We miss the buzz of the faculty lounge and cafeteria at lunch, and the chance to break bread together, and have advisory potlucks. But advisory lunch continues in the virtual world, with middle schoolers gathering on Wednesdays to eat and chat with their advisories, and upper schoolers gathering on Fridays. This chance to chat in a looser, more casual setting and play games like Win Lose or Draw, charades, and Scribblio, helps advisories develop esprit de corp, and gives students a chance to get to know their teachers better.
While we can’t all gather in the library for the annual Club Expo this year, the Show Must Go On!
Students will host a virtual club expo on Friday during advisory lunch for upper schoolers, and on Wednesday the 9th for middle schoolers. Student club leaders and advisors taped quick videos to tell students about the clubs and when they meet. Clubs for high schoolers will start next week, and will meet via Zoom in the afternoons, and clubs for middle school will start the week of September 15th. The middle school will include several new clubs, like an art club, video gamers club, and guitar club, along with the classics like certamen, Model UN, Baking, Debate, and Geography.
Sixth grade Science Teacher Ms. Dobler was happy to have her new Curious Stem Students Crave Light and Sound unit funded by donors from the organization Donors Choose. The project received funding in the spring, and due to covid and the upcoming summer break, they waited to send the materials until the start of the new year. The grant funding was for just under $500 and is buying supplies for our Light and Sound 6th grade unit. These supplies include colored gel filters, graduated cylinders, tuning forks, and headphones. Many of these are items we had only one or two of, and now will have full class sets for students to complete the explorations and experiments in small groups. This is one of many projects Ms. Dobler has gotten funded through Donors Choose to bring both lab and STEM club supplies into the school.
Several Washington Latin students including seniors Zoe Edelman, Yao Calhoun and LiQian Shoag attended the 57th Anniversary of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at the Lincoln Memorial last week. While teachers struggled to attend due to afternoon team meetings, several students in the upper school were able to go because classes ended at 2:30. The event rallied for social justice on issues like racism, police brutality, and economic injustice. The march, organized by the Reverend Al Sharpton and the National Action Network, was called the “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” Commitment March on Washington, and included several speeches from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial followed by a march to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. Speakers included relatives of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and Jacob Blake, who spoke about police brutality and the unnecessary injury and murder of unarmed African Americans.
5th grade Math teacher Ms. Figueroa and her family organized a fundraiser and backpack drive initiative, Fundación Asistiendo Estudiantes Dominicanos – Faedom to deliver 420 backpacks filled with essential school supplies to students in rural communities throughout Villa Mella, San Juan and Elias Piña, Domican Republic. Over 50 donors, including several Latin teachers, participated this year this year and they were able to deliver 100 more backpacks than last summer! Ms. Figueroa’s parents are from the rural towns of San Juan and Elias Pina, Dominican Republic which borders Haiti. Their family started this initiative in 2017 after noticing many middle school students carrying their supplies in plastic bags on their way to school. In 2018, her family purchased 200 backpacks, filled them with school supplies and delivered them to these two schools in Elias Pina. In 2019 they decided to fundraise for this initiative in order to deliver 320 backpacks.
AP Physics took a field trip to iFly. The indoor sky diving location in Maryland provides students with the experience of flight using The field trip demonstrates how drag forces act on different surface areas and textures. Ms. Shapiro, the AP Physics teacher, brought the students on the trip so they could experience the feeling of flight and see physics forces at work.
