By Cortney St. John
Round Table reporter

Middletown High School is sponsoring a Hope for Haiti dance benefit concert with a collaboration of the Dee Buchanan Dance Studio on April 21, 7pm at MHS.

Admission into the dance concert is free, but all are encouraged to donate. 100 percent of the donations go to “Village of Hope” in Haiti.

There will be performances from the Dee Buchanan Dance Company, MHS Dance Team, and NDA Dance Honor’s Society.

The dancers hope to have a great turn-out and raise a lot of money for Haiti.

Middletown High School prepares to perform “Grease” as the 2010 Spring Musical. Students in the drama department are working hard to put on the best performance Middletown High School has ever seen.

MHS seniors Kelsey Swann and Justin Beard play the lead roles, Sandy and Danny.

“This is the only show I have done where I feel like I’m ready. I’m so excited for this show, it’s my senior year and it’s going to be great,” said Beard.

“Grease” has been the talk of the school.  While the cast and crew make their final adjustments, the community anxiously waits to see the musical.

“The show is going to be great; we’ve worked so hard on everything and I know that it will come out great” said Swann.

Get ready to see the Pink Ladies, who consist of freshman Amy Hoffman playing Jan, senior Sarah Biggs as Rizzo, senior Jordan Dumars as Frenchie, and senior Emily Hughes as Marty.

Who could forget the Burger palace boys? Senior Matt Thomas plays Doody, senior Eric Looney plays Sonny, senior Nick Etheridge plays Roger, and senior Kelly Delameter plays the infamous Kenickie.

Not only does the cast have to work their best to make this performance worth the wait, but the crew is working hard as well. The pit crew and the tech crew are the ones that make the show come together as a whole.

MHS junior Ash Maia said, “I’m very excited about the show. Everyone is putting a lot of effort and it will definitely pay off.” Maia, who is part of the tech crew, has been working hard for weeks to make this production come together smoothly.

Students part of the tech crew, or “techies,” are very important to the drama department. Without the tech crew, there wouldn’t be props or lighting, and the scenes would not be as realistic. For the past month the tech crew has been contributing several hours a night to get the set built and make sure everything is prepared for opening night.

“Being a part of the tech crew is a lot of fun. We work hard on the set, painting and building and in the end our work shows.  It’s great knowing that we helped to contribute to the show even if we are not on stage performing,” said junior Samantha Rowland.

Grease is nothing without the lively music. The pit crew helps to make this happen by working their best to practice and perform their music to the best of their ability.

“Practices are fun because the music’s interesting and to have someone like Mr. Shearer leading us is great. My favorite part about being in the pit is playing music from the 1950’s” said junior Bryan Goodyear.

Some of the songs that they will be playing are; The Finale, Those Magic Changes, There are worse things I could do, The Rydell Alma Mater-Parody, Summer Nights, All Choked Up, and Shakin’ at the High School Hop. Some of the musical instruments that the pit plays are the keyboard, guitar, bass guitar, and the drums.

The cast has been practicing diligently and is excited to see the show come together. They love the choreography, the songs, and the help they are getting from the pit and tech crew to make this show great.

The goal for each cast and crew members is to make this production great – for themselves and the audience who comes to see the musical.

Come and see the show April 16 and 17 at 7p.m. and April 19 at 2 p.m.

Maia said, “I think the show will be a great success and will be remembered for a long time.”

Middletown High School Principal, Jay Berno, ended the morning announcements sharing his disappointment and disbelief about the recent altercations among Middletown High School girls, on March 24.   

“When I returned to school and heard about the incident I was shocked and, quite frankly, disgusted,” said Berno on the morning announcements.

Recently, there have been several altercations among the female students of MHS. Faculty and administration have been straining themselves with the question; why?

MHS has always been known as a school with few to no fights, so the recent outbreak has everybody asking questions.

Relational aggression (RA) is emotional violence in which girls use relationships to harm others. RA girls trap and prey on their victims by devising and directing complex social/emotional games.

Some forms of enacting this defense are; isolation, rumors, gossip, eye-rolling, pitting friends against one another, sarcasm, and revealing or altering personal secrets.

“Overall, as women become more empowered with their lives, they feel the need to settle things in a more masculine way,” said Middletown High School department chair for guidance Sue Blair. “Forty years ago girls didn’t fight. Now they say and do what they want. It has escalated.”

There are two forms violence; fighting and battery. Fighting is a mutual aggression in which both parties have contributed to the situation by verbal and/or physical action. Battery is any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon another person.

Students involved in a fight will receive, at the minimum, three days suspension, and a maximum of 10 days or expulsion. This information can be found in the Middletown High School calendar handbook on page 44.

While addressing the MHS community, Berno added “I pledge to everyone that hears this message, that student safety is my primary responsibility and we will not tolerate aggressive behavior.”

Berno said that he and the administration staff, “want students to try and handle things on their own,” but will not hesitate to interfere if things get out of hand. He also said that he believes the time away from school gave the girls “time to think about what they’ve done” and discover a better way to handle the problem.

“When I came to Middletown, fighting was not an issue. I didn’t have to sit down with students and have a conflict resolution conference like I did at my other schools,” said Berno. For the remainder of the year, however, if students are involved in battery or fighting they will not return to classes without having a conflict resolution conference.

Staff and administration at MHS want students to approach them if there is ever an issue.

“I know that if I needed to I could approach a teacher of mine with a problem I was having,” said MHS senior Kate Binzer.

The bizarre phenomenon that has plagued the halls of MHS “is not common” said MHS psychology teacher Jeff Colsh. “Males are more likely to act out aggressively.”

Is facebook to blame? Boys and girls feel a sense of security and confidence when they are battering someone through a computer screen. If the argument is public, outside sources can contribute.

 This is called Individuation; the process through which a person becomes his/her ‘true self’. But, the faith that one gathers from a screen name can quickly vanish when their opponent is face-to-face.

“Students have so much potential,” said Berno. “MHS has so much to offer but students aren’t taking the opportunities. We don’t want anymore violence. We all have to work together to maintain the excellence of Middletown High School.”