Roslyn Elementary School students from grades 3-6 learned about Ireland, its culture and its sports from representatives from the Gaelic Athletic Association from Ireland.  Students learned some of the history of Ireland, the Irish impact on the United States, and some traditional Irish activities.  The boys and girls then went outside and learned traditional Irish sports such as hurling and Gaelic football.  A film crew from Irish television recorded the program and the sports instruction and practice as part of a program to be shown in Ireland.  It was educational and fun at the same time!

The Abington Senior High School Marching Band won Best Color Guard, Best Drum Line, And Best Visual Effect In the Yankee “A” Division In the State Championships at Downingtown West last weekend.  The Marching Ghosts placed Second Overall In the state for its show, “Cirque-Ish,” featuring music from Cirque Du Soleil’s La Nouba Production under the direction of Mr. Joseph Detato And Gregg Rosenfeld. 

The Abington Senior High School Athletic Department, administration, teammates, and fellow students today recognized and celebrated Abington’s student-athletes’ accomplishments.  Six students and their families and coaches were honored for successfully signing with colleges. Abington Senior High School alumna Madlyn “Maddy” Whitney Evans, who is currently playing professional women’s soccer, was the guest speaker.

The six students who signed today were:

• Leah Simmons – Girls Volleyball to Canisius
• Samantha Lochner – Girls Basketball to St. Peter’s
• Mikki Raymond – Girls Lacrosse to LaSalle
• Emma Garg – Girls Lacrosse to Kutztown
• Kirstin Pedicone – Girls Lacrosse to Millersville
• Nicolette Ray – Softball to Bloomsburg

Guest speaker Maddy Evans, accompanied by her parents and boyfriend, is an American soccer midfielder and defender currently playing for Boston Breakers in the National Women’s Soccer League.  In her talk, she gave the celebrated students some advice on college, athletics, and life.  Maddy attended Abington Senior High School where she was a two-year letter winner as a freshman and sophomore. During her junior and senior years, she opted to play varsity lacrosse. After Abington, Maddy attended Pennsylvania State University and played for the Nittany Lions from 2009 to 2012. During her senior year, she served as the team captain and played a pivotal role in leading the Nittany Lions to the College Cup Final. Maddy finished her collegiate career with 11 goals, 9 assists, and 31 points.

Rydal Elementary School-East students, staff, the Frankel family and friends, school district administrators, and Rydal PTO parents gathered yesterday to dedicate the Shane Frankel Playground in honor of Rydal Elementary School alumnus Shane Frankel.  Sean and Rachael generously donated the new playground in memory of Shane, who passed away much too early in life.

Dr. Sichel thanked the family for their generosity, saying that Sean and Rachel Frankel’s tribute to Mr. Frankel’s brother, Shane, has been initiated with compassion and thoughtfulness. She said, “They have made this beautiful playground possible as a loving tribute to Shane, who passed away at an early age. The benefit of this playground for the Rydal School and all of the children who will have an opportunity to play here will last a long time.” Dr. Sichel said that In addition to our appreciation for what they have donated, she hopes that they have set an example for others to be benefactors, providing donations to our schools that benefit our students.

Rydal Principal Mrs. Marbury thanked the family for its wonderful donation, describing how the students have anxiously watched the playground equipment being installed and waiting excitedly for the joy of using it.  Mrs. Marbury continued: “The gorgeous new equipment will serve the children and families of the Rydal community for many years. They are a monument to the dedication of many caring people in the Abington community who turned a dream into a reality. A reality that was made possible by the generosity of Sean and Rachel Frankel. The Shane Frankel Playground is a powerful symbol of the love one brother has for another and reminds us of the importance of family as we prepare to celebrate this Thanksgiving.”

Rydal student council president Ben Fall thanked the Frankel family and gave them a basketful of “thank you” notes from the Rydal students.  Rydal students enthusiastically cheered when the Frankel family unveiled the sign at the playground.

Dr. Sichel said “At this time of Thanksgiving, when families come together to celebrate joy and to give thanks, it could not be a more fitting time to dedicate the Shane Frankel Playground.”

After the formal presentations the Frankel family hung the tribute plaque in the school lobby.

In Washington D.C. this week, the co-presidents of Abington Senior High School’s H2O for Life Club had the honor and privilege of attending the 10th Anniversary celebration of the Water for the Poor Act.

