Academic Vocabulary
As you know, last year, the district undertook an academic vocabulary effort across the three buildings.
“Steering towards Success” is a program being implemented at the Willets Road School that supports the academic vocabulary initiative in our middle school.
The goal of the program is to not only introduce children to academic vocabulary, but to also encourage and inspire each student to incorporate the new words into their own daily language. The Willets Road staff collaborates on this project school-wide, eager to make expanding one’s vocabulary “contagious” throughout the building.
Each week there is a vocabulary word of the week. Students are encouraged to use the word in many different contexts; and members of each class have the opportunity to fill out a vocabulary activity sheet each week in competition with other grades. The symbol for the program is a car (steering for success).
If you walk by the gymatorium you will see a poster charting the success of the various grades. Students have been checking the poster each week to see which grade’s car is pulling ahead.
Many thanks to our home and careers teacher Michelle Santoro who coordinates this program for the building and for the support of all the Willets Road Staff and administration.
If you want to view the academic vocabulary words for Middle School go to the district website at www.ewsdonline.org and click on Curriculum on the red horizontal navigation bar.
Help your children to find ways to use the vocabulary words in conversation at home and help Willets Road, in partnership, to drive the car even further towards success!
Willets Road
Spelling Bee Champion
Congratulations to Krittika Prajapati, a fifth grader in Lynn Flynn’s class. Krittika became the Willets Road Spelling Bee champ by correctly spelling somnipathy.
She will represent the Willets Road School and compete in the 2015 Hofstra Long Island Regional Scripps Spelling Bee on Feb. 8.
The winner of this bee will go on to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Congratulations as well to runner-up, Rahul Ajmera, a seventh grader in Antonia Laruccia’s class.
Krittika and Rahul competed against the other Willets Road English class spelling bee winners: fifth graders – Emmie Keys, Lucas Schmuck, Andrew Kim, Ben Gold, Kate Seo, Emme Resnick, Daniel Solomon, Suhani Jain, Elad Yerushalmi, James Blennau and Bryan Schmuck; sixth graders – Michael Vitucci, Emma Leng, Kaylie Rosen, Anya Chabria, Deshna Chordia, Manav Bansa, Audrey LaMonica, Mia Blitz, Adam Aldad, Sarah Hassan and Kaileigh Fiorillo; and seventh graders – Liam Pereira, Ilana Nimkoff, Trenton Wong, Kiran Shaikh, Sahil Jain, April Garnock, Eliana Li, Emily Blumberg and Manveen Kaur.
Congratulations to all who competed!
A special thank you goes to Willets Road teacher Ms. Laruccia for coordinating the bee and to Willets Road instructional technology teacher Audra Beberman who emceed it.
Good luck Krittika!
Science Research Program
Last week I highlighted our two Intel semifinalists, Arjun Kapoor and Kuan Yu.
To find out more about their winning projects, go to: https://www.ewsdonline.org/District/News/12790-Intel-Semifinalists.html. This week I’d like to share some information with you regarding our Science Research Program at Wheatley, and the behind the scenes efforts and steps that go into our students’ completed research projects.
Even before our strategic planning process identified STEM, (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) as a community priority, the district had taken steps to expand its Science Research Program.
Four years ago, science research moved from a before or after school activity to a regularly scheduled class during the school day. We are excited to have the expertise of our science research teacher, Mary Alexis Blondrage who directs the Wheatley Science Research Program and teaches and supports the science research classes.
If students choose, Science Research can be a four-year sequence beginning in ninth grade. The ninth grade class is Introduction to Research. In this class, students explicitly learn the scientific method and do projects both individually and in groups.
This is a preliminary opportunity for students to really delve deep into a topic of their choosing and interest. The Introduction to Research curriculum includes a great deal of reading on all of the different sciences, including current events as it relates to science, such as in the case of Ebola.
Current events put science within the context of the real world for students. For example, students recently learned about technology and science joining forces when they read about how a medical doctor created code for a 3D printer that created heart valves to use in patients.
In grades 10, 11 and 12 students begin in-depth independent research projects.
In grade 10 the projects are done in-house in Wheatley. In the 11th and 12th grades, students often find placements outside of Wheatley to further support their research projects, though some students remain in-house throughout.
