PREPARING, EDUCATING, AND EMPOWERING TEEN MOTHERS

SIMPSON ACADEMY FOR YOUNG WOMEN NEWSLETTER

Volume 3 Issue 2

October/November 2014

Spirit Week and Homecoming

THE BUTTERFLY SPOTLIGHT

Congratulations to our beautiful ladies of the Homecoming Court! Pictured left to right are
Lady Shacreama McBee, Dutchess Raven McCall, Princess Jasmine Norwood, and Queen
Cierra Jones.

Simpson Academy Student Council At Work

FEATURE STORY

THE SEVEN HABITS

OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE
TEENS

THE LIGHTER SIDE

ABOUT US

BABY OF THE MONTH

Inside this issue:

THE BUTTERFLY SPOT- 2
LIGHT

FEATURE
SEVEN HABITS

2
3

PARENTS CORNER

EDITORIAL

THE LIGHTER SIDE

ABOUT US
ODDS AND ENDS

The Butterfly Spotlight

Butterfly Spotlight for this
issues newspaper goes to
Ms. Jia Pan. She loves to
read fiction and non-fiction
books and try new restaurants and cuisines throughout Chicago. Her favorite
hobby is to go ice skating.
She loves to connect with
new and old friends whenever she gets a chance. Most
importantly, she loves helping people and hope she has
the opportunity to reach as
many people throughout her
lifetime as she possibly can.
Before she became a teacher at Simpson she was a student teacher at Farragut High
School. This experience

Feature Story: School Spirit

IF MORE
STUDENTS
BECOME LEADERS
AND NOT
FOLLOWERS AND
PARTICIPATE
MORE IN SCHOOL

ACTIVITIES, THEN
THE SCHOOL
SPIRIT WOULD
MOST CERTAINLY
INCREASE.

Page 2

Why doesnt our school

have spirit? Why arent
many students participating in school events and
activities?

By Cierra Jones

helped her to realize how

much she enjoyed working
with high school students.
Ms. Pan attended high school
at SheepsHead Bay in Brooklyn New York where she is
originally from. She earned
her Bachelor's of Arts in Economics and English Language
Arts at University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor Michigan. She
recently completed her Master's of Arts in Teaching from
Dominican University in River
Forest Illinois. She has been
teaching at Simpson Academy
for 3 years. She wanted to
join the staff at Simpson because she knew she wanted

By Cierra Jones
what the school doesnt have,
do something to help make a
positive change. Just get in
the school spirit and get active.

Think about it, there is no

other school in the city of Chicago like Simpson and you
are student so enjoy it and
make our school the best that
it can ever be. If you want
something different to happen in the school, consult a
teacher or staff member that
you know that can help make
the dream happen. Maybe
Many schools have student
they will get in the school
governments. Having a
spirit with you and PUMP IT
Student Council and StuUP!!
dent Representatives help
give us a voice in the hap- If more students become
leaders and not followers and
penings at our school.
participate more in school
School can only be what
activities, then the school
you make it. If you see a
problem help to FIX IT!!! spirit would most certainly
increase. Studies also show
Dont complain about
Some students complain
that the school is not what
they want it to be. Or they
may use the phrase that
the school is dead.
School is only what you
make out to be. School
spirit would be much higher if we had more participation of the students.

to work with students who

are overcoming challenges
to continue their education.
Since shes worked at Simpson, shes had lots of good
experiences helping students improve their writing
and language skills. Her relationship with students has
been warm and loving but
also strict. She expects a lot
from her students and will
never allow them to take
the way out. Her biggest
goal is for all of Simpson
students to find college and/
or career placement right
after high school.

that girls participate more than

boys in high school clubs and activities, and tend to join more athletic teams, clubs & organizations,
and academic programs. We are
an all-girls school. Active participation should be a no-brainer.
Remember the school spirit starts
with you, the student!! Its YOUR
school. Start caring about where
you attend school, and help to
make it a better place.

Volume 3 Issue 2
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens The Personal Bank Account
from Sean Covey
Im looking at the man in the mirror
Im asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make that change.

2.

Do small acts of kindness.

