Schools

Bay Village City School District students garnered five first-place Gold Key awards, nine second-place Silver Key awards, and 12 Honorable Mention awards from a field of 1,700 entries in the 2012 Cuyahoga County Regional Scholastic Arts competition.

Winning a Gold Key were Bay High sophomore Gracie Harms (painting), Bay High freshmen Maddie Voiers (fashion) and Severn Sanders (mixed media), and Bay Middle School seventh-grader Grace Mansuetto (printmaking). In addition to visual arts winners, eighth-grader Emma Chalk won a Gold Key for her short story, "Memories of Us." Students who receive Gold Key Awards see their work continue to the national competition held in the spring in New York City.

Four Lee Burneson Middle School seventh-graders placed in the top 100 for their entries in the international Rock the Statue Green Contest.

The contest was sponsored by the French Embassy to celebrate the 125th birthday of the Statue of Liberty – a gift to the United States from France. The contest challenged students to create a replica of the Statue of Liberty using recycled materials.

Auditor of State Dave Yost’s office gave the Westlake City School District a clean report once again for the 2010-2011 school year. This is the fourth consecutive “perfect audit,” clean of findings or citations, and paves the way for the district to receive a distinction award from the Auditor of State.

CFO/Treasurer Mark C. Pepera credits the achievement to a concerted effort by his staff to enforce fiscal policy and maintain a high level set of internal controls and financial reporting procedures, as well as buildings and departments following those guidelines. Under Pepera’s fiscal watch, the Westlake City School District has been nationally recognized for 12 consecutive years of excellence in financial reporting.

 Have you ever heard of Destination Imagination? Well, it is hard for me to explain, but it is where kids use their imaginations to solve challenges. I am part of a Destination Imagination or “DI” team at Westerly School with Eliza Aleksandrovic, Grace Chilton, Caroline Fowles, Ava Ransom, Olivia Reed and Patty Yuhas. Our team name is the Aqua Girls.

This year we chose the community service project challenge, and the community service project we chose is to clean up Huntington Beach. We chose to clean up the beach because when we were on a class field trip in the fall we learned and saw how dirty the beach is. But in order to clean up the beach we need to raise money to buy the supplies so we decided to do a fundraiser.

Parkside Intermediate School sixth-grader Patrick Lee and Lee Burneson Middle School seventh-grader Justin Krantz won the school-level competitions of the National Geographic Bee and will now take a written test to qualify to compete at the state level in March.

In March, the school-level winners will compete to represent Ohio at the national contest in Washington, D.C., in May. The national winner earns a $25,000 college scholarship and a lifetime membership to the National Geographic Society.

At Parkside, the top five finalists were Kate Fulton, Sanil Gosain, Patrick Lee, Matthew Vulku and Crystal Zhao. At Lee Burneson Middle School, top finishers were Justin Krantz and eighth-graders Thomas Bowles and Emma Franklin.

Cuyahoga Community College is proud to announce the launch of an Alumni & Friends Association. The Tri-C alumni program will feature an alumni website, an online community, a mentoring network and updated job search and resume resources. It will also alert alums to special events and discounts. There are no fees or membership dues.

“The Alumni & Friends Association will play a key role by managing our richest resource – people,” said Alan Moran, vice president of marketing and communications. “The Association is actively engaged in reconnecting with former students and graduates to build a dynamic and ongoing network and at the same time to preserve our history. It also seeks to engage friends in the community who support our mission and wish to keep up-to-date on the College’s initiatives and events.”

The students in Mrs. Mahall and Mrs. Woodburn’s fourth grade class at Westerly School got a head start on their New Year’s resolutions. Beginning on the first day of school back in August 2011, they began a special book entitled “My Attitude of Gratitude.”

Each week they reflect on their life experiences and write a new entry into their personal book, accompanied by an illustration. This notion of gratitude is encouraged and supported by their teachers who write their own message of gratitude as the opening day message on the Smart Board each morning.

