By Emily Ye

As part of the middle school program in most schools, they offer a certain time period during which students can choose a non-standard class to study. Usually our school offers Art with Ms. Linderme, Awareness classes (current life and issues/blogging and vlogging) with Ms. Fong, computer science with Mrs. Oducayen, and writing/speaking classes with Mrs. Reynolds. Usually, students don’t even get to pick which exploration class they want, but this year is different.

Starting in the second trimester of the 2018-2019 year, the teachers offered a new class, being a teacher’s aid or TA. At first, only about 12 teachers in the whole school asked for a TA. One of them, Ms Linderme, who had been asking for a TA program for awhile, was overjoyed to finally have one. Now students will take a survey at the beginning of each year to help determine which exploration class they will be in.

“I finally have a TA, which is really nice because anything my TA can do is an extra stress that’s lifted off my shoulders,” 8th grade teacher Ms. Linderme said. “I definitely recommend asking for a TA to any teachers who haven’t because they are so useful for grading, filing, physical cleaning, and anything else you need them to do.”

As a kickoff to the new TA program, I asked some of the first TA’s some questions :

Q: Who do/did you TA for?

A: “Ms.Lewis,” 7th grader Tomas Lombardo said.

A: “Mr. Slez and Mrs. Rabel,” 6th grader Khalfani Zulu said.

A: “Ms. Breuer,” 7th grader Valentina Suarez said.

Q: Why did you want to be a TA?

A: “My friends wanted to, so I did too,” 7th grader Tomas Lombardo said.

A: “I like playing and working with kids, it seemed like a good job,” 6th grader Khalfani Zulu said.

A: “Being a TA seems like a good experience,” 7th grader Valentina Suarez said.

Q: What were some of the best and worst parts of the job?

A: “Some of the best parts of the job are talking with the other TAs in the pod, and the worst is doing the work,” Tomas Lombardo said.

A: “ The best parts of the job are playing with the kids, and the worst part is that it’s cold,” Khalfani Zulu said.

A: “The best part of the job is interacting with kids, and I didn’t have a worst part,” Valentina Suarez said.

Q: What kind of work did you do?

A: “Correcting and homework packets,” Tomas Lombardo said.

A:“ Running drills and helping set up,” Khalfani Zulu said.

A:“ Filing, grading, and playing with kids,” Valentina Suarez said.

Q: Should our school continue this program?

A : “Yes,” Tomas Lombardo said.

A : “ I think so, I really enjoyed the job,” Khalfani Zulu said.

A: “ Of course! 8th graders should do it,” Valentina Suarez said.