A sticky scoop: Mike’s Hot Honey is made by an ARHS grad!
Mike Kurtz is not just the face and founder of the nationally renowned honey brand Mike’s Hot Honey, but he is also an ARHS grad (class of 2000!) who was born and raised in...
Music Production Club back on track
ARHS’s Music Production Club isn’t exactly new; the club actually existed for a few years until the 2023-2024 school year. The majority of the club members at the time were seniors, including former president...
GRWM (get ready with me): teacher edition!
Tik-Tok and Instagram are filled with get-ready-with-me videos (GRWM) where influencers, celebrities, fitness gurus, and college students share tips about how they get ready for their days. But we were interested in the get-ready-with-me...
Dar’Keith Lofton is so much more than just an IT guy!
Most ARHS students know Dar’Keith Lofton, who works in IT at ARHS, from the occasional emails he sends about Chromebook repairs or his visits to their classes to help teachers with technology. Very few,...
New Writing About Music class set to hit earbuds this spring
Starting this spring, ARHS will offer a new quarter-long English class: Expository Writing: Writing About Music, taught by English teacher Matthew Despres, who has worked at ARHS since 2017. This senior writing course will...
Striking gold: teens talk love of thrifting
Thrifting is an expanding art form—an economically and environmentally friendly way to shop that is also fun. Social media played a large role in the popularization of thrifting among people of all generations, especially...
Why the younger generation can’t get enough of horror and crime genres
Although I’m not the best at keeping up with horror movies or watching them on my own at home, I love watching them in the theater. I recently saw both “The Black Phone 2”...
Movies with happy endings will always win out over scary ones
However obvious this might sound, my definition of a scary movie is “a movie that scares me.” The only real “horror” movie I’ve actually seen was Fear Street in eighth grade, and I couldn’t...
Extra, extra: Tae Weiss made a film halfway through college
Tae Weiss, a 2023 alumn of ARHS—and also my sister—recently wrote, co-starred, and directed her first short film. This project has been brought to the screen with the help of Northampton High School and...
From Restorative Justice to GoBerry: sitting down with Aaron Buford
Aaron Buford graduated from ARHS (and the A Better Chance program) decades ago. After that, he went to college, had a family, eventually became a high school social studies teacher in Springfield, Mass., and...
Pickleball, the fastest growing sport: but why?
Between 2021 and 2024, pickleball grew 223.5%, making it the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. But what is behind this rapid growth? Pickleball was created in 1965 in Washington state when Joel Pritchard and...
Fleeting moments captured on film offer ‘key to people’s lives,’ says photographer Carol Lollis
Carol Lollis, a Western Mass resident, has been a photographer at The Daily Hampshire Gazette since 1992 and a photo editor since 2008. Dedicating so much of her life to her career, Lollis believes...
Happy Valley nutritionist shares an inclusive, body-positive approach to wellness
Amanda Mittman (MS, RD, and LDN) is the founder of Happy Valley Nutrition, located at 25 Pray Street in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her business is dedicated to weight-inclusive nutrition care. If you visit her website,...
An exclusive interview with MMA legend and coach Kirik Jenness
Local gym owner Kirik Jenness is no stranger to the thrill and excitement of cage fighting. Having co-founded New England Submission Fighting, the first Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) gym in Massachusetts, Jenness is a...
College application process taking the joy out of senior year
Every fall, high school seniors across the country begin the process of applying to college. The big question looms: will their 650-word statement be enough to get them into the college they desire? The...
Vuong’s newest novel, ‘The Emperor of Gladness’, a wonder to behold
“Because to remember is to fill the present with the past, which meant that the cost of remembering anything, anything at all, is life itself. We murder ourselves, he thought, by remembering. The idea...
Reviewing a classic film: ‘The Secret of NIMH’
Field mice and rats might be uninteresting or repellent to you, but the film “The Secret of NIMH” will change your whole view on the small things. It features beautiful imagery, amazing storytelling that...
In search of the perfect french fry
Most people love french fries. But there are so many varieties, shapes, sizes, and seasonings for these tasty potato treats. So I decided to test them all over the Valley and see whose fries...
Gun reform: a blow to freedom
On December 14, 2012, 20 first graders and six staff members’ lives were lost in the Sandy Hook, CT school shooting, permeating fear into schools across America and making it one of the most...
Teachers’ union defends staff right to take days off for religious observances, says superintendent’s policy is not in line with ‘past practice’
ARPS teachers sought help from the teachers’ union this fall when they returned to work to a September 4 memo from the superintendent entitled “Welcome Back,” dictating that they could only take one paid...
Cuts and consolidation of ARHS clerical staff raise alarm
To students, ARHS often seems to run like a well-oiled machine. Attendance is entered by the end of the day, and parents and guardians know if we didn’t make it to school or if...
Dance classes went weeks without a teacher, students led the charge
At the start of the 2025-2026 school year, ARHS dance students expected to be greeted by a new teacher, knowing that dance teacher Remy Fernandez-O’Brien had left ARHS to move to Spain with their...