Its been said, that if youre feeling depressed, the best thing to do, is
to do something for someone else. Why? Because it gets you focused
outward, not inward. Its hard to be depressed while helping someone else. Ironically, a by-product of serving others is feeling wonderful
about yourself. Go our of your way to be helpful or to be of service to
others. Itll make you feel better to know that helping someone has
made their lives a little better.
3. Be Gentle With Yourself

~ Sung by Michael Jackson

All change begins with you. Before youll ever win in the public areas of
your life, you must first win the private battles within yourself. Private victories always come before public victories.
Inside Out
We crawl before we walk. We learn addition before algebra. We must fix
ourselves before we can fix others. If you want to make a change in your
life, the place to begin is with yourself, not with your parents, your teacher
or your girlfriend/boyfriend. All change begins with YOU. Think about it.
Its inside out, not outside in.
The Personal Bank Account
How you feel about yourself is like a bank account. Just like a bank account,
you can make deposits into and withdrawals from your PBA (personal bank
account) by the things you think, say, and do. For example, when you stick
to a commitment youve made to yourself, you feel in control. Its a deposit. On the other hand, when you break a promise to yourself, you feel disappointed and make a withdrawal.
Possible Symptoms of a Low PBA (Personal Bank Account)

You cave into peer pressure

You wrestle with feelings of worthlessness and inferiority
Youre overly concerned about what others think of you
You act arrogant to help hide your insecurities
You self-destruct by getting heavily into drugs, pornography, vandalism, or gangs.
You get jealous easily, especially when someone close to you succeeds.

Possible Symptoms of a Healthy PBA

You stand up for yourself and resist negative peer pressure.

Youre not overly concerned about being popular.
You see life as a generally positive experience.
You trust yourself.
You are goal driven.
You are happy for the successes of others.

If your bank account is low, dont get discouraged. It doesnt have to be

permanent. Just start making small, humble deposits today. Here are six
key deposits that can help you build your PBA.
1.

Keep Promises to Yourself.

We should treat the commitments we make to ourselves as seriously as

those we make to the most important people in our lives. If youre feeling
out of control in life, focus on the single thing you can controlyou. Make a
promise to yourself and keep it.

Being gentle means many things. It means not expecting yourself to

be perfect by tomorrow morning. I means learning to laugh at the
stupid things you do. It also means forgiving yourself when you mess
up. We should learn from our mistakes, but we shouldnt beat ourselves up over them. Consider what went wrong and why. Learn, and
make amends if you need to.
4. Be Honest
Honesty comes in many forms. First theres self-honesty. When people look at you, do they see the genuine article or do you appear
through smoke and mirrors? If youre ever fake and try to be something youre not, you might feel unsure of yourself and make a PBA
withdrawal. Then theres honesty in our actions. If youve ever been
dishonest in the past, try being honest, and notice how whole it makes
you feel. Its a relief not to hide who you are, or to have to cover up
your actions.
5. Renew Yourself
Youve got to take time for yourself, to renew and to relax. If you
dont, youll get burned out and lose your zest for life. Find your own
place to escape to , your own sanctuary of some kind. Go somewhere
and ponder the clouds. Find a tree stump and listen to the wind or
birds or maybe even the beating of your own heart. Maybe you can
find a rooftop, a park bench, some piece of grass somewhere. Just a
place to be alone. This might sound a bit crazy but trust, humans
today live in a constant storm of stuff, and we all need to take a deep
breath and unplug occasionally, just to renew our spirits. Besides
finding a place of refuge, there are so many other ways to renew yourself and build your PBA. Exercise can do it, like going for a walk, running, dancing, or writing in a journal.
6. Magnify your talents

Finding and then developing a talent, hobby or passion can be one of

the single greatest deposits you can make into your PBA. Dont think
small. You may have a knack for reading or writing, or speaking. You
may have a gift for rhythm, being hilarious, remembering details, or
being accepting of others. You may have organizational, musical, or
leadership skills. Whether its chess, drama, or skateboarding, when
you do something you like doing, and have a talent for itits exhilarating. Its a form of self-expression, and it builds self-esteem.
Baby Steps:

Get up when the alarm goes off. Dont hit the snooze button.
Sometime today, do a kind deed anonymously, like taking out the
trash, putting in a batch of laundry, or finishing a book for an
English assignment. Decide when you will do it. Then keep your
word.
List a talent you would like to develop this year.
Go an entire day without negative self-talk. Each time you put
yourself down, replace it with three positive thoughts about
yourself.

Page 3

Easy Recipes for Mommy and MeBrownie Bowls

Making a brownie bowl that can actually hold your ice
cream is genius!!! Here are simple steps to make your
own!
What you will need:
Ice cream
Brownie batter (made from your favorite recipe)
2 muffin tins
Cooking spray
Chocolate sauce
Sprinkles
Directions:
1. Follow the directions for your favorite brownie recipe to make the batter.
2. Spray cups of a muffin tin with cooking spray, and
add brownie batter to each cup until theyre about two
-thirds full. Spray the bottom of a second muffin tin
with cooking spray .
3. Bake according to mix but choose to make them the
chewy version. Once you take them out of the oven
quickly take your other muffin tin and smoosh ( yes
thats the word) it into the pan to create a bowl like
brownie.

