Our School

History: On May 9, 1920 a new orphanage was opened It was built by Archbishop Prendergast and was called St. Vincent's Orphanage . In 1953 the orphanage after the orphanage was no longer needed, the building became Archbishop Prendergast High School for Boys. Three years later a new school was built next to it  and that was named Monsignor Bonner Bonner Catholic High School for Boys. The Prendergast building became an all-girls school. The schools, although physically close to one another, operated as independent schools for over 50 years. In 2006 - since the enrollments were getting smaller - both schools merged into one administratio; then in 2012 the two schools were merged into one school for boys and girls. Our official name is Monsignor Bonner and Archbishop Prendergast Catholic High School.

Enrollment: Our school currently is composed of 907 students, of which, 417 are girls and 490 are boys. Our senior class has 223 students, our junior class has 224, our sophomore class has 212, and our freshmen class has 248 students. There is a total of 46 teachers in our school

Classroom Environment : Our classroom environment is unique. We originally were two different schools , Prendie - which was only for girls, and Bonner - which was only for boys. Now that we are combined we are all in the Bonner building. At first we had only single gender classes but now that we are combined we have some single gender classes and some combined classes. Our classes that are single gender are theology, sciences , gym and health. Most students enjoy the single gender classes because that is the atmosphere we were used to. It is easier for the incoming freshmen to adjust to the new setting, than it is for the juniors and seniors, because they are used to coming from a co-ed grade school.

Traditions are a huge part of the Bonner and Prendie community. Each school has its own set of traditions. In Prendie, the girls have the ring dance and Spirit day for girls only.

Spirit Day is a day where the grades compete against one another wearing their class colors: yellow for Freshman, blue for Sophomores, green for Juniors, and pink for Seniors.  Students usually make shirts and wear bandannas to try to intimidate the other grades.  To start the day off there is an  "award" show for many different favorite TV shows, movies, and people in the year. There also are student-based categories, such as “Who has the best smile in the grade” or “Who is the favorite teacher.” The day is filled with different activities and fun things for the girls to do. The boy' school has something similar which is Fun Day. They compete to get the game trophy at the end of the day by different events like mosh ball and quiz games.

There are also traditions that each of the schools has which over the past year have merged. One such merged event is Ring day, which used to be held in December for the boys and February for the girls. During this school year, a new tradition emerged in that Ring Day was celebrated on the same day in December for boys and girls.   Separate proms were held by the boys school and the girls school; now we have one senior prom to include both. Graduations were one separate events too; this year there will be one ceremony in June. The Passion Cross ceremony - originally an all boys tradition by passing the crucifix around the auditorium while a spotlight shines on it reminding us of the tragic death of Jesus -included all girls and boys starting last year.  The "100 day  until graduation celebration" was a girls tradition for the senior class (at lunch periods on that day seniors have a party with music, pizza, and snacks) is now enjoyed by both. "Singing on the Stairs" was a Prendie Christmas tradition, during the winter of this year the boys were included in its beauty. And different retreats are now limited to the boys and girls of the senior class.

Though it was tough for everyone in the beginning with so many traditions being changed or merged, everyone has come together  as the new community of Bonner and Prendie to continue on with the brotherhood and sisterhood that never was lost. 

 The Prendie Building
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SPORTS: Our sports teams are pretty competitive and each year are usually at the top.

Baseball: Currently we are ranked first in the state and are a favorite to win it all. We have been one of the top competitors each year. We have won a lot of championships the past decade including a Catholic League Championship (2010), three time City Champions (2009-2011).

Football: Our football program has been gaining talent each year. Earlier in the decade we were always at bottom, but we have started moving up towards the top. Two big accomplishments were making into the championship game the past two years, unfortunately losing both.

Boys’ Basketball: The basketball team is a very competitive team, but in the area we are in, the teams are a lot better. Our record each year doesn't reflect our talent; Bonner-Prendie always has a talented team.

Boys’ Lacrosse: This is our newest and upcoming sport; each year the lacrosse team puts up good efforts in their games. In a few years they will be one of the best out there.

Rugby: This sport is one of the best in the school. Rugby each year usually goes to states each year.

Hockey: Bonner-Prendie has both ice and roller hockey teams. Both are highly competitive, and both club sports.

Girls' Basketball: The Pandas  basketball team made a huge run this year into the state playoffs: they were in the top 3 of the Super 7 (local rankings) for the whole year. The Pandas ended the season with  three All-Catholic players, including the MVP of the Catholic League.

Softball: Prendie Softball has been one of the best teams in the league for so long. This season the Pandas are currently in the top 5 of their division.

Which sports and activities are most popular in your school?

This is the  group for the school section

 The Bonner Building

Newspaper

This is one view of the Philadelphia skyline. We can see it from our school  and from many places in  our  hometowns.

Most of the towns we come from are somewhat small compared to the city of Philadelphia which is neighbor to all of us and home for some of us.

