East Granby High School Newsletter
April 2015
Principal's Newsletter
Dear East Granby High School Community,
This week is teacher appreciation week. Most adults that I know can still recall the teachers that made a positive difference in their lives. The profession of teaching has been under a great deal of stress lately, with ever greater emphasis on attaching teacher evaluation to student test scores. I will never believe that the craft of teaching, which is largely about relationships, can be reduced to a test score. In my experience, teachers entered the profession for one of two main reasons. First, they love working with children. Many teachers first work as coaches or camp counselors and discover how rewarding working with young people can be. They canāt imagine any other kind of work. Others have a great love of their subject and want to share that passion with others. Teachers who love working with children, inspiring young people, and also have a deep and abiding passion for their topic are likely to be very successful teachers and role models.
During my tenure here I have witnessed the teachers who arrive early and stay late daily. There are teachers that coach two or three seasons because they love coaching. Donāt forget teachers that work nights and weekends to support the band or the play. It is fairly common for teachers to grade mountains of essays late at night. I have often witnessed teachers that spend their afternoons tutoring students to help them get caught up. There are even teachers that give one or two weeks of their summer to attend a workshop on how to teach an advanced placement course, or learn about manufacturing at Asnuntuck Community College. Here at East Granby we are very fortunate to have such dedicated faculty.
Best Regards,
Dave Peling
Principal EGHS
May 1st - Fantastic Festivals
May 4th - 13th - AP Exams
May 8th - Senior Citizens Day
May 20th - Blood Drive
May 22nd - Early Release
May 22nd - Prom
May 25th - No School - Memorial Day and Memorial Day Parade
May 26th - Senior Outing
May 27th - Academic Awards
June 1st - NHS Induction Ceremony
June 3rd - Senior Banquet
June 4th - HS Spring Concert
CHECK OUT OUR STUDENTS!
Congratulations to Katia Semyanko for making All State Choir!
April Student of the Month - Cedric Pickering
CAS-CIAC 2014 - 2015 SCHOLAR - ATHLETES
Jacob Lareau and Casey Tobin
Third Quarter Honor Roll
High Honors
Grade 10 - Zachary Allen, Alivia Begin, Jolie Berger, Anna Brose, Emily Farmer, Alex Geer, Nicole Gosselin, Genna Hartman, Olivia Hoerle, Kaelyn Ludwig, Jenna Sheridan, Sarah Soucy, Ben Stone and Brady Williams.
Grade 11 - Emma Beman, Matthew Borsari, Dennis Cheng, Dan Couceiro, Mackenzie Denno, Kelsey Gibbs, Emily Guillerault, Marco Laureno, Sarah Martin, Olivia Morris, Colton Reardon, Connor Rosenberger, Amanda Samuel and Lauren Stout.
Grade 12 - Paula Aksenoff, Stephanie Arsenault, Scott Breeding, Francesca Brose, Manish Budhathoki, Zachery Burnham, Sai Chintalpelly, Lily Gaudreau, Sydney Geer, Robert Glassman, Carlie Harvey, David Hayes, Brad Langhoff, Fiona Loschi, Jacqueline McDougall, Charlie Moger, Shelby Roy, Evan Seelen, Katherine Semyanko, Samantha Soucy and Casey Tobin.
Honors
Grade 10 - Ashley Barry, Ashley Boateng, Zach Fiore, John Flanagan, Gwynne Hooper, Jon Kelly, Kathryn Kelly, Samuel Kilby, Kayla Lambert, Tajianna Ledford, Tyler Petrunti, Kyler Sladyk, Ryan Vanags, Tiffany Wilkinson and Jennifer Yekel.
Grade 11 - Sabrina Barry, Helena Brody, Ken Callahan, Haley Comstock, Paige Derlinga, Andrew Eastman, Nicholas Fersch, Robert Kelsey, Alisha Kumar, Ailing Li, Morgan Mattil, Sara Ouellette, Chloe Williams and Valerie Winalski.
Grade 12 - Stephanie Crane, Allison Dube, Hannah Dumas, Samantha Hall, Ashlie Houde, Jacob Larson, Jakob Lepak, Jamie Ludwig, Jared Maslowski, Carolyn Mollica, Julie Talbot, Anna Vassallo and Zachary Winalski.
EGHS Baseball team heads south to Historic Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida for Spring Training over April vacation
The baseball team returned from a successful trip to Vero Beach, Florida where they spent their spring break improving their baseball skills and bonding as a team. They have won four games, so far, with an impressive shut out by Gavin McConnell over Enfield HS this week.
Ryan Gothers was selected as captain of our hockey cooperative with Enfield and Fermi High Schools. Ryan led the team to a winning season, winning the Central CT Conference hockey tournament and leading them in the state tournament. Ryan Gothers and Troy Marin were recently selected as āAll Conferenceā hockey players. Ryan Gothers was also selected to the first team āAll Stateā hockey team.
