TEAM WHS

2018-2019: Episode 19

WHS Chamber Singers at Symphony Hall: Come watch our very own WHS Chambers Singers perform at Boston Symphony Hall on Saturday May 4 at 9:30AM!!! They recently gave a GOLD winning performance and are being featured at Symphony Hall!!! Tickets are free and open to the public. Please come support us, WHS and the Winchester community for this “golden” once in a lifetime experience!!!

WFEE Road Race: Our friends at WFEE want everyone to know about the WFEE Town Day Road Race, June 1, 8:30 am start at McCall. Run or walk, go 2.5 miles or 5 miles, it is both fun and an important way that WFEE raises money for the grants which it gives to our schools. As always, your WHS admin team will be on the course stumbling, bumbling and rumbling to the finish line! Online sign ups can be made at www.wfee.org

MCIEA School Quality Survey: Now that the YRBS is done…it’s time for some MCIEA! As some folks know or have heard, the WPS is a member of the state-funded Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA).  For more information on MCIEA and their concerns, please see: http://mciea.org/. Our participation in MCIEA requires us to run a School Quality survey for all teachers and older students in the district.  The survey should take approximately 20 minutes to complete. Students will be requested to take the survey, at their convenience, during an upcoming school day soon. This survey is another tool we will use to help direct our growth as a school and district.

The busy spring: Take a look at the following doc for a quick snapshot of all of the many major events coming up in the next month and a half. We hope to see you there! Major events of Spring 18-19

Senior Events Info: 2019 Senior Events Timeline

Highlights from last week’s STEAM Night:  Last Tuesday, 4/23, WHS held our annual STEAM night. Our students demonstrated and presented their capstone projects that they worked on throughout the year. Each student earned their STEAM certificates and the approved DESE pin that they can wear at graduation. These students will be recognized at our upcoming Senior Awards. This group of kids will be leading the way in our future!  Thank you Mrs. Grace for your tireless efforts and supports!

The Criminal Justice Club and SRO Sgt. Perenick want to thank all the members of the WHS National Honor Society who volunteered for last Saturday’s medication take back event.  It was a great success and we were able to turn in 405 pounds of expired or unused medication from the residents of Winchester.  That brings us up to 6,405 lbs total collected since we started the program. Thank you again for the continued support with this worthy project. Our students are making a difference and are part of the solution to this drug epidemic.

Spring is Awards Season!

SILS: A BIG congratulations to Charlotte Bradley and Isaac Greylin, both Class of 2020, for being this year’s recipients of the Middlesex League SILS Award. SILS stands for Scholarship, Integrity, Leadership and Spirit. Each year each school gives out two SILS awards to deserving students in the current junior class, and Charlotte and Isaac were this years winner. Congratulations to both!

2019 SILS Award Winners Isaac Greylin and Charlotte Bradley

WHS Latin Club Places Top 5! Winchester High School’s Latin Club placed 5th at the annual Junior Classical League State Convention in Barnstable MA, April 26-28th.  WHS students earned prizes in literary, artistic, technical and athletic contests at this fun-filled event. Thank you Mrs. DeCamp for all your work with these unsung students!

WHS Latin Club Students

Mathletes Assemble! Congratulations to the WHS math team on placing third in the Massachusetts Mathematics League, third at the state finals, and fourth at the New England finals this year. Thank you Mr. Luckas and Mr. Bond!

WHS Math Team

Shot callers, Bot Ballers! The competitive robotics club came in 2nd in the head-to-head competition and third place overall at the regional Botball competition at UMass Lowell. We see you, Mr. K!

WHS Botball Team

WHS Student Goal of the Week: Noah Ampe reminds us all that keeping it positive is a great goal for the week! Thank you Noah. Sometimes the simple things cannot be stated enough!

Noah Ampe reminding us all that!

Learning Beacons: WPS Learning Beacons

WINspiration: “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” — Thomas Jefferson

Thank you for reading this week!