H2O for Life was founded in 2007, in Minnesota, by teacher Patty Hall.  She inspired Abington students to become involved in the humanitarian effort and provided a cause for Abington students to make a significant impact on the welfare of people around the world who do not have access to clean, safe, drinking water.  Abington students have also made an impact in Montgomery County and Abington through their many projects.  Since the beginning of H2O for Life, Abington students have helped to fund almost a dozen projects from Nicaragua to the Philippines.  Abington students have helped to lobby Congress for the Water for the World Act and have participated in events at the United Nations and the World Bank.  In addition, Abington students have helped to clean and restore stream banks throughout their own community.

Abington students were probably the youngest participants at the 10th Anniversary Celebration, but they were no less respected – or effective – in the work of saving people’s lives.  The Abington H2O for Life Club continues to be at the forefront of local, national, and global water advocacy.

Pictured here in photos taken in the Kennedy Caucus Room in the United States Senate are the co-presidents of Abington Senior High School’s H2O for Life Club Jordan Brown (left) and Alex Azuelos (second from right), both seniors; Mrs. Mary Rodgers, H2O for Life Advisor and Service Learning Facilitator (second from left); and Ms. Ellyn Walter (right) of WASH Advocates (WASH Advocates, Washington, D.C., is a nonprofit, nonpartisan initiative dedicated to helping solve global safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene challenges.)

Programs culminated in the international “Hour of Code” – the largest single international learning event in history.  A novel cooperative activity took place between Advanced Placement (AP) computer students in Abington Senior High School teacher Mr. Dave Daubenspeck’s computer class and sixth grade students at Roslyn Elementary School..

Yes, it’s novel that 6^th grade students are learning code … and that it includes 6^th grade girls.

Twenty AP computer students from the high school taught computer coding (Javascript) to 18 Roslyn 6^th graders (9  girls and 9 boys) over a period of  six weeks on Thursdays after school in a Computer Coding Club organized by teacher Mr. Todd Shuster

The six weeks culminated in the students participating in the global “Hour of Code” event, the largest learning event in history, where 100 million students in 180 countries around the world wrote one hour of code during the week.

Additional Abington schools participating were:

• Willow Hill Elementary School – Students were instructed on coding during flex time
• Overlook Elementary School –  A coding club operated during lunch/recess with sixth grade students mentoring first graders
• McKinley Elementary School – An after-school coding club provided instruction for fifteen sixth grade students over six weeks
• Copper Beech Elementary School – fifth and sixth grade students learned computer coding in the morning and second grade students learned and practiced in the afternoon.

These students are using block code and typing code to control the movements of their characters in the software being used.  A recent article on the local economy stated that the federal government says the U.S. faces a shortage of hundreds of thousands of computer programmers.  Congratulations to these students, our future, who are heeding the advice of President Obama: “Don’t just play on your phone, program it.”

Here are several quotes about the Hour of Code from students in Mr. Tague’s 5th grade class at Willow Hill Elementary School:

“In math it helps me with algorithms to step by step solve a problem.” – Roman Clayton-Hopson

“Coding can help you with math and communication arts.  It helps you with math by teaching order of operation. It can help you with communication arts by teaching you how to follow directive notes. Learning code in elementary school can be beneficial.  It is beneficial because it helps if you want to be a computer coder or if you want to create games or make websites.” – Richard Wesh

“The code makes it fun to learn how to work with computers.  Some of the things I  did was Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies.  They were fun ways to learn. “When you notice details in the code you notice details in other things.” – Sarah Lyles

“Learning about code will help you in different subjects because you have to follow directions carefully while computer coding and you have to be efficient and doing code will be good practice on following directions and being efficient. Learning computer coding can benefit you because if you want a job that involves coding it would be easy because you’ve already learned how to do it. If we learn how to do it now we will be prepared for the future.” – Fanta Sillah

“It should be taught at elementary schools because it is fun and very educational.” – Tyrese Whitfield

Abington Senior High School art students created over 80 ceramic bowls for the 22nd Annual Empty Bowl Benefit Dinner at Arcadia University. Some students created the bowls on potters’ wheels while others manipulated their thrown bowls to create very interesting designs. On the night of the dinner, each attendee/donor who had paid to attend the event selects one of the donated bowls, handcrafted by the students as well as by local professional artists. The bowls are filled with delicious soups donated by area restaurants and members of the surrounding community. Attendees take home the bowl, which serves as a reminder that somewhere in the world, someone is without a meal or shelter. Each year 100% of the proceeds go to two non-profits assisting the hungry and the homeless. This year’s proceeds will benefit Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network, a local agency that provides support to homeless families as they move toward permanent housing. The second agency is The Hunger Project, which promotes hunger relief and economic stability through improved agricultural techniques worldwide.