The Bay Middle School cheerleaders recently held a Mini-Cheer Camp for girls ages kindergarten through fourth grade and raised over $1,800 for Journey of Hope, a non-profit who pays for basic living expenses for local cancer patients going through medical treatments.

The all-day camp was held at Westerly Elementary on Saturday, Jan. 7, and facilitated by the twelve Bay Middle School cheerleaders who taught pom-pom routines, chants, cheers and dances. To add to the festivities, the mini-cheerleaders were treated to a camp T-shirt, crafts, snacks, lunch and face painting. The day rounded out with a performance for parents.

The kindergarten students at Westshore Montessori school recently completed a whole-class sculpture based on the work of modern art sculptor Louise Nevelson. Each student designed their own assemblage with found objects, paying special attention to symmetry and balance in their compositions. They became actively engaged in creating the whole sculpture, deciding where each piece went into the arrangement of the whole sculpture.

Our students were very excited to learn that the Cleveland Museum of Art has one of Nevelson's large sculptures. Our goal was to create a real connection with modern masters and understanding the process to create art. They loved the lesson and want to visit the art museum!

Every year, families and high schools in our area open their doors and welcome young men and women from around the world who desire to experience the typical life of the American teenager and learn in American schools. This school year, three students are attending Westlake, Bay and Avon Lake high schools as part of the ASSE International Student Exchange Program (ASSE) that places students from foreign countries with families in the U.S.

At Bay High School, Fanny Bonduelle from Suresnes, France, is in her junior year and is studying American literature, American government, chemistry and, her favorite, American fast foods/gourmet. Fanny has earned a role in Bay High’s spring musical “Beauty and the Beast,” snowboards with the ski club, takes dance lessons at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood and attends dances with her local host family where salsa, swing and other dance styles are taught informally.

The Westlake City School District provides two opportunities each year for teachers and parents of students in grades K-12 to make referrals for possible gifted identification according to criteria set forth in House Bill 282. The referral periods take place during the months of October and February.

Packets of information and referral forms can be obtained from the main office of each school building. They may also be found on the Westlake City School District website.

This semester’s testing period, referral forms need to be completed and returned to the building’s main office by Feb. 24. Questions can be directed to the building principal or Coordinator of Gifted Services Carol Froehlich at 440-250-1269.

Lee Burneson Middle School technology teacher Kurt Thonnings is trying to teach his students where wind comes from, the concept of an energy transfer and the difference between a volt and an amp in a wind turbine design contest.

The KidWind Challenge is a student-oriented test that challenges students to design and construct their own wind turbines. The goal of the project is to create something that is both efficient and elegant.

The KidWind Challenge started in a New York middle school classroom and has spread to Virginia, Washington, D.C., California, Iowa, South Dakota, Alaska, Minnesota and Colorado, among other states. Thonnings is trying to bring a KidWind event to Ohio.

The Bay Village Education Foundation will host its annual fundraiser, “Creating Opportunities,” on Sunday, Jan. 29, from 5-8 p.m. at Arrabiata’s Italian Restaurant in Bay Village. This popular event, which typically sells out, will once again feature a silent auction, 50/50 raffle, “Wheelbarrow for Education” raffle, and various door prizes, all benefiting the BVEF.

BVEF is a non-profit organization that strives to enhance the learning opportunities already available to Bay Village public school students. Each year, BVEF provides funding for grants and awards to support innovative projects and programs in Bay Village schools. Over $12,000 was awarded in Nov. 2011 to exemplary educators and their enrichment projects.

The Bay Village Board of Education has approved a new logo for its Bay Village Rockets athletic teams, music groups and other student activity groups. It is a sleek, blue and red rocket designed by Bay High senior, Marek Mutch. Mutch’s design took first place in a Bay Rocket Logo Contest held by the district in November. The second place winner was senior Kaleigh Sima and third place went to junior Max Langer.

