the winners of the competition, meant a visit from Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome. The Mayor came to the school on Monday December 11, 2017 to announce Woodlawn as the winners and to declare that December 11, 2017 is Woodlawn High School Day.
Even though the competition has ended, our goal to keep the campus green remains. The National Honor Society appreciates all the help from everyone involved and hopes for the continued support from the Woodlawn High family.
Dec 18, 2017
Woodlawn High School is proud to announce Alisa Webb as the 2017-2018 Woodlawn High School Student of the Year. Alisa Webb has distinguished herself as a scholar and leader at Woodlawn High School, where she is part of the Academically Gifted and Talented Music Programs. Currently ranked second in her class, she has maintained straight As every semester of high school and has taken some of the most challenging courses that Woodlawn High has to offer. Her list of achievements include being named an AP Scholar with Distinction, receiving the Tulane Book Award, and being selected to the All-Parish Honor Band.
She believes that through hard work, determination, and passion, she has been able to achieve her academic and personal goals. It was through hard work that she was selected as the first female Drum Major in over a decade at WHS this year, as well as the Team Captain of the robotics team last year. Her talent and leadership has led the band to victory in state competitions, and no football game would have been complete this year without Alisa leading the band on Friday nights. As Team Captain and Field and Pit Coordinator of the robotics team during her junior year, she helped the team qualify for a spot at the national competition last year and showed female students that they can be leaders in a male dominated field.
She is involved in multiple clubs on campus, including Beta, National Honor Society, and Key Club. Through these clubs, she is able to fulfill her passion of giving back to the community. Some of her most recent contributions were serving on the committee for the First Annual Woodlawn High Masquerade Mardi Gras Ball, promoting the district Recycling Campaign that Woodlawn High School won, visiting retirement homes to deliver Christmas cards to residents, and participating in a supply drive for hurricane flood victims this year. She has served as a face of Woodlawn High at multiple recruitment events and volunteers her time tutoring peers and mentoring future Panthers. She is also the founder and President of the Astronomy Club; the team plans to compete in the Team America Rocketry Challenge this year.
Alisa aspires to attend Princeton University next fall and to use her determination and passion to become a leader in the Aerospace Engineering field. When asked to summarize herself and her time at Woodlawn High School into one sentence, Alisa said, “Ultimately, my experiences at Woodlawn High School have significantly impacted who I am today: a motivated, artistic student leader who wants to inspire the next generation of scientists, while making advances of my own in the world.”
