September School Highlights

Academy for Allied Health and Biomedical Sciences

Ms. Rozner and Ms. Alston received the initial 2017-2018 Educator of the Month awards for Professionalism and Respect at the September faculty meeting. The commended teachers will pass on the awards to two other deserving staff members at the October faculty meeting.

 

Woodbridge Academy is proud of our 11 National Merit Scholarship Commended Scholars and 7 National Merit Scholarship Semi Finalists. We have 67 seniors, which means 27% of the class has been recognized. Over 1.6 million students took the 2016 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Qualifying Test. Of the 1.6 million, 16,000 were named semifinalists and 34,000 were named Commended Scholars. According to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, “These students represent a valuable national resource.”

 

The first club day was held on September 28^th. Sixteen clubs will participate during the fall semester. Students are participating in Dance Club, Chess Club, Charity Club, Sports Club, Kids 4 Kids Club, UNICEF Club, Science and Chemistry Club, Student Alliance, and more.

 

To date, the Woodbridge junior varsity soccer team is UNDEFEATED! Go Hornets! Buzz on…

 

The first Spirit Day was held on September 26^th. Flannel Day ended in a 3-way tie between the 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th graders. The campus was awash in plaid.

 

The second Spirit Event of the year is a coin collection for Hurricane Relief in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. The grade level that collects the most coins will receive bonus spirit points.

 

The 8^th grade Career Choices Program Students of the Month for A.M. and P.M. sessions were announced by assistant principal Mike Sullivan. The commended morning students are: Marce-lino Flores for Construction Technology, Danielle Watsey for Digital Media Technology, and Robert Cintron for Food and Health Technology. The afternoon students are: Adam Khan for Construction Technology, Bianca Guzman for Digital Media Technology, and Kevin Mee for Food and Health Technology.

The new biology lab is occupied and seniors studying nutrition and freshmen studying biology are reaping the benefits of the state-of-the-art facility.  

 

Parent’s Night was a hit at Woodbridge Academy. Over 650 parents and family members attended. Teachers gave 10-minute presentations to parents, who followed their students A day and B day schedules.

 

Our HOSA Future Health Professionals chapter launched a membership drive. Ms. Alston and Ms. Wilhelmy are the co-advisors for 2017-2018. At Parent’s Night, approximately 60 student joined HOSA Future Health Professionals.  

 

The Red Cross Club is selling personalized lab coats and 40 students have ordered one to date.

 

The school is proud to officially display the 2017 U.S. News and World Report Award naming the Academy 21^st in the Nation and one of America’s Best High Schools.

 

Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies

The entire student body and all staff members took part in a memorial service for Officer Richard Rodriguez, a graduate of our Perth Amboy Campus, who was killed in the September 11^th terror attack on the World Trade Center.  Officer Rodriguez’ sister and niece were in attendance.

 

Junior Yoganand Pathak participated in the 2017 three-week summer workshop of the Waksman Student Scholars Program.  His work at this workshop resulted in publication of three unique DNA sequences in the National Center for Biotechnology Information database.

 

The following seniors are 2017 National Merit Semifinalists:  Kunal Adhia, Lucent Fong, Poojit Hegde, Abishek Kannappan, Shankar Kohli, Rohan Mehra, Maya Pandurangan, Jay Rao, Malavika Vivek and Allison Wong which represents 25% of the class. 

 

The following seniors have been named Commended Students in the 2018 National Merit Program:  Anjali Bothra, Samuel Carlos, Kelley Chau, Matthew Chou, Khushi Gandhi, Anjali Gupta, Zarir Hamza, Jessica Hernandez, Dawid Kluszczynski, Christine Mathews, Anusha Nagar, Abhishek Patel, Ankit Patel, Juliana Pirro, Kamakashi Sharma, Surya Venkatram and Jonathan Wong.

 

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Edison Academy is making daily announcements focusing on contributions made by Hispanic Americans.  The Spanish I students will be making arepas, Colombian cornbread, one day in class to experience traditional Hispanic food.

 

Parent’s Night was held on September 27^th.  Approximately 100 people visited with teachers and staff.  Parents met with each of their child’s instructors and were presented with a course over-view.

 

Civil/Mechanical Engineering junior Ariana Novo has been accepted into the New Jersey Governor’s STEM Scholars Program and the Columbia University Science Honors Program.

 

Electrical/Computer Engineering junior Archi Parekh has been accepted into the Junior Academy at the New York Academy of Sciences.  This Academy creates an international platform for students who are interested in STEM to collaborate on solutions to global challenges. This year’s challenges include sustainable consumption and emerging technologies.

 

Electrical/Computer Engineering senior Dawid Kluszczynski and Civil/Mechanical Engineering junior Ariana Novo recently competed at PennApps and created an application called Droid Eyes.  The goal of this application is to help the blind in navigating our world. The team placed in the top 30 competing against over 2000 of the brightest minds from across the globe. 

