Student Newsletter Shows Good Things Happening at Valley View's Phoenix Experience

Looking over the first edition of the Phoenix Experience Newsletter are (from left) Editor Gaby Torres-Arce and reporters Shakwan Triplett and Christian Braswell. Submtited by Valley View School District.

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Phoenix Experience has launched a new student-produced newsletter and there are plans to continue publishing the newsletter on a regular basis.

“It was an opportunity to show what Phoenix students have,” said newsletter editor Gaby Torres-Arce, a senior who hopes to someday be a writing or art teacher.

“Everyone thinks Phoenix is an alternative school for kids who don’t know how to act…that it’s a bad boy school,” said staff writer Shakwan Triplett. “That’s not true. Kids nowadays get lost because there are so many distractions. Maybe this newsletter will have a big impact on them and they’ll share it with somebody else.”

Issue 1, which was distributed this month, takes an in-depth look at the teachers and administrators of Phoenix Experience, including the new Director, Chris Ruddy.

“It was easy to conduct interviews. They were really good and we learned a lot about our teachers. It was easy to write essays (articles),” Torres-Arce said. “But trying to fit it all into the space we had was difficult because we wanted to do justice to the teachers.”

“Anybody can ask an average question. You see a lot of interviews where you can guess what question was asked,” added Triplett, an accomplished poet and music writer. “We came up with good questions but realized that each interview would take different directions depending on how they answered.”

Phoenix counselor Kathryn Klein recruited Torres-Arce to head up the project. Torres-Arce brought talented writer Martha Ramirez aboard and she added Triplett because she knew he was a “people person.” Triplett convinced senior Christian Braswell to join the team because of his knowledge of current events. Sam Ghansah was also recruited because of his plans to study journalism in college.

But Torres-Arce is the glue that holds it all together.

“She’s a leader,” said Triplett.

“She is orchestrating this whole idea,” Braswell added.

Issue 2 is already in the works. Torres-Arce and her staff promise many more good things to come.

“We want to write about something that people really care about,” said Braswell.