4. Once they are formed you can place back in the oven
for 5 10 minutes to harden.
5. After the bowls are completely cool, add a scoop of ice
cream, top with chocolate sauce and sprinkles, and enjoy!

Parents Corner by Sierrah Sanchez

newborn, whether in play or in
frustration. Shaking that is vigorIf you haven't spent a lot of
ous can cause bleeding in the
time around newborns, their
brain and even death. If you
fragility may be intimidating.
need to wake your infant, don't
Here are a few basics to redo it by shaking instead, tickle
member:
your baby's feet or blow gently
Wash your hands (or use a
on a cheek.
hand sanitizer) before hanMake sure your baby is securely
dling your baby. Newborns
fastened into the carrier,
don't have a strong immune
stroller, or car seat. Limit any
system yet, so they are susactivity that could be too rough
ceptible to infection. Make
or bouncy.
sure that everyone who hanRemember that your newborn
dles your baby has clean
is not ready for rough play, such
hands.
as being jiggled on the knee or
Be careful to support your
thrown in the air.
baby's head and neck. Cradle
the head when carrying your
baby and support the head
when carrying the baby upright or when you lay your
baby down.
Handling a Newborn

Be careful not to shake your

Page 4

Special Feature: Womens Rights are Human Rights" an excerpt from

Hillary Clintons speech to the UN Conference 1995
The great challenge of this conference is to give
voice to women everywhere whose experiences go
unnoticed, whose words go unheard. Women comprise more than half the worlds population, 70% of
the worlds poor, and two-thirds of those who are
not taught to read and write. We are the primary
caretakers for most of the worlds children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued -not by economists, not by historians, not by popular
culture, not by government leaders.
At this very moment, as we sit here, women around
the world are giving birth, raising children, cooking
meals, washing clothes, cleaning houses, planting
crops, working on assembly lines, running companies, and running countries. Women also are dying
from diseases that should have been prevented or
treated. They are watching their children succumb to
malnutrition caused by poverty and economic deprivation. They are being denied the right to go to
school by their own fathers and brothers. They are
being forced into prostitution, and they are being
barred from the bank lending offices and banned
from the ballot box.

IT IS NO LONGER
ACCEPTABLE TO
DISCUSS
WOMENS
RIGHTS AS
SEPARATE FROM
HUMAN RIGHTS.

Page 5

Those of us who have the opportunity to be here

have the responsibility to speak for those who could
not. As an American, I want to speak for those women in my own country, women who are raising children on the minimum wage, women who cant
afford health care or child care, women whose lives
are threatened by violence, including violence in
their own homes.
I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for
good schools, safe neighborhoods, clean air, and
clean airwaves; for older women, some of them
widows, who find that, after raising their families,
their skills and life experiences are not valued in the
marketplace; for women who are working all night
as nurses, hotel clerks, or fast food chefs so that
they can be at home during the day with their children; and for women everywhere who simply dont
have time to do everything they are called upon to
do each and every day.

dren make up a large majority of the worlds refugees.

And when women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse. I
believe that now, on the eve of a new millennium, it is
time to break the silence. It is time for us to say here in
Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer
acceptable to discuss womens rights as separate from
human rights.
These abuses have continued because, for too long, the
history of women has been a history of silence. Even
today, there are those who are trying to silence our
words. But the voices of this conference and of the
women at Huairou must be heard loudly and clearly:
It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied
food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken,
simply because they are born girls.
It is a violation of human rights when women and girls
are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed
-- and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this
practice should no longer be tolerated.
It is a violation of human rights when women are doused
with gasoline, set on fire, and burned to death because
their marriage dowries are deemed too small.
It is a violation of human rights when individual women
are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or
prize of war.
It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of
death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the
violence they are subjected to in their own homes by
their own relatives.
It is a violation of human rights when young girls are
brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied

the right to plan their own families, and that includes
being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against
their will.
If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are womens rights
and womens rights are human rights once and for all.
Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to
speak freely -- and the right to be heard.

Speaking to you today, I speak for them, just as each

of us speaks for women around the world who are
denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor,
or own property, or have a say about the direction of
their lives, simply because they are women. The
truth is that most women around the world work
both inside and outside the home, usually by necessity.

Women must enjoy the rights to participate fully in the

social and political lives of their countries, if we want
freedom and democracy to thrive and endure. It is indefensible that many women in nongovernmental organizations who wished to participate in this conference
have not been able to attend -- or have been prohibited
from fully taking part.

