On November 8, 2017, Friendship Tech Prep High School had an 8th grade showcase which is a way of showing 8th graders from different schools what Tech Prep High is all about and why they should enroll in this amazing school. Four different middle schools came including McKinley Tech, Friendship Blow-Pierce, Friendship Chamberlain, and of course Friendship Tech Prep.

October 27, 2017, was the day for those Tech Prep high school students who had perfect attendance during the month of October to get a chance to go to Fright Fest at Six Flags America

On Thursday, October 5th, 2017, FNN members from Tech Prep and Collegiate joined with students at Friendship Chamberlain to celebrate the new FNN Online Book Club. Over 250 students in PreK-1st grade got to pick their own book that they can always keep.

On September 5, 2017, the Trump Administration announced by executive order that the  DACA program will be rescinded. When Trump’s proposed cancellation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was announced, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, “The executive order denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.”

Recently, President Trump announced that he plans to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S military. That is unacceptable and illegal. A series of tweets from President Donald Trump on July 26, 2017 stated the following "After consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military."

On September 28, 2017, reporters from FNN Tech Prep had the chance to visit the wonderful Newseum to see many different exhibits and to play around in the Interactive NewsRoom. Many of us have already been to the Newseum but each time we go we are able to learn many new things. We finally got to see the new and improved FBI exhibit and learn some new things about one of our favorite topics which is 9/11.

The 2017-2018 school year has been here for almost 5 weeks now! Plenty of scholars were very excited because they were able to meet new teachers and finally get to be in a higher grade. Whether you’re a newcomer in high school or middle school or were here last year, you have a brand new set of goals for the school year and a whole new set of challenges.

On July 7, 2017, Tech Prep summer scholars had our incentive for the week. Each student had to make sure they had a complete uniform on, and no detentions for the week.

On June 25th, BET showed off what is said to be “The Livest Award Show on T.V”, the 2017 BET Awards hosted by Leslie Jones. The BET Awards were always known to be crazy, fun and entertaining, and this year they did not disappoint. This year’s show was filled with amazing moments, and I am here to recap all of the excitement.

On Tuesday, July 4th, 2017, North Korea had a successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM. In short, they picked a fine day to do it— America’s Independence Day. The nuclear-tipped missile flew 37 minutes before coming down 930 km from where it was launched.

After the trial for Bill Cosby, the mother of one the assaulted woman, Andrea Constand, has finally spoken up. As soon as Andrea’s mother got information about her daughter getting assaulted in 2004, she testified against Cosby in the trial that was held on June 7, 2017.

Two days before 23-year-old Richard Collins III was fatally stabbed by 22-year-old Sean Urbanski, he was commissioned as the second lieutenant in the United States Army.

Of course, you know that testing can be extremely stressful especially when it’s a very important test that helps decide whether or not you will be passing to the next grade. I asked a couple of other 8th graders how they felt about PARCC testing and how they are handling it. Most of the responses were ok and others not so much.

The weeks of May 1 - May 5, 2017, and May 8 - May 12, 2017, were Teacher Appreciation Weeks, in which we say “thank you” to the wonderful teachers who taught us over the course of the year. My wonderful teachers, Ms. Felder, Mr. Collins, and Ms. Robinson are just some of the amazing sixth grade team that helps all of the sixth-grade scholars.

Video by Ariyana Robinson and Aneara Burns. 

Lately, I have been doing a lot of research on why students should keep learning during the summer—not only because it can help enrich our minds but also because it helps many students to make sure that they either are learning more than what they have learned during the school year or it will help them to remember most of the things that they did learn during the school year.

Being a student I know how hard it is to do a big test like the PARCC assessment... especially because you're frustrated and worried that you might be retained in the same grade and fail because of one test.  These are a couple of things that you should look forward to in order to do your very best on the PARCC.

How easy is it to become the president of The United States Of America? Today Donald J. Trump is the president of the U.S. He plans to do many things and from my point of view, I don’t think the things he has planned will benefit everyone.