Schools

Bay Village Schools administrators gave their annual presentation to Bay Kiwanis and members of the community on Oct. 2, and by all accounts the district is on solid footing, academically, financially and structurally.

Much of the focus was on new statewide academic mandates: the Common Core Standards for curriculum instituted last year and the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee which takes full effect next school year. The district’s financial analysis shows that the schools have gotten good mileage out of the most recent levy, approved by voters in November 2010, and should remain in a comfortable financial position for the next several years. The existing school buildings, most built in the 1950s and ‘60s, have been well-maintained and with infrastructure improvements can remain in service for another two decades.

Westlake’s Bassett and Hilliard elementary schools are two of only 13 outstanding schools in Ohio to achieve the 2012 National Blue Ribbon Schools award.

The National Blue Ribbon Schools award highlights and gives recognition to schools producing outstanding results for all students regardless of race or socioeconomic status. Schools recognized as National Blue Ribbon Schools have demonstrated consistent excellence, and in some cases, those that have made progress and closed gaps in student achievement. The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program is part of a larger U.S. Department of Education effort to identify and disseminate knowledge about best school leadership and teaching practices.

If you travelled down Wolf Road during May, you couldn’t help but notice the swarms of student-bicyclists on the sidewalks and the hundreds of bicycles parked at Bay Middle School. That could only mean one thing – Bay Bike To School Challenge was back for its fifth year.

The program concluded at Bay Middle and High Schools on May 25 with a celebration of the students’ bicycling accomplishments. Students at both schools logged a combined 26,673 miles on their bikes during the three-week challenge and on average 59 percent of Bay Middle School (474 students) biked each day. It was an effort that had a huge impact on their selves, the community and the environment – burning hundreds of thousands of calories, preventing a significant amount of carbon dioxide emissions and saving their parents a lot of gas money.

Spanish language students at Westlake High School and Lee Burneson Middle School cleaned up at the 2012 National Spanish Examinations.

Westlake High students walked away with 125 awards, earning a total of 10 gold, 33 silver and 25 bronze medals, along with 57 honorable mentions, in Levels 1-5.

Gold-medal winners were: (Level 2) Caroline Hazapis, Annie Hoelscher, Melissa Karpuszka, Madeline Lee, Kartik Sastry, Vishal Shah; (Level 3) Michelle Adamczyk, Elizabeth Raiff, Paavani Reddy; and Level 5 winner Tom Carrol. WHS Spanish teachers are Florica Podway, Anne-Frances Zaborniak, Cheryl Bendik and Eneida Ruiz.

Forty-one LBMS world language students were also recognized for excellent performance on the examinations.

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.

A Lee Burneson Middle School team of eighth-graders captured the first-place team award in the regional MATHCOUNTS competition at Lorain County Community College on Feb. 12.
 
The team of Kartik Dhinakaran, Aswin Bikkani, Cal Craven and Ameesh Shah will move on to state competition on March 12. Calvin Pozderac also was selected to advance to the state competition as an individual.
 
Additional individual awards went to the following eighth-graders:

• Kartik Dhinakaran, First Place
• Aswin Bikkani, Second Place
• Calvin Pozderac, Third Place
• Cal Craven, Fourth Place
• Peter Slater, Seventh Place
• Vishal Shah, Eighth Place

Other team members included Taeho Kim, Jack Bogart and Alex Lathem.

The wrestling program at Bay High School is making a comeback in a big way. In their second season under new head coach Ryan Cover and assistant coaches Luke Kieffer and John Higgs, the Bay Rockets are making a name for themselves throughout Northeast Ohio.

Head coach Ryan Cover describes his second year with the team: “We are still a relatively young team with a considerable amount of freshman and sophomore wrestlers. Our varsity line-up remains strong, but young. I look forward to strengthening and honing the skills of the younger boys, so in a few years, we’ll have a good solid line-up with every weight class filled.”   

The cornerstone of this year’s line-up includes three seniors: Nick Dorsey, Tim Hughes and Dan Rehor. Cover explained, “All three are excellent role models for the younger wrestlers, and as a coach, I could not ask for better team captains.”

History of education in Westlake to be preserved

Four years ago, the Westlake City School District and the Red Brick Center for the Arts began a partnership to see if an arts center could be developed as part of each of our missions for the community. The initial idea was for the Red Brick Center for the Arts to develop an arts center at the Red Brick school building. This was based on its availability and its historic value to the Westlake community.

