Joanna Barrow, Features Editor
Joanna Barrow, Class of 2022, is a fourth year reporter and the features editor for WSPN. She’s a co-captain of the high school’s Mock Trial team and Model United Nations and runs the book club. She loves spending time outdoors with her dog, reading as much as possible, and baking old recipes.
Contact: [email protected]
![Last Wednesday, the Wayland School Committee gathered to discuss a number of topics regarding the health curriculum and Innovation Career Pathway course. Another large topic of conversation was the ways to potentially mitigate distracting cell phone usage. "These [phones] are going to distract your learning and social relationships," Superintendent David Fleishman said. "That's concrete right there."](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-04-at-9.49.31 PM-1200x886.png)
![Troy Hoyt finishes the Boston Marathon, running for the Hoyt Foundation. T. Hoyt is the son of Hoyt Foundation CEO Russ Hoyt.
“[Running a marathon] might seem like a big thing, when it’s presented to you at first, but if you break it up and just keep telling yourself, “Yes, you can,” you can start chipping away at it. And before you know it, you’ll be running the whole 26 miles, and you won’t even think twice about it.” T. Hoyt said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/C36E8761-1CBB-452E-9DF2-543EF7B1095E_1_105_c.jpeg)
![Pictured above is junior Sashwat Das's troop during the Scout summer camp at Camp Yawgoog, RI, in 2018. “I think [the scouts] definitely shaped me into the person I am today,” Das said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Screen-Shot-2020-03-26-at-2.36.45-PM.png)
![Participants of the video gaming event held during second block last Friday battle each other in a game called Super Mario Smash Brothers. “I hope [students] have fun playing Smash,” event organizer Erik Swanke said. “Maybe we’ll get more people for the club.”](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Screen-Shot-2020-02-02-at-7.58.53-PM.png)
![UNICEF advocates Feyi Adebayo and Pallavi Nair, Human Rights Watch fellow Nesha Abiraj and Tammy Monteiro (left to right) witnessed the Massachusetts Senate vote that banned child marriage on July 25. “[My husband] told me that I was God’s chosen people, that I was chosen,” Tammy Monteiro, a protester who was a victim of child marriage, said in an interview with Mass Live. “He said that God somehow sent me to him to be his bride.”](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Screen-Shot-2019-09-27-at-10.09.39-AM.png)
![Two gold-rated efficient homes have opened up in Wayland. “Many homeowners have realized that if they invest in the energy-efficiency of the home, it makes their home more comfortable, it makes their utility bills lower, it does a good thing for the planet, and the fourth one is that it should make [their homes] more valuable,” previous gold-homeowner and current Pearl employee Kaat Vander Straeten said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/13RiceSpringLane-L.jpg)
![A new art gallery sponsored by Arts Wayland, pictured above, opens in the Wayland town center. "[Arts Wayland] encourages kids to engage with art, and the fun part about the creative arts is that by putting something out into the world, you've actually created change in the world," said Peter Curran, Wayland Middle School art teacher and a director of Arts Wayland.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/DSC_0109-L.jpg)
![A "Sage" speaks with "Seeker" Jake Sachs. Connect's "Sages and Seekers" program aims to bring together students and local seniors through stories and interaction. “[The students] are starting to think of themselves as part of something bigger,” Connect tri-leader Ed DeHoratius said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/IMG_0096-L.jpg)