When looking for outside placements and mentors from the field, our students look for scientists doing research in areas in which they are interested. Science research teacher Ms. Blondrage explains that students, for example, might join a research team at a medical, science, or university lab such as the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and work as part of that team.
The students focus on one aspect of a larger research project in the field using their contributing work as their science research project, or they may do a stand-alone project at a research lab under the mentorship of a scientist with expertise in that area.
Throughout, Ms. Blondrage supports her students’ work and guides them through their methodology.
While some students may complete a project in 12th grade that they originally began working on in 10th, some students change topics along the way.
As Ms. Blondrage explains, “That is the beauty of science research, that along the way something may be discovered that results in an evolution of the question into something that branches off into a new topic and search for different answers.”
Our Science Research program currently enrolls approximately 50 students in grades 9-12.
Ms. Blondrage explains that there are many more talented science research students at Wheatley and across the state and country, than the very limited number of national science competitions, such as Intel, are able to recognize.
That’s why, each spring, we are fortunate to have all our research students showcase their work, and our senior science research students present their projects in a symposium, here at Wheatley. It is always a very impressive evening, indeed!
To date, the science research program has enjoyed many successes with Siemens and Intel winners, as well as having several students published in professional journals. Look for Wheatley’s Science Research Symposium on April 29.
Many thanks to our science research teacher Mary Alexis Blondrage, our Director of Science and Technology David Casamento and our science department for their key roles in supporting our students’ successes in the science research program.
Update: Engineering
Wow! This week I had the chance to visit a Project Lead the Way engineering class taught by Patrick Hurley, Wheatley technology teacher.
As a result of the district strategic planning initiative, an engineering program was introduced this year at Wheatley to support our district STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) initiative.
The class I visited is the first class in what can be a four-year engineering sequence for those students who elect to take the full sequence. As described in the course catalog, students dig deep into the engineering design process, applying math, science, and engineering standards to hands-on projects in this class.
They work both individually and in teams to design solutions to a variety of problems using 3D modeling software while using an engineering notebook to document their work.
Students were adept at explaining their projects to me which were so competently completed. I was excited to hear that many of them are enthusiastic about moving on to the second class in the sequence next year. A national goal is to increase the number of women in STEM careers, and we are doing our part.
Our program has both boys and girls participating, with many students of both genders enthusiastically looking forward to continuing with the program in their coming high school years.
Many thanks to technology teachers Patrick Hurley and Tom Storck who are teaching the engineering courses this year, and who both committed much time and energy this summer to intensive training by Project Lead the Way and preparation to launch the foundational course of the Engineering Sequence this fall.
Steve Simmons
and the Simmons Awards
As you might have read in the local papers last week, Steve Simmons, Wheatley Class of 1964, has again donated money for an award given to a staff member at each building, each year.
The award, the Simmons Award, named after Mr. Simmons, was started in 1996, when he, in appreciation of the extraordinary education he, his family and his classmates received here, donated $100,000 to the East Williston Education Foundation (the Foundation) to establish an annual awards night. To date, 97 staff members have been honored with certificates and monetary awards, in appreciation for what they contribute to the education of our students.
Each year, the foundation, a tax exempt, not-for-profit organization, invites the community to a Simmons Coffee House, where students perform musical numbers, recipients of the Simmons Award are honored and coffee and desserts are served.
This year, on Thursday, April 16 at 7:00 p.m. in the Wheatley Cafeteria, not only will the award recipients be honored, but the foundation will be honoring Mr. Simmons and his family, for his most recent donation of $55,000.00 that helps ensures that the Simmons Award will be perpetual.
Most recently, the foundation, under their Universal Computer Access Program has purchased several computers and printers for students in the community.
Nominations are being accepted for this year’s Simmons Awards recipients. As noted above, the Simmons Coffee House and Awards Night will be held on Thursday, April 16 but nominations must be submitted by Feb. 20.
To access the nominating packet, please go to the vertical navigation bar on the district website, 2015 Simmons Award, at www.ewsdonline.org.
Thank you to the foundation’s officers, co-presidents Janet Entine and Louise Sobin, Vice President Burt Roslyn, Secretary Janet Eder and Treasurer Diane Soll and board members, Susan Bergstraum, James Bloomgarden, Bonnie Cohen, Amy Friedlander, Cathy Hammerman, Patti Kantro and Joan Levick.