Dennis P. Mahoney

TEAM WHS

2018-2019: Episode 18

Hello all and welcome back to WHS,

We trust our students enjoyed the time off and had time to recharge and refuel for the final stretch  of the 2018-2019 school year. We are a few days away from the month of May now, and for many of us this is our favorite time of year. The weather can be absolutely gorgeous, and the many capstone events and ceremonies make the season a time to appreciate everything we have accomplished and reflect on those things on which we want to continue to work. And with only 1 snow day this year, it’s okay to start dreaming of summer! The official last day of school is June 18th.

Madame Milner and our French students

Youth Risk Behavior Survey: The YRBS will be done in all WIN Blocks on 4/24. ALL students will be required to go to their regularly scheduled WIN block room to complete the survey first. The survey takes approximately 20 minutes. We will email all students the survey link, to their WHS emails, at the end first block. Students can use any device to complete the survey (phones are ok to use, but not great) and are able to share devices once they have completed their own survey. Once students have completed their survey they are able to move to whatever scheduled activity, classroom, etc. that they have a pass for.  There will be no announcement to mark the beginning or ending of the YRBS.

Below are links related to the YRBS process. The first is the communication that was sent out to all WHS families. The second is a list of contacts and resources for any family who may need support.

2019 YRBS Family Letter

YRBS resources for families

Disney Recap: A big thank you to Mrs. and Mr. Costello and Mr. Bufford and all of our chaperones for taking our WHS music students on another successful trip to Disney! From what we have heard the trip was a smashing success and great experience had by all.  Also a big “we see you!” to Mr. MacKenzie for going into over time and having to spend an extra night in Orlando with 20 students who were stuck at the airport due to the seasonal but highly destructive storms sweeping across the southeast and midwest. 

From Mrs. Costello:

Well, we may not have crossed the finish line on Boylston Street but the high school music department completed a marathon of its own last week!

After months of planning (and years of student anticipation) 2/3 of the students in our performing ensembles began arriving at WHS at 3AM, boarded planes and headed to perform in Disney World in Orlando, Florida.  218 students, 14 chaperones, 223 uniforms, 100+instruments, 1315 meal vouchers, 5 planes, and 1 equipment van headed south. Soon after arrival, the orchestra was first to perform on Thursday afternoon at the Main Stage in Disney Springs. It was a hot and sunny afternoon in an area bustling with activity.  The performance was terrific and very well-received. The concert program included favorite Disney selections as well as a fiddle tune and selections from An American in Paris.

After quickly shuttling an orchestra member to sing with the chorus, the Chorus was next to perform at Festival Disney, a closed-door competitive performance.  The chorus sang wonderfully, granting them the top spot in their category. A performance rewarded with an evening in Typhoon Lagoon Water Park!

Friday morning, members of the chorus and orchestra were out the door early to the Magic Kingdom to await the WHS Band performance down Main Street.  The WHS Marching Band was announced throughout the park as they played I Wanna Be Like You from the Jungle Book.  A great memory for all.

Kudos to Ms. Mercurio (Lincoln School Nurse), Ms. Haines, Mrs. Smith, Mr. Robbat, Mrs. Cella, Mr. Mackenzie and Ms. Sebastian (McCall Choral teacher) who were the faculty chaperones.  They went above and beyond keeping track of their assigned groups and pitching in and troubleshooting wherever needed. I believe most folks recorded around 19,000 or so steps each day!

Sunday morning brought the beginning of the departures.  14 students were either picked up by parents in Orlando or were heading elsewhere to join families for vacation. 5 flights were scheduled out of Orlando. 4 flights left.  One of our flights was canceled due to storms in the mid-west! All but 10 students and two chaperones were successfully rescheduled on flights that afternoon. The remaining students stayed an extra (fun) night and flew out in the morning. Big shout out to Mr. Mackenzie and Ms. Wenzel for going the extra mile (night) and staying super positive with the kids!

We appreciate everyone’s assistance in helping with this significant undertaking.  We know it affects classes just prior to break; Mrs. Markham was invaluable with her assistance making sure we all had the appropriate information to be able to care for all of the students; guidance sat in many-a-meeting with us to ensure students were well-placed and ready to go. Last but not least – we had incredible community support from individual parents, the PFA, John and Mary Murphy Foundation, EnKa and the Friends of Music.  We could not have pulled it off without everyone’s help!