Steve Sobota recently completed his wrestling career with over 100 wins. Quite an accomplishment in his four year career. Steve was selected āAll Conferenceā for his wrestling achievement.
The girlsā softball team has started their season with an 8 wins 0 losses. This qualifies them for the state tournament and has them in first place in the North Central CT Conference and ranked number 10 regionally in the state of Connecticut.
Jake Lareau recently signed a letter of intent to play football for the University of New Haven āChargersā as their tight end position. Jake was selected captain of the football cooperative and selected as an āAll Conferenceā football player.
Community
On April 1, East Granby High School students joined students from several other schools at the Connecticut Youth Forum meeting held at Simsbury High School. The topic was drugs and Alcohol.
Junior Ben Tuczinski has been selected to join the Connecticut Forum on May 9th at the Bushnell in Hartford as a Student Panelist!! Ben will join other CT YOUTH Forum students from around the state in a Q&A session with CT Forum panelists: Pulitzer prize winning authors David McCullough and Stacey Schiff. The focus of this Forum is HISTORY!
Guidance
The Guidance Department is in the midst of AP testing! Many of our juniors and seniors are taking their AP exams over the next few weeks. In addition to AP testing, our seniors are making their very BIG decisions about where they will be attending college next year. ..very exciting!
Guidance Happenings
Our annual Career Fair was held on April 28th and was a major success! We had 26 professionals from different career areas represented. Our students took away valuable information about various occupations they are interested in.
Course selection sheets were given out before April break and have been trickling back into guidance. Please hand in your course selection sheet ASAP if you have not done so already!
The International Baccalaureate (IB) program is now available online to students who would otherwise be unable to access a prestigious IB education. EGHS will be offering four IB online courses to interested juniors in 2015-16. You can visit their website for more information (pamojaeducation.com) and please see your guidance counselor if you are interested!
Fifth Year Associate Degree Pathway: EGHS has partnered with Asnuntuck Community College and local manufacturing businesses to offer interested students a Fifth-Year Associates in Science Degree in Advanced Manufacturing Technologies. Manufacturing careers offer opportunities for growth and advancement. Please see your guidance counselor for more information!
Junior post-secondary planning meetings with your school counselor. Discussions about plans after graduation and how to get you there!
Our sophomore class took the āDo What You Areā personality type inventory. The āDo What You Areā has helped hundreds of thousands of people find truly satisfying work. āDo What You Areā introduces Personality Type - how you process information, make decisions and interact with the world around you - and shows you which of the 16 types describes you best!
Congratulations to Cedric Pickering he is our Rotary Club Student of the Month!
IN OUR CLASSROOMS...
On Friday, March 27, 32 eleventh and twelfth grade students from Mrs. Ott's AP English Language classes and Ms. Carney's art classes visited the New Britain Museum of American Art. Students were led on tours by several of the docents, and then revisited and later analyzed an artist's particular message.
Don't worry about the guard...he's made of wax!
A docent lectures EGHS juniors about Graydon Parrish's important work, "Cycle of Terror and Tragedy"
Hyde Park Field Trip
By David Mendrala
Health
On April 16 most of the junior class attended the "Let's Not Meet by Accident Program" at St. Francis Hospital. The program encourages adolescents to make healthy choices. It is a hands on program that includes observing a "mock" trauma, a visit to the helipad and a guest speaker that has been directly affected by injuries or fatalities suffered due to a trauma. The attached photo is half of the class standing where LifeStar lands. It was a very educational and emotional day. A big thank you goes out to the Youth Services Board for covering the cost of the two buses.
Congratulations to the following students for receiving their Heartsaver CPR, First Aid, AED certification: Sabrina Barry, Todd Bedard, Helena Brody, Dennis Cheng, Haley Comstock, Dan Couciro, Caitlin Daleb, Josh Diaz, Hannah Dumas, Lexi Gelinas, Emily Guillerault, Alex Hacia, Kyle Harvey, John Klemonsky, Marco Laureno, Taylor Lavoire, Emily Marceau, Morgan Mattil, Olivia Morris, Sara Ouellette, Kelsey Roy, Shelby Roy, Amanda Samuel, Katherine Semyanko, Lauren Stout, Ryan Vanags, Casandra Weir and Chole Wellins.
World Language
By SeƱora Duffy
The students in the Spanish III classes of Mrs. Duffy wrote and presented their original ODES to the class. They were based on the "Odas" written by Pablo Neruda, one of the most important and renowned Chilean poets of the XX century. Neruda is noted for a variety of odes and sonnets. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Lenin Peace Prize at the end of his career. Here are some of our young poets.
Math
The AP Statistics class has begun prepping for their May 13th Examination. Mr. Cirillo is confident his students will be successful on this year's AP Statistics Examination.