Although we are quite late in sharing, we have had experienced an overall great beginning to the 2011-12 school year! So, this newsletter post will be both a re-cap of some great news and information to share form this past summer as well as what has been occurring this school year thus far. Each year over the summer, we have a number of faculty, staff, and students who experience some pretty amazing and interesting experiences that we like to share with our Loyalsock school community.
To begin, Miss Jennifer Beck, one of our social studies teachers, traveled to China! Miss Beck spent time with other teachers and Chinese students in Hebei Province. She found that some are residential students and others commute each day as American students do. Most of them speak minimal English, love American music, and one even asked if high school in America resembled High School Musical. The school is called Hebei Oil Field High School (No. 1). Their principal, Mr. Bai, a day showing Miss Beck's group around and answered their questions. It was overall great opportunity for Miss Beck to compare and contrast teaching methodologies, culture, and of course how Chinese and American students earn their education.
Another very amazing opportunity was experienced by three of our current students, senior Dan H. and juniors, Rameez Z. and Ron R. when the applied for and were successfully admitted into a month-long summer experience at the University of Pittsburgh Health Career Scholars Academy held on campus of Pitt. A national program, Loyalsock was able to place three students at once in the program – more than any other high school across the country! Essentially, all three young men became college students, working and studying for sixteen hours a day and experiencing a broad range of health related topics, careers, and actual experiments. Recently, at our last school board meeting, each young man shared with everyone their experiences and what they took away. Each student indicated that this experience solidified what they want to do with their futures: become physicians. Ms. Karen Narkevic, the coordinator of the Health Careers Scholars Academy (previously known as the Governor’s School for the Sciences), was present t also speak with the board and present each student with their certificates of completion. One final point is that each student made mention of the coursework while here at Loyalsock that so well prepared them for this experience; they also indicated having courses here is likely what enabled their application to be set apart from so many other students. This experience is a tribute to these three young men’s work ethic as well as the dedication of our faculty to prepare students for their futures. Congratulations to Dan, Rameez, and Ron on representing Loyalsock in such fine fashion!
Back in the spring, 2011, Mr. Gerald Kaplan worked on a project with his art students on donating portraits of orphaned Rwandan children to an orphanage in Rwanda. A part of a nationwide effort, the Memory Project, the program’s emphasis is to enrich children’s lives in third world countries by exposing them to the arts and having American students reach out to them. Those portraits were delivered and just recently pictures were shared with us of the Rwandan children receiving them. Check out the video below. This is phenomenal stuff and a tribute to Mr. Kaplan and the work on his students!
