Dear Members of the North Community:

During the 2007-2008 school year I am going to keep you updated on the many achievements, events, programs and initiatives taking place in Middletown North. My message will be known as LIONS' VIEW, and the acronym represents (LATEST INFORMATION ON NORTH STUDENTS/STAFF VERY INTERESTING EXCITING WORTHWHILE). The links for these updates will be listed at the bottom of this page. Click on a link date to view that information.

The Action Plan for High School North this year will be to promote a positive ATTITUDE, to require ACCOUNTABILITY and to focus on ACHIEVEMENT. To maintain an educational climate conducive to teaching and learning, we need to have rules, policies and procedures in place. Every classroom and office will display the NORTH PRIDE rules and behaviors that we expect everyone to follow. (insert the rules)

Click below to open and view some important information regarding the final days of the school year.

As the Principal of Middletown High School North I am pleased to report some of the many positive happenings that have taken place during the month of May.

(Departmental Highlights at North for May 2008)

Academic Assistance Department—Coordinator, Beverly Lindsay

Math and English classes are winding down…with special help to those who are still struggling with concepts…and special help for those who need just a little more practice. We are dedicated to those who have fallen through a crack or two during the year and trying our best to bring them up to ground level or even to a hilltop.

The senior program with Marine Major Rayfield was a great success. The news articles, particularly the headlines, said it all.

The PRESS “Teens Act As American Ambassadors.”

The COURIER “Putting a Real Face on America: North students gave foreign officers in Iraq the ‘real’ impression of the U.S.”

Students were impressed that a Marine Major would bother to visit them and say thank you for their help. As Melissa Gaffney said in the COURIER, “It was all-too fitting that students wound up affecting a great deal of people” after these same students had completed thesis papers about “Someone Who Has Made a Difference in the World.”

We hope that, indeed, “those cakes still in the oven” of which he spoke will indeed become adults who are contributing members of society.

English Department –Coordinator, Michele Taylor

BARBARA CHRISTOPHER

9^th Grade Honors Groups are getting ready for COSNOW Conference (Countries of Selected Nations of the World) on June 5-6.

11^th Grade Students completed and liked Night by Elie Wiesel.

MICHELE TAYLOR

9^th grade classes just finished reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The students had to create a wedding cake, wedding vows and get dressed up for the Midsummer Night’s Dream Wedding that was held in our classroom last week. We are currently reading Spider’s Voice by Gloria Skurzynski.

10^th grade classes finished reading “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe this week. The students are working on radio script writing and retelling the story in their own words with sound effects. There is a written portion and an audio cassette due next Friday.

LINDA RANGER

TV Production Club videotaped the IRON CHEF contest. We are editing it for viewing on Channel 20. North in Action is airing on channel 20 too! We held a fabulous film festival last week, red carpet and all!! It was well attended, and the winners received Oscars for Best Directing, Best Editing and Best Acting. We are currently making music videos to be aired in the cafeteria!

MICHELE GOLDFARB

The 11^th grade classes have just finished reading Catcher in the Rye and completed a long and exhausting research project. Students were given the role of Holden Caulfield’s psychiatrist and required to create a complete medical file for their “patient” including a diagnosis based on examples of his problems as well as “session notes” that included verbal, behavioral and symbolic examples of Holden’s issues. They also need to come up with a treatment plan detailing his illnesses and any prescribed medications and long term care suggestions for Holden’s future. It was a lot of work but I think students had fun “playing doctor”, so to speak.

10^th graders recently finished Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and created personal manifestos where they could speak their mind and “put it out there” on topics that were themes from Huck Finn, which are still current (religion, education, etc.). They also researched and collected current articles that brought into question whether or not we live in, as Huck would say, a “civilized society.” Students did a response paper in which they agreed with or refuted their articles’ perspective and used persuasive techniques to try and convince the class that their opinion was the only acceptable one. They were also responsible for determining the slant the media put on their articles. We discussed media power and recognizing persuasive techniques as well as employing them in their writing.

We will soon be finishing our year long anchor activity which was a memory book. Students had a two-paged typed chapter due every two weeks beginning in September. Topics for each chapter began with their family before students were born and will end on June 2 with “And now I am a senior” with an epilogue detailing “The Lasts…” due June 8. Students would hand their chapters in every two weeks and receive them back a few days later with their grade and any corrections on them. They were then required to make the corrections and add “artistic elements “ to each chapter and hand in their book as completed at the end of each marking period for their artistic grade. Some students used the computer to add digital pictures and images to make their book look totally formal and others created scrapbooks with actual photos, movie ticket stubs, etc. The final product is a thorough and, in some cases, beautiful keepsake of their young lives.

