The Metro Academy Weather Balloon Brigade: Melanie Jimenez, Julia Alvarez, Cynthia Sanchez, Richard Cabrera, chemistry teacher Tyler Peterhansel, Kameron Dorsey, Jhenzen Gonzales, and Deja Telaford. The idea came from watching a YouTube video: The juniors at Metropolitan Business Academy thought they could learn much more about gas laws by building and launching a weather balloon. Now that’s what they’re planning to do just as soon as they raise $500. The students, who take c

Seven years ago, then-9-year-old Flor Jimenez and her brother watched their father Luis get treated with what they thought was unnecessary roughness by a New Haven police officer. She says her father’s subsequent complaint has never been resolved. Justice came more swiftly Tuesday when Flor, now 16 and a tenth-grader at Metropolitan Business Academy, presided over a different case as a judge. She was, of course, a mock judge in a mock yet moving criminal trial that unfolded i

Metropolitan Business Academy sophomore Nico Rivera, who knows what it’s like to be bullied, will take over as the student representative on the Board of Education with a vow to help make schools safe. Two other students pulled petition sheets, but Rivera was the only one who submitted enough signatures to run. He collected at least 100, half of which had to come from five other high schools besides his own, according to rules set during the last charter revision. On Friday a