Unfortunately, raising the $3 million necessary to complete the rehabilitation of this notable building proved to be unattainable. The current economic climate has made it difficult to secure funds for a project of this size, and the likelihood of being able to do so in the near future is unlikely. At this point the school district anticipates taking the building down during the fall semester.

While the dream of saving the building will not be realized, the long-term potential for having a community arts center might still be possible. To that end, the Westlake Schools and The Red Brick Center for the Arts remain committed to exploring the possibilities of an arts center in Westlake.

Matthew J. Spellman will be the new athletic/activities director for the Bay Village City School District. He was hired on Monday, July 12, at the Bay Village Board of Education meeting.

Spellman has served as an athletic director/assistant principal for the Vermilion Local Schools since July 2008. Prior to that, he was student activities director for the Chardon Local School District and assistant athletic director at Wickliffe High School. His background includes teaching high school mathematics and coaching varsity and junior varsity football, high school basketball and track.

Spellman holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Baldwin-Wallace College and a Master of Education, Sport Management degree from Cleveland State University. His post-graduate work in educational administration was done at Ursuline College.

The Bay Village Board of Education welcomed two new members Monday, January 11. Sworn in were Michael Caputo and Dr. Gayatry Jacob-Mosier. Also sworn in for her third four-year term was incumbent member Amy Huntley.

Bill Selong was elected to serve as 2010 president and Amy Huntley will serve as vice president.

Tennis icon and 2012 state champion Colton Buffington has moved on but the 2013 Westlake Demons men's tennis team worked hard in the off-season and has returned with plenty of fire-power.

Led by ebullient senior captain and doubles wizard Kevin Wang, the Demons season has exceeded all expectations. Coach Jeff Mannies has expertly shuffled a deep roster of players.

Students and staff at Bay Village's Normandy Elementary School took the entire week of March 18 to show their principal, Dr. Jim McGlamery, how much he is loved and appreciated by presenting him with a week of surprises.

Monday, March 18, began with a celebration of Dr. McGlamery's birthday (including birthday cards from all the children). While he thought that was the end of a special celebration, the focus stayed on the principal as the building celebrated Tabasco Tuesday (Tabasco pins worn in honor of Dr. McGlamery's penchant for the spicy sauce), Wear-a-Tie Wednesday (hand-decorated ties worn in honor of Dr. McGlamery's extensive (and growing) collection display of child-oriented ties), and Thank You Thursday (thank you notes from the children).

Bay Village residents may notice a lot of police activity outside Bay High on Thursday, March 7. They should not be alarmed, as this is all part of a planned activity to keep our schools safe.

The training will involve lockdown drills, building evacuations, and a variety of “active shooter” engagement scenarios.

“We want members of the public to be aware that this training is taking place on March 7,” said Bay Village Detective Lieutenant Mark A. Spaetzel. “We don’t want people witnessing the police activity at the high school to be needlessly alarmed.”

The training takes place during a school staff professional development day in which students will not be in school. Bay High School staff and a limited number of selected students will directly participate with the Bay Village Police.

The Aqua Girls are back from competing in the Destination Imagination Global Finals in Knoxville! We stayed at the University of Tennessee in one of the dorms. There was a lot of walking up and down hills because UT has a hilly landscape and the campus buildings were pretty far apart. In addition, the temperatures were in the upper 80s and 90s! But all the walking up and down hills and the hot weather didn’t stop us from having a great time! 

On the first night, there was an Opening Ceremony inside the basketball arena. Kids sat together with their states and countries while a few representatives of each state and country walked in a parade on the floor. We did not get to represent Ohio, but we had a good time sitting with all the teams from Ohio. There were over 1,200 teams from all over the world!

Two Westlake High School varsity soccer players are using their love of the game and the resources of the Westlake community and other Westside suburbs to collect used soccer equipment for African youth.

Mark and Brian Sutcliffe, a WHS junior and freshman, respectively, started Operation Hope – Soccer Retread for Africa last month in an effort to collect used soccer equipment to ship to African refugee camps in Ghana and Liberia. The idea came to Brian and his family after a teammate on Brian’s Premier soccer team, Challenger Crew Juniors Black, told his story of coming to the United States five years ago via Ghana as a Liberian refugee.

Rachel Vick, a Bay High senior, earned the 2012 10th District Grand Prize in the U.S. Congress Artistic Discovery Competition. Rachel’s self-portrait will be framed and sent to be displayed in the U.S. Library of Congress during the coming year.

