June 4, 2018

Volume 3, Issue 34

York City

School

District The

Monday Memo

STEAM wins grant to beautify parks

On Friday, a group of 6th and 7th graders from the Edgar Fahs

Smith STEAM Academy celebrated Kids To Parks Day with a

field trip to Farquhar Park and Kiwanis Lake.

Back in February, these students entered into a National

Contest from The National Park Trust called “Kids To Parks

Day National School Contest.” The purpose of the contest

was to engage the students with the local parks. Students

submitted three proposals through this contest, and all three

proposals won an $800 grant.

At Farquhar Park and Kiwanis Lake, students completed the

following projects: cleaning around the parks, decorating all

garbage cans with art work (with the help of art teacher

Roxanne Elfreth) and planting three oak trees, which they

donated using the contest grant.

All this was possible with the support of the STEAM

Academy, Penn State Talent Search program/Gloria Swanson,

Penn State STEAM program/Jan Martin, Penn State Extension/

Tom Smith, plus the collaboration of York City Department

Of Public Works/Chaz Green, Keith Gerber and Chip

Rodgers.

On May 12, Davis K-8 Principal Mindy Sweitzer, staff, and students prepared and served more than 150 meals to the homeless and needy at Mr. Sandy’s Homeless Veterans Center. This is the third year that staff and students have participated in the “Food Run,” where the homeless, poor, and hungry are served a hot meal, bagged lunch, and drink during Saturday and Sunday evenings. Special thanks to all that took time out of their busy schedules to collect donations, prepare food and serve dinner to those in our community that are in need.

In partnership with the York Literacy Council, the district’s English Leaners department has offered English classes to parents of EL students since November. They recently completed the program. Some of these parents feel a little more empowered now that they are breaking the language barrier and are able to help their children at school. They are also able to use their English on an everyday basis with their jobs, community and regular life. The district will resume offering these classes toward the end of August or beginning of September. Classes are offered to parents of students all over the district and are held at Jackson K-8 on Mondays and Wednesdays from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Page 3

On May 29, The William Penn Music Department continued its annual tradition of performing in Cherry Lane for the city’s Box Lunch Revue series.

William Penn held its annual spring choral concert on May 24.

Congratulations to our Academic All Stars, who were celebrated last week at a York Revolution game. And thank you to McKinley Principal Danielle Brown

for these great photos!

Welcome home, Mr. Doleman!

On Friday, William Penn Senior High School welcomed home 1980 graduate and NFL Hall of Famer Chris Doleman for a celebration of his athletic

accomplishments.

In the photo above, Mr. Doleman is speaking to members of the Bearcat football team, after they and the YWCA Temple Guard gave him a warm greeting. He

even let one student try on his Hall of Fame ring (at left).

Mr. Doleman spoke briefly again in the auditorium to a crowd of friends, family and students. The NFL Hall of Fame unveiled a plaque that will be on display at the high school from now on. Mr. Doleman is currently battling brain cancer,

and we wish him well.

You can read more about his visit in the YDR here.

Congratulations to our very own George Fitch (second from left) for his well-deserved Excellence in Male Leadership Award, for which he was honored with throwing the first pitch at a Harrisburg Senators game Sunday. Fitch, who serves as administrator of the Cornerstone and Bearcat Cyber Academy programs, was nominated by his son for the award through the No More campaign. The No More campaign is “bringing together all people, organizations and communities that support ending domestic violence and sexual assault in our society,” according to its website. The Excellence in Male Leadership Award is given to men who are leaders in the community, who display healthy masculinity and relationships, who serve as a positive mentor to younger men and boys and who serve as allies to

women working to end domestic and sexual violence.

“Mr. Fitch’s leadership qualities and involvement in the community, not only as an educator but also father figure, demonstrates both his qualifications for the award and his commitment to serve as a positive role model to younger men and boys,” said Greg Conrad, Regional Banking Executive, First National Bank and EML Committee Co-Chair.

“He is a vivid example of the type of ally who can help us successfully create safer communities for everyone.”

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Kindergarten and first grade

English learners (EL) at

Davis performed a “Good

Morning” song in our first

languages — English,

Spanish, Arabic and

Vietnamese — for our

school's Student of the

Month assembly on Friday.

Many parents came to

watch their children as well.

We open up every class

with this Welcome song in

our first language as a way

to warm up to speaking in

class and as a way to

celebrate each other's

culture.

— Kelly Hoover, EL

Teacher

On Wednesday, May 23, Hannah Penn K-8 held its first “Health and Happiness

Day,” a collaboration between Family First Health and Communities in

Schools. With sponsorships from Aetna and Wellspan Health, we were able to

have many fun and healthy activities for students and families. Students enjoyed

free Kona Ice, bungee races, relay races, dancing, face painting, bounce house,

fire truck and more. Parents were able to get information from numerous

community agencies including TrueNorth Wellness, PA Counseling, Safekids,

Penn State Nutrition Links, Equiteam Support Services, OVR, MH/IDD,

Community Progress Council, York City Police, Family First Health, York

County Libraries, Aetna, and more.

The Vision Van was also available for students to receive free exams and

glasses if needed. More than 400 students and 100 parents enjoyed the

festivities. We wish all of our students and families a safe and healthy summer!

Mrs. Briana Marowsky’s Kindergarten class at Hannah Penn K-8 has been learning about farms the past few weeks. To wrap up their farm unit, students learned about cows and what they give us. When digging deeper the students realized that not only do we get meat and milk from cows, but numerous other foods as well because we use the milk to make them. They came to the tasty conclusion that we make ice cream from milk, so that’s exactly what they did!

Marina Hopkins (11th) and Augustine Mariche (12th) along with their director, Mrs. Buchanan (Assistant Director) represented the School District of the City of York on Sunday, June 3 at the 20th Celebration Concert of the York County Honors Choir organization. William Penn graduates Charissa Moye and Nam Phoung also joined the Alumni Choir for this special event. Ni’lee Mariche (8th) and Julianna Jennings (7th) performed in the York County Junior Honors Choir as well. There were three choirs with more than 300 singers singing throughout the program. We are proud of their accomplishments and their continued commitment to the York County Honors Choir program.

Thank you to the best school police department in the country for another year of protecting and serving the students and staff of the School District of the City of York.

#BeyondtheBadge

School Police Officer Jeanne Rupp shared this self portrait that her nephew, Tre Barnes, drew recently. He is a sophomore at William Penn.

“He is an artist and doesn’t realize the talent he has,” Rupp said. “He wants to pursue art and a career and this is a passion for him.”

In Denise Mace’s 6th grade class at Devers, as a final project for their physics unit, students created several large containers of Oobleck. Oobleck is a non Newtonian fluid made of one part water and two parts cornstarch, the name taken from a Dr. Seuss book. We discovered that Oobleck acts like a solid under pressure but a fluid when at rest, so it will drip off your fingers like water, but you can run over it like a bouncy house. We then experimented with the waves generated by striking the sides of the containers of Oobleck and the waves created with containers of water. While Oobleck generates waves like a liquid, they move slower and lower than the waves made by water. Now to clean our classroom floor...

Ms. Amy Golden’s 2nd grade class at Jackson K-8

has been reading Charlotte’s Web. One of the

themes is friendship so we wrote about who one

of our friends are and why they are special to us.

As you can see, we are all spiders, like Charlotte.

Students in Traci Brubaker's class at Ferguson K-8 had a meeting recently to discuss challenges they see in the world around them. They decided to make a pledge to their principals, Mrs. Still and Mrs. Koerner.

Watch the video on YouTube here.