 

Dawid Kluszczynski also had his white paper, What Big Data Thinks about P2P Loans, published on LendingCalc.com.  His paper provides a glimpse of how to use data to augment our intuition while seeing how adding features to the same variable can change the narrative.

 

The Edison Academy Student Council hosted a club fair on September 28^th. Clubs were given the opportunity to recruit new members through presentations.  Students were able to explore the opportunities that the Academy clubs have to offer.

 

The junior varsity and varsity soccer teams participated in our annual pep rally on September 11^th.  The entire student body cheered on the “Eagles” wishing them a winning season.

 

Electrical/Computer Engineering senior Poojit Hegde attended Governor’s School this summer.  Working with a team of students, he designed a computer sensor network with the capabilities of diagnosing, classifying and quantifying essential tremors—a neurological disorder causing uncontrollably shaking of different body parts.

 

The students in Mr. Howell’s social studies classes celebrated Constitution Day by debating students’ rights in the classroom.  Students read a case study, prepared a position paper and then debated as a class.

 

East Brunswick Campus

To celebrate Constitution Days, the History department conducted various lessons about our U.S. Constitution. Some activities included: class debates on key constitution issues, constitution scavenger hunt, and interactive presentations by students about the Constitution. 

 

September 27^th was Parent’s Night at the East Brunswick Campus. Approximately 600 people attended the event. The teachers spent vital time with the parents discussing their expectations, course of study and goals for their children. The event was a huge success.

 

Spanish teachers Ms. Wendy Carcamo-Zeidman and Ms. Agelica Vega conducted multiple activi-ties to celebrate Spanish Heritage Month.  Some of the activities included infusing history into Spanish lessons, reading the announcements in Spanish and also embracing the Spanish culture through activities in and out of the classroom.  The Spanish department will also fundraise to assist underdeveloped schools in Central America.

 

The Tigers cross country team started the year with the girls team winning their first meet of the season. The Tigers Cross Country team is looking forward to the Technical Athletic Council’s fall meet in October.

The East Brunswick Campus is working with the U.S. Department of Education on a photo and video project to promote career and technical education.  A film crew and still photographer toured the campus and set up in the library on Sept. 20^th to interview students, faculty members and the principal. The video, expected to run about three minutes, is scheduled to be finished later this year.

 

East Brunswick School of Career Development

Students from the East Brunswick SkillsUSA chapter have been spending their Saturdays working at Rutgers football game concessions as a fundraiser. The students and advisors are responsible for running all aspects of the concession stand, including inventory, prep, and sales for all seven of the home games in return for a portion of the income the stand earns.

 

The school day on September 11^th began with a moment of silence in honor of those who lost their lives in the terror attacks. The following teachers also had lessons ready for this solemn day:

 

Ms. Hughes’ history class discussed how families moved forward after the tragedy and watched   a video presentation on the making of the 9/11 Memorial in NYC.

 

Dr. Menell’s history classes took a virtual tour of the 9/11 Memorial using classroom technology.  Students also viewed and discussed stories of survivors and victim’s families.

 

Mr. Crea’s environmental science class tied in the environmental issues (both short and long term) caused from the fires, collapse, debris, recovery, etc. of that day.

 

Mr. Levine’s English classes read an excerpt from the NY Times article written the day after the attacks on September 12, 2001. They stopped after every paragraph or so and quickly recapped what was read. Most of these students were very young or had not yet been born on September 11, 2001.

 

Student Council and National Technical Honor Society will be selling hearts and all proceeds will go to relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

 

Mr. Grimaldi’s dry cleaning class is preparing to clean coats donated to the South River Board of Health for their annual coat drive. There will be random drop off sites around the East Brunswick area.

 

Perth Amboy Campus

Mr. Coyle’s graphic design shop created a remembrance wall in honor of those who died during the 9/11 attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. Students created a list of all the names of the victims and posted them on the wall outside the shop.

 

Ms. Hill conducted her annual HIB prevention training for all of our 9^th grade students and has launched a campaign to stomp out bullying.

 

The Perth Amboy Campus has established an Eco-Team for the purpose of becoming an Eco-School.  The Eco-Team has begun an extensive energy audit of our campus by assessing the energy use in every classroom and office and will strategize to help reduce electricity use at our school.

 

Piscataway Campus/Piscataway School of Career Development

Mrs. Ricciardi’s adult cosmetology students had their first of many seminars throughout the year.  Mr. Zackary from the “Pretty in a Minute” company demonstrated a “Tools in the Beauty Industry” seminar. The students were very impressed by the demonstration.

 

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month the Piscataway Campus has incorporated daily announcements focusing on the contributions of Hispanic Americans. Students are currently researching the contri-butions of famous Hispanics to present to the class along with special lessons in culture on Fridays to enhance student knowledge of traditions like food, last names, and La Tomatina.