March 2012 District News Review

EAST aurora union free school district

Michael Lorka elected New York State DECA President

East Aurora High School Junior Michael Lorka was elected president of the NYS chapter of DECA (Distributive Educa-tion Clubs of America) at a state convention held March 7 – 9 in Rochester. Michael was elected

with 2000 DECA members present, and will go on to be inducted as a State Offi cer at the International DECA Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah in April. He has been a DECA member for fi ve years, and began the process leading to State offi ce this year by application, interviews by peers and teachers, a portfolio presentation, a test and an essay. In addition, Michael campaigned at a conference booth to promote his can-didacy, assisted by campaign manager Caroline Zink and other DECA members. His run for State offi ce culminated with a speech and an extemporaneous question and answer session. The EAHS DECA advisor is Mrs. Jenni-fer Parker, who noted that the East Aurora Rotary Club donated $500 toward state competition expenses. DECA is an international organization that prepares high school and college stu-

dents for leadership in marketing, fi nance, hospitality and management careers. Other EAHS DECA members also attended the Rochester conference and competed with business plans, presentations, and business role plays with business professionals. Caroline Zink took fi rst place for her “Learn and Earn” plan for the Devil’s Den School Store. Kyle O’Brien earned third place for his role play for Sports and Marketing Enter-tainment, and Karleigh Volk and Ally Fontanese earned fourth place in their Buying and Merchandising Competition. Also competing and placing in the top ten were Mike Lorka, Koree Hubbard, Melissa Goggins, Matt Falkowski, Chris Christie and Matt Nason.

After Mrs. Lisa Brown’s day class leaves on Tuesdays, she and her smiling afterschool students lace up sneakers for “Kids Dance and Play” at the Parkdale gymnasium. The program for elemen-tary children explores a variety of different types of dance, fun fi tness tips and movement games. The class is part of the district’s Community Education pro-gram, currently mid-term, with 438 students in 45 classes during the January - June 2012 session. Residents who wish to receive email notice of upcoming offer-ings may email kward@eastauroraschools.org, or check the de-partment website at www.eastauroraschools.org/adulteducation. The next term begins July 1 (through September 30) and will feature a number of fi tness courses, including yoga, aerobics and water fi tness, as well as Driver Education, writing and online of-ferings. Courses will be online for registration beginning May 15.

Kids Dance and PlayKids Dance and Play

Four members of the senior class were se-lected to receive NYS Education Depart-ment’s 2012 Schol-arship for Academic

Excellence. Recipients include Anna Garvey, Eric Frantz, Jacob Vasbinder and Ashley Yoviene.

Congratulations to top EAHS Math League scorers Chris Klocke and Ben Stortz, each with 22 points, Claudia Moeller and Ashley Yoviene with 20 points each, and Lewis Hoffman with 19 points.

The Blood Drive sponsored by EAHS Student Government on March 6 collected a total of 29 donations and introduced 11 more fi rst-time donors. This contribution could ultimately help save the lives of up to 87 patients, since each blood donation can help up to three patients. This brings the school’s total collections for the 2011-12 year to 74 total donations and 47 new donors.

Seventh grader Ben Bachman has quali-fi ed to represent the EAMS in the state level of the National Geographic Bee which will be held in Albany on Friday, March 30th. This will be Ben’s third trip to Albany to compete in the State Bee.

Congratulations to Parkdale Faculty member Jennifer Kibler on her recent grant award in the amount of $2251.00 for “Paw Your Way to Math Power” from the Erie-Catt Teacher Center’s Professional Project Committee.

Thanks to Parkdale Elementary librarian Janice Laben for her participation in Erie 2 Library System’s Bookending Excitement Contest. Mrs. Laben won a visit to the school from author Mike Thaler, as well as $50.00 for book purchases for the school library. Mr. Thaler is author of the popular “Black Lagoon” book series (www.miketh-aler.com), and he will spend Wednesday, May 16 with our elementary students.

Congratulations to East Aurora Middle School student musicians and their teachers, Ms. Nanna, Mr. Blackwell, Mr. Davis, Mr. Hughes, and Mrs. O’Connor on their selections to a 2012 ECMEA All-County Ensemble, Chorus (above) and Band and Orchestra (below).

Read Across America (Dr. Seuss’ 108th birthday) was observed at Parkdale Elementary on March 2, with students and staff dressing for the occasion. Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) passed away in 1991, leaving 46 published works to generations of children. Photo/M.Wangelin

The EAHS Class of 2014, sponsor of Hockey for Hope, is pleased to announce that the March 2 game netted over $5000 for charity, with 600 tickets sold. Class advisor Mrs. Yuhnke said the students are grateful to the captains, players, announcers, cheerleaders and other supporters who helped make the third annual event the best yet. In addition to ticket sales, donations came from a Middle School coin collection, shirt sales and concessions.

Fans cheered through four games: a rematch of last year’s champs--High School vs. Alumni--followed by Middle School

vs. Parkdale; a loser match, and a winner match.

Congratulations to the

Champion High School Team!

Photos/M. Wangelin

AlumniAlumni

Photo/D. Evans

High SchoolHigh School Middle SchoolMiddle School ParkdaleParkdale

Photos/M Wangelin

Photo/D. Evans

EAHS teacher Mrs. Katie Reimers and EAMS teacher Mrs. Natalie Dutton were awarded a $330 grant from the American Association of Teachers of German for their project, “Ger-many Outfront-Alternative Energy Project.” Fulfi lling the grant, eighth grade technology students learned about alternative energy

use in Germany, the second largest exporter in the world. Germany has become one of the leading users and producers of clean and renewable energy. Following the lesson, students made silkscreen “Alternativener-gien” logo T-shirts with technical support and materials from local T-shirt design and print-

Mrs. Reimers and Mrs. Dutton awarded alternative energy

education grant from American Association of Teachers of German

ing company Planet Love. The teachers thought that making T-shirts would be a motivating activity and would serve as a jumping-off point for students to discuss what they had learned with their families, friends and other members of the community.

