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Brandywine Wallace
Fifth grade BW students participated in the third annual Orchestra Showcase organized by the district instrumental string teachers. Approximately one hundred thirty students from all ten elementary schools performed together on the stage at East. Students also had a chance to hear about the music program at the secondary level and to experience performances by students from the middle school and high school. Thanks to Mrs. Baer for her role in organizing this event and assisting the fifth graders.
Students in grades 3, 4, and 5 participated in the PSSA ELA Writing Field Test this week. These test results will inform the state's creation of a new PSSA ELA assessment. Our students worked very hard and showed tremendous effort!!
Thanks to the generosity of our BW families, last week our fifth graders collected nearly 900 cans for the Fifth Grade Souper Bowl to benefit the Lord's Pantry! In addition, the BW community wore red for Heart Wellness last Friday!
LIONVILLE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SAFETY UPDATE
On Thursday this week, Chief Ponterelli, Officer Fortmann and Lionville Fire Chief Holmes spent the morning at LE to walk through the building to discuss safety precautions, review the layout, discuss drill procedures and emergency responses. We really appreciate their advice on: enhancing car pool student pick-up safety, and evacuating for fire, lock-down and weather emergency drills. We were able to identify the safest places in the building to shelter for high wind weather (hurricanes and tornadoes), identify additional security measures for visitor check-in, enhance parking lot safety measures, and add a more secure morning drop off situation. I will be sharing all of the recommendations with the LE Safety Committee next Tuesday at our meeting; then the recommendations will be prioritized and discussed with all staff.
LE STAFF DONATES TO CHARITIES
LE staff raised $400 for the American Heart Association in February through donations and the sale of red "Rock the Beat" t-shirts.
In collaboration with the Home and School, Kelly Colquitt organized an adult Zumba evening in January. The 40 attendees were teachers, parents and community members. Instructors donated their time for the event. $350 was raised and presented to the Home and School to be used for a worthy cause.
100TH DAY OF SCHOOL
Kindergartners developed the concept of 100 on the 100th day of school by counting by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s. Each kindergartner shared his/her collection of 100 objects and they are on display in our hallways. Here is a sampling of them! LE STUDENTS AND STAFF SHOW OFF THEIR BLUE AND GOLD TO SUPPORT THE DHES COUGAR WRESTLERS AT STATES!
We are excited to support the team and wish them good luck at states! We wish to send a special good luck to former LE students: LES Alumni Senior Chris Brady, Junior Jared Leonetti, Junior and Captain Adam Pleines and Sophomore James Meyer.
NEW MATH MATERIALS
The new Singapore Math materials have finally arrived and are awaiting the unpacking process which will occur on Monday. This is a picture of half of the order! Pickering Valley Pickering Valley held a Secure the Building drill on Wednesday. It went extremely well. This was the first drill where the new door magnets were utilized. This has proven to be a quick way to have the doors secured. The next Secure the Building drill we will practice will be without warning.
Over 90 Pickering Valley students and their families participated in the International Night Olympics on Friday night, February 1st. They marched in an opening ceremony, and then played games from countries all around the world. The students participated in closing ceremonies and the families enjoyed treats from all the countries represented. It was a really fun evening for both children and their parents. Shamona Creek Congratulations to the many students who participated in the SC Science Fair. There were 28 displays of the scientific method. The following fourth and fifth graders will move onto the county competition on March 5th: Sophia Alfinito, Matthew Walters, Sana Tipnis, Varun Balachandar, Caitlin Shaffer, Brooke Asbury, Eric McCurdy, Advike Ravishankar and Declan Rymer
On Thursday and Friday, Cliff Sunflower presented Dancing with the Honey Bees. Students were mesmerized by his assembly. Each class had a 45 minute follow-up work shop which allowed them to see actual honeycombs, taste honey, wear bee keeper equipment...etc. Thanks to our Home and School Association for providing this wonderful opportunity.
