Kinnelon Public Schools Newsletter
February - March
Five Things You Need To Know About Year Two of PARCC
According to the NJ Department of Education
http://www.state.nj.us/education/assessment/parents/5Things.pdf
- ONE TESTING WINDOW Two testing windows last year have been reduced to just one testing window this year.
- LESS TESTING TIME Overall, the tests are 90 minutes shorter.
- FEWER TEST QUESTIONS There are fewer testing sessions than last year— six or seven sessions this year versus eight or nine
- FLEXIBLE SCHEDULING Under the new condensed schedule, most districts are expected to complete testing in two weeks or less.
- DATA BACK FASTER Results will begin returning to districts around the end of current school year, and parent reports are expected to be released over the summer. This is several months sooner than the last year.
The Actor's Studio
KHS Presents: The Addams Family
PRM Presents ELf The Musical Jr.
Shows April 15th & 16th at 7:30 pm at Kinnelon High School Auditorium
Buddy, a young orphan, mistakenly crawls into Santa's bag of gifts and is transported to the North Pole where he is raised as an Elf. Buddy is unaware that he is actually a human until his enormous size and poor toy-making abilities cause him to face the truth. With Santa's permission, Buddy embarks on a journey to New York City to find his birth father and discover his true identity.
If you dont have tickets yet, they can be purchased at our Online Secure Website Sales: http://prmms.seatyourself.biz $12 Adults, $10 Students/Seniors
More from the Kinnelon Artistic & Creative Community!
Lisa Wichman, Kinnelon Vocal Music Teacher Presents at NJMEA Annual Conference
On February 18, Mrs. Wichman presented "Game On" in a presentation at the NJMEA.
Singing Games Children Love" to over 230 attendees at the New Jersey Music Educators Association Annual Conference in East Brunswick. Incorporated in the presentation were video clips of Kathy Martin’s 2015 1st grade class demonstrating favorite singing games. The workshop attendees loved seeing the clips of the Kiel students, and especially appreciated the joy and enthusiasm shown by our Kinnelon children as they demonstrated favorite singing games used to develop music literacy skills.
PRM Student Accepted into the Highest Level of Band!
PRM Student Daniella Rizzo auditioned for and was accepted on Bass Clarinet for the New Jersey Region I Intermediate Band. This is the highest level a middle school instrumental music student can achieve at the state and local level.
PRM Choir students accepted into Morris Area Middle School Honor Choir & Region Honor Choir!
Thirteen PRM 6th-8th graders were accepted into the prestigious Morris Area Middle School Honor Choir! The Morris Area Honor Choir is comprised of top middle school choir singers from the Morris County Area. The students auditioned individually in front of judges and earned a spot in the choir based on their excellent scores. The 13 PRM students rehearsed three times with the other accepted students and presented a concert in January at Randolph High School.
Of the over 100 students who auditioned, PRM 8th grader, Kaylene Munem received the best overall score and was ranked #1 alto, and PRM 6th grader, Katie Nieto was ranked #1 soprano!
This is the first year that PRM has participated in the Morris Area Honor Choir. We are proud that PRM represented so well. Four of the 13 students ranked in the top 17, with 3 in the top 10.
PRM Choir Director, Mrs. Lisa Wichman, was invited to be the guest accompanist for the Morris Area Middle School Honor Choir and performed with her students in January.
Accepted students: Kaylene Munem #1 alto, Katie Nieto #1 soprano, Abby Sirindes #7 alto, Sofia Stack #17 alto, Savanah Ardrey, Ritaj Abedrabbo, Olivia DiNicola, Kayla Einhorn, Alexa Giacoia, Zainab Kabir, Juliana Marston, Dayanara Ventura, and Sophia Vitale.
The PRM students will perform with the top 7th-9th grade students from the northern third of NJ in March. Congratulations to PRM choir students: Savanah Ardrey, Alexa Giacoia, Zainab Kabir, and Kaylene Munem.
Stonybrook Mentors on NJTV's Classroom Close-Up
The format of the show features innovative programs going on in public school classrooms and the Stonybrook mentor program is certainly innovative in that it brings together a special group of caring fourth-grade students from Mrs. Catalano/Ms. Storms and Mrs. Gennat's classes with our multiply disabled students in the Stonybrook MD class. Each "Classroom Close-up, NJ" program shows how caring school professionals inspire and motivate students, and when you watch it, you will see how our teachers inspire our students to do great things.
Our fourth-grade mentoring program fosters positive opportunities with peers, targeting student abilities rather than their inabilities all while these two groups of students are building relationships. I am so proud when I see our students paying it forward to help others; and starting this altruism at such young ages, it builds the spirit of caring we want for our developing citizens.
We would like to congratulate Mrs. Creeden along with MD program paraprofessionals Ms. Polick and Ms. Castrignano and their students in the MD class. We would also like to thank and congratulate Mrs. Gennat, Mrs. Catalano and Ms. Storms and their fourth-grade mentors Sabrina Avato, Mark Borovcanin, Riley Darlington, Gabby Gaston, Katelyn Jones, Lindsey Millis, Greg Nascimento, Ella Owens, McKenna Prokop, Katie Schmidt, Leyla Yildiz, and Sema Zor.
Behind the Scenes at Stonybrook
Stnybrook Newspaper Club puts out 3rd Edition
Anyone can access it on the homepage of the Stonybrook website.