In Mrs. Dutton’s Technology class, students did a project on Manufacturing Processes. They recorded the number of total products and the number of rejected products complet-

ed by three different groups—a craft group made up of a small number of students each completing the entire product start to fi nish, a job shop group made up of more students working together to complete the product, and a mass production group made up of many students working in an assembly line fashion to complete the product. After the data was collected, the students created bar graphs and double-bar graphs in Miss Hanavan’s math class to compare the total number of products and the reject-ed number of products across each period.

Mrs. Maus, Mrs. Crowley-Browne and Miss Smith helped with the Variety Club news-paper sale on March 20 on Girard Avenue near Parkdale Elementary, enjoying the warm and sunny morning while raising funds for Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

Don’t throw out those ripped towels!

A new collection bin for used textiles will be added to the Parkdale Elementary park-ing lot on April 2. The red bin (next to the green and yellow paper recycling bin) will benefi t Hearts for the Homeless mobile soup kitchen, and is for clean, dry textiles--scraps, mismatched, torn, stained articles, sheets, towels, etc.. Recycled textiles are used to make fi lling material for car insu-lation, roofi ng felts, and furniture padding, among other things.

Master Frank Heinen from Kempo Karate demonstrat-Master Frank Heinen from Kempo Karate demonstrat-ed karate skills to students in the East Aurora Middle ed karate skills to students in the East Aurora Middle

School Explorers Club in March. Explorers Club is co-School Explorers Club in March. Explorers Club is co-advised by Mrs. Bilson and Mrs. Krull. advised by Mrs. Bilson and Mrs. Krull. Photo/K. KrullPhoto/K. Krull

The EAHS tenth annual badminton tournament was held on Saturday, March 17. More than 200 high school students and their partners played in a seven-hour competition.

Champions were crowned in six divi-sions: Men’s A- Lewis Hoffman and Greg Lowe; Men’s B- Cameron Radzi-won and Mike Franz; Women’s A- Leah Bellus and Becca Durant; Women’s B- Ally Fontanese and Karleigh Volk; Mixed doubles student- Alex Rabey and Kaley Laforce; and Mixed Doubles Student/Adult- Gary Schutrum and Alana Danieu.Photos/C.Schutrum

EAHS National Honor Society raised $2508.26 in a Penny Drive to benefi t the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in March.

$2508 for Leukemia and Lymphoma

Upcoming public events...

This is a publica on of the Offi ce of Community Rela ons; contact kward@eastauroraschools.

Mr. Terhune and Mr. Ambrose are proud to announce the winners of the Middle School Talent Show:

• First Overall: Anthony and Timothy Po-tenza: Rocking to Megadeath selection on drums and electric guitar

• Second: Mary Burt, singing “Melodies of Life”

• Third: Milo Duhn singing his original song “Dream Girl”

• Fourth: The Haunted Girls dancing to Coldplay’s”42”; Tori Klimowicz, Seneca Phillips, Celia Phillips, Grace Link, Lauren Kenworthy

• Tehune/Ambrose Award (most improved, greatest journey kid) Katelynn Leman sing-ing “Make it Shine”

April 3 High School/Middle School Choral Pops Concert; 7:00 PM at the High School

April 4 Board of Education Meeting; 7:00 PM at the Middle School Library

April 4-12 No school; Good Friday and Spring Recess

April 17 High School/Middle School Pops Concert; 7:00 PM at the High School

April 18 Board of Education Meeting; 7:00 PM at the Middle School Library

April 20 “Dancing with the Staff” at 7:00 PM in the EAHS auditorium. Audience will choose a winner

among competing staff couples. Proceeds will benefi t SADD’s Post Prom activities and to pur-

chase year books for AFS Club exchange students.

April 27 High School Talent Show, 7:00 PM, auditorium

Also... support our teams with attendance at any game or meet! Daily game schedules at www.eastauroraschools.org/athletics. Click on “Today’s events” under the Quick Links column. Spring sports include JV and Varsity Baseball, Girls and Boys JV and Varsity Lacrosse, Track and Field, JV and Varsity Softball and Boys’ Tennis.

MS Talent Latin newsOn Friday, March 23, thir-teen juniors and seniors from EAHS participated in UB’s annual Classics Department Open House. Students met Department Chair Neil Cof-fee, and attended lectures about the Roman military, Roman curses and magic. The lectures were followed by a quick game of Jeopar-dy, a question and answer session with both undergraduate and graduate Classics majors, and a tour of the Amherst Campus. The following day, seven students attended the annual “Spring Fling Certamen” Latin com-petition at Amherst High School, a statewide event under the auspices of the New York State Junior Classical League. The following students won awards:• Audrey Parker, Matthew Witkowski, and El-liot Morgan won the fi rst place trophy in the main certamen event• Audrey Parker won a second place ribbon in the individual mythology exam

• Elliot Morgan won a third place ribbon in the ping pong tournament• Audrey Parker, Matthew Witkowski, Elliot Morgan, Tommy Morris, Tanner Szafnicki, and Alex Christie won fi rst place in the volleyball tournament Also on Saturday, March 24, Junior Chase Szafnicki was elected president of the New York State Junior Classical League. He will be attending executive meetings and organizing the state wide conference, and will be eligible to participate in the national conference of the ACL (American Classical League). Photo/B. Serwicki