Every year we thoughtfully consider our motives for taking on such a project.  Inevitably, we come to the conclusion that all of the work is worth it – the pride the students have in their performances, the esprit de corps that is developed among the groups, the empathy and care that they show for students who are struggling and some of the life-lessons that they unknowingly learn along the way.

Respectfully,

Mary Costello

 

We put a video of our WHS Marching Band out on our Instagram page for anyone who wants to watch them take over and rock Disney’s famed Main Street USA. It already has over 800 views! https://www.instagram.com/whssachems/?hl=en

The April issue of the WHS Newspaper, The Red & Black, is now online: April 2019 Red & Black

WHS Chorus is GOLDEN: Our WHS singers, with guidance by Joel Bufford, were awarded the gold medal performance at the recent MICCA Concert and Choral Festival! And by winning the gold, have been selected to perform at SYMPHONY HALL on SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2019.

WHS Alumni in the News: Two weeks ago, Kofi Sarkodie-Mensah (aka Kofi Kingston), class of ’99, won the WWE Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania in front of almost 80,000 fans at MetLife Stadium! Sure, there are easy pro-wrasslin’ jokes that can be made here, but the accomplishment is still one of significance and noteworthy, on many levels, and also gives a nice nod to WHS’s uniquely talented and diverse student body.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alfredkonuwa/2019/04/07/wwe-wrestlemania-35-results-kofi-kingston-makes-history-wins-wwe-title/#28d210ca5c1b  

https://winchesteralumni.360alumni.com/#/  

WPD SPED PAC Presentation:

WHS Student Goal of the Week: 9th graders Reid Salyards and Gavin Dunlap have a few achievable goals for the week. It’s nice to see that they are thinking about helping others and also how they affect those around them!

Run For Our Heroes: Winchester’s first Run for our Heroes 5K chip timed race! Sunday, May 5th at 9:00 am with the start and end at Borggaard Beach. All proceeds go to veterans, active military, and first Responders. To sign up go to eventbrite.com and search up Run For Our Heroes 5K or go to our Facebook page Runforourheroes Winchester.

The busy spring: Take a look at the following doc for a quick snapshot all the many major events coming up in the next month and a half. We hope to see you there! Major events of Spring 18-19

Senior Events Info: 2019 Senior Events Timeline

Learning Beacons: WPS Learning Beacons

WINspiration: “Gmorning, stunner. Breathe. Another breath. Breathe. Make some space between yourself and whatever is weighing on you. It’s nothing you can’t handle, but make some space. Breathe. You got this. Breathe. Psssh, you SUPER got this. Breathe. Let’s go.”

–      Lin-Manuel Miranda

NEW WHS Athletics Calendar

Thank you so much for reading!

Dennis P. Mahoney

 

TEAM WHS

2018-19: Episode 17

3 weeks to go until April vacation! April Fools! 2 weeks to go! Wait, April 1st was yesterday…that’s right, double April Fools! The blog came out a day late!

Congratulations to James Chung, Mr. WHS 2019! A shout out to Garen Meguerditchian, Alex Manning, Jack Legere, Louie Ketcios and Alex Zhang for really putting it all on the line in front of a completely sold out WHS auditorium. It isn’t as easy as they make it look and they all owned the stage when they were on and performing!

The show takes a village to successfully pull off. A special thank you to Joy Vaeth, Lauren Chilton, Drew Vaughn, Kelley Ciotti, Rose Hodges and Genna Doherty for their support and helping the contestants make it all the way to the end of the show. Joe Lepore and Gianluca Maffei did a great job as our MC’s. Of course thank you to our class officers Anna Flaherty, Joe Lepore, Emma Driscoll and Garen Meguerditchian for putting it all together. Thank you to Brette Cronin and Joy Vaeth for their amazing choreography. Thank you to our judges Mrs. Keane, Mrs. Manoogian, Dr. Spencer, Mr. Pundit-Murphy, Mrs. Evrigenis and Mrs. Ferretto! Thank you to Ms. Turney and Ms. Haines for their support. Thank you to the Tech Crew for, as always, being the unsung, unseen, force that they are behind the scenes. And lastly thank you to Dot Butler for everything she does to support our students.