Dr. Mussoline visited SC on Thursday, January 31st. We had a great walk-through where he saw technology being used in a variety of ways at all grade levels. Our newest addition of 48 iPads has been a hit with students and staff alike. The visit ended in PE class where students were practicing complicated jump rope moves. Before I knew it, Dr. Mussoline had off his suit jacket and proceeded to amaze the children with his own jump rope skills. Very cool!
Springton Manor
Pennsylvania Writing Test Field Test: This week, students in grades three, four and five all participated in a Field Test of new questions that will help the State of Pennsylvania design a new English and Language Arts Assessment Test that will start to be administered in the 2014 - 2015 school year. In addition to helping the state, the test also provides our students with some great practice in preparation for the upcoming 2013 PSSA Testing. Our Springton manor Mustangs worked very hard to do their best on the Field Test. Grade Two Chinese New Year Celebration: On Friday, February 8, 2013, our second grade students filled the hallways of Springton Manor Elementary School with the sounds of a Chinese New Year Parade. The students, all dressed in traditional costume and masks, paraded through the hallways making lots of noise to wake the dragon and welcome a new year of joy peace and prosperity. Happy Chinese New Year to the entire Downingtown Community! Uwchlan Hills
This week Uwchlan Hills celebrated the 100th day of school. Each class had their own spin on the fun, all culminating different activities. In 1st grade, students prepared works of Art that not only reinforced counting to 100, but also showed their creative side as well. Parents then attended the opening of the 100 day art exhibit where students proudly displayed their work. My favorite was the 100 pieces of chocolate glued to spell out UH. Yum Yum.
In other UH news, Students have been working hard on their gymnastics unit. All students in grade K-5 have been learning about balancing, building core strength, and using the different mats and balance beams as they sharpen their P.E. skills.
Downingtown Middle School
Science Fair
Downingtown Middle School had another successful Science Fair with over thirty participants. Taking top honors in 8th grade were Nicholas Hellgoth, Chris Braun, and Sarah Codd. Also moving on to the county fair were Jake Walter and Taylor Patras. Our 7th graders - Drew Spanfellner, Alex Kinkelaar, and Christian Connelly placed first, second and third respectively. Continuing on to the Science Fair at the county level will be Jacob Allwein and Zach Kinkelaar. In 6th grade - first, second and third went to Megan Herrmann, Emory Chiappa, and the team of Ethan Lineburger and Vincent DiEdwardo. Joining their classmates at the Chester County Fair will be Christopher Hellgoth and Eric Hallahan. Best of luck to all of the participants that will be moving on and congratulations to all of our winners. Thank you to our science teachers, Jen Bergman and Wendy King for being the teacher sponsors for this event.
National Counselor Week The week of February 4th is National School Counselor Week. To honor this event, the DMS Guidance Department sold Swedish Fish as a charity fundraiser with the theme "We're All in this School Together". Students and staff had the opportunity to buy these treats at lunch to give to a friend and to another person as a random act of kindness. Our goal was to promote a positive school environment and to contribute to the Terry Muzzy Foundation which runs parent support groups, high school leadership programs, scholarships and other educational initiatives. Each fish came with a sticker that included a positive message that could be given to someone else. Many students and faculty members participated. The day-long event raised over $200 for the Terry Muzzy Foundation.
Lionville Middle
Please join us in congratulating the LMS 8th grade Engineering Team for taking 2nd place at the Philadelphia Future Cities regional competition. This is a tremendous accomplishment considering it was only the second year that our school participated in this prestigious event. Both public and private schools from all over Eastern PA send teams to this event each year. This speaks volumes to not only our tremendous team, led by Guy Raines, but also to our entire academic program here at LMS. In our first two years participating, the LMS team has taken 3rd and now 2nd place in the region.
In Honor of National School Counselor Week the counseling department is selling swedish fish to promote "we are all in this school together." All proceeds will go to support the Terry Muzzy foundation.