The Bay Rocket Logo Contest generated 167 student entries ranging from the traditional, to the whimsical, to the sophisticated. The selection jury of 20 members included students, staff, coaches and parents. Using a voting and discussion process that winnowed down the number of entries through a process of elimination, the three top winners were selected.

Rhonda Schneider, vice president of the Bay Village Education Foundation, along with Grants Co-Chair Ellie Bricmont, awarded over $12,000 in grants to Bay educators at the Nov. 28 Board of Education Meeting. A grand total of $14,267 was awarded in partnership with Bay Village Kiwanis.

The BVEF, a non-profit organization in its 26th year, awards grant monies to support enrichment opportunities across the curriculum for Bay Village students. This year, the following educators were awarded grants:

The Bay High School library staff received $1,087 for two iPad 2’s, as well as $600 toward updating the Lois Calmus Memorial Reading Garden. As winner of the 2011 Maynard Bauer Leadership Award, BHS Principal Jason Martin also received $2,000 for “Rachel’s Challenge,” an anti-bullying program presented this fall for students at Bay High School and Bay Middle School.

When Lee Burneson Middle School Language Arts teachers Paul Roth and Jennifer Seighman gave their seventh-graders a letter-writing assignment, they never expected it to produce a prosthetic arm.

More precisely, it was one of actor James Franco’s prosthetic arms used in the filming of “127 Hours.” The uncle of student Joe Gardner, Tony Gardner, is a special effects expert who happened to work on the movie set and designed the prosthetic arm.

The item was the result of an outrageous request letter-writing assignment in which students learn to write a business letter – part of the Ohio Department of Education’s standards for Language Arts classes.

Bay Middle School students continued their helping tradition of raking leaves for the elderly and disabled each fall. This year, on Veterans Day, students and chaperones raked up the leaves at more than 140 Bay Village homes. Many parents and teachers organized, drove students to the homes, supervised and pitched in on the raking. More than 600 Bay Middle School students in grades 5-8 participated. 

The Bay Middle School Seventh-Grade Town Council sponsors the event each year, with teachers/advisors Chris Brewer and Eric Caddey coordinating. Names of homeowners eligible for the service are collected by the City of Bay Village Department of Community Services.

Can you believe it is almost Thanksgiving? My family has started to make our Thanksgiving plans and that is very exciting to me. It started to make me think of all the things that I am thankful for this year and I wanted to share them with you. After you read through my list, maybe you will want to make one, too.

The things I am most thankful for…

1. My family – Dad, Mom, me, Iain, Evelyn, Adrian
2. My grandparents – Grandpa, B, Nana, Papa, Mema, Poppy
3. My aunts – Debbie, Kathy, Dorothy, Rosemary, Jane, Karen, Joanne, Jo, Kathy, Kay
4. My uncles – Richie, Hiroaki, Chris, Tom, Tony, Gene, David, Rob
5. My cousins – Alex, Brooke, Judy, Ken, Meggie, Jared, Owen, Michael
6. My friends – old and new

The Bay Village Education Foundation (BVEF), an independent non-profit volunteer organization that funds educational projects not supported by tax dollars, is launching its annual Ten Campaign fundraiser this week. This effort is based on the simple idea that every able parent, staff member, or resident contributes $10 or more (either per student in their household, or as a general gift) to the BVEF.  Ninety percent of the this tax-deductible contribution will go into a permanent reserve, generating funds for grants for years to come, while the remaining 10% will go directly to the school district.

Since 1985, the BVEF has been helping teachers test new ideas, pilot the latest technologies, and offer enrichment opportunities throughout the district that would not otherwise be funded. Each year, the BVEF awards grant monies to pioneering educators looking to expand and improve their classroom experience beyond the standard curriculum.

Westlake City Schools is one of fewer than 400 public school districts in the nation being honored by the College Board with a place on the 2nd Annual AP Honor Roll.

