jr. sr. high school january 2012 focus newsletter

8/3/2019 Jr. Sr. High School January 2012 Focus Newsletter

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Octorara Area JR./SR. High SchoolPrincipal’s Monthly Spotlight

January 2012

Jan D’Angelo and two of her students attended the Future Cities Engineering Competition in Philadelphia. Anna Gill and Dan Garfinkle have been working extremely hard designing this project and were chosen to represent Octorara at the competition. They were very excited about attending the competition and showing off their ideas! As a result of their efforts‐‐‐‐‐ Jan

D’Angelo was notified that her Future Cities team won the American Society for Quality,

Southern Jersey Section: Total Quality Management Award. They will receive a plaque anda check. Congratulations & Great Job!

JANUARY

2 Vanessa Peterson

4 Brian Dikun

4 Sharon Richey

7 Claudia Benekam

12 Jean Mandell

14 Barb Stewart

17 Jim Minshall25 Bill Johnson

30 Beth Miller



Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet is a seasonal holidayfavorite. Performing in the Chester County Ballet’s Nutcracker at Henderson High School December 17th and 18th were Jr. High Student Melina Yelovich and Sr. High Student Elizabeth Lapp. They both study Classical Ballet, Tap, and Jazz at the Parkesburg Studio and travel to West Chester for special productions. They have been dancing with the Chester County Ballet Company for a total of 21 years. Six additional students from the Parkesburg Studio also danced in this classical production.



The Model United Nations club traveled to Yale University to compete againstsome of the world’s top private schools in simulated international diplomacy.

Each committee hosted over 150 students who represented various countries

assigned to them. In order to compete, our students had to perform weeks of research on their assigned country and submit a policy paper on their country’s

proposed resolution (these resolutions must be what their country would argue,

not what the students personally feel is correct).

Representing the Netherlands, junior Meghan Miller and sophomore JohnSheridan won the Outstanding Delegate award in the Disarmament and

International Security Committee. Their topics were 1) the militarization of space

and 2) the sale of “light” weapons in the Middle East. Octorara has never won thisdistinction at Yale. In addition, this was only John Sheridan’s second conference!

Our students had to debate other “countries” for nearly 17 hours (in formal

business attire!) over a four day period. During their break time, they ate lunchwith Yale professors in a 100 year old “Hogwartz” style cafeteria, listened to

Yale’s cello octet play Coldplay songs, and watched Indian Baliwood style

dancing.

Please see pictures below.



BAND NEWS

Octorara is hosting the 2012 PMEA Region VI Band Festival from February 16th to the18th. The concert will take place at 2:00 PM on Saturday, February 18th. It will feature126 of the very best high school musicians from Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomeryand Philadelphia counties and the concert will certainly prove to be one of the best thathas ever been presented at Octorara. Tickets for the concert are $5 and will be availableat the door.



The presenter from PFEW (Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week) will be here onFebruary 10th and will be giving presentations about the program during every

period in the auditorium. Every teacher is welcome to bring their classes or toallow individual students to attend.

Meghan Miller (junior) has earned a spot in the prestigious Acel Moore Journalism

Workshop for this spring. The workshop is run by The Philadelphia Inquirer and acceptsonly the best juniors and seniors working in the Journalism field. Meghan will study withthe writers, editors, and publishers every Saturday morning for six consecutive weeks atThe Philadelphia Inquirer and then have the opportunity to publish an article in the paper

in the late spring. In 1984, Acel Moore created the Journalism Career DevelopmentWorkshop that has trained dozens of Philadelphia high school students. The program isnow named in Moore's honor.

Kristin Pritchard has been accepted to both Lebanon Valley College and WidenerUniversity, and has received rather impressive scholarships to both. At Lebanon Valley,they have offered her the Vickroy Scholarship valued at one-half the tuition. She is alsobeing considered for the Graham Scholarship in Biology valued at $5000. At Widener shehas been offered the PSE/Bonner Leader Program valued at $5000 a year, thePresidential Scholarship valued at $21,000 per year, and a spot in their Honors Programvalued at $2000 per year. She is currently comparing their programs and extracurricularopportunities.

Dan Soloman- Has been accepted to Princeton.

Ben Mackenzie- Has been accepted to Columbia University.

Jaclyn Johnston was scouted by the Kutztown University head field hockey coach,

and will be playing collegiate field hockey for the Kutztown Golden Bears this comingFall. Jay has been offered scholarship money for her sophomore year.

"In the library there is software to make "READ" posters (similar to those done bycelebrities). We would like one teacher from every department to "pose" for a poster tobe hung throughout the building"

Jose Avila and Geneva Blaha recently represented our Octorara Area Senior HighSchool at the District Chorus Festival. At their re-auditions, they have now beenadvanced to participate at the Region Chorus Festival, March 8-10, at the Upper

Perkiomen High School. Geneva ranked third overall in her voice part category

of Alto 2. Jose ranked first overall in his voice part category of Tenor 2.



Sustainable Palm Oil and Orangutans

A group of 7th grade students in Mrs. Wallace’s class are working on a campaign to raise

awareness about the use of sustainable palm oil. The production and harvesting of palm

oil in Sumatra and Borneo India is causing a severe decline in the population of wildorangutans. The students have been researching the benefits of sustainable palm oil

productions and companies that use sustainable palm oil. On a recent trip to the

Philadelphia Zoo, students had the opportunity to meet with an educational specialist anddiscuss the connection between orangutans and palm oil and what can be done to protect

the orangutans. Students are currently designing a display case in front of the Junior High

library, designing posters to hang around the school and community, and writing an

awareness article for the Junior High newspaper and hopefully a local newspaper.As a culmination to their campaign, students will be creating a public announcement

video to spread the awareness message. This video will be entered into a contest at the

Philadelphia Zoo.

jr. sr. high school january 2012 focus newsletter

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