On Monday, February 4th the sixth grade Titan Team at LMS held their annual culture day. Students have been working on a Culture Unit in Social Studies. As a culminating activity, students celebrated by sharing food from their respective cultures with the team. Parents also volunteered to help serve the group of almost 140 students. The Titan Team spent the remaining time working on team building activities which celebrated the cultural traditions of their students. At the end of the day, students created a paper chain linking similarities and differences between cultures across the team. The chain now spans the sixth grade hallway.
Futures Found students visited the Technical College High School - Brandywine on February 5th. Students toured the building and had the opportunity to speak with students and staff.
The Physical Education classes at LMS have been implementing life skills in an Adventure Challenge Unit. Goal Setting, Decision Making, Problem Solving, Group Interaction, Active Listening, Cooperation, Communication, Conflict Resolution, Perseverance, Positive Reinforcement, Overcoming Fears and Reflection are some of the skills students applied while solving these group challenges. Some of the activities seen in the photos are: Alaskan Pipeline, Grand Canyon, Toxic Waste and the Rock Wall. There were three gyms with fifteen different challenges. Students were creative and solved these problems in new ways that we had not seen previously!
On Saturday, February 2, at the Chester County Chapter Mathcounts Competition, 8th grader Victoria Pan, Captain of Lionville's Mathcounts Team, won 1st place in a field of about 180 students from all over the county! Also finishing in the top ten was 8th grader Neel Alex who placed 4th in the competition. Victoria and Neel will be going to Harrisburg in March to represent Lionville at the State Mathcounts Competition. The Lionville A team, which also included eighth grader Kaushik Manchikanti and seventh grader Daniel Gao, deserves applause for taking third place overall in the team competition among the 23 schools that participated. Other members of the Mathcounts team who participated in Saturday's competition and contributed to the team's success are 8th graders Jay Pendyala and Saranya Sampath, and seventh graders Jenny Liang, Himani Vommi, Rohan Vora, and Jackie Wu. Congratulations to all ten Mathletes for a job well done! On Friday evening, members of the astronomy club attended a planetarium show on "binary stars, celestial twins," at the West Chester University Planetarium. Dr. Karen Vanladingham, Associate Professor and Planetetarium director, presented the program. Dr. Jaffe, Lionville Middle School librarian serves as advisor to the astronomy club. LMS made it into the Rachel's Challenge National Newsletter for its creative bulletin boards promoting positive school climate.
DHS East
Congratulations National Merit Finalists: Congratulations to the Finalists in the 2013 Competition for National Merit Scholarships:
Heather M. Cai, Jonathan Bendl Goldberg, Heather L. McConnell, Rajat Pillai, Benjamin L. Rowles, Rachel C. Simmons, and Maura Kathleen Sugg. Academic Competition: On February 4th, both of the Downingtown East's Academic Teams competed in the 29th Annual Chester County Academic Competition held at Immaculata University. The 5th ranked Varsity team lost to Conestoga and the 1st ranked Junior Varsity team won and advances to the championship with a number one ranking. The Championship is on March 14, 2013 at the CCIU. Congratulations to Mr. Joe Horvath: Mr. Joe Horvath, DE wrestling coach and SAILS teacher has earned his 200th career win. He achieved this milestone in the District Semi-finals this past weekend (Feb. 2nd). This win qualified DE wrestling to be the first Downingtown team and first Ches-mont team ever to reach the State championship competition in Hershey. In addition, two wrestlers on the team, T.J. Nelson and Alex Wait have achieved the
100 win mark this season.
DHS West
Downingtown West senior, Jennie Wilber has been selected as a member of the OAKE Choir. The Organization of American Kodály Educators (OAKE) announced that 458 talented elementary, middle and high school students from across the United States have been selected to participate in four choirs-Children's Choir, Youth Choir, Concert Women's Choir, and Chamber Ensemble-which will be featured at the organization's 39th annual National Conference held in Hartford, CT, March 20-23.