This Mr. WHS had a lot of jokes and fun moments but the best part, in my opinion, was how positive the messages from the performers were. The love for each other and their class really stood out and made the night memorable. James Chung’s rap was all about his fellow contestants and friends. However, in a twist, the rap wasn’t a dis-track that is commonly used these days but rather a very supportive, even loving, shout out to his connections at WHS. There were certainly a few misty eyes in the audience!

 

The Guidance Spring Newsletter: The GuideSpring 2019.pdf

Cool Lesson: A shout out to Ms Timmins’ and Ms Hardy’s Biology class debate series! The students were broken up into groups for a debate on antibiotic use in food-source animals. The students all had to present, debate and counterpoint (there was no hiding or letting a team member do the bulk of the work!), and there were student judges who scored the debate. The kids really dove into the opportunity and did a great job. This was 100% student-centered, authentic application of what they are learning, and the whole class was run by the students. A great job by all!

 

En Ka is Coming! Congratulations to Elizabeth Rozmanith, grade 12, for winning the En Ka poster art contest! That also means we are about a month and a half until En Ka fair season! Come one, come all for the book tent, carnival rides, lobster rolls and more!

 

Winchester Got Lunch: On behalf of all kids in our community, Winchester Got Lunch is collecting Spaghettios & Raviolis (5 oz cans) the entire month of April at WHS. Please drop donations in the  box in the dining commons or in B113.  Winchester Got Lunch provides lunches every week for students in our community throughout the summer months. Thank you!

Student Goal for the Week: Grade 10 student, Maaike Biemans, has a pretty amazing goal for the week! What an amazing kid! Go for it Maaike!

YRBS 4/24: The information around our annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) should be sent out to faculty and family this week. The YRBS will be done on 4/24.

Senior Events Info: 2019 Senior Events Timeline

Learning Beacons: WPS Learning Beacons

WINspiration: “The greatest glory lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela

NEW WHS Athletics Calendar

Thank you for reading!

Dennis P. Mahoney

 

TEAM WHS

2018-2019: Episode 16

Hello readers and welcome back to the blog! This is a big week! We have our English Language Arts (ELA) MCAS for all grade 10 students and tomorrow is the town wide election!

3/26 Vote: Below are all of the links and documents that will help people make an informed decision around the budget override ballot question.

Budget Override Documents

One Winchester:  website

The WPS School Committee’s Website dedicated to the budget/override: www.tinyurl.com/decision01890

ELA MCAS: March 26-27, 2019

Blue blocks indicate those during which testing will take place

Tuesday, March 26	Wednesday, March 27
Day 2	Day 3
B	A
C	E
D	F
G	C
F	D

Science Olympiad: Congratulations to our WHS Science Olympiad team and Mrs. Chakladar, who competed in the States competition at Framingham State on Sunday and came in 6th overall (out of over 50 towns).  They medaled in 3 events!

WHS Science Olympiad

N.O.T.A. in Review: Once again our WHS Night of the Arts was a wonderful evening. Thank you to our Student Council members and Mr. Robbat for putting it all together. As always, there were plenty of great performances and artwork to take in. A few of our strings students played a very emotional and powerful piece that can be seen and heard on our Instgram page: http://www.instagram.com/whssachems

Financial Literacy Fair: Congratulations to Dr. Spencer and all those involved during last Wednesday’s Financial Literacy Fair for our Class of 2020 students. A BIG thank you to all of our Winchester community members who came to WHS to work with our students at the fair. The expertise and support of our community is deeply appreciated and we cannot do it without you. We received some really great feedback and coverage. Take a read:  Wicked Local Financial Lit Fair Article

Lighting It Up Blue: Winchester supports Autism Awareness Month with its Light It Up Blue and Autism Awareness Event April 2, 2018. April is Autism Awareness Month, and April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day. This community event promotes and celebrates autistic people as family members, friends, classmates, co-workers, and community members who make valuable contributions to our world. The Lynch Elementary School is the site for this event.  Light It Up Blue Video

Student Goal for the Week: Grade 11 student John Emmanuel has maybe one of the best goals we’ve seen in while. It’s all about believing in yourself!

YRBS 4/24: Just an initial heads up that we will be doing the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey on 4/24. More info to come soon.

