By Dr. Elaine Kanas,
East Williston School District
Tri-M is an internationally recognized music honor society with over 1,700 chapters in high schools across the globe. At Wheatley, the group’s mission is to connect with peers and community members using the students’ musical talents. Each year the group hosts several school-wide events that serve to inspire and encourage students to pursue music in some way. The Wheatley Tri-M chapter was recognized as the 2014-15 National Tri-M Chapter of the Year. As part of this honor, the group was awarded $1,000 to be used for an endeavor of the students’ choosing. Matching the award through fundraising, the students of Wheatley Tri-M unanimously chose to use the money to show appreciation to our service men and women overseas by sharing their love of music with these soldiers serving far away from home.
The students loaded iPod shuffles with a library of music, from a variety of genres, and sent them off to the soldiers. Wanting to make the donation more personal to the East Williston community, the students reached out to identify soldiers that have a connection to Wheatley. A wonderful gift for all, I extended a special thank you to the group. They sent the gift of music to the battalion that my son Colin, an Army Officer currently serving at Fort Meade, MD, after three tours of duty overseas, is attached to.
Earlier this month, Wheatley senior Krista Chen was recognized as a semifinalist in the INTEL Science Talent Search. This rigorous competition, a program of the Society for Science & the Public, recognizes the most promising young scientists and rewards them for their innovative science research. Of the more than 1,800 applicants, Chen was among 300 semifinalists nationwide and among the 44 Long Island semifinalists. Chen conducted her research through the Simons Summer Research Program at Stony Brook University under the guidance of Dr. Iwao Ojima.
On Friday, Dec. 18, it was exciting to visit a speech-off by our Regents-level social studies and English students. Students worked on an interdisciplinary project in these two subject areas for some weeks. For this assignment, students studied the U.S. Constitution, analyzed the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers and developed speeches in support of or in opposition to the Federalist position. The top 6 student speeches were chosen from the three sections of English 11R by class peers. Congratulations to students Lucas Marlowe, Ryan Goldberg, Lily Stempel, Max Mosca, Antonio Liparoto and Dylan Silber, who presented speeches.
Vintage, Wheatley’s student literacy magazine, was awarded first place with Special Merit by the American Scholastic Press Association. The congratulatory letter stated, “Your magazine shows the superior efforts of talented and creative editors, writers, artists, photographers, layout/graphic designers, staff members and advisor. [American Scholastic Press Association] congratulates all on your first place with Special Merit award.”
Individual recognitions were also awarded. Congratulations to Nancy Zhang, a member of the Class of 2015, who received an award for Outstanding Story for “Bleache” and to senior Jordan Shaked, who received an award for Outstanding Photographer for “Watch” and “Discovery.”