The students, representing 143 cities and 32 states, will travel to Hartford, CT for a four-day intensive rehearsal schedule and will work under the direction of renowned conductors Dr. Susan Brumfield of Texas Tech University (Children's Choir), Dr. Janet Galván of Ithaca College (Youth Choir), Dr. Martha Shaw of Reinhardt University (Concert Women's Choir), and Dr. Ellen Gilson Voth of Western New England University (Chamber Ensemble). Financial assistance was made available to six scholarship recipients through funding from the OAKE National Scholarship Fund. The singers will perform the culminating concert at The First Cathedral, Bloomfield, CT on Saturday, March 23 at 7PM.
According to the Scholastic Reading Inventory, 65% of the reading students who are enrolled in the READ 180 program at West have increased their Lexile reading level scores. We hope with continued teacher dedication and student motivation to have continuous growth throughout the rest of the year!
West has 2 teams competing in Moody's Mega Math Challenge on Saturday, March 3rd. This is an internet-based applied math competition which awards scholarships and internships to winning teams. It is funded by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). Students are required to solve an open-ended, realistic, math-modeling problem with a team of 5 Juniors or Seniors in 14 hours.
One team is comprised of: Doug Moyer, Jeff Fiorentino, Ken Leidal, Ken Au, and Asa Bull.
The other team is comprised of: Nick Caruso, Eric Lucci, Lindsay Lock, Chelsea Oppenheim, and Nate Liebsch.
These students are all seniors. We wish them luck! Downingtown East/West High School's Aquatic Science Teachers, Mr. Vandergoes and Ms. DiSantis and other teachers in the Philadelphia area have been chosen to test the Stroud Water Research Centers Model My Watershed educational computer interface. This is a watershed-modeling tool set for secondary students funded by the National Science Foundation. The Model My Watershed is designed to build on GoogleEarth and provide a dynamic interface where students can import as well as add data, modify both environmental conditions and underlying algorithms, work in a collaborative online learning environment, and be exposed to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) careers. The design is based on the belief that students should have an authentic, exciting, intuitive and interactive tool set that allows them to investigate their own neighborhoods. The investigations challenge students to make real world decisions based on scientific knowledge and models. The project uses the complexity of environmental science to engage and excite students about the diverse STEM careers that are necessary to study and address environmental issues. Using existing scientific data in an authentic, hydrologic modeling toolset, students learn to predict how environmental changes to the ecosystem affect the hydrologic cycle in their local watersheds. In addition to being able to modify the underlying environmental conditions and model algorithms, the students can modify their watershed by drawing new surfaces or structures on the landscape using tools such as Google SketchUp. A collaborative web-based communication platform is used to network teams of students and schools to pose questions or challenges and communicate their findings. The project will directly impact 25 teachers and 1000 students in the Philadelphia area with plans for national dissemination. Both Mr. Vandergoes and Ms. DiSantis will be trained in the Model My Watershed application and will then have their classes test it out as part of investigation portion of the Stroud's Centers National Science Foundation Grant.
