This Week In the Ann Arbor Public Schools

December 12, 2011

Huron High School freshman Sam Watson is a winner of the Michigan Music Conference composition contest. His piece, “New Life,” will be performed on a concert with other winning compositions at the Michigan Music Conference in Grand Rapids in January. Sam wrote the piece as an eighth grader in Tappan’s Music Technology Lab under the direction of music teacher Joe DeMarsh.
At the end of October the Skyline Orchestra had four students audition for the MSBOA All-State Orchestra. These students performed scales, an excerpt, and sight-read at this audition. All of the auditions from the state of Michigan are listened to and evaluated by judges. They then pick the top students to perform in the All-State Orchestra in Grand Rapids on Jan. 19th. I am pleased to announce that all four Skyline High School Students have been accepted into the MSBOA All-State Orchestra: Brian Chang, Grace Pernecky, Jonathan Jue-Wong, and Shwetha Rajaram with Grace Pernecky being selected as the concertmaster (first chair). This is the second year that Jonathan Jue-Wong as been accepted and the fourth year that Brian Chang has been accepted into the All-State Orchestra. The Skyline Orchestra along with director Andrea Cowper are very proud of these violinist for their hard work and dedication to their art.
The Forsythe KMO team competed on Dec. 6^th, 2011, finishing in the top 3% in the nation. It also happened to be Crazy Hat/Hair Day at Forsythe.
The Forsythe Knowledge Master team finished third out of eight teams in Michigan and in the top 3% of all teams nationally in the KMO competition held on Tuesday, as they finished 15^th out of 545 schools in the country. Coach Daniel Ezekiel said it was a good finish, and we can do even better next time.
Knowledge Master is a nationwide academic competition in which teams of students attempt to answer questions, about all subjects at all levels of difficulty, quickly and accurately. KMO is a product of Academic Hallmarks, of Durango, CO, and you can learn more at <greatauk.com>.
The Forsythe team’s score was 1,592 out of a perfect 2,000. The national average score was 1210 and the state average was 1,294, so they finished about 300 points above the state average and 400 points above the national average. First place in Michigan went to Boulan Park Middle School in Troy, first place in the nation went to Kealing Middle School, Austin, TX. A team from Tappan was 7^th in Michigan.
KMO is a Forsythe club, coached by Dan Ezekiel and Mike Shaw. It meets Tuesdays from 3-4 and is open to all Forsythe students. The team would like to thank all the parents who provided snacks and pizza money, and especially the team parent, Marni Arnett, and also Mrs. Chethan and Mr. and Mrs. Cohn, who helped the team set up on competition day.
Their next competition is in January and is for 6^th graders only. Stay tuned to the Viking News for the results of that competition.
The members of the Forsythe team were:
6^th Grade: James Johal-Smith and Nathan Pawittranon.
7^th Grade: Fumiya Abe-Nornes, Miles Aikens, Navya Arigapudi, Halley Banuszak-Holl, Oshadi Caldera, Samir Chethan, Allison Choi, Tommy Cohn, Matt Cole, Noah Dean, Forrest Flesher, Alex Hull, Chase Hyatt, Sabir Islam, Anna Kaehr, Shreeman Nimmagadda, Micah Pollens-Dempsey, Samiksha Prakash, Jacob Schneyer, Star Su, and Kevin Xu.
8^th Grade: Katie Arnett, Janine Chouinard. Tara Dorje, Peyton Hoffman, Joshua Nacht, Anjuli Patel, Catherine Pilon, Sandy Schwartz, Rana Sharma, Deanna Shih, Kotone Tsuji, Michelle Wang, and Charlie Wertenberger.
Fun and competition were had by all at Bryant-Pattengill's Annual Math Night event held on Wednesday, December 7. At least 65 students came back to school at night, to learn more about playing math games and having fun. Multiplication Bingo, Monster Squeeze, Factor Captor, and Salute are only a few of the games that were going. Students were up on the stage jumping rope as they counted by 2's or 6's. Participants could relax and make a symmetrical design with pattern blocks or line up some dominoes for toppling. There were three estimation competitions. Students could enter as many times as they wanted. The winners for: How many dots? ---> Julia Warren from Pattengill and Kaylie Karsch from Bryant; for the Number of Keys? ---> Jayla French from Pattengill and Blake from Bryant; for the Number of Beads?---> Eva Kubacki and Lauren Woodside from Pattengill and Kaylie Karsch from Bryant. Kaylie must be a great estimator since she won two of the three competitions.
Thanks to all the volunteers who came and helped at the event: Mrs. Beech, Mrs. D'Addona, Mr. Hatt, Mrs. Kimmey, Ms. Kitzman, Ms. Klein, Mrs. McMannus, Ms. Moizio, Ms. Puente, Ms. Robinson, and Rachel Toon. Mr. Carter & Ms. Heyward were also there to add some numbers. The PTO came to supply Pizza and drinks in case anyone got hungry from all their calculating.
This event would not be possible without the support from Pioneer High School volunteers from Mr. Klemmer's Calculus class. These Pioneer students work with the elementary students to teach and play the games. Thanks for all the Pioneer student support. Taylor Zdanowski, Yupeng Wang, Mark Flamme, Mitchell Salke, Lee Crisco, Clara Nees, Tex Xiao, Zaid Khatib, Shrikar, Thodla, Siddhartha Sarkar, Sam Christensen, Fei-Fei Wu, Jean Pafaelew, Anne Oldani, Coorean Flame, Rolika Dalela, and Brian Pinsky.
Thanks to the Debbie William's "Magic of Christmas" Foundation for helping to ensure that more then 50 AAPS families have a Happy Holiday by providing winter clothing and special gifts for AAPS students and their siblings. The Foundation has assisted AAPS families for over 10 years. This year the district helped coordinate the wish list requests and to ensure that as many AAPS students as possible could benefit from this generous Foundation funded program. In the past AAPS worked with the Ann Arbor Police Department to suggest families.
This year AAPS High School students who are members of Ann Arbor Teens for Kids (AATFK) helped shop and wrap gifts for the families. AATFK was started by a group teens who attend the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Ann Arbor Teens For Kids is a teen-run volunteer organization aimed at getting teens involved in helping their community. It provides teens with volunteering opportunities that might otherwise be hard for them to obtain. AATFK is committed to improving our community's future and to engaging teens in volunteer work that is both fun and productive. Students who attend Pioneer, Community, Huron and Skyline make up the over 100 teen membership of AATFK. The AATFK leadership team includes seniors Nick Shannon-Pioneer, Nick Margolis-Community, Ryan Murphy-Pioneer, Lindsey Ressler-Community, Robin Green-Pioneer, Jacob Winick-Pioneer and Hannah Bates-Pioneer. AATFK has organized themselves to ensure student leadership continues as students graduate. For more information on how to contact AATFK to support your non-profit organization visit their website; www.aatfk.org
The Northside School Improvement Team hosted a community outreach dinner this month. The team provided pizza, salad and dessert to the families at the Arrowwood Community Center. Our hope was to let parents know that their input on school issues is valuable and we need them on our team! What a wonderful opportunity to sit down to a meal with our Northside families. Everyone enjoyed themselves and we may have recruited a few new SIT members!
The Logan PTSO thanks and salutes Ms. Lacroix and the entire Equity Team for their continuing efforts for creating an inclusive learning environment at Logan. Congratulations to all!

Patricia P. Green, Ph.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Ann Arbor Public Schools