By Pradeep K.
 
There is a saying that sometimes goes around the school: “Wherever you go in JMS, there are always people from all different walks of life.” This saying is far from a lie. To celebrate inclusion and diversity, the JMS Diversity Club puts on a show for everyone every year, celebrating one of the unique advantages of this school. Every diversity show is special; however, what made it even more unique was that there was a new face coordinating the show...the one and only Mr. Kuehn. Like every year, the students painstakingly practiced and re-practiced their acts in order to show off their skills. There was everything from colorful Indian dances, to a spectacular Kung Fu demonstration, from the singing of “I’ll Be Back” from Hamilton, to the grand finale song “How Far I’ll Go” - that was sung in SEVEN different languages! To top everything off, there was even an international food tasting for both staff and students, thanks to our wonderful Jericho PTA. In essence, this year’s Diversity Day, like always, went above and beyond.

By Bill L.
Recently, the 8th Grade Boys Student Leadership Group visited the Guide Dog Foundation on a school trip. The Guide Dog Foundation is an organization that helps raise and train dogs to help disabled patients and veterans. A special contest will be held at JMS to raise $6,000 in order to help disabled veterans who recently fought in the Vietnam War. In the middle of May, we will be having a virtual “dog show” mainly composed of videos of different dogs. The videos will be separated into 6 different categories. These include Cutest Dog, Best Dressed, Most Talented, Most Unique, Best Bark, and Look Alike. Other fundraising ideas include a bake sale, submitting a name to the service dog, and dog selfies with the winning dogs.

By Pradeep K.
I recently met with 8th Grade English teacher, Ms. Casey Snyder, after class. We had a very productive meeting. Here are some of the excerpts from our interview.
 
Q. Are you an avid reader of the Jayhawk ?
A. Not an avid reader, but I do read the Jayhawk from time to time.
 
Q. In what year did you start teach at Jericho ?
A. I started teaching in the year 2000.
 
Q. Did you teach in any other school before you came to Jericho ?
A.  Yes, I taught in East New York before I came here.
 
Q. What made you interested in teaching English Language Arts ?
A.  I loved reading, writing, and I also love to analyze literature.      
      I love words as well.
 
Q. Describe three worlds that would sum up Jericho Middle School 
     as a whole.
A.  Prestigious, welcoming and diverse.
 
Q. If you did not become a teacher, what would you have become?
A.  If I was not a teacher, then I would be an advertising executive. 
     The reason why I would want to go into this profession is 
     because I love advertising and promoting  products.
 
Q.  What is easy and hard about teaching?
A.  Something hard about teaching is that I have to keep up with 
      paperwork. Something I really like about teaching is that I could 
     work with the youth.
 
Q. What do you do in your spare time? (moderate a club ?)
A.  I run the BRAVE Club, which involves standing up against 
     bullying. I am an advocate against bullying as well. In addition, I like
     to hang out with my kids, socialize, and read . My favorite book is
    The Sparrow.
 
​ I had a wonderful experience interviewing Ms. Snyder. I look forward to having in-depth conversations with other members of the Jericho Middle School staff.

By Bill L.
The 8th grade Chinese students went on a field trip to New World Mall in Flushing to have dim sum at the Grand Restaurant. Many people ordered some of their favorite dishes, including steamed buns, radish cake, and many others. The New World Mall also includes many other things you can do like shopping for groceries on the first floor and clothing on the second floor. This was a wonderful trip where we experienced new food and new fun.

By Prateek K.
 
     The sixth graders at Jericho Middle School took a trip to Manhattan to see the New York Philharmonic perform The New World Symphony by Antonin Davorak. We left school by bus around 8:00 in the morning. The trip into the city was fine. I got to sit with my friends on the bus and play games on my phone. The performance began about 10:30. The orchestra played the symphony and stopped every once in a while to explain the piece of music. We also listened to two original musical compositions by two young composers. I liked the second composer because he used his music to describe his day.In the morning it was soft but then it started to get louder which is towards the evening and then it got quiet again in the end which is supposed to represent the night.
   If I were to compose a piece of music, I would use instruments like the trumpet, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, viola, and oboe. The theme in my piece would be “going home”, like the New World Symphony.
     After the concert, we all went to Planet Hollywood for lunch, which was delicious. I had chicken mac and cheese and soda. We also had gigantic cookies for dessert. There were giant screens all around the restaurant that played music videos. It was very cool!
     I would love to go on this trip again because we got to see Lincoln Center and we were able to sit with our friends at Planet Hollywood.