Fierce Frisbee Fight

Fierce Frisbee Fight

In the heated Ultimate Frisbee game between teachers and students last week, the students triumphed 13-11. Guest cheerleaders included Mr. Clausen’s children, who of course cheated for the teachers! Mr. Yonker helped organize the event.

Theatrical Nights!

Theatrical Nights!

Last week Mr. Baldwin directed sixth graders in a production of The Arabian Nights. Mr. Birkenhead’s seventh and eighth grade classes also performed last week. The middle school theater program allows students to work on public speaking, acting, and creative writing activities and to present for their family and friends. The 7th graders did scenes from Fools and the 8th graders did scenes from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
State of the School

State of the School

On Wednesday evening I had the chance to discuss the state of the school. However, before talking about our performance in the past 10 months, it was important for me to acknowledge the many parents who selflessly and sacrificially give of their time, talent and treasure to make our community special. While Washington Latin is an intricate tapestry weaving together the creativity and industriousness of our teachers and administrators and the camaraderie and persistence of our student body, it would easily unravel without the diligence of our parent body. You provide the invisible stitching that holds our whole school together.

We are so appreciative of the energy you expend to reinforce our values, through meaningful discussions with your children around the dinner table about the topics they are learning, for the homework help, organizational support, and keeping children on a healthy eating and sleeping schedule all year, but especially throughout these challenging final weeks of school. Please take some time this weekend to remind students to at least clean out their backpacks and review their study guides as they prepare for end-of-year projects and final exams.

I encourage you to review the PowerPoint presentation that I shared with parents last night. I welcome your feedback, including your suggestions for how we can continue to improve as a school. However, please allow me to elaborate on a couple of points below.

We are in solid financial shape in terms of managing our debt and budget, including in terms of having the required cash on-hand. This careful fiscal management has put us in the Tier 1 category of schools. Managing our $15M budget is crucial but bolstering it with fundraising is equally so. We use donations, including from parents, to support our faculty and in turn retain them, provide new opportunities to enrich our students’ experiences, provide programming that improves their academic achievement, and more. Latin Pride helps us fund our core operations, and other funds (including Faculty Fund, Equal Access, Academic Support) allow us to constantly test and improve our model. We ran out of time last night, but there is still a key challenge in finance: garnering the donations we need to accomplish the improvements to our school that benefit students from across DC.

If you have not yet had a chance to contribute to our Faculty Fund or to one of our other fundraising campaigns, it is not too late to do so and anything that you can give will be greatly appreciated. And, if you didn’t have a chance to volunteer at Latin this year, we hope to have you more involved next year. Volunteering at our school helps maintain our loving, warm community.

Valete!

Peter

Head of School

Track Races Ahead

Track Races Ahead

At the track DCSAA championships, the track team again showed grit, speed, strength and determination. Sophomore Luke Tewalt won the DCSAA Outdoor Track MVP award, winning the most points of any male athlete at the meet after winning the 3200m and the 1600m and breaking the meet record in both of those events. He also earned 3rd in the 800m. Luke’s 1600m time of 4:18.65 earned him a National qualifying mark. Freshman Zoe Edelman scored a personal record in both the 3200m (12:01) and the 1600m (5:35),setting the new school record in both events and finished 4th and 6th overall consecutively. Sophomore Oliver Spiva earned a  personal record in the 1600m, running 4:37, and Robbie Mirabello did as well, running 5:03. Finally, the boys’ 4x400m relay, consisting of Ayinde Motirayo, Chima Ukaegbu, Oliver Spiva, and Luke Tewalt, earned the season’s best time of 3:34 and 4th overall in that event. DJ Okuleye also broke Latin’s school record in the 100m, running 11.26 seconds. The girls 4x400m relay, consisting of Raven Berry, Cecily Bufkin, Zoe Edelman, and Destiny Glee ran a season’s best performance and earned 6th overall. Senior Kari Coleman learned both the discus and the shot-put this year, and  earned a personal record in both events to finish in the top eight overall! The team is coached by the intrepid and hard working team of Ms. Rose, Mr. Czujko, Ms. Brady, and Mr. Callum.

Play Ball!

Play Ball!

The softball and baseball teams will be representing Latin this Wednesday at the ‘Shred Hate’ reception at the Nationals Baseball game vs Padres. The ‘Shred Hate’ concept is part of the ‘No Bully’ program that strives to remove bullying from schools. The game begins at 4:05. Junior Shelby Griffith and sophomore Gaby Micheli will join 23 other student athletes on the field representing their schools. Our teams will also be featured on the jumbo screen.