Rachel and a parent will be flown to Washington, D.C., to participate in an installation ceremony and reception on Wednesday, June 20.

Other Bay High student artists winning prizes in the contest were sophomore Elizabeth Auckley, who earned a second place prize for her painting; sophomore Grace Veres who placed third for her painting; junior Alissa Kolke who won an honorable mention in painting; and senior Jenna Fisler, who placed second for her photo illustration.

Bay Middle School eighth-grader Emma Chalk has been awarded the National Scholastic Art's Gold Medal for her short story, "Memories of Us."  

Severn Sanders, a Bay High freshman, won the National Scholastic Art's Silver Medal for her mixed media artwork, "Movement," created when she was an eighth-grader at Bay Middle School.

In my last few articles I have been keeping you updated on my D.I. (Destination Imagination) happenings, and I’m going to do that in this article too. Here is what has been going on since my last article. Well, my team, the Aqua Girls met with the entire Bay Village Green Team at their meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 14.

On the night of the meeting I think everyone was a little nervous as the Green Team was setting up tables and chairs. And then Ms. Lori Sprosty came over to our group and told us it was time for us to do our presentation about our Huntington Beach Clean-Up community service project.

Each of us took turns speaking about things like what Destination Imagination is and about our community service project challenge. We explained why we picked a clean-up of Huntington Beach and the reasons why the beach is so dirty. Then we told them that we’ve made community partners with the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, Adopt-a-Beach.org, The Observer and Cleveland Metroparks. Finally, we told them that we plan to talk to City Council and ask Mayor Sutherland and council members for their help as well.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Watercraft recently announced that the Bay Village City School District has been awarded a grant of $ 2,239.71 as part of the Boating Safety Education Grant Program. The Division of Watercraft is awarding $366,528.02 to political subdivisions and non-profit organizations for boating education programs. The Bay Village Schools is one of 30 organizations across the state to receive funding.

The funds will be used to provide a free boating safety education program this summer for seventh-grade students. The nationally recognized program, known as Spirit of America (SOA), provides students both classroom and on-the-water sessions to teach safe boating skills. Participants will take the Ohio Boating Education Course on two Saturdays in May and must pass a written exam. This meets the Ohio law that requires any person born on or after Jan. 1, 1982, to show proof they have completed an approved boating course if they are operating a power boat over 10 horsepower.

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.

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.

Senior citizens modeled for Bay Middle School art students on Tuesday, January 26, as the student artists created contour line drawings while listening to some interesting stories from the lives of their visitors.

Mrs. Virginia Foley, a watercolor artist and arts advocate herself, talked about the importance of the arts as students drew. Mr. John Rowland talked about his early days as a seventh-grade math teacher before spending most of his career in hospital administration. Mr. Jack Fuller, a former engineer, discussed how he joined the Navy during World War II because he loved the water but never got to serve on a ship. Ms. Jean DeRoma talked of her career working for the law firm Baker and Hostetler. And Mr. George Purdy, a former metallurgical engineer, discussed his volunteer service for the International Executive Service Corps that allowed him to travel the world.

After posing for their portraits, the visitors enjoyed donuts, coffee and juice and a student-guided tour of Bay Middle School.

The Westlake Lady Demons soccer team was named 1st Team Adidas Academic All-American for the 2009 season. This marks the seventh time in the last eight years the team has won this award. 

Westlake is ranked #1 in Ohio for the second consecutive year and fourth nationally, with an overall team GPA of 4.28. The team is coached by Scott Jones.

In addition, five senior players were named All-Ohio Scholastic scholars – Megan Dunlap, Julia Fulton, Julie Laraway, Ally Louis and A.J. Suever. 

Bay High students of physics instructor Ann Mowery went to work once again this fall in creating a mechanical device that would perform a task in 20 or more steps. As in previous years, the school's contraption ranked among the top entries, this year placing third out of 35 schools, in the Chain Reaction Contraption competition (sponsored by Westinghouse) at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh on Friday, December 4.

This year's machine, entitled Victory in Vancouver in honor of the 2010 Winter Olympics, uses 29 steps which lead to construction of a pop up stadium. In addition to taking third place, the stadium won a special award entitled, What will you create?, which earned the team a return trip to Pittsburgh to tour Westinghouse's Davidson plant. In addition, the students will see their project showcased for Westinghouse engineers at the firm's Cranberry Plant, and the team will get a special tour of the new Westinghouse Supercomputer.

