Principal's Weekly Update

There was breaking news last Saturday morning which I held for this week so that it could get fuller attention. Our MathCounts team competed at Fairfield University against approximately two dozen other schools and came away with its highest finish to date– 8th. The top 6 teams qualified for a state competition, so our team was very close. More importantly, for the first time ever, 3 of our students qualified in the individual round– Noah McKee, Yuvan Jain and Daniele Sakalauskaite will move on to the individual state level competition. Other team members who contributed to this highest ever finish are Julia Joseph, Sambit Sharma and Jake Jacob. Congratulations to coach Dylan DeNuzzo for the outstanding performance of this year’s team !! They more than earned the right to be featured in the “Final Photo” below.

Another highlight of this past week (or low light, depending on your perspective) was our first snow day of this school year. I went with the snowy backdrop for this week's letter, as the forecast calls for a series of storms every couple of days, to include of course, a hefty snowfall tonight into Sunday-- at least that shouldn't affect school. We are hopeful that we will be able to get in our "Panther Play Day" on Thursday, as a lead in to the four day weekend which will follow (that's your reminder that there is no school on Friday the 14th or on Monday the 17th).

In the insert photo this week you can see our Library Media Specialist Corey Dwyer assisting some 6th grade students with the research process. She partners with teachers throughout the year to help students at all grade levels learn best research practices, to include selection of reliable sources, and proper citation. Our students benefit tremendsously from her expert advice.

As a reminder, the i-Ready Math and Reading Winter assessments are now available in Infinite Campus Backpack. We were very pleased with the overall growth of our student on these tests, as the data indicates improvement in comparison to recent years. We hope to help the students to keep this momentum going right through the end of the year.

Clubs & Activities:

The D&D Club will meet on Monday, February 10th in Room 206 for DMs ONLY. Players should use the next few weeks to research on their own about gameplay including combat and spells.

Even though our mid-month four day weekend includes Valentine's Day this year, our students have been busy trying to show as much love as they can for their immediate and extended communities. If you take a peek at our website, you can see a picture of a current bulletin board which is filled with hearts-- upon each heart are written expressions of thanks which our students shared about every one of our educators. You can also see a picture of a collection of handmade valentines which our students made for delivery to active service members, veterans, and local senior citizens. We are so pleased that so many of our students took the time to express gratitude to those who are so deserving of some recognition. I hope that all of these "warm" thoughts help you to get through this very wintry week ahead.

Take care,

Peter Sullivan