Westlake is one of 23 Ohio school districts to be listed on the honor roll and is one of only two Northeast Ohio school districts (the other is Aurora City Schools) to achieve this distinction for two consecutive years.

The award honors those districts that increase access to Advanced Placement coursework while maintaining the percentage of students earning scores of 3 or higher on AP exams. Achieving both goals indicates that a district is successfully identifying motivated, academically-prepared students who are likely to benefit most from AP coursework.

Everyone agrees that we want the best education for our children. One way to support that idea is through fundraising efforts for our schools. You do not have to be a parent of a current student to participate in these efforts – everyone is invited to help out. There are three easy ways to accomplish this that will cost you nothing.

First, find and save Box Top for Education coupons. Box Tops coupons can be found on many products, including General Mills, Pillsbury, Ziploc, Go-Gurt, Kleenex, Juicy-Juice, Fiber-One, and Cheerios items. For every box top saved, your school receives 10 cents.

The Bay Village Council of PTA’s announces its 24th annual Scholarship Auction, Christmas Carnival, to be held Friday, Nov. 18, from 7-11 p.m. at the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center, 28728 Wolf Rd. in Bay Village, to benefit graduating seniors of Bay High School’s Class of 2012 who intend to pursue careers that promote the welfare, protection and/or education of youth.

A $30 per person admission includes hearty appetizers and desserts from Copper Cup Catering and Live Jazz by Mobius, and beautiful natural surroundings at LENSC. A cash bar, silent auction, Chinese auction, and live auction (with Bay Village School District Superintendent Clint Keener as auctioneer!) will round out the excitement.

Bobbi English, a counselor at Hilliard and Holly Lane elementary schools, was selected by the Ohio School Counselors Association to receive the Mary Claytor/Charles Weaver Life Achievement & Membership Award.

The award honors and recognizes a counselor who has contributed with excellence to the school counseling profession for 15 years or more.

English will be honored during the All Ohio Counseling Conference in Columbus on Nov. 3. In her nomination letter, Holly Lane Principal Mimi Verdone called English a caring professional.

Three Westlake Schools’ students had winning entries in the Earth Day Coalition 2011 22nd Annual Art, Poetry and Essay Contest.

Parkside Intermediate School sixth-graders Sarah Greenberg and Alex Tromler, and Holly Lane Elementary School third-grader Alex Gannon were honored with other contest winners at EarthFest 2011 in April at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

They were among 30 students from Berea, Brook Park, Brunswick, Cleveland, Columbia Station, Highland Heights, Lakewood, Middleburg Heights, Solon, Strongsville and Twinsburg to receive the Hope and Stanley Adelstein Award for Excellence.

Four Westlake High School juniors – Shannon Kruger, Maggie Katonka, Hanna Tegel and Abby Salem – were selected as Student Senators by the Cleveland chapter of Facing History and Ourselves for this year’s conference at John Carroll University.

The students were nominated by Social Studies teacher Elizabeth Noren last spring and will serve as conference facilitators and leaders. Student Senators also will hail this year from MLK, Beachwood, Laurel, Twinsburg, Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland, Lakewood and St. Joseph’s Academy high schools.

This year’s conference theme is “Finding Your Voice.” Mahatma Gandhi suggested that “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” At the conference, students will examine how to use their voices to effect change right now or how to find their voices to make change in their schools and communities.

Fifty-two students from Cheryl Bendik’s Spanish 3 honors classes at Westlake High School participated in the spring 2011 OSU Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP).

The tests show a student’s projected placement into language courses at The Ohio State University. It compares  Level 3 students from 70 high schools throughout Ohio who participated in the CAAP testing, along with OSU students in Level 103 (third quarter) language classes. A total of 4,744 high school students took the tests, of which 3,731 were studying Spanish.