Seven Westlake High School artists are being honored for their work by the Cleveland Clinic Office of Civic Education Initiatives through an exhibition of artwork. 

"Cleveland Clinic eXpressions: an intersection of art and science" is an innovative program that utilizes the arts to engage high school students in the world of scientific research. Through project-based, peer-to-peer learning, students produce artistic interpretations of research conducted by Cleveland clinic summer interns. WHS summer interns were seniors Sammy DeMarsh (scientific intern) and Clare Wittenberg (creative learning intern).

This year there were more than 700 submissions for both art and language. The eXpressions program invites Northeast Ohio high school students to create artistic interpretations of scientific research and medicine completed at the Cleveland Clinic by their peers.  

Lee Burneson Middle School won the Gardens That Teach Challenge in Cuyahoga County. Tunnel Vision Hoops will work with technology teacher Kurt Thonnings to install a $2,246 hoop house at the new middle school this spring.

The Hummingbird Project also is donating a healthy soil workshop valued at $600 to LBMS, teaching students about the complex soil food web.

The hoop house will be incorporated as part of a large community/school garden area at the new middle school, scheduled to open this fall. Thonnings already planned to build a small, 12-foot-long hoop house in the area this spring. The new hoop house will be part of the area that students and the Westlake Garden Club will maintain.

Bassett and Hilliard elementary schools will celebrate their achievements as 2012 National Blue Ribbon Schools at ceremonies to be held at each school.

Bassett and Hilliard are two of only 17 outstanding schools in Ohio to achieve the 2012 National Blue Ribbon Schools award. The National Blue Ribbon Schools award highlights and gives recognition to schools producing outstanding results for all students regardless of race or socioeconomic status.

Did you know that in some countries women and girls don’t have freedoms and rights? In Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is a group called the Taliban who don’t allow women and girls to have freedoms and rights that American women and girls have.

This week, I read an article online about a 14-year-old girl named Malala from Pakistan. She doesn’t have the right to go to school because the Taliban doesn’t allow girls to go. But this has not stopped her from going to school and some other girls still go too.

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.

Teams of fifth and sixth graders from Parkside Intermediate School placed in top brackets at the Greater Cleveland Council of Teachers of Mathematics Problem Solving Competition.
 
The tournament was the culmination of Parkside’s Math Club, which meets Tuesday mornings.
 
First-place trophy winners included:

• Team Pythagorean Panthers: Steve Brewer, Patrick Smith, Patrick Lee, Ryan Karpuszka
• Team Alsadrade: Alex Rujawitz, Sarah Hemphill, Jade Hawk, Audrey Lyle
• Team Problem Solvers: Sam Giusto, Maria Alamir, Holly Tomkalski, Megan Fulton
• Team PEMDAS: Nicole Korczak, Conor Miller, Emily Schordowk

First-grade teacher Hennie Hervol believes that, through studying Japanese, her young students at Bay Village’s Normandy Elementary School benefit even beyond learning a new language. 

“Learning another language creates all these new connections in developing brains,” she said. “I am really happy our students could experience this.” 

Her students are fortunate to have Amara Suehrstedt in their class. Amara’s mom, Lorelei Suehrstedt, is an expert in Japanese language and culture. She has been spending this past school year teaching the students the Japanese language and much more about the people and the country where she lived for several years after graduating college with a major in Japanese.

Holly Lane Elementary School, 3057 Holly Lane, will host its annual Veterans Day ceremony on Friday, Nov. 5, at 1 p.m. in the school gymnasium.

To instill the ideals of citizenship, the school community will present a program that includes patriotic songs, reflections and recognitions that serve to honor, as well as remember, all veterans. Holly Lane also will receive the national “Freedom Foundation” medal due to the school’s ongoing commitment and tradition of promoting an understanding of the country’s freedoms and ideals of citizenship.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP with Principal Mimi Verdone by Friday, Oct. 29, by calling 440-250-1403.

The Bay Village Education Foundation is now accepting applications from teachers, staff and students for grant monies to fund creative and innovative ideas that enhance learning opportunities in the Bay Village Public Schools.