The Abington Senior High School Select Choir again provided residents of nursing and retirement homes with musical selections as their “gifts” to seniors this season.  Shown here in these photos, the talented group sang for residents of Wesley Enhanced Living and Lafayette Redeemer. So far in December, the Select Choir sang for five different places throughout the greater Abington community, singing to almost 150 residents at the local nursing/retirement homes.

Mrs. Linda Hagarty’s fifth grade class from Copper Beech Elementary School participated in the 2015 Citizenship Challenge, sponsored by the Rendell Center for Civics and Civic Engagement. They wrote essays expressing their point of view regarding a current issue related to government as well as rights and responsibilities of citizens. An essay written by a team of students in Mrs. Hagarty’s class was chosen to compete in the Finals.

This week, at the National Constitution Center, a team of students in Mrs. Hagarty’s class competed in the Finals. After giving a three-minute team presentation and answering questions about the issue, a panel of judges chose the Copper Beech team to win a fourth place award. A $500 check was awarded to the school and will be presented to the school by the Rendells at a later date. Their essay is scheduled to be published in the Philadelphia Daily News.

Congratulations to Mrs. Hagarty and her fifth grade class for all their hard work!

Roslyn students and staff created a jingle for the Acme Markets contest to develop a new company jingle.

Out of all the many entries, Roslyn’s jingle has been selected as one of only 10 finalists!

Please go to the Acme Promotions website, register, and vote for the Roslyn jingle.

You can vote once each day through December 31, 2015 when the contest ends.

Go to www.AcmePromotion.com/jingle.html

Click on “Sign In | Register” at the top-right and sign in.

Click on “Roslyn Acme Jingle.”  If you don’t see it, click on “View all Submissions.”

Click “Vote”!

First prize is $2500 for the school and four runner up prizes are $1,000 each.

Vote today, tomorrow, and the next days for Roslyn!

Your votes can help Roslyn win!

The Science Fair at the Junior High School was a scientific, collaborative success!  Students’ research projects were creative, thought provoking, and extremely well presented.  Superintendent of Schools Dr. Amy Sichel, students, parents, teachers, and other administrators had the pleasure of touring the Fair and speaking with students about their research and results.

This year there were 350 well-researched and presented projects created by seventh and eighth grade junior high school students.  Science Department Chair Mr. Timothy Keller characterized the projects as interesting to the students, highly creative in their approach, and implemented very well.  Collaboration, a characteristic sought after by industry and science, was extremely evident as students conferred and worked with each other, worked with faculty, and worked with parents.  There were many parents, teachers, and staff present and more students stayed after school to tour the Fair and confer with each other.  According to science teacher Dr. Morgan Hurm, projects this year  were more elaborate, created a great deal of data, graphs were very well done, and conversations among students, staff, and parents employed very high level scientific vocabulary.  Dr. Sichel commented that she learned a great deal from the projects and was encouraged to see a great number of female students performing research and presenting their results.

Selected projects will be presented at the Montgomery County Research Competition where the junior high school students typically do very well.

A video is being created, which should be available in the near future on our school district cable TV stations and our website.

Abington Senior High School has been named to the College Board’s 5th Annual AP District Honor Roll. The Honor Roll recognizes only 547 school districts in the U.S. and Canada that have increased access to AP course work while maintaining or increasing the percentage of students earning scores of 3 or higher on AP Exams. Look for more detailed information to come.

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/k-12/awards/ap-district-honor-roll

Abington Senior High School is pleased to announce that Mr. Kevin Conlin has been appointed as the new Head Coach for its Varsity Football program. Mr. Conlin, a seventeen year teaching veteran, is a member of the Abington Senior High School Social Studies Department. He brings vast and decorated experiences from his playing and coaching days to the Galloping Ghosts.

Mr. Conlin is a 1997 graduate of Penn State University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and was a member of the football team.  He joined the Nittany Lion program as a walk-on and eventually earned a scholarship. Penn State Football is a family legacy for Mr. Conlin as his older brothers, Chris and Keith, also played for Coach Paterno at the school.  Mr. Conlin was a part of the 1994 undefeated Big Ten and Rose Bowl Championship team.  While at University Park, Mr. Conlin also played in the Outback, Fiesta, and Citrus bowl games.