We need to understand there is no one formula for

how women should lead our lives. That is why we
must respect the choices that each woman makes
for herself and her family. Every woman deserves
the chance to realize her own God-given potential.
But we must recognize that women will never gain
full dignity until their human rights are respected
and protected.

Now is the time to act on behalf of women everywhere.

If we take bold steps to better the lives of women, we
will be taking bold steps to better the lives of children
and families too. As long as discrimination and inequities
remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as
long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed
last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to
violence in and outside their homes -- the potential of
the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous
world will not be realized.

Tragically, women are most often the ones whos

human rights are violated. Even now, in the late 20th
century, the rape of women continues to be used as
an instrument of armed conflict. Women and chil-

Editorial: A True Style Icon

Someone I believe who is a
style Icon is Nicki Minaj. She
first became famous 5 years
ago and ever since then she
has been known for her sense
of style and being a stylish
diva. When Nicki first
emerged onto the scene, she
was loud and made a statement, and I do not mean by
her music. She was infamously known for her multicolored
wigs that ranged from blue,
green, purple, yellow, red,
pink and even orange. Nicki
Minaj was always wearing
outfits some may consider
outrageous but I considered
them stylish, bold and crea-

tive, to me they made a statement. She would wear outfits

that has chains, stuffed monkeys, flowers, balloons, circles
and stars. And I wanted to be
just like her, a lot of people
who are fans of her would
dress bright and would also
consider themselves a Barbie.
I personally considered myself a stylish feisty Barbie.
Now Nicki has taken her style
to a more natural and sophisticated level. She has developed as an artist and as a
fashion guru. She now wears
black hair and if she wears
weave its black and blended

Puzzle Pieces by Tamara Triplett

Page 6

By Kamira Malone
with her natural hair. Her
outfits are more mellowed
down and it mostly consists
of the colors gold and
black. Nicki Minaj never
wears the same outfit
twice. I believe she is an
inspiration to teens all
around the world. She has
inspired me to be free and
confident, she has inspired
me to not live my life inside
of box and not to care
about what others think of
me.

Volume 2 Issue 6
The Lighter Side

By Sierrah Sanchez and Ramona Mordican

Im a Little Pumpkin
Im a little pumpkin
Orange and round
Here is my stem
I grew in the ground
When I get all cut up
Dont you shout!
Just open me up
And scoop me out!
Pumpkin Pumpkin on the Ground
Pumpkin pumpkin on the ground
Howd you get so big and round?
Planted as a seed so small
Now you are a great big ball
Pumpkin pumpkin on the ground
Howd you get so big and round?
Contributed by Ramona Mordican

Page 7

Simpson Academy For Young Women

Preparing, Educating, and Empowering Teen Mothers
CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Simpson Academy for Young Women
1321 S. Paulina
Chicago, Illinois 60608
Phone: 773-534-7812

Quote of the Month:

Any time women come

together with a collective
intention, it's a powerful
thing. Whether it's sitting
down making a quilt, in a
kitchen preparing a meal,
in a club reading the same
book, or around the table
playing cards, or planning a birthday party.
When women come together with a collective
intention, magic happens.
~ Phylicia Rashad

Our School
Simpson Academy for Young Women is a small, 6th-to-12th grade school located in the Illinois Medical District of Chicago. We educate pregnant and parenting teens. Simpson Academy is a Chicago Public Middle and High School, and has city-wide attendance boundaries.
Our Purpose
The mission of Simpson Academy is to empower young mothers, and to prepare them for success in
college, career, and life. Our school offers a competitive academic standards-based curriculum, as well
as parenting and life-skills education. We utilize advanced technology and tailor new programs to
guide our students toward success in a 21st century world.
Our Work
The vision of Simpson Academy for Young Women is to create a supportive environment for young
mothers while providing them with holistic educational experiences. Simpson Academy strives to provide
emotional, parental, and academic development with a personal touch in the small school environment.

Were on the Web! Visit

www.simpsonacademy.org
Like us on Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/SAYWHS
Odds and Ends
Baby of the Month:

Send us your baby photos if youd like to see

your baby featured. You
can even send us ultrasound pictures! Photos
will be featured on a first
come, first-served basis.

Journalism Staff:

Send digital photos with

your name and babys
name to our journalism
advisor:

Cierra Jones, Kamira Malone, Ramona Mordican,

Tamara Triplett, Sierrah Sanchez, Sierra Washington,
Tristan Carr

Advisor: Ms. Tueros

A Special Thanks to:
Mrs. VelasquezPrincipal
Ms. AlmoreAssistant Principal

Gatueros@cps.edu
Shacreama McBee is pictured here
with her baby girl Ivori McBee-Moton.
Wish Shacreama a happy birthday on
November 8th!