Second Step – Emotional and Social Development
There is research which demonstrates that students who have high levels of social and emotional competence have greater academic competence over time.
In the East Williston School District, administrators and staff are committed to the development of the whole child, social and emotional development as well as cognitive growth. See 2014-15 District Goal #6 Continue to foster the development of the whole child, 6C Add Second Step Program to Grade 1 and 6D Begin process of elevating Second Step at North Side to being viewed as school-wide character education curriculum at www.ewsdonline.org > District tab on the red horizontal bar >14-15 District Goals.
North Side has adopted Second Step as a character education curriculum. This building-wide initiative is designed to help students reach their highest potential. During the school year, grades 1 – 4 take part in the 22-lesson curriculum focused on four units.
These units include: Skills for Learning, Empathy, Emotion Management and Problem Solving.
In addition to students being taught this curriculum by their classroom teachers, building specialists are pushing into classrooms to co-teach these lessons. In addition, each month a different special area teacher has dedicated a period of time, to teach a Second Step lesson to each class in grades 1 – 4. Students are receiving reinforcement of these lessons with the same language and same message, from all of their teachers!
North Side social worker Ashley Gleeson has created Second Step Parent Newsletters to help foster the partnership between home and school.
This partnership helps students hear the same language in both school and at home. The best part of this whole initiative is the fun students have while learning how to become responsible members of our society.
North Side Teachers Shine at Math Counts Conference
This month, some of our North Side teachers attended and presented at the How to make Math Count Conference K-8 at Molloy College, sponsored by the Nassau County Mathematics Teachers Association and the Nassau County Association of Math Supervisors.
First grade teacher Donna Casano presented a workshop titled Incorporate Games and Activities to Reinforce Math Concepts in the Primary Classroom. Enrichment teacher Henry Kupstas presented a workshop titled Reach for the Stars! Challenge your Students and Exercise their Minds! Second grade teacher Mike Mazur’s workshop was titled Forks and Math!?!?! Every Day Items Make Math an Adventure Every Day.
Math specialist Lisa Minerva, who happens to be the current president of NCMTA, presented a workshop titled A Place for Zero. Along with presenting, our teachers were able to attend other workshops as well. Some other North Side and Willets Road teachers were also able to attend workshops too. Congratulations to Ms. Minerva, for putting on a great conference and for all our teacher-presenters who received the highest evaluation ratings from the Conference attendees.
Willets Road
Teachers Published
Willets Road science teachers Kristen Kandel’s and Natalie Brew’s article, “Our Science Story: When Science Inquiry Meets the Common Core,” was accepted and will be published in the February issue of Science Scope, the National Science Teachers Association’s peer-reviewed journal for middle level and junior high school science teachers. Congratulations Ms. Kandel and Ms. Brew.
Wheatley Teacher Has New York City Production
Wheatley’s very own English teacher Rick Leidenfrost-Wilson was back once again during the holidays as author/performer of yet another Pirate Holiday Spectacular presented by Off Sides Entertainment at the Snapple Theatre Center in Manhattan.
Similar to last year’s pirate spectacle, this one centers on a crew of pirates held captive by a sea witch who won’t let the brigands go unless they perform musical theatre. The production received a wonderful review in the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/26/arts/spare-times-for-children-for-dec-26-jan-1.html?_r=0). The original pirate production, The Greatest Pirate Story (N)ever Told, which also received an excellent review in the New York Times, is coming back again for 3 performances only, President’s Weekend in February at the Snapple Theatre Center.
Congratulations and Commendations
Willets Road
Math Olympiads
This past fall, Willets Road 6th and 7th grade Math Olympiads competed in the American Mathematics Contest. Congratulations to the following seventh graders who were recognized for their outstanding achievement:
Gold Medal: Trenton Wong
Silver Medal: Rachel Lee
Bronze Medal: Alex Horowitz, Emily Yagoda and Sharon Zhong
Have a Good Weekend
As always, please email me at kanase@ewsdonline.org or call me at 333-3758 with any questions, suggestions and/or any topics you would like to see in this newsletter.