About Our Hometowns

Here is some basic information about our area:
Population of Pennsylvania: over 12.8 million
Population of Drexel Hill : 28,043

White alone - 23,988
Black or African American-2,161
Asian-1,197
Hispanic-728
American Indian- 24
Native Hawaiian- 6

Our school draws people from an area in and around Drexel Hill: many of the small suburbs surrounding Philadelphia and parts of Philadelphia itself. Some students live close enough to school so they can walk; many need to take public transportation with some making more than one connection.

The population of our student body is growing more diverse including different family backgrounds and even students from foreign countries. It is a great place to go to school!

 Newspaper picture description : The picture and news article show our school receiving the news that we were going to remain open after the devastating news - six weeks earlier -  of being told we were going to close. We were blessed to remain open; however,  many changes in our school have occurred. For example, we used to be two separate schools known as Monsignor Bonner and  as Archbishop Prendergast ; now we are Bonner and Prendergast, and  in one building . We are thankful to be able to still attend our school with our classmates and teachers who  have become our family over the years. 

This picture was printed in local papers the day we learned our school would NOT be closed!

The hometown group

Businesses: 

Some main businesses in our area are food places like McDonald's and Wawa. McDonald's is a fast food place that can be considered a second home for some kids in the area McDonald's is known for being a hangout spot for local kids and some of our friends work there as well!  Wawa is a quick and easy place where people go for food. It is described as a convenient place that most of the time takes a maximum of around 10 minutes to get in and get out.

Some of our winters are very snowy; this year we had only a few snowfalls.

Is everyone in your school from the same hometown or are they from different towns? Does everyone live close to school? Do you walk to school or need to get buses?

Post card

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, Washington, D.C.. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800.

The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States. Mount Rushmore features 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District," or simply “D.C.,” is the capital of the United States.

The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American independence, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is about 15 minutes from us!!

The national flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen stripes of red and white, with a blue rectangle in the corner bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars alternating with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 states of the United States of America and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain and became the first states in the Union. Nicknames for the flag include the "Stars and Stripes,""Old Glory," and "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886. The statue was a gift from France and is a symbol of hope and of the American dream.

                                                                  With which parts of the United States are you most familiar? Are there any "postcards" you would like us to find for you?

This is the group for the postcard section. A member is missing from the photo.

Families

Descriptions of Families

The families' group

Families in the United States vary with each family. Some families have stepfathers or stepmothers. Some children are adopted, and some just have normal families with two parents and a few kids. The average family size in the U.S is 2.59 meaning most families have two children in their households. This does not mean that big families don't exist; one of us knows a family that has 12 children under one roof. Families change with every family you study; that's what makes learning about someone else's family interesting: you'll always find someone with a different upbringing than your own. What are your families like?

Nationalities and Ethnicities

Although our continent was populated by Native Americans (the Indians), America became a nation of immigrants. Every family has their own background. Some are Irish, some are Italian, some are French, some are Hispanic. You name it there are people from that nationality or ethnicity here in the United States. Many people refer to the United States as the melting pot of the world because so many different nationalities and ethnicities come together and live in the same community. Does your country get a lot of immigrants as well?

The backgrounds of the people in the group writing this article are:
Gabby: Italy and Lebanon & Germany ;Lebanese
Nicole: Ireland and France; Irish and French
Jim: Irish ; Ireland
Alyssa : Iris ; Ireland
Brad: Ireland , Lithuania , Polish ; Poland, Irish , and Lithuanian
Wesley : Black ; African American

As you can see, if you look at the mother’s side and the father’s side for each of us, we are quite a blend!

Vacations and holidays

Since America is a melting pot, we all may celebrate different holidays. I, personally celebrate Halloween, Christmas, New Years, Valentines Day, St Patrick's Day, Easter, and 4th of July. Those are the main holidays but we also celebrate smaller public holidays, like Veterans Day, Columbus Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. People of different religions celebrate different holidays. For example since I'm Catholic and a part of the Roman Catholic Church I celebrate some holidays others may not celebrate, like Christmas, and Easter.
For vacations every family does something different. Some people go on vacation different times of the year but most families go during the summer since our schools are not in session then. . They may go to a different country, up the mountains, or down the beach. Each family is different and has many different traditions

If one were to describe a typical Romanian family, what would that be?

Music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGNHLc4FWwA

Devils Den by Skrillex

Dubstep music is a genre of electronic dance music. This particular style of music is characterized by its heavy focus on bass, drums, electronic sounds and occasional vocals. The defining element of dubstep that separates it from other electronic-type music is known as "the drop." The drop, as its name implies, is the point of the song where the bass becomes most prominent by a sudden build of textures as opposed to a slow build of them, and usually links a building section with the climax and following the main theme and rhythm of a track. Dubstep originated in the late ‘90s; it was not known as dubstep, and instead of sounding like what we know today, it was more experimental and dark in nature. Dubstep sounds started finding their way into more "mainstream" music in 2007, and by 2010 dubstep had broken into the charts on its own.