WINspiration: “Remember that person that gave up? Neither does anyone else.” — Miriam Krug

NEW WHS Athletics Calendar

Senior Events Info: 2019 Senior Events Timeline

Learning Beacons: WPS Learning Beacons

Thank you all for reading!

Dennis Mahoney

TEAM WHS

2018-2019: Episode 15

D1 Hockey State Finals: Sachems 1 – Duxbury 3

Well, it wasn’t meant to be. This game will go down as the stuff of legends and we will be referring to it for years to come. As many of you know by now, due to delays in the previous games, our game didn’t START until 10 PM!!!

Once the game got underway the two teams, who were very evenly matched, gave it their all for the three full periods. It just wasn’t our night as the Sachems lost 3-1 (an empty net goal for the 3rd score.) 

Our student section arrived on time and ready to go at 7 PM and then had to wait for three hours for the game before us to finish. But our kids, as expected, did a great job of showing what what great kids they are and made the entire Winchester community proud.

We are so proud of our players and our fans for their sportsmanship, effort and class. There will be A LOT of tired students and staff this morning and as I type this my eyes have that “stinging” feeling. Let’s tell everyone to keep their heads held high and enjoy the accomplishment.

And let’s get back to it next year!

N.O.T.A.: The Night of the Arts is TONIGHT! 3/18 starting at 6PM at WHS. This a wonderful night that spotlights the many musical and artistic talents of our student (and staff) and is really worth popping into. It is a casual event and an easy way to see what WHS is all about.

The Red & Black Online: Our school newspaper and online media page has a new issue! Link to the WHS Red & Black

Connect and Commit Club: The CCC is having its annual dessert auction on Thursday, March 21st at 6 in the WHS library. All proceeds go to the Animal Protection Center of Southern Massachusetts. We hope to see you there, and there will be dogs!

Ms. Haines took a group of our girls to a high school student conference sponsored by Middlesex Partnerships for Youth that focused on building leadership through building resiliency, compassion and gratitude.  A day led by various experts in the field that led interactive and hands-on experiences including mindfulness, self-awareness and movement exercises. Students all learned strategies to develop their own positive self-talk to combat anxiety and self-doubt.

3/20 WFEE and WPS Budget:  Do you have questions about Winchester’s school budget? Wondering where costs are going up and why? Our WPS FY20 Budget is available for all to evaluate. The BIG town election (March 26, 2019) includes an operating override question related to funding the town and school budgets for FY20. Documents related to this budget can be found on our website at Budget Override Documents. Get answers on Wednesday, March 20th, 7pm, WHS Auditorium, at a forum on school funding.  

One Winchester: Please check out this website that a group in town has put together to share information regarding the town’s current fiscal issues and needs.  

The WPS School Committee’s Website dedicated to the budget/override: www.tinyurl.com/decision01890

Lighting It Up Blue: Winchester supports Autism Awareness Month with its Light It Up Blue and Autism Awareness Event April 2, 2018. April is Autism Awareness Month, and April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day. This community event promotes and celebrates autistic people as family members, friends, classmates, co-workers, and community members who make valuable contributions to our world. The Lynch Elementary School is the site for this event.  Light It Up Blue Video

YRBS 4/24: Just an initial heads up that we will be doing the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey on 4/24. More info to come soon.

Senior Events Info: 2019 Senior Events Timeline

“Attitude is a choice. What you think you can do, whether positive or negative, confident or scared, will most likely happen.” – Pat Summitt

Thank you for reading!

Dennis Mahoney

TEAM WHS

2018-2019: Episode 14

Welcome back readers!

Congratulations to the cast and crew of Xanadu. It was such a great show! Our kids did a great job acting, singing, and dancing, and the comedic timing was spot-on. Big shout out to Mr. Mackenzie and the tech crew kids for their very creative and cutting-edge use of our lights and projector! They took our production to the next level! Xanadu Playbill

 

We have a BIG boys hockey game tonight at 7:30 in the Tsongas Center in Lowell as our boys play in the D1 North Final against St. John’s Prep. We expect a large turnout and hope to see a lot of our WHS extended community at the game.

