Principal's Weekly Update

We gave our students a proper send-off to vacation with a "Blizzard Bash" on Friday. What's a "Blizzard Bash" you ask ? It's part Pep Rally, part concert, with many ugly sweaters and other festive attire, to include a Principal in a reindeer costume (perhaps you've seen that on our website). The THS Cheerleaders kicked off the event with a spirited routine. Our Madison Singers, Band and Strings players all took turns playing holiday tunes, while in between, students enjoyed wacky events such as "candy cane snowball baseball", which you can see in one of the Big Photos below. If you closely at that photo, you see Mr. Pjura delivering a pitch, a student in mid swing, Mr. Coppola crouched as the catcher, and Mr. Neufeld at third base in an inflatable Santa suit.

The other enlarged photo shows Mrs. Pfohl's classroom door-- every year Madison has a decorating contest in conjunction with our campaign to raise money for Toys for Tots. I found her creation to be especially inventive. That room finished 2nd in the vote conducted by our full faculty. Congratulations to 1st place winners in Miss Moriello's homeroom and to the third place winners in Mrs. Malgioglio's homeroom. There was also a donut breakfast on Friday for the homerooms at each grade level who had the best participation in the fundraiser. In that case, congratulations go to students in the following homerooms: Mr. DeNuzzo (6th grade), Miss Gatto (7th grade) and Mrs. Cerulli (8th grade).

In this week's insert photo, you can see the debut of the Dungeons & Dragons club, our newest addition to after-school activities. There was a huge turnout. In the picture Mr. Wilson is explaining the relevance to the game of the traits of wisdom and charisma-- two attributes which he brings to his teaching on a daily basis.

A family celebration on Saturday delayed my completion of this week's letter. December is the busiest and most joyous month on my calendar. During December I celebrate my wedding anniversary, my birthday, my daughter's birthday, and then finally Christmas. I know that so many of you will now switch into celebration mode. In addition to Christmas, I see that Hanukkah this year begins at sundown on the 25th and lasts until January 2nd, and I note that Kwanzaa is celebrated from the 26th until January 1st. I wish eveyone who observes any of these holidyays all of the best, and hope that all of you who read this enjoy time with family during this vacation from school.

Take care,

Peter Sullivan