Students rue new schedule to address ‘time on learning’ shortfall after parent complaint to the state
This year, ARHS students returned to school to a largely unwelcome change to their school day. In the wake of a parent complaint filed with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE),...
Students weigh in on the ‘pay-to-park or get towed’ system at ARHS
Late in September, students who parked in the ARHS lot returned to their cars to find flyers on their windshields. These flyers reminded students that they needed to pay $80 a year for a...
New ‘bell to bell’ phone policy on deck for September 2026 brings mixed feelings
This July, the Massachusetts Senate passed a bill to create phone-free schools from ‘bell to bell’ that will be implemented in high schools in the Commonwealth at the start of the next school year. ...
New track getting closer to completion
When students returned to school this fall, something miraculous was happening–the long-awaited new track and field project was in full swing, with construction crews working long days to bring the plan to fruition by...
Tonya McIntyre is hard at work on a Competency Determination to replace MCAS
In November 2024, Massachusetts residents voted to abolish the MCAS as a graduation requirement and replace the standardized test with district-designed policies requiring students to demonstrate mastery of math, English, and science. At ARHS,...
Poet Terrance Hayes wows English classes at Emily Dickinson Museum
On the sunny morning of Friday, September 19, 2025, a group of Amherst students and teachers walked to the Emily Dickinson Museum to attend a poetry workshop given by poet Terrance Hayes as part...
Journalist from class of 2000 visits not just ARHS, but his teacher from 25 years ago
When Jonathan Rosen was a student at ARHS in 1999, he took a Journalism class with English Department Head Sara Barber-Just, who was finishing up her first year of what would be a decades-long...
Rocketry Club launch successful
ARHS junior Yatharth Rajakumar is the leader of the school’s new Rocketry Team, a club whose goal is to design and build a rocket to launch, seeing where they stack up against other teams...
Theater Department unfurls fall, winter line-up
Every fall, the ARHS Theater Company, advised by Performing Arts Department Head John Bechtold, prepares to present a fall play in the auditorium. Auditions are held a few weeks after the new school year...
Gino Sorcinelli graduated from ARHS, and now he works here!
This year, Gino Sorcinelli, who graduated from ARHS in 2002, just joined the special education department at his alma mater. He began as the new Student Support Program (SSP) Case Manager at the end...
Diane Chamberlain new head of Summit Academy
Diane Chamberlain kicked off the year as the new principal at Summit Academy, a small public day school affiliated with ARPS that serves students in grades 6-12 in a therapeutic setting. Chamberlain has worked...
New ELL teacher Rosa Gomes is here for anyone who needs her
The ELL department at ARHS has a friendly, new face this year–Rosa Gomes. She will be teaching ELL Composition (levels 1 and 2), The classes right now are ELL Composition (Level 2), ELL Literature...
Lexie Mullins, excited to help students achieve career and college dreams
After Diedre Cuffee-Gray left her six-year position as ARHS’s College and Career Counselor, Lexie Mullins stepped into the role with enthusiasm, ready to form connections with the student body, helping guide them through the...
New math teacher Xianxiu Xie a relationship-builder
On a typical morning, new math teacher Xianxiu Xie likes to go for a run or a hike before work. She teaches Topics in Math 1, a foundational math skills class, and Academic Skills....
New math teacher Sam Bill loves teaching, talking about math
New math teacher Sam Bill is passionate about Math and loves teaching. “I love everything about math,” he said. Bill grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts, where he attended North Quincy High School. After high...
Crawford coaches, Carey captains; girls’ VB stacking up some wins
The ARHS girls’ volleyball team is a force to be reckoned with this season. The team is made up of 14 girls: five seniors, six juniors, two sophomores, and one freshman, and their season...
With new coach and new mindset, girls’ soccer moves forward
ARHS girls’ varsity soccer has had a rough start to the season, with a record of 3-7, but players are more motivated than ever to work as a team and see the results of...
Girls’ field hockey is ‘growing and growing’
With a mix of first-time players, experienced seniors, and even some middle schoolers, the Amherst field hockey team is rooted in connection, communication, and mutual support. The team is an extremely tight-knit community that...
McCarthy jumps in to coach boys’ soccer
Recently, the boys’ varsity soccer team underwent a massive change for the 2025-2026 season, when ARHS P.E. teacher Jordan McCarthy stepped in to fill the shoes of prior head coach, Mathew Travis. The team...
Victoria Zakashansky shares her love of golf
Junior Victoria Zakashansky may be one of only two girls on the ARHS golf team, but she said that motivates her to be the best at her game. According to Zakashansky, 17 people play...
Cross-country girls: positive team culture leads to wins and joy
The girls’ cross country team is one of ARHS’s strongest teams, and a positive team culture is a key reason for its success. The girls are currently undefeated, and senior Lilly Pope says they...