WHS’s IHL Youth Action Campaign: Our WHS IHL will be holding an assembly in the auditorium during WIN Block on Wednesday, March 13th. IHL is a part of the Red Cross Club that relates to International Humanitarian Law, the “rules of war”, and this year’s theme is Healthcare in Danger. Come to learn about how rules protecting healthcare are sometimes ignored in active war zones, and possibly win some prizes!

Art Invitational: Also tonight is the opening night reception of our Art Invitational! This program is going to move out quickly and should not be missed!

3/20 WFEE and WPS Budget:  Do you have questions about Winchester’s school budget? Wondering where costs are going up and why? Our WPS FY20 Budget is available for all to evaluate. The BIG town election (March 26, 2019) includes an operating override question related to funding the town and school budgets for FY20. Documents related to this budget can be found on our website at Budget Override Documents. Get answers on Wednesday, March 20th, 7pm, WHS Auditorium, at a forum on school funding.  

One Winchester: Please check out this website that a group in town has put together to share information regarding the town’s current fiscal issues and needs.  

N.O.T.A. is next week!

YRBS 4/24: Just an initial heads up that we will be doing the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey on 2/24. More info to come soon.

Senior Events Info: 2019 Senior Events Timeline

Social Justice Opportunity: As part of its ongoing commitment to Winchester’s next generation of social justice leaders, the Winchester Multicultural Network is sponsoring a two-part workshop geared toward youth, which will be facilitated by VISIONS, INC. The aim of this workshop is to provide the opportunity for participants to learn some Multicultural/ Diversity and Inclusion skills.  The workshops are interactive and fun and get people thinking and feeling inspired. More information about this can be found in the morning announcements emails.

Model UN Cub: Twelve members of Winchester’s Model United Nations club journeyed to New York City this past weekend for the National High School Model UN conference. At this conference, at which delegates debated various multifaceted and international issues, Winchester took home an Award of Excellence for our merit as a delegation. Moreover, Charlotte Bradley and Spenser Wu got the opportunity to speak at the conference’s closing ceremonies.

Regional History Day: On March 2, 29 students from WHS participated in the North Shore Regional History Day competition. The students were quite successful, as two students were recognized with Honorable Mention awards and 9 students finished in the top 3 of their category. The students who finished in the top 3 will advance to the Massachusetts State History Day competition, held here at Winchester High School on Saturday, April 6.

Please join us in congratulating the following students for their achievements:

Honorable Mention

Georgia Lawrence (Individual Documentary)

Katie Lew & Amelia Murray (Group Website)

Advancing to State

Evan Edler (2nd place – Research Paper)

Kanella Boretos (2nd place – Individual Exhibit)

Juliet Jang (2nd place – Individual Website)

Maggie Eid (3rd place – Individual Website)

Eimon Aung & Michelle Wu (2nd place – Group Website)

Abigail Nordan (1st place – Individual Performance)

Isabella Balian (2nd place – Individual Documentary)

Alex Cumming & Aidan Kimberley (1st place – Group Documentary)

Boyang Wang & Briana Yang (2nd place – Group Documentary)

Congratulations to all of the students who competed, as well as their teachers Mr. Lee, Mrs. Malmede and Dr. Spencer, for all of their hard work and efforts.

WINspiration: “You are what you settle for.” — Janis Joplin

NEW WHS Athletics Calendar

 

It was a long one this week. Thank you for reading all the way to the end!!!

Dennis Mahoney

Team WHS

2018-2019: Episode 13

Welcome back readers! We have a short week this week because of our Monday snow day. Our new last day of school is now 6/18/19. Of course this last day could move again if we have another snow event so please be mindful of booking family vacations and trips.

Tomorrow, 3/6/19, all Grade 10 students will be taking part in our online MCAS infrastructure testing during WIN Block. This is a mandated process by DESE. Student will be given Chromebooks and be asked to log onto the software, become familiar with the settings and answer a few questions. The purpose is to have students and faculty become comfortable with the online testing and test the WHS WiFi infrastructure prior to the March 26/27 ELA MCAS.

Our boys hockey team are the only winter sport still playing in the state tourney.  Boys Hockey will play Billerica in the MIAA D1 North Semi Finals on Thursday, 3/7 at the Tsongas Center in Lowell. Time is 5:30. Tickets are $13 for adults, $8 for students.

