Highlights since our last board meeting:

·      The Foundation held its car raffle last night and the lucky winner was Jim Holt of Holmdel. On behalf of the Foundation, I want to thank the community, teachers and administrators for their support.
 

·      Mr. Braun’s second grade students created PowerPoint presentations on Animals and Their Habitats and presented them yesterday at Village School.
 

·      This Friday, March 13, one of our third grade classes (Mr. Chiu and Ms. Givens' class) will be filming a video segment as part of the district-wide Get Out the Vote initiative. This video segment idea emerged from our desire to have an entire class of students be able to participate in this district-wide initiative. This five-minute video segment will be of our third grade students playing an interactive "Jeopardy-style" game show using a computer-based template and one of the two Smart Boards housed within the Smart Board Lab at Village School. This activity infuses technology into the curriculum using both the computer template and the Smart Board to teach/review concepts associated with community, citizenship and the voting process, through a hands-on, interactive approach. The children are going to have a lot of fun!
 

·      Indian Hill recently held an assembly for the fourth grade students. A Holmdel High School student, who just completed her 4^th novel, spoke to the fourth graders about writing, her achievements, and answered several questions the students prepared with their classroom teachers. It was a great experience for the students.  She will be returning to Indian Hill to meet with the fifth and sixth graders later this spring.
 

·      The sixth grade students participated in a World Language Fair prepared by teachers and students from Satz School. The presentations gave the students an opportunity to see and hear what they had to look forward to with their choices in the area of foreign language for next year.
 

·      Indian Hill recently had an amazing re-opening of their Reading Room! Jenna Atkinson, Betsy Smith, and Marilyn Bellis ordered materials using grant funds from the Foundation to prepare a wonderful place for our students and staff to add to their knowledge of guided reading and other areas of literacy instruction. There was an amazing turnout throughout the day for this event. Teachers have signed up for class tours of the room to help learn about the various activities the new Reading Room has to offer.
 

·      Congratulations to the seventh grader at Satz, this year’s competitor at the Asbury Park Press Spelldown, who placed second last night in the regional competition. A student from Ocean Township was the winner, but apparently our seventh grader gave her quite a challenge. This is our highest placement since one of our sophomores placed third three years ago.
 

·      Congratulations to a seventh grader, who will compete in the state round of the National Geographic Bee scheduled for April 3, 2009. After winning the school competition, she had to take a written test to qualify for the state round. If she is successful against her state competitors, she will move on to the national round in Washington, DC later in the spring.
 

·      Congratulations to the Satz students who won an award in the 2009 NJ Math League Seventh Grade Competition:
 

·      Two high school students competed in the Shakespeare Competition at Brookdale last Saturday. Both students were a credit to the Hornets and they, along with their families, enjoyed a wonderful experience.
 

·      The Italian Honor Society raised $1,600 for UNICEF with proceeds from the pasta dinner they sponsored on February 19.
 

·      Dr. Blaha is thrilled to inform us that two students from Holmdel High School are quarter finalists for the U.S. Physics Olympics Team. The finalists will ultimately represent the US in Merida Yucatan, Mexico, July 2009.
 

·      Dr. Blaha is also pleased to report that we had 15 students compete in the open exam for the U.S. Biology Olympiad (USABO). Of our 15 students, five have been named semifinalists. The finalist will represent the US in the International Biology Olympiad which will be held in Japan.
 

·      This past weekend two teams from Holmdel High School competed in the Moody’s Mega Math Challenge on the topic of Teens Evaluate Likelihood of Success for Stimulus Act, Math Models Used to Predict Impact on Economy and Employment. Nearly 2000 high school juniors and seniors participated, spending as many as 14 hours using mathematical techniques to evaluate whether or not the stimulus package that President Obama signed into law in February will in fact stimulate the U.S. economy. Doing well could mean winning part of $80,000 in scholarship prizes, funded by The Moody’s Foundation.

Activities towards meeting district goals:

Character Education

·      Village School just wrapped up February’s character trait of CARING and the children earned 678 “Caring” sneakers.

Differentiated Instruction

·      Differentiated Instruction continues to be articulated at Village School staff meetings.

·      Indian Hill teachers have given their first round of Learnia tests to their students, and have begun discussions at grade-level meetings to see how to best use this information to help differentiate instruction for the students.

Technology

·      In continuing with the Technology Literacy goal, Mr. Gattini generated a questionnaire to poll Village School staff about building needs in this area.

·      Mr. Gattini, along with Mr. Schillaci, will address Indian Hill faculty at the next staff meeting about goals/technology standards they are looking to address for the remainder of this year and next year.