The D-Link
An E-Newsletter for the DASD Community Setpember 27, 2013 - Vol 5, Issue 2 |
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Superintendent's Update |
It is always a pleasure for me to introduce the district's National Merit Honorees each year. This year 35 DHS students have been recognized by this prestigious program.
The PSAT is a test created by the College Board that prepares students to take the College Board exam for entrance into college. It is generally given to sophomores and juniors in American high schools.
Of the 1.5 million juniors who take the PSAT/NMSQT each year, approximately 50,000 juniors with the highest PSAT/NMSQT Selection Index scores (or total PSAT scores) qualify for National Merit recognition. That is, roughly the top 3% of 11th grade testers will qualify. Approximately 2/3 of those 50,000 students will receive Letters of Commendation. Of that number DASD is proud to claim 25 honorees. Colleges these students apply to will be notified that they have earned this recognition.
The remaining 1/3 of the 50,000 qualifying students are named National Merit Semifinalists. These students represent approximately the top 1% of testers in each state. In February 2014, those semifinalists who meet academic and other requirements will advance to Finalist standing. Of the roughly 16,000 students who qualify as Semifinalists, only 15,000 of them will qualify as Finalists. Of those 15,000 Finalists, approximately 8,200 of them will be selected for Merit Scholarships. We will learn in April if any of our 10 semi-finalists have earned a Merit Finalist Scholarship.
As you can see, it is a real challenge to be recognized in this prestigious program. To have 35 Downingtown students so honored is quite a feat for both our students and our secondary program. I send my heartiest congratulations to these students, their parents and our staff for achieving this great honor.
Dr. Lawrence Mussoline
Superintendent
Semi-Finalists
1) Christian Abbonizio
2) Shashank Bhargava
3) Michelle Cheng
4) Alexandra Hasbani
5) Barry Li
6) Catherine Mann
7) Brian Moser
8) Anita Tenjarla
9) Steve Vitali
10) Neilish K. Vinjamuri
Commended
1) Sharika Bamezai
2) Johanna Baumann
3) Max Beneke
4) Madison Brod
5) Tobias Bussiek
6) Stephanie Caggiano
7) Tae Young Chang
8) Phillip E. Crompton
9) Deion Cheng
10) Timothy Clark
11) Jeremy Cleary
12) Ethan Dukovic
13) Payal Gadura
14) Anuragh Gudar
15) Shannon Maclean
16) Sarah E. McCormick
17) Eric McMillan
18) Heather Nick
19) Kyle Oberholtzer
20) Nigam Padhiar
21) Genevieve Pomeroy
22) Dhananjay Ramachandran
23) Richard Semus
24) Sadiq Shaik
25) Jeffrey Wang
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Preschool Parent/Child Group | The Downingtown Area School District is inaugurating a new program for prreschool parents and children. The DASD Preschool Parent/Child group will offer free informative programs designed for district preschool-aged children and their parents. These monthly sessions will be held on Monday nights at 5:30 P.M beginning on October 21, 2013. The Kindergarten 101 program that is for adults only in March will begin at 7:00 p.m. The seven planned sessions will include several fun and educational activities that will introduce both the child and parent to our schools and kindergarten program.
Each session will be led by district professionals and other educational experts. Sessions for parents will include School Safety in October, Healthy Eating Habits for pre-schoolers in November, Using Technology to Improve Early Literacy and Math Skills in January, and Preparing Rising Kindergarteners for their first day of school in May. Activities for children will include a Fall celebration in October, "Eat This, Not That" in January, hands-on technology activities in January, and a night full of physically active games both parent and child will enjoy in February. A culminating activity for the preparation to Kindergarten program in May will be a tour of a school bus and a kindergarten classroom.
These 7 sessions aim to prepare both children and parents for the exciting start of kindergarten! For more information, or to register for this program, please click here.
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While many students spent their summer at the beach or going out with their friends, DHS East senior Zach Rondos spent six weeks at the Joffrey Ballet School doing a Summer Intensive. Last February, Zach auditioned for this prestigious spot and received a full scholarship. While staying at Pace University, Zach trained with 200 other dancers, ages 14-20. These talented dancers were from all over the world including Japan and Mexico.
During his fifth week in New York, Zach broke his toe while performing a flip and had to let his body recover. Fortunately, Zach enjoyed various incredible experiences during the Intensive. Zach had the opportunity to meet Misty Coplain from the American Ballet Theatre, and even took a class with her. The students performed Kettentanz which is choreography by Gerald Arpino, and took contemporary, modern, jazz and partnering classes.
