Sixth graders in the Youth Empowerment Seminar hosted a snack sale this week to raise money to send assistance to people in the Ukraine. The initiative was started by Nora Paxson, Daphna Soskis, Genesis Fuentes-Ramirez, June Walsh, Cleo Van Wye, and Iris Vergow with help from Ms. Crespo, who is the coordinator of student intervention. Students baked and purchased snacks for sale afterschool to their teachers and peers with the goals of making $400. Several teachers assisted with generous cash donations. The proceeds went to Globalgiving’s Ukraine Crisis relief fund. Parents can also donate through the website and selecting “Other Payments,” “Student last name, first name” or “Staff last name, first name,” and typing “Ukraine,” into the “paying for” field.
The upper school’s February assembly on Monday honored African American History Month. The event was titled, “BLACKNESS is Not a Monolith.” Social worker Hope Foster spoke about the idea of celebrating Black History and not defining or limiting the perspective or stories of black people. Ms. Lee-Bey took a chance to talk about greetings and ways to check in with peers. She spoke about linguistic diversity. She talked about various dialectics and African and Southern and Caribbean ways of speaking. Ninth graders Ana Lu Galaretta, Raimon Nelson, Pilar Gomez won merits for persistence, engagement, and resilience. Sophomores Julia Nixon, Loye Hawkins, Carys Nelson earned honors for tenacity, positive attitudes, and effort. Juniors earned merits for their community service, engagement, and commitment including Kayla Schifferle, Elizabeth Campbell, and Assata Bates. Seniors Christian Souverain, Juliette Warga, Rubi Vela, Teachers also honored their teachers. Carys Nelson honored Mr. Edwards-Stuart for his work in Chemistry. Junior Michela Irving honored her AP Human Geography, Sophomore Jazz band member Brian Guzman gave an award to music teacher Mr. Evans. The Jazz band video showed students performing and being conducted by arts department chair Ms. VerCammen. Junior D’Andre Pearson spoke about art and his ability to express himself through various mediums including the fine arts. Mr. Torrence closed with a description of the history of African American History month and reflections about his own identity and inspirations.
On Friday, the boys’ Varsity Basketball team will play against Burke on Friday in their first match-up of the three day St. Anselm’s Tournament, which will continue from March 4 through 6. The team is coached by athletics director Mr. Eleby-El.
Upper school wrestler Zemen Sium was featured in the Washington Post for winning in the 126-pound weight class of the DC State Championship Wrestling meet. After the exciting win, he jumped into his coach Mr. Torrence’s arms. During the rise of the Omicron variant in January, the team persevered through Zoom training with Coach Torrence until the sport resumed as the infection numbers in the District declined. Torrence worked hard to keep his athletes working out and motivated during distance learning last year. This was the first year that DC had had a sanctioned wrestling “State” meet. There has been no governing body over wrestling in the district before this year. Zemen won his weight class all by pin and bumped UP from 120 to 126 so that his teammate (a homeschooled girl wrestler) could wrestle at the 120 spot. He went 20-0 on the season, and was voted Most Outstanding Wrestler of the entire tournament. He is the undefeated state champ of DC!!
After last week’s exciting upper school Science Fair, the winners were announced this week, with congratulations for their creative, and engaging projects. Freshmen Capri Romney and Summer Romney won for a study of how “Miracle Berry Tablets” affect the taste of food. Philip Douglas and Shayla Greaux created an engineering study that earned second place for their work creating magnetic levitation. Brooke Roberson tied for second place for her research into the mental and emotional effect of quarantine on people. Arto Briscoe and Jude Nixon came in third for their engineering work to create their own potato cannon. Ellie Laville and Ella Schmigdall tied for third with their research on the reliability of memory under stress. Hugh Bakel and Teddy Greene came in third place for their research on how caffeine affects teen heart rates. Mr. Torrence and Mr. Keller worked hard to support their students through these projects.