On Tuesday, Oct. 11, administrators from across the Bay Village City School District gave a State of the Schools report at Bay Middle School to share facts, figures and success stories with the community. Bay Village Kiwanis hosted the event. While a video of the presentation, complete with supporting documentation, is available on the district’s website at bayvillageschools.com/stateofschools, following is a brief synopsis of each speaker’s remarks.

District Vision
Superintendent Clint Keener
“This school district is truly about the community. That’s the strength of our district, that’s the strength of everything we do, and right now there’s more evidence [of that] than ever before.”
In the most recent data available, the district ranked sixth-lowest in spending per pupil in Cuyahoga County, yet had the sixth-highest scores in the countywide performance index. The district’s goal is to instill in every student the desire to be an active, lifelong learner. To demonstrate his school spirit, Keener donned a blue and white mohawk wig that students often wear to high school athletic events.

The Westlake City School District went to market on Oct. 11 for the refunding of its 2003 series bonds used to finance the Performing Arts Center project.

The refunding saved the taxpayers of Westlake more than $571,000 in foregone interest costs. These savings will be reflected in lower property tax rates to Westlake residents over the life of the bond issue.

A breakdown of the sale:

• The bonds will be delivered on Oct. 25
• The refunding resulted in an interest cost of 3.17% (inclusive of all fees)
• The net present value savings to the taxpayers was 7.05% and exceeded the minimum threshold to proceed as established by the Board of Education as well as nationally recognized best practices for this type of activity
• The refunding did not extend the original maturity date of 2027

Moody’s Investors Service reaffirmed the Westlake City School District’s Aa1 bond rating based on the districts strengths, including continuous economic growth, consistent management and stable finances, and contingency planning for potential budgetary challenges.

The credit rating agency indicated the school district’s “strong fiscal oversight” and “conservative budgeting practices” have contributed to a healthy General Fund reserve. The rating places Westlake in the top 4% of all Ohio schools.

We had Parent Visitation Day at school this week at Westerly Elementary. Miss McMaugh, Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Harmount planned a real messy project for us to do with our parents and it was extremely fun!

We have been learning about glaciers and how glaciers are responsible for making Ohio flat. With the help of our parents, we made glaciers. Don’t worry, the glaciers weren’t as big as they were in real life. So you’re probably wondering what we used to make glaciers. We made them out of a scoop of vanilla ice cream! We also used mini chocolate chips for rocks, chocolate chunks for boulders, pretzel sticks for trees, chocolate powder for soil and green sugar for minerals.

Students in Mrs. Szelesta's first-grade class had a special visitor recently. Bay Village Mayor Deborah Sutherland helped them with their morning class assignments.

"I had so much fun with Mrs. Szelesta and her class!” said Mayor Sutherland. “They were all so engaging and energetic. I was very impressed with the creative, integrative, and interdisciplinary teaching that takes place at Normandy."

Mrs. Szelesta came away with a good impression of the program and the Mayor's visit. "It was nice to know that she could really see all that goes into a first-grader's day," she said. "Tying shoes, Band-Aids, forgetting a lunch, a ponytail falling out and forgetting library books were all minor things, but 'major' first-grader problems that she experienced with me all in the first hour of the morning!"

Six Westlake High School students were named 2012 National Merit Semifinalists, and five students were named Commended students in the National Merit Program.

Semifinalists Thomas Carroll, Jennifer Chern, Lauren Choban, Kyle Lathem, Caitlin Smith and Kelley Zhou will move on to compete for about 8,300 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $34 million.

They are among 1.5 million students from 22,000 high schools across the country who took the PSAT in their junior year. Less than one percent of high school seniors make it to the semifinal round. About 15,000 students are expected to move on to become National Merit Finalists, which should be announced in February.

Bay Village Schools administrators will present a snapshot view of how the schools are doing at their State of the Schools presentation on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 7:15 p.m. at Bay Middle School. The public is invited to attend. The event is co-hosted by the Bay Village Kiwanis.

