Hello and welcome to Ursus 2023!

We are thrilled to present you with a new magazine layout of Ursus! This style mirrors Inklings, Staples High School’s student paper, and serves as a solid stepping stone for students when they make the transition to high school. Within these pages, you’ll find all the same kinds of articles that have graced the pages of Ursus in the past, and all of them have been researched and written by a top-notch group of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.

It has been a few years since I transitioned from teaching English at BMS to teaching at Staples and coming back to the middle school has truly been a joy. It is endlessly rewarding to experience how hard middle schoolers work, how dedicated they are to their interests, and how enthusiastic they can be when they explore topics and issues that they care about. Every article in the paper was chosen by them: they did the interviews, tracked down the leads, and laid the magazine out. I couldn’t be prouder.

Of course, none of this could have been accomplished without the guidance of Stephen Rexford who has stayed on during this transition to help with meetings and layouts. We are all endlessly grateful for his wealth of knowledge and expertise.

We sincerely hope that you enjoy this issue. If you have an idea for an article, or if you think we made an error, please reach out to us by email at [email protected]. And if you would like to join the staff, we have a spring issue in the works! Swing by the LMC on Wednesday after school and meet the staff of 23 dedicated scholastic journalists.

Thanks for reading Ursus.