At the Lionville School of Dance, Zach also participates in tap and hip hop classes, and competes on their Dance Team.Although Zach continues to become an extremely successful dancer, he is just as successful of a student. Zach manages to keep up his grades and stay on the honor roll while acting as a Student School Board Representative, and a member of both the TV Studio and Student Council. Although he has been dancing for six years, he only recently took up ballet two years ago. His freshman and sophomore year, Zach participated in the school plays, which helped him to realize his passion and dedication for ballet. Zach is currently applying to college and hoping to major in chemical engineering and receive his minor in dance. He is also considering applying for a year-round program at the Joffrey Ballet School to pursue ballet. Congratulations on your impressive achievements, and best of luck with your future in dance!
DHS West senior Alexandra Scott also attended the Summer Intensive for two weeks. Alexandra and Emily Fabian from Lionville Middle School both dance at the Lionville School of Dance. Emily was awarded the honor of becoming a member of the United StatesTournament of Dance Nationaljunior team, and Alexandra was awarded the same honor but to the senior team. They were awarded in July, at the NationalCompetition in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Great job on these amazing accomplishments! |
| Pennsylvania School Test Score Release Date Delayed | |
The release date for Pennsylvania's new school accountability system has been postponed. The new release date is expected to be October 4, 2013.
The new system, which will provide academic ratings for each school building based on a 100-point scale, replaces the previous AYP system and also will be utilized in the new teacher evaluation tool, as well as the principal evaluation tool still under development.
The new system will allow members of the public to search for school profiles either by name, county or map, compare up to four school districts, and have access to school district demographic data and supplemental reports (such as school safety, special education data and state audit reports), in addition to details on academic performance, which will include an overall building level academic score. Each school's profile will be based on a number of indicators, including:
- academic achievement (40%)
- closing the achievement gap - all students (5%)
- closing the achievement gap - historically underperforming students (5%)
- academic growth/PVAAS (40%)
- other academic indicators, including cohort graduation rate, promotion rate, attendance rate, AP, IB or college credit, PSAT/Plan participation (10%)
In addition, schools could earn "extra credit for advance achievement" in specific areas.
Due to a problem with the way some high school students were filling in the bubbles on the test materials, some tests were not counted for value added purposes. These tests may be excluded from the initial profile score to be released next week, The state plans to issue a revised report for schools suppressing these scores in January after corrected data is available.
DASD will be posting the link to the school performance profiles once they are released. |
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In case you missed it..... |
 At the Eagle's home-opener game, the Downingtown West High School Marching Band performed at half-time.
Drum majors Catherine Pfender, Kyle Chiavetta, Lauren Hill, and David Steffes led the band as they played their Spartacus themed show. They opened with the "Fly Eagles Fly" theme and followed with songs including The Might of Rome, Gladiators, Varinia, and Apian Way/ I Am Spartacus and finished with a rousing rendition of the Rocky theme.
The band was led by Band Director Ed Otto, Assistant Director Jon Virtue, Assistant Director and Color Guard Captain Kim Robinson. Other assistants included Percussion Captain and arranger Andrew Szypula, Bernadette Tabakelis and John Lacey (music and marching), Tricia Witt and Christine Billone (melodic percussion), and percussion battery by Sean Moran.
This was the first time in 18 years that a high school band has been invited to perform for the Eagle's crowd during half time. |
| What's Happening in the Schools? | |
New Mural at Hankin Library
Haley Beckman, a student at the Stem Academy, was chosen as the winner of a mural contest run by Henrietta Hankin Library to celebrate their 10 year anniversary. Julie Dimino, art teacher at Shamona Creek, directed the mural project. Haley volunteered her time to oversee nearly 100 children from kindergarten through twelfth grade from around the area paint her design. Many of those children came from Downingtown Area School District.
Pictured from left to right:
Julie Dimino, Haley Beckman, Gabrielle Sampson, Hannah Elliot, Daniela Ordaz, Gabriela Ordaz
Thank you to WAWA
Over the summer of 2013, the Downingtown Area School District was fortunate enough to partner with five area Wawa Stores in what can honestly be considered a life changing work experience partnership. Eleven high school students and three dedicated job coaches were provided the opportunity to fill the roles of Wawa Associates, and experience first-hand what it takes to be a successful employee with one of the top employers in our region. Thank you to WAWA!
Twitter Outreach
Dr. Mussoline and many of our principals are using Facebook and Twitter to keep their families informed. Dr. Robert Ruch, a language arts teacher at Lionville Middle School began tweeting out what his 7th grade students did that day and listed the homework for the evening. One of his parents, employed by B101, invited Dr. Ruch on his show to talk about how great a tool Twitter is for educators.
Click here for the interview.
Preparing for the Sixth Grade Center
Superintendent Mussoline, Sixth Grade Center Principal Thomas Mulvey and a group of 6th grade teachers from DMS and LMS recently toured two 6th grade centers in Connecticut and New York. White Plains/East View Sixth Grade Center Principal Joe Clohery (center) escorted the DASD group around the NY school. The group came home brimming with information and good ideas.
