October School Highlights

 

Academy for Allied Health and Biomedical Sciences

The Healthcare Institute of New Jersey (HINJ) presented the Academy for Allied Health and Biomedical Sciences the 2017 Excellence in Leadership and Achievement for STEM educa-tion award on October 12^th. The award was for meritorious service in science, technology, engineering and math education and called the Academy “one of the crown jewels of New Jersey’s public schools.”

 

Senior Rohan Regulapati was recognized by the ACT, Inc. for earning the highest possible composite score (36) on the ACT test. Only 1/10 of 1% of all ACT test takers reach the perfect composite score. Among high school graduates in the U.S. for the Class of 2017, only 2,700 of more than 2 million students earn a perfect score. Rohan is a well-rounded scholar-athlete and an EMT.

 

The Woodbridge junior varsity soccer team completed league play on October 20^th and were undefeated. Congratulations to all of the players and coach Kathleen Wilhelmy on a great season!

 

The Academy coin collection spirit event to help with Hurricane Relief in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean raised $796 in two week. The class with the largest donations was the 9^th graders.

 

The Red Cross Club sold personalized lab coats to students in October for two purposes: first to allow students to obtain a high-quality lab coat for use in classes and to collect money for relief efforts in Puerto Rico. Approximately $700 was raised for the beleaguered island.

 

The students in our Career Choices Program participated in a poster contest during the Week of Respect. Detective Zeno from the Woodbridge Police Department visited the Woodbridge Campus and judged the posters. Maria Altiero was selected as the winner from the morning session and Destiny Miser and Vylett Chicanowski were winners from the afternoon session.   

 

Inspirational quotations were presented over morning announcements and during lunch periods during Respect Week. Students created acrostic poems from the word RESPECT, and the poems now line the hallways at the Academy.

 

Detective Zeno and Detective Slossberg from the Woodbridge Police Department visited the Career Choices classes on October 17^th to speak with the students about good decision mak-ing skills, respectful behaviors, and skills for high school and beyond.

 

The students in the Career Choices Program participated in the fall career café on October 20^th. Students created the menu items, prepared the food, and served the teachers, and district guests.

 

Middlesex County Sheriff Department’s Officer Ngyuen presented the Fatal Vision assembly and demonstration on October 18^th. Students participated in demonstrations to learn the dangers of distracted driving.

 

The Academy watched the documentary, THE BULLY, on October 11^th. Students and staff members participated in prescreening and post screening activities and had a discussion on the importance of creating and maintaining a bully-free zone on campus and online.

 

Over 150 students signed up to reboot the Academy’s HOSA Future Health Professional’s chapter.

 

The Academy hosted the first dance of the year on October 27^th, called “Dancing through the Decades.” Students and staff spent the day dressed in their favorite clothes from the 20s, 50s, 70s, etc.

 

Career Choices students in Digital Media Technology have completed many projects over the last six weeks, including the building and programming of a Lego NXT Robot, filming their own movie trailers with iMovie, and capturing beautiful photographs around campus.

 

The Academy Open House for potential 2018-2019 students and parents was held on October 14^th. Over 1000 visitors came to hear about the school’s programs and to tour the building. Current Academy students lead tours and administration and guidance counselors were on hand to present information and answer questions.

 

The Woodbridge Academy hosted a “Coffee with the Principal” for parents on October 18^th. Over 40 parents attended to discuss the Academy’s academics and extracurricular programs. Guidance counselor Lisa Ferrier and assistant principal Richard Heffers were also on hand.

 

Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies

The Edison Rotary recognized Bartosz Skiba, Abhishek Hariharan and Ajali Bothra as Students of the Month for October.

 

All Academy 9^th, 10^th and 11^th grade students participated in the PSAT testing program on October 11^th.  In addition to practice for the SAT, the test will be used as the basis for 11^th grade students qualifying for the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Program.

 

The following colleges met with interested students this month to discuss admissions:  Rensselaer, NJIT, Colombia, University of Southern California, University of Illinois, UC Berkley and Vanderbilt.

 

Captain Ambrozniak from the Middlesex County College Police Department discussed safety awareness with the entire staff and student body to promote Violence Prevention Week.  Some of the topics included: bullying, social media and driving and texting/using cell phones.