METAL

    Heavy metal was originated in the 1970s. The genre started with bands such as AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Motörhead. The genre of Metal didn't originate in any specific country at any specific time. Metal came from countries all around the world including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Norway. Metal consists of hard, deep tones and scales, in an eighth or sixteenth note rhythm. These rhythms are held up by the bass and the drums. The scales and quick repetition and sound is made by the guitarist(s), and the loud vocals are made obviously by the singer.
    Heavy metal is a sort of cast-away of the music world. It isn't understood well by people who don't listen to it, because all they hear is load, screaming sounds and heavy distorted guitar chords and riffs. What they don't see is the full community of head bangers and metal heads that make up the genre itself. They also don't see the arpeggios, scale techniques, and music modes that are out into making heavy metal the music that people love.
    Heavy metal has its own community, and in this community, there are sub-genres such as black metal, power metal, and thrash metal. Bands in the black metal sub-genre have a more melodic and heavy sound to them. Whereas thrash metal has a fast, higher toned sound.
    Metal is popular, but most people like to listen to pop or rap. Metal is a thriving community. It is as popular as pop or rap, just because of the community it has made for itself. Here is a link for AC/DC's Back in Black.
AC/DC - Back In Black

RAP

Rap was originated in old African culture during slavery, but the rap we know now started in about the 1970's when block parties became increasingly common in New York especially among African American youth residing predominately in the Bronx. Dj's played the music for the block parties making remixes of popular song genres such as funk and soul music. One of the pioneers of the Dj scene was Dj Kool Herc who made the Jamaican dub music scene well known.

The rap scene started getting well known because of the spoken word poetry sessions among the African Americans in New York. Rap had a significant role in fueling the civil rights movement in the 1960's-70's. After the civil rights movement the rap game became more and more secular, saying more time about sex and killing and less about the true things that are going on with the African American struggle to survive.

Rap music was influenced by disco, but got a lot of disrespect from many music artists. A man named Kurtis Blow said that rap music was just watered down Europeanised disco music that flooded the airways. That all changed when we go to the 1980's with Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaata symbolized the good side of electronic rap. The new school rappers such as Snoop Dogg, Dr.Dre, LL Cool J, Biggie Smalls, and 2Pac are just some the major rappers that brought the dangerous side of life to the rap game. Killing and attempted murder was all you heard because of disrespectful talk in rappers song saying things about other rappers "hoods". The new rap isn't as hardcore as the old new school but many things still happen such as the east coast west coast rivalry. There are some good underground rappers such as Childish Gambino, Grieves, Atmosphere, Wax, and Mac Lethal. The song below is one of my favorite songs by Grieves I hope you enjoy it.

Light speed-Grieves
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5So-_z-jkHE

COUNTRY

Country music is a genre of American popular music that began in the rural regions of the Southern United States in the 1920s.It takes its roots from southeastern American folk music and Western music. Blues modes have been used extensively throughout its recorded history.Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjos, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles, and harmonicas.
The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music; it came to encompass Western music, which evolved parallel to hillbilly music from similar roots, in the mid-20th century. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second most popular in the morning commute in the United States.

http://m.youtube.com/?edufilter=2LKYrPdvO0dZczTn0qAl5A
Jason aldean - she's country

R&B is the shortened term of Rhythm and Blues. It is described as the blues-influenced form of music predominantly performed by African-Americans since the late 1930s. R&B lyrics sometimes focus on segregation and racial issues, like other musical genres associated with African American musicians, but arrangement and musical style became increasingly important. In general, this style of music includes steady rhythms and numerous instruments to create multiple layers of sound. The music is often meant to inspire dancing or to at least provide a sound that is catchy and interesting. Lyrics in these songs can cover a wide range of subjects, such as love, relationships, and dancing.

Brand New Me- Alicia Keys
http://m.youtube.com/?edufilter=2LKYrPdvO0dZczTn0qAl5A

The music group

 We wonder which of the music types we wrote about you recognize and we'd like to know what kind of music is most popular with you.

A Day in the Life of...

1) Wake up time: 6: 30

2) Brush teeth, go to the bathroom, put school uniform on

3) Drive to school (bus, car or trolley)

4) Sit in the cafeteria until 7:38 am

5) Go to locker, then home room

6) Start classes at 8:10 am

7) continue through classes until 2:30 pm (some get out around 1:45pm)

8) go to after school activities, such as a sport, club, or job until about 6

9) go home, eat dinner around 6/6:30pm

10) do homework, watch some tv

11) study for tests

12) shower around 10:00 pm

13) brush teethe, bathroom around 10:30pm

14) put on pajamas and head to bed around 11pm

Favorite time of the day: nighttime (after dinner)

Least favorite time: in the morning, waking up and going to school

Where you eat: cafeteria (lunch) and house (dinner)

How you travel: bus, car, trolley, or by foot

What you wear: school uniform, sports uniform 

Start and finish times at school: 7:50am (start) and either 1:45pm or 2:30pm (finish)

The day in the life of group