The Bay Village Education Foundation (BVEF) turns dreams into reality by supporting projects in all areas of the curriculum. Some of the exciting educational projects made possible by the BVEF (thanks to the financial support of staff, board members and community members) include “Celebrating Bay Village’s Bicentennial" at Westerly School, "Family Math Night" at Normandy School, "Gecko and Habitat" and "Using IPod Touch for Teaching and Learning" at Bay Middle School and Pupil Assistance in Learning (PAL) for special education students at Bay High School. 

The BVEF has awarded over $150,000 in grants to over 70 projects as it celebrates its 25th year creating opportunities for all Bay students. To apply for a grant please contact Rhonda Schneider at 440-892-1829 or e-mail bayedfoundation@gmail.com to request an application. Deadline for application to be considered is September 30, 2010.

WHS senior Conner Dempsey received a phone call from U.S. Senator George Voinovich confirming his appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. There are only 1,500 appointments given out annually. Conner recently placed 7th at the State Wrestling Tournament and participates in Scott Kutz’s high school engineering program.

Kim Bonvissuto is the Communications Coordinator for Westlake City Schools.

More than 675 Bay Middle School students participated in Rake Out 2009, the school's annual community service event where student and parent volunteers rake leaves for the community's elderly and disabled residents. 

More than 120 yards were raked this year. Advisors for Rake Out 2009 were Bay Middle School teachers Eric Caddey and Chris Brewer.

Bay Middle School PTA provided pizza and refreshments for the volunteers after their hours of hard work.

Karen Derby is the Public Information Officer for the Bay Village City School District.

Westlake High School Student Council collected $1,660 for charity in its second annual "Valentine Hunks" contest. Each year Student Council asks four junior boys and four senior boys to volunteer to collect money for a designated charity during the week of Valentine’s Day. This year’s collections went to Emily’s Rainbow Fund benefiting pediatric cancer research.

The “Hunks” played musical instruments for donations, dressed as Cupid and just asked fellow students to donate to a worthy cause. This year's overall winner was junior Connor Fife.

The Lee Burneson Middle School team of eighth-graders Alex Lathem and Anna Craven, and seventh-graders Ryan Karpuszka and Patrick Lee, brought home the first-place team trophy in the MATHCOUNTS competition and qualified to move on to state competition. Alex also finished first overall in the competition.

LBMS also swept the top four individual trophies. Eighth-grader Justin Krantz earned a first-place individual award, eighth-grader Mark Sargent second place, eighth-grader Sneha Ramachandran third place and seventh-grader Sean Rossander fourth place. Justin and Mark also qualified for state competition based on their individual performances.

Westlake sent 43 young scientists to the Kenston Science Olympiad Invitational on Jan. 19. These students made up two teams from Lee Burneson Middle School and one team representing Westlake High School. All three teams produced impressive results, including fourth and first place overall awards. 

The LBMS team of 37 students is comprised of 20 seventh-graders, 10 eighth-graders, and seven ninth-graders, who prepare to compete in 23 events. The team, led by parent volunteer Laura Lathem, has put in countless hours of study sessions and preparation since mid-October. Assisting Lathem are advisors Dr. Rachna Dutta, Susan Carroll, Eileen Fitz, Natalie Hudak, Lese Ann Kodger, Gina Slater and high school Science Olympiad coach Melissa Crist.

2012 has been an amazing year for me! I hope it has been good for you too. As I think about all that has happened this year, in many ways I hate to see it end. Every New Year’s Eve, my family writes in a Ray Family Memory Book all the wonderful, fun and exciting things that happened to us over the last year. Here are some of the things that I will definitely include in our book this year.

1. The Aqua Girls: Ava, Caroline, Eliza, Grace, Olivia and Patty. You are the best teammates. I love working with you. I will miss our DI (Destination Imagination) meetings and competing with you while I am in South Africa. I know you will do great at competition this year. I can’t wait to hear about it.

Angela Siciliano has been a Jazzercise instructor for almost nine years, offering aerobics classes for special needs students and their families at the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities Parma Developmental Center. When she came to Westlake High School as a special education assistant this year, WHS Intervention Specialist Rachel Kane asked her if she would offer a class once a week for her special needs students.

Every Wednesday afternoon, for about 30 minutes, Kane’s students participate in a Jazzercise class, regardless of their abilities. She’s seen children who are non-responsive in most other setting suddenly kicking their feet, moving their heads or just smiling when they hear the music. Some participate in the workouts from their wheelchairs or use adaptive equipment, while more mobile students do all the moves right along with Siciliano.