 

The Academy’s Interact and Red Cross Clubs participated in The Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk at Raritan Center on October 22^nd.  Both clubs also hosted a lunch with proceeds going to The Making Strides Against Breast Cancer organization.

 

The junior class hosted the annual Halloween Dance on October 27^th.

 

Electrical/Computer Engineering senior Malavika Vivek was among more than 400 semi-finalists named across the United States in this year’s prestigious Siemens Competition; the nation’s premier competition in math, science and technology for high school students.  Malavika was selected from more than 1800 students who submitted innovative individual and team research projects.  Her project was on novel findings from an integrated genomic and clinical analysis of metastatic cervical cancer and was part of her internship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

 

Malavika Vivek was also interviewed by ReigningIt as one of the “Women Who Reign” and was featured in an article entitled “10 Girlboss Women in Tech and their Advice for you.” ReigningIt is an initiative to close the gender gap in STEM through the platform of story-telling.  Malavika talked about who inspired her, challenges she’s overcome, her ideal job, and knowledge that she would impart on other women.

 

Electrical/Computer Engineering  senior Anjali Gupta was named as one of the “50 High School Students You Need to Know About” by Mogul. Mogul is an award-winning platform reaching millions of women per week. It is accessed across 196 countries and 30,470 cities.

 

Electrical/Computer Engineering senior Abhishek Hariharan recently had his article on Ethnic Conflict in Rwanda published by the International Social Science Conference for Youth. This was a research competition for high school students around the world, co-hosted and sponsored by the World Federation of United Nations Associations, Youtheca USA.

 

Students in Mr. Howell’s social studies classes were busy this month creating digital presentations and websites. The juniors provided information on issues leading up to the Great Depression while the sophomores documented early American colonies.

 

Ten Academy students represented our school and placed third in the Central Jersey Math League (CJML) meet held at Highland Park High School on October 18^th. The students contributing to the success included: seniors Jonathan Wong and Poojit Hegde; juniors Glenn Sun, Mrinali Nakhre, Kevin Tang, and Spencer Ng; and sophomores Sean Wang, Pramod Mitikiri, Jason Li, and Ria Vijayvargiya. Twenty-seven Central Jersey High Schools participated in this event.

 

Forty Academy students competed in "Who Wants to be a Mathematician?"  The contest is sponsored by AMS. The following three students passed Round One and are eligible for the Round Two test: seniors Poojit Hegde and Kunal Adhia and junior Glenn Sun.

 

Thirty-five students participated in a new Mandelbrot Competition. Our Round 1 winner was freshman Aditya Agashe.

 

More than fifty Academy students participated in the AMC Interstellar Matches.

 

 

East Brunswick Campus

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 59 met with art technology, building services, and carpentry students about the Youth Transition to Work (YTTW) Apprenticeship Program on October 4^th. The students were very interested in the program and also the career opportunities available to them after graduation.

 

East Brunswick Campus hosted a Financial Aid workshop for parents on October 11^th. The information session was conducted by the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (HESAA). The information session equipped parents with the necessary inform-ation on how to apply for Financial Aid for students who want to attend college after graduation. The night was very well attended.

 

The students hosted a “Wear Pink” day for students and staff to raise awareness for breast cancer on October 20^th. A fundraiser was also held during period 4A and 4B lunches. All collected profits were donated to Making Strides of Central Jersey, a breast cancer walk that the club participated in on October 22^nd.

 

The School of the Arts conducted an arts immersion rotation where each of the programs had students rotate through each arts career major class. Graphic Design: Commercial Art & Illustration, Multi-Media Arts and Design, Digital Film, Theatre and Dance all had their students spend time in each of the art programs. All of the students benefitted from this cross-curricular training.

 

The student council raised over 500 dollars to a charity to help the victims of Hurricane Maria which devastated Puerto Rico. The students sold Puerto Rico banners for ten dollars each and were displayed in the front of the school. We were very impressed with the generosity of our students.

 

Mr. Mercadante’s pre-engineering and advanced manufacturing students attended Manufact-uring Day in Bridgewater, NJ. The students took part in workshops geared for careers in the manufacturing industry. Three of our students, William Farmer, Karnveer Singh, and Taylor Salmon were interviewed by Manufacturing Talk Radio. Radio hosts Tim Grady and Lew Weiss were very impressed with our school and the innovative projects our manufacturing students are working on in their career major.