Mr. Conlin served as an assistant coach at Abington for 15 years from 1999 to 2013. He was the defensive coordinator and special teams coach.  During his time with the Ghosts, Abington qualified for the District 1 playoffs seven times, won the Suburban One League National Conference in 2010 and 2011, and advanced to the District 1 semifinals in 2006 and 2013.

Mr. Conlin is the 17th head coach in school history, and he looks to build a program rooted in character and hard work.

Shown here in the photo as Mr. Conlin’s appointment is approved by the Abington School Board, left to right, Mr. Angelo Berrios, Abington Senior High School principal, Mr. Kevin Conlin, and two of Mr. Conlin’s children when he was appointed by the Abington School Board as Head Football Coach.

Last night the Board appointed Joshua Stein, Esquire to fill the vacant seat on the Abington School Board.  After the appointment, Mr. Stein, shown here, took the oath of office.

The Board interviewed 24 individuals interested in filling the vacancy.  According to Board members, the overall quality and knowledge of those interviewed was excellent and that Abington School District is fortunate to have had a significant number of individuals interested in serving the community.  Board members commented that the large number of high quality interested individuals made the appointment decision challenging. The hope expressed by Board members is that those who applied for the Board seat remain active and involved in the school district.

Everyone welcomed Mr. Stein and wished him the very best as he serves the community and school district.

Last week, hosted by the school’s PTO, the annual Highland Elementary School’s Science Fair featured over 40 exciting and informative science presentations.  Highland students from kindergarten through sixth grade designed and developed projects such as: computer coding to operate Lego™ robots; presentations on why milkweed is important to the survival of the monarch butterfly; and how to turn milk into plastic. According to Highland School Principal, Mr. Etlen, there were many other exciting presentations and all the student participants did an outstanding job.  The Science Fair was featured in a video news clip on PHL17/Action News.

Students and staff at Copper Beech Elementary School celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday with an all-school assembly on Friday, January 15th. Student performances included songs, dances, and cheers. Selected students were also presented with Peace Awards. These students were recognized for consistently demonstrating CARES behavior and serving as leaders of kindness and peaceful solutions.

Last night the School Board and the Senior High School proudly presented and recognized our 14 National Merit Scholarship Program Scholars and their families. Principal Mr. Angelo Berrios commented that the students who qualify for these programs reflect well on the students, their families, teachers, and the Senior High School – and that we are very proud to publicly recognize their achievements. Commended students in the National Merit program scored in the top five percent of all 1.5 million students who entered the competition; they are Julia Carrozza, Arie Dash, Alexander Serebriiskii, and Stanley Tang. Students who were named as Semi-Finalists are the highest scorers and represent less than one percent of each state’s high school seniors. Our Semi-Finalists are: Sophie Buckingham, Ryan Grewal, Nathanael Cheng, Ranwei Hu, Christopher Dragomir, Brittany Levy, Robbie Durham, Alexis Oh, Joshua Gardner, and Stefani Rath.

Dr. Sichel meeting with Governor Wolf tonight at the Joint Board meeting of the PA Educational Associations representing superintendents (PASA), board members (PSBA), business managers (PASBO), and principals.

Abington Senior High School Student’s Artwork

Selected to Promote

“Prints Link Philadelphia: Transferring Ideas“

22 Abington students’ art featured in the show

Reception:  February 21, 2016

Ongoing exhibit through February 28, 2016

Special Reception:  February 21, 2:00 –  4:00 p.m.

Location: Woodmere Museum of Art, Helen Millard Children’s Gallery

Address: 9201 Germantown Ave. Philadelphia, PA 19118

The Woodmere Art Museum is hosting an exhibit of student artwork prints from the Philadelphia region titled “Prints Link Philadelphia: Transferring Ideas.”  The exhibit will run through February 28, 2016.

There will be a special reception on Sunday, February 21, 2016 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.

The cover art for the exhibit announcement post-card was created by Zachary Simon, a junior at Abington Senior High School.

Student artwork:
“Print as Protest” – Woodcuts and Linoleum Cuts
Art Teacher: Ms. Nicole A Caracciolo
Student Artists: Tenth – Twelfth Grade

“Responding to Literature” –  Woodcuts, Linoleum Cuts, and Serigraphy (with watercolor additions)
Art Teacher: Ms. Nicole A Caracciolo
Student Artists: Tenth – Twelfth Grade Students