Two Minuteman Students From Arlington Honored In Poster Contest

In photo, Minuteman High School students Oliver Leventhal, left, and Ethan Masters, both of Arlington, with their award-winning posters. Photo by Allison Barry.

By Judy Bass

LEXINGTON – Two Minuteman High School students have been honored in the 2019 Safe Jobs for Youth poster contest sponsored by the Massachusetts Youth Employment and Safety Team (YES Team) and the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health (MassCOSH).

This year, 216 posters were submitted to the contest by teems aged 14 to 19.

The students from Minuteman were Oliver Leventhal, who finished in second place and was awarded $300 for his poster titled “Youth Have Rights,” and Ethan Masters, who received an honorable mention for his poster, “Teens Get Hurt on the Job.”

Both students are sophomores from Arlington who are majoring in Design & Visual Communications at Minuteman. Their instructor is Allison Barry.

“Oliver and Ethan’s posters are both successful due to their concise message and their eye-catching symbolism and imagery,” said Ms. Barry.

The theme that the contestants were asked to showcase in their posters was workplace health and safety for teenagers. According to the poster contest’s page on Mass.gov, “[T]eens have nearly double the rate of work-related injuries than adults.”

“I feel honored receiving this recognition, and had a fun time creating the poster,” said Mr. Masters. “I learned a lot from creating it, such as all of the statistics on the number of teens getting hurt on the job.”

Mr. Leventhal reflected on the process that led to the creation of his award-winning poster.

“I spent a lot of time on this poster,” he said. “It went through countless revisions after group critiques we did, and there were many parts of the poster I had to remake entirely. After all this, I am grateful that something good came out of it. My poster may not be seen by many people, but if at least one other teenager who is often bored in class and doodles in their textbook can relate to the style, then I have done my job.”

He added, “In making this poster, I learned the importance of appealing to the target audience. One of the most vital components to a design is that the person seeing it can relate to it in some way, and I think my poster does a good job with this.”

Anyone interested in applying to Minuteman High School is urged to act promptly. Applications for admission are coming in quickly due to the high level of public interest in high quality career and technical education that will be operating in the new Minuteman High School currently under construction. Please visit www.minuteman.org and go to the Admissions tab on the home page.

Minuteman is five months away from moving into a $145M facility that has been designed to support a robust college and career academy model. The academy model was adopted by staff and administration to create smaller “schools within a school” thereby promoting more personalized learning founded upon close relationships between students and teachers. The Minuteman college and career academy model integrates rigorous academics with relevant technical programming in occupational areas providing individual economic opportunity. The new facility will accommodate project-based learning across disciplines, requiring students to learn how to work on a diverse team, solve problems and think critically. These are essential 21st-century skills that students practice and apply in a variety of school-based and work-based environments.

As an accredited member of the New England Association of Schools & Colleges (NEASC), Minuteman inspires all students to attain their full potential, accelerate their learning, and become purposeful citizens in the global community.