 

Our Theatre and Arts Technology students attended a series of workshop at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The students toured the motion capture studio where the students produced a short piece using the technology in the studio. They also took part in a panel discussion at the end of the day hosted by six different professors from NJIT. Four of our students presented their topic of swarm theory to the audience and staged a reading of their play based on swarm theory.

 

East Brunswick School of Career Development (EBCD)

Dr. Menell and Ms. Thomas-Floyd coordinated a trip for 40 students to the Freedom Tower, observatory, WTC Memorial, Wall Street, and Federal Hall. Students participated in an incred-ible expeditionary learning experience. It is a unique example of collaboration between our school's academic classes and shops.

 

 

East Brunswick School of Career Development’s dry cleaning class and the South River Board of Health are teaming up to run a winter coat drive. There will be drop off points for coats in different areas of East Brunswick and South River. The coats will be delivered to Mr. Grimaldi in the dry cleaning shop; they will be cleaned and picked up once again by Shari Mannano from the South River Board of Health. We have been working with Ms. Mannano on this project for the past five years.

 

East Brunswick School of Career Development and the East Brunswick Campus students viewed an assembly presented by the East Brunswick Police Department dealing with internet safety and bullying. This assembly was well received by students. 

 

The following activities took place as part of the Week of Respect:

 

Motivational speaker and advocate for students with special needs, Mr. David Flood conduct-ed an assembly on October 6^th. He spoke about his personal life which included his own family and his son, who is autistic. Attending students and staff were enthralled with the presenta-tion.  Many students went up to him to “chat” and thanked him for coming and for showing that they were not alone in their own struggles. Mr. Flood gave the following three challenges to the students:

 

Thank one adult in the building by looking directly into their eyes

Eat lunch with someone who is eating alone

Look inside someone instead of on the surface

 

Ms. Gordon had students sign an anti-bullying banner during student lunch periods. The activity was called EB Tech Unties Against Bullying.  Students signed their names in support and the banner will be hung in the cafeteria.

 

October 2^nd was blue shirt Monday.  Students and staff were encouraged to wear a blue shirt in support of anti-bullying.

 

Students wrote “Words of Kindness” using sidewalk chalk on the patio of the cafeteria court-yard on October 3^rd.

 

Wednesday was Respect our School Day, where students wore our school colors and helped to clean up one of the courtyards.

 

Student Council and National Technical Honor Society had a kickoff for a fundraiser in support of Puerto Rico to help the victims of Hurricane Maria.

 

EBCD visited Woodbridge High School to attend a college fair sponsored by the Woodbridge Board of Education on October 25^th.  Students visited with representatives from different colleges and universities as well as representatives from trade schools.  The trip was well received and the students appreciated the opportunity.

 

 

Perth Amboy Campus

The ninth grade students at the Perth Amboy Campus took an educational tour of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Students were given various assign-ments to complete during the tour to enhance their understanding of their history curriculum.

 

Perth Amboy Campus students were treated to an inspirational performance by Joe Fingerhut who spoke to our students about overcoming fears and challenges in life and persevering through adversity.

 

Juniors and seniors were addressed by a speaker from the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence (NCADD) about the dangers of substances that are readily available to them on a daily basis, including e-cigarettes, vaping, and prescription medications.

 

Perth Amboy Campus students were also addressed on the dangers of dating violence and how to recognize the signs of abuse.

 

Culinary arts students were given a behind the scenes tour of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New York City. Students toured the production kitchen to see how they handle mass production of food for room service as well as banquets.

 

Piscataway Campus/Piscataway School of Career Development

During the week of Respect (October 2^nd-6^th), all ninth graders participated in a respect and bullying presentation during their English classes by Ms. Goldstein.

 

During Violence Awareness Week, the Middlesex County Sheriff's Department presented to the 9^th and 10^th grade students on cyberbullying and internet safety.

 

Piscataway Police Department Officer David Piro made a presentation to 11^th graders on respect on October 16^th.

 

Piscataway Campus hosted a college fair on October 13^th. Representatives from colleges and military branches distributed information to students and parents about their institutions and the application process.

 

Mrs. Ricciardi’s adult cosmetology students went to Greggs Beauty Supply for a nail seminar. The students learned how to use some new nail art, techniques, and gel polishes.