The poster says it all!

 

Our WHS Harvard Model Congress team competed recently.  The event took place at The Sheraton in the Prudential Center in Boston. Thank you Mr. Miles for being the faculty adviser. Dan Kwan and Ethan August are the esteemed team leaders!

Student Council Website: Our Student Council has made a really nice website to share information and bring attention to some of the causes they champion. Take a look: https://www.whsstudentcouncil.com/

One Winchester: Please check out this website that a group in town has put together to share information regarding the town’s current fiscal issues and needs.  

8th Grade Students and Families: Last week, we meet with the entire 8th grade student body at McCall. We also held a well-attended open house for all 8th grade families. The themes of both meetings were to not overload your schedule, don’t listen to the pressure of others and make sure you enjoy your time at WHS. The slides from both presentations are here: Class of 2023 Family Presentation     Class of 2023 Student Presentation

WINspiration: “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” — C.S. Lewis

NEW WHS Athletics Calendar

Thank you for reading!

Team WHS

2018-2019: Episode 12

Hello readers and welcome back! Just a few quick notes to keep you up to date with the many happenings at here WHS while we are watching the weather for this week very very closely.

Quiet Cafe Room: Our quiet/silent cafeteria (room C113) is now open and available to all students looking for a quiet place to eat that isn’t than the hustle and bustle of the dining commons. Please feel free to mention this to your student(s) if you feel they may benefit from using from the space. Right now it is first come first served and seats about 20. We recognize that the room is a bit spartan. We are working on adding some WHS style and character to the space. To that end, we would love any donations (like games, puzzles, books or chalk board paint) for our students to use in the space!

The new space needs a bit for character but we are happy to have created it!

Time manager app: Check out Class of ‘20’s  Sal Mudrow’s Time Manager App for WHS. We have been working on this seemingly simple idea for our students for the better part of 3 years. The idea is to help them make smart choices when thinking about all of their activities and classes for next year. The data is the median response from student surveys regarding how much time students actually put in while doing homework. Special thanks to Mr. Pine for getting this projected started and Ms. Greene for taking it to the finish line with Sal. The link can be found found our main website page and works via desktop or phone app. http://whstimemanager.com/

Our WPS Report Card: Each year every school system is given an overall report card from DESE. The report is made public and will be shared out “officially” to our community in the coming weeks. We are happy to report that it is a very positive report, but we do recognize that there are always areas to improve, grow and evolve! Please take a look at the following links: WPS Report Card 2018 (direct to the report) or the Letter to WHS families that also contains the report infomation: 2018 WPS Report Card

WHS is Always Busy: We had a really busy extracurricular activities slate last week. The below pics are just a few of the highlights! We also had our mathletes compete in a home meet for the math competitions team and a group young scientists went to Brown University and experienced a Women in STEM program! These are just a few groups that had team activities last week!

Mock Trial: Take a look at our Mock Trial team. Word in the mock trial community is that this team was our most successful WHS Mock Trial team ever!

JSA: Our Junior Statesmen of America stormed Manhattan this weekend! Thank you Ms. Glenwerks for taking the team to NYC.

Model UN: A huge congratulations to the Model United Nations team for their fantastic work at the Boston Model United Nations Conference! Special shout outs to Elina Chen for winning best delegate, Alex Lee for winning an honorable mention, Jevon Bunting for winning best position paper and Sophie Chung, James Shiang, Tommy Bellaire, Joanna Zhou and Anna Flaherty for winning verbal commendations!

 

MFA + Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: A number of our art students took in the MFA and Gardner museums last Friday.

Fun in Science: Dr. Geyer’s classes were super busy last week performing RNA sequencing with Legos and doing strawberry DNA extractions!

NEW WHS Athletics Calendar

Thank you for reading and enjoy our February break!

Dennis Mahoney

Team WHS

2018-2019: Episode 11

Hello readers and happy National Tom Brady Day! Wait, that’s not a real thing? Well, it should be by now, shouldn’t it?

We have a quick post today!