Destination ImagiNation
Kinnelon Destination Imagination had another successful season at the NJDI Tournament.
Special Awards were given to the following teams:
Spirit of DI Instant Challenge Award was given to the 3DIMensions middle school level team; the DaVinci Awards were given to the DI DAMSLs and the Fab5 both are elementary level teams.
Third Place Teams
DI Dogs 3.0 for Project Outreach - The Meme Event; The Smores for Improv Closed Encounters; and Fab5 for Get a Clue Fine Arts, all three are elementary level teams
First Place Teams’
DI DAMSLs for Project Outreach - The Meme Event; DI Jaguars for In Plain Sight Scientific both at the elementary level and the Magic CARPETS for Structural Pace of Change a middle school level team.
Parent Math Talk is a Success!
On March 26 District Math Supervisor Amelia Petrocelli and Mathematics Educational Consultant Nancy Schultz hosted Kinnelon’s first Parent Math Talk. Mrs. Schultz discussed the effect of the Common Core Standards for Math and the PARCC Assessment of current instructional practices including the Standards for Mathematical Practice which are: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. and 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
This more than 2 hour hands-on event got parents using the manipulatives their children used each day in learning various concepts in math. Mrs. Schultz explained why spiral approach programs like Everyday Mathematics (K-5) and Connected Mathematics (6-8) teach students traditional routes to solving math problems but also nontraditional approaches. Some of these nontraditional approaches assist in the acquisition of algebra later in a student’s math curriculum. The highlight of the evening was when Mrs. Schultz used a few ‘most common errors in algebra’ as examples of why a nontraditional approach may increase a student’s understanding of algebra over traditional teaching methods.
KHS DECA Preforms Well in its Maiden Year!
DECA (previously known as Delta Epsilon Chi and Distributive Education Clubs of America) is an international association of high school and college students and teachers of marketing, management and entrepreneurship in business, finance, hospitality, and marketing sales and service. The organization prepares leaders and entrepreneurs for careers and education in marketing, finance, hospitality, management, and other business areas. It is one of ten organizations listed as Career and Technical Student Organizations by the United States Department of Education. Mrs. Ellington and Mrs. Garrahy co-advisors of the DECA Team worked hard with students to compete and win at several competitions.
Co-advisors Mrs. Ellington and Mrs. Garrhay are very proud of what they were able to do in the first year of competition. Originally, 28 students from Kinnelon competed at the DECA Regional Competition at Ramapo College in January where approximately 3,000 students competed at the Regional level. Out of the initial 28 competitiors, eight advanced to the New Jersey DECA State Competition in Cherry Hill in February (see highlighted students below). Two of the students, Nicole Morris and Gabriella Cowlan, advanced to the Finalist Round and received medals for their achievements.
Citizenship at Kinnelon Schools
PRM Global Citizens Club
PRM’s new 8th grade program, Global Citizenship has 24 students joining library media specialist, Mrs. Shelley Battaglia in efforts to change the world, one volunteer mission at a time. The group travels to local events and volunteers in various ways. So far the group has volunteered at Care One in Morristown to play bingo with seniors, helped clean Harsimus Veteran cemetery in Jersey City, made and packed lunches at House of Mercy in Newark, cleaned stables and equipment at Equine Tranquility Farm: Horse Therapy, and more! This summer, our project program goes international as 14 of those global citizens will travel with Mrs. Battaglia to Tortuga Feliz Field Station in Costa Rica to work side by side with scientist in the attempts to save sea turtles!
PRM Social Outreach Club Collects for Children at Morristown Memorial
PRM collected close to 400 items and we are so proud of our students. When we showed up, they had to get a stretcher to pile all of the gifts on, as evidenced by these photos! Dr. Medler and Mrs. Romano are so proud of their students!
PRM Peer Mentors Discuss Safety when Using Social Media with Stonybrook Students
PRM peer mentors took a trip to Stonybrook to visit the 5th grade students and to teach the classes about being safe on social media.
The PRM peer mentors provided safety tips for keeping their information private, discussed how quickly rumors can spread online, and/or worked with the 5th graders using role playing to practice the safety tips. We are very proud of the peer mentors.
KHS Tri-M Music Honor Society Donates to Toys for Tots & to Cheerful Heart Mission
This year the Kinnelon HS Tri-M Music Honor Society donated over 75 toys to the U.S. Marines annual Toys for Tots Toy Drive. The students helped to donate and collect the toys which were given to children to brighten their Holiday Season!
This year the Kinnelon High School Tri-M Music Honor Society collected, donated, and purchased instruments to the Cheerful Heart Music Education Mission to Haiti. The Cheerful Hearts mission educators conducted two music schools in the impoverished border region of the Dominican Republic and Haiti in January. Each music school was attended by seventy children and fifteen adults. The children attended choral rehearsals and lessons on violin, guitar, dance, percussion and voice. Each school concluded with a concert given by the students to their parents and community.
The violins and guitars donated by the KHS Tri-M Honor Society allowed more children to participate in the instrumental program. The rhythm instruments that we collected added to the diversity of sound and also provided a greater number of children the opportunity to participate. We received a letter and photos of the students from the Cheerful Heart Mission thanking the Tri-M Music Honor Society for our contributions and help with this year’s mission.