Pictured left to right are Becky Leister, Laurie Mallon, Principal Tom Mulvey, Mike Getz, Back row, Gina DiGennaro, Principal Cloherty and Dr. Jeff Singleton.
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Principal Updates
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Beaver Creek
On September 17th, Beaver Creek Elementary School's students, staff, parents, and grandparents gathered together for a special outdoor activity to celebrate Constitution Day. Everyone was wearing red, white and blue. The ceremony began with all students and staff saying the Pledge to the Flag. Students had artwork made under the direction of our art teacher, Mr. Andrus. After we sang the Star Spangled Banner, fourth grade students recited the Preamble to the Constitution (see our website for video footage). Led by our music teacher Mrs. Scrafano, all students then joined together to sing "You are a Grand Old Flag."
Bradford Heights
Bradford Heights had its first assembly of the year. We hosted Mr. Michael Sterns from Grasshopper Dreams Production. Mr. Sterns has written three books, his most recent is entitled Kokopelli and the Two Tribes. Mr. Sterns did an interactive story telling of Kokopelli and the Butterfly with the entire student body. The students thoroughly enjoyed the production and were thrilled to be able to purchase his books to share at home. We want to thank our Home and School for giving us this opportunity to have such wonderful assemblies brought to our building
Brandywine Wallace
On Friday, staff and students wore gold and yellow in support of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and in memory of Cameron Evans. Our school community is also collecting shoes to benefit cancer research and to help others. Additional events have been scheduled throughout the month by our Brandywine Wallace Cure4Cam Committee, under the direction of Mrs. Cain.
East Ward
One of our second grade classes started writing letters to second grade pen pals at Mary Walter Elementary School in Bealeton, Virginia. This is their ninth year of writing to each other. Through this pen pal project students get to make new friends while practicing letter writing skills. The pen pals share information about themselves, their schools and where they live. Pickering Valley
Mary Kay Peterson from the Chester Valley Food Bank came to PV on Tuesday to help in our harvesting and fall planting. In conjunction with Pickering Valley's Wellness Committee, parent volunteers (Mrs. Nakahara, Mrs. Woerner, Mrs.Bacher, Mrs. Lucca, Mrs. Rosenberger, Mrs. Schreffler, Mrs. Burk, Mrs. Epur and Mrs. Marks) and the following classes (Mrs. Patten, Mrs. McGowan, Mrs. Abel, Mrs. Bell and Mrs. Vanim) participated in this worthwhile event. They harvested approximately 200 lbs. of cherry tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, green beans, wax beans, squash, basil and parsley. In about 50 days, fall plantings of broccoli, spinach, chard, radishes and turnips will be picked. This is such a valuable experience for adults and students to work together and help support a great cause. As we begin the year, grade levels will be structuring on how they will be utilizing the garden as it connects to our curriculum.
West Bradford
Math In Focus. West Bradford teachers and students are highly engaged in our new math program. It has been really cool to see the same concept (place value) taught at each grade level using the myriad of materials provided! We are all learning, questioning, discussing like mathematicians... and are looking forward to our upcoming continued PD and embedded experience in October!
LMS
AT LMS's BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT: SPANISH 2 Students: Marcus Djuhadi, Meghana Chigurupati, Rupa Pendyala, Svetlana Samanthula and Noa Yovel demonstrated Spanish 1 and 2 online resources to parents. They were a great help to visiting parents and a HUGE help to their teacher, Maestra González Tucker. ˇMuchas Gracias! chicos.
DHS East
Downingtown East is running its annual R-Word campaign this week as they work together to Spread the Word to End the Word and build awareness for our school and society to stop and think about your use of the R-Word. Many people don't think of this word as hate speech, but that is exactly what it feels like to millions of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, their family and friends.
Look for the "Orange-Out" as all the students and faculty blend together with their special orange shirts at the football game to stop the use of the R-Word!
D.H.S. West
Suzanne Hanbicki, Business Department Curriculum Leader and Downingtown West Business Teacher, participated in the REThink program at Drexel University in the College of Computer Science this summer. This was a seven week program sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Suzanne was mentored by Dr. Dario Salvucci, Professor and Associate Department Head for Undergraduate Affairs in the Department of Computer Science. Dr. Salvucci's team developed the Distract-R program to study the effects of distraction on driver reaction. The Distract-R program uses a graphic simulation to show the effects of distraction while using electronic devices when driving. Suzanne's research was based upon the simulation and visualization within the Distract-R and she developed a computer lab module to assist computer science educators in incorporating visualization and simulation into their lessons.
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