·      On October 3, Village staff members participated in Lee Denim Day. Each participant paid $5 to wear jeans and a pink shirt. This year they raised $440 for breast cancer. Great job!

·     The End-of-the-Beginning barbeque, organized by the PSG, was held on September 23 at Satz School. The students had a great time and the hot dogs and burgers were delicious.

·     The first student and parent meetings for the Washington trip were recently held. The students are very excited about the trip!

·     On September 24, 2008 Satz held the second annual 7^th grade versus 8^th grade wiffle ball game. The 8^th graders won but everybody had fun!

·     A 7^th grade student at Satz, is a semi-finalist in a K’Nex contest. She constructed an 8 foot woman from 20,000 K’Nex pieces called “Maggie, the 8 Foot Waving Giant.” She has also been featured in one of their books, and has created a few projects for K’Nex. The finalists will be selected based on an on-line vote between October 13, 2008 and October 20, 2008. To vote, you can go to www.knex.com and look for the 2009 K’NEXpert search link. In the 9-12 year old group look for “Maggie, the 8 Foot Waving Giant.” You will be asked to enter your email address and copy a code of letters and numbers. Each email address can vote once per day.

·     On September 25, 2008, 14 high school seniors spent the day at the Dodge Poetry Festival, a once every two year event. The trip was organized by English teacher Sandra Whitten. The festival provides a venue for many famous, published poets to read and speak to high school students about writing and poetry. Five US Poet Laureates were there. The students were able to listen to poets from their peer groups as well, as students from all across the Northeast were in attendance. The students have been inspired by this experience to read and write poetry themselves.

·     I want to remind you that we’ll be having an Autism Awareness Evening on October 28, 2008. The event will take place in the High School Auditorium and Commons from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m.

·     If you plan to attend a Broadway show, please go to our web site to see HCAA’s new fundraiser… just follow the link to purchase discount tickets and support HCAA at the same time.

·     I’m pleased to report that one of our former high school teachers, Barbara Weinshenker, has been nominated as an AP Siemens teacher of the year for her outstanding results in teaching AP Calculus BC.

·     In addition, Holmdel High School has been nominated for the Siemens Award for Advanced Placement in math, science and technology.

Activities towards meeting district goals:

Differentiated Instruction:

·     Differentiated Instruction article by Carol Ann Tomlinson is being shared and discussed at grade-level meetings at Village.

·     Also, Eric Swensen, Director of Guidance, did a school visitation to observe Morning Meetings at Village.

Technology

·     In support of the technology goal, Study Island is being used in the Basic Skills math classes at Satz. The students are eager to learn the material so they can participate in the interactive games.