Tonight at 6:45 is our third PFA meeting of the school year. We are excited to have Lisa Wong, Winchester’s new Town Manager speaking at 6:45 PM. Ms. Wong will address the ongoing budget issues and how they impact our town and schools. We will also be joined by WHS history department member Dr. Scott Spencer who will talk about the Financial Literacy Program that will take place in March. We hope to see a nice turnout tonight!

 

Winter concert:  Another great winter strings performance by our music department last Tuesday. Bravo! Please see the pics, courtesy of Mr. Nixon, below:

Grades 11 & 12 WIN Block: Next week, 2/13, grades 11 and 12 will be visited by Travis Roy. Mr. Roy will be presenting to our students his story and talk about how anyone can turn a tragedy or set back into a new goal or direction or dream. Take a look at the link below to learn more about Travis Roy.

Roy, Travis_Bio

Writing on desks is now…acceptable! Did you ever get in trouble in school for writing on a desk? Yes? Well, it’s not so much a problem anymore. In fact, some of our staff now encourage students to write on our new desks with dry erase markers! Need to doodle to pay closer attention? That’s fine. Need more space or a bigger working area in a math class where you are collaborating with other students? No problem. The desks themselves are easily cleaned and will be fine. We thought we would share out these fun pics to show that the times do change!

Student Goals: Class of 2022’s Anna Caggioni, Catherine Armstrong and Eva Somers-Bridge are wide awake and ready for the week. “Make a new friend” might just be the friendliest goal we have seen all year! Thank you girls for thinking about doing positive things at WHS!

WINspiration: “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” — C.S. Lewis

Thank you for popping in this week!

– Dennis Mahoney

 

TEAM WHS

2018-2019: Episode 12

Hello readers!

Today marks the first day of the 3rd quarter and the second semester! I cannot believe that we are here already!

We had a wonderful Class of 2022 semi-formal last Friday night. This was the first dance for the freshman class at WHS. It was well attended and really well supported by our class officers, parent advisers, staff, Dot Butler and the Coalition for a Safer Community and of course our staff class advisers. Thank you to all for your support of the Class of 2022 and great job by all the kids attending the dance.

In addition to the dance, Our Connect & Commit Club, led by Mrs. Annmarie Tan, also held a very cozy “Hygge” (Google it!) movie night as well on Friday night.

Winter concert:  The annual Winter Instrumental Concert is tomorrow night, January 29, 2019 at 7:00 PM in the WHS Auditorium. It will be a beautiful night of classic music performed by our WHS CONCERT BAND, WHS ORCHESTRA and WHS SYMPHONY. See attachment: winter instrumental concert poster 2019

LEED Certification Ceremony: Most folks may not know that WHS is a building that has been awarded the Gold level in LEED certification. LEED stands for “Leader in Energy and Environmental Design” and it is an award that we are very proud of. There will be a brief ceremony this Thursday night 1/31 at 6:30 in the WHS Dining Commons. All are welcome to attend and share in this award and enjoy the ceremony.

For more information on what LEED means check out this link: https://new.usgbc.org/cert-guide

Girls Soccer to be recognized: We want to let everyone know that our state champion Girls Soccer team will be recognized by MaxPreps and the Army National Guard as one of the Top 10 programs in the country(!) during their 8th Annual Girls Soccer Tour of Champions. As part of that honor, MaxPreps and the Army National Guard will be traveling to Winchester to host a brief ceremony for our young women on Tuesday, February 12th in the WHS Field House at approximately 6:30PM. Here’s a sense of what we expect for our girls: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdCFBnLxP5c

http://www.maxpreps.com/m/tour_of_champions/sport.aspx?sport=soccer

For our Class of 2019: We will be sending this link out to our current senior class this morning as friendly heads up! A reminder to all Seniors: it all matters!

New WHS Safety video: In this video Sgt/SRO Perenick and the Law Enforcement Club students remind our students to always lock up any materials or valuables. Another great multimedia effort by this group! https://drive.google.com/open?id=14x8_wtuQClz-WBxEpG0QLqOMXberSx4u

Student Goals: WHS grade 11 student Will Hofheinz and grade 12 student Will Rappole have some good intentions to start out the first week of semester 2! They can do it!

WINspiration: “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” — Georgia O’Keefe

NEW WHS Athletics Calendar

Thank you for reading!

Dennis P. Mahoney