Topics covered will include student achievement scores, academic programs, athletics and activities, district-wide teaching strategies and initiatives, school-home communication, school operations and finances. A question-and-answer period will follow.

Westerly Elementary School third-grade teacher, Martha Fisher, was awarded the Conservation Educator of the Year distinction by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History at the Museum on Friday, Sept. 9. The award comes as no surprise to those who know the creative, dedicated teacher whose students learn by doing.

This year, Mrs. Fisher's class learned about the water cycle as part of their science studies, and the water theme permeated lessons across the curriculum. In addition to observing and documenting the role of water in the school's courtyard plants, students became environmental activists with a project to promote the use of rain barrels throughout their town of Bay Village.

The College Board’s Advanced Placement Program (AP) provides students with the opportunity to take rigorous college-level courses while still in high school, and the ability to earn college credit, advanced placement or both for successful performance on the AP exams. About 18 percent of the 1.6 million students worldwide who took AP Exams performed at a sufficiently high level to also earn an AP Scholar Award.

The College Board recognizes several levels of achievement based on students’ performance on AP Exams. At Westlake High School:

Two students – 2011 graduates Abhi Ramachandran and Arit Umana – qualified for the National AP Scholar Award by earning an average score of 4 or higher on a five-point scale on all AP Exams taken, and scores of 4 or higher on eight or more of these exams.

Hilliard Elementary Intervention Specialist Christina Meecha’s proposal to create a combined math and language arts program has earned a $2,000 grant from Target for math literacy materials.

Meecha plans to create a library of books that deal specifically with math concepts and will be used to “grab students’ attention” for math lessons for preschool through fourth grade.

Meecha said many students struggle with math but love reading, so finding books that enforce a greater love of math can help students in a fun way.

A Westlake High School senior spent her summer researching a hot topic in sports medicine – the impact of concussions.

Lauren Choban spent her summer as a science intern at the Spine Research Laboratory at Lutheran Hospital. The Cleveland Clinic Office of Civic Education Initiatives Summer Internship Program is a paid nine-week program that fosters 21st-century skills where students explore science and various health careers through one-on-one mentoring relationships with Cleveland Clinic doctors. Students work with caregivers, medical students and internship alumni.

Students of the Westlake High School STEM, Engineering & Technology Education Department earned top design awards in the Design Squad Nation Build Big Contest.

The team of Kalin Ngo, Robert Schill and Paul Poulos were the nationwide grand prize winners for their project “String Thing,” configured like a linear guitar that consists of several wooden boxes designed to play the classic piece “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” by J.S. Bach.

Teachers, staff and students in the Bay Village City School District can apply for grant monies to fund innovative educational projects through the Bay Village Education Foundation. The deadline for applications is Sept. 30, 2011, and interested applicants can go to bayedfoundation.org or email bayedfoundation@gmail.com to request an application.

BVEF is an independent non-profit volunteer organization that funds educational projects not supported by tax dollars. In its 26th year, the organization has awarded over $175,000 in grants to fund well over 70 projects that span from grades K-12 and across all areas of the curriculum. Anyone can help the BVEF continue to create opportunities for Bay students by making a tax-deductible donation at bayedfoundation.org.

Bay Middle School teacher, Lawrence Kuh, was selected as one of only seven teachers to be honored by the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics this year, not only for his dedication in the classroom, but also for his contribution to the profession at large.

His principal, Sean McAndrews, said he is in complete agreement with the Council's assessment of Kuh's contributions. "Lawrence is very knowledgeable about the math curriculum. He is constantly learning new strategies and implementing them into his classroom. He also discusses ideas with his colleagues and teachers outside of Bay Village," said McAndrews.

"However, his biggest strength is his ability to work with his students. He takes the fear of math away from his students. He encourages, motivates, and excites so that they believe that they can be successful in math, even if they have never 'liked' math before!"