Mrs. Brenda Wilson's Entrepreneurship class presented their t-shirt designs to the Special Olympics Club Volunteers on February 5, 2013 at their club meeting. Mrs. Wilson's class designed and developed the product idea and the Special Olympics Club Volunteers voted on their favorite t-shirt design. Mrs. Wilson's class will be working with a local printer business to produce the shirts. Some of the proceeds from the sale of the shirts will be donated to the Lord's Pantry in Downingtown. The shirts will be ordered and ready to wear for the club's next big event, The Chester County Special Olympics Bob Young Invitational Basketball Tournament on April 7, 2013 at Downingtown East High School. Downingtown West freshmen, Timothy Develin, Connor McPartland, Ikpomwosa Osaghae, and Alexander Zetts, attended the JA Board of Directors meeting at Microsoft on Tuesday, February 5th. They previewed shirt designs that will be sold to benefit the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy. SPORTS With tremendous Whippet pride, we congratulate Downingtown West senior, Zakary Steffen. Zak was selected for the under-20 National Soccer Championship, which will take place in Mexico City beginning February 18th. This is a particularly high honor because Zak, Who is presently in the U-18 level, will be competing in and advanced age group with U-20 players. The Mexico City tournament is a qualifier in which the top four teams will advance to the FIFA U-20 World Cup championship, to be held this June in Turkey. Zak, who plans to attend the University of Maryland this Fall, has been rated the nation's top goalkeeper in the ESPN-High School class of 2013 Downingtown West held a Winter sports pep rally on February 1st. It featured games, cheering and plenty of school spirit. Go Whippets
STEM Academy
Cayla Castells, one of our Juniors and our School Board Representative for the Academy started the first STEM Practicum at the Chester County Economic Development Council. Cayla's responsibilities center on the promotion of the GETT Program, Girls Exploring Tomorrow's Technology. GETT is a daylong, fun, hands-on informational event for middle and high school girls, grades 6 through 12, their parents, and educators. GETT features the opportunity for students to interact with successful women in technology fields and learn about all the great opportunities just beyond their fingertips. Cayla is enjoying redesigning the website, promoting this event through EventBrite and spreading the word to encourage young women to participate in STEM fields. Engineering students and teachers Gavin Spiers and Jocelyn Long visited Gamesa, a world leader in the wind energy field who develop wind farms. Gamesa also engineers and manufactures the turbines. The group met at Gamesa's Business Center for a briefing on wind, turbines and nacelles and then travelled to the plant for a tour of the manufacturing process and close up view of the nacelles, which are as big as a school bus! The tour was followed by lunch and a question and answer session for the students. Representatives from Gamesa commented on the students' interest in the manufacturing and engineering process and quality of their questions. This trip originated with Congressman Gerlach's connection with Gamesa and The STEM Academy. Susan Boardman met with Kim Bohm, Human Resources Manager of AGC Chemicals to discuss the upcoming student trip to AGC's headquarters and possible STEM Practicums. AGC markets and sells high-performance fluoropolymer resins and compounds as well as specialty chemicals to diverse industries around the world. Internships with the DASD technology department may be in STEM's future. Susan also met with Ray Kase, IT Director of Technology to discuss forming a STEM/Technology partnership for our students starting the summer of 2013. Chester County Commissioner Kathi Cozzone visited the STEM Academy to learn more about what the school district is doing with STEM education. Mary Beth Tomlinson invited Daniel Marafino from Vanguard to present, My Classroom Economy, a financial training workshop which included an investor simulator game, to her Corporate and Mathematical Pathways students. The students were engaged, loved the program and are looking forward to him returning. Daniel had the chance to take a brief tour of The STEM Academy---including the music studio where he left with a CD of his guitar playing produced by music teacher Brian Lloyd. There absolutely is a correlation between music and financial literacy! | 
The Downingtown Area School District Administrative team and School Board members attended the first Chester County School Safety Summit held on January 31, 2013. The summit, hosted by the Chester County Intermediate Unit, was held at Owen J. Roberts High School. Keynote speaker was Chester County District Attorney Thomas Hogan. CCIU Executive Director Joseph O'Brien served as the evening's host. 
Eighth grade student leaders from Lionville Middle School's (Downingtown Area School District) National Junior Honor Society and Student Council were five of 1,000 student leaders that attended the Leadership Experience and Development (LEAD) Conference held February 1-February 3, in Washington D.C. The students were accompanied by teacher/National Junior Honor Society adviser Dave Wiedlich, and teacher/Student Council adviser Jennifer Craig. The LEAD Conference is a program of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NAASP), which administers that National Honor Society, the National Junior Honor Society, and the National Association of Student Councils.