Right now we are working on G & T ‘s Book Club (Gifted and Talented as well as Goldfarb and Terplevich). Students are modeling adult book clubs and working in groups reading and writing responses on different aspects of their book. Their PBL for this unit is to create a movie trailer for their book using the how to sheets and technology available. Can’t wait to see them!!

Guidance Department –Coordinator, Tom Cusick

Administered Brookdale Admission Test
Administered May SATs
Hosted Senior Awards Night
Administered Biology Exiting Test
Hosted presentation for “Dual Enrollment” Program(5/8 @7pm)
Created Guidance Department Scholarship (7 awarded)
Coordinated professional activities for our 2 interns
Attended Monmouth County’s National College Fair
Attended Good Ideas Conference @ Georgian Court University
Assisted @ Rude Awakening
Enrolled incoming 9^th graders from St. Mary’s
Administered AP Exams
Attended ARC meetings
Adjusted Course Selections for 2008-2009
Met with students in danger of failing

Math Department –Coordinator, Richard Piro

Lisa Lombardi completed a unit on Probability with her Resource Room students. The ending activity was a “Probability Carnival.” The students had to develop their own games of chance.

Susan Ruda attended an Autism Workshop.

John Oxley developed an activity to help his Algebra 2 Honors students better understand the steps involved in solving a system of quadratic equations.

Rich Piro’s Honors Geometry classes finished their Tessellation Projects, all of which will soon be on display in room 2403

The Algebra 1 Steering Committee completed its work this month. The purpose of the group was to establish parameters for the transition of the 8^th grade students who take Connected Math into our 9^th grade curriculum. High School North committee members were Rich Decker, Patty Giordano, Karen Pastuzyn, Leslie Scott, Jenn Vought and Lisa Lombardi.

Social Studies Department—Coordinator, Ed Jones

DOUG FELEGY

He invited a guest speaker from Wachovia Bank to address his students on financial literacy awareness.

As part of the Middlebridge Program, he joined the TAH group on a field trip to Philadelphia. He also

attended an in-service at the Federal Reserve in New York City.

BARBARA GUENTHER

Brian Thompson, a WNBC news reporter, spoke to her classes. Her classes are preparing for the

World History/US History Honors Cosnow Conference (Countries of Selected Interest of the World).

BETH D’ALESSANDRO

Her AP History class organized Euro Café on May 27

ED JONES

His World Geography class went on a class trip to Philadelphia

Special Education Department—Coordinator, Dr. Susan Terplevich

After reading Night, the autobiographical novel by Elie Wiesel, and watching the movie “Swing Kids,” about how Hitler influenced the youth of Germany during the late 1930s and early 1940s, students in Grade 11 English Resource Classes researched Human Rights Violations that exist today, completed a research paper and a project on their topic. Topics included police brutality, Bosnia, China, China and the Olympic Protests, puppy mills, and human trafficking.

In-Class Support students have selected a book they would like to read, either individually or a part of a Book Club, where all the students in that group are reading the same selection. In addition to reading the book in class and for homework, students are responsible for meeting with other members of their club to discuss the book, keep logs on what they are reading, and construct vocabulary lists. The students are also going to construct and present a movie trailer promoting the book to other readers.

In Lisa Lombardi’s Math 9 classes they are creating Carnival Games as part of the Probability Unit. The titles of the games include: “And 1 Basketball”, “Pick a Duck”, “M & D Spinwheel”, “Rainbow Wheel”, and “Ring It”. The students had to create the game, calculate the theoretical probability, and play their games to see if the experimental probability matched the theoretical probability. The students have created full-scale versions of their games and are having a “mock carnival” in June.

Visual and Performing Arts, Family and Consumer Science and Tech Ed Departments—Coordinator, Jim Gibson

Band

On May 22^nd the HSN Concert Band performed the Spring Pops Concert under the musical direction of Joe Miceli. The students performed two additional concerts on May 30^th for the 9^th and 10^th graders.

Business

On May 2 and May 13 Susan Turner had a speaker from the FINANCIAL LITERACY AWARENESS PROGRAM (a state program) address her Personal Finance and College and Career Planning classes. The speaker was from Wachovia Bank.

Child Development

During the month of May we had an two Preschool Graduations. The morning and afternoon classes had ceremonies and receptions for the high school students, parents, preschoolers, and administrators.

Choir

The Choirs participated in a number of events within May:

The Spring Choral Concert was on May 1^st
Soloists participated in the Spring Cabaret performance, featuring Broadway and Pop music.
Students selected, planned, and have begun rehearsal on graduation music and solos.
The choirs have begun planning for next year’s concerts and a trip.
Student leaders were elected to attend a Leadership Workshop at West Chester State University over
the summer

-Music Theory classes have begun review for exams and work on their final composition projects.

Family and Consumer Sciences-Foods

Of course the Iron Chef on May 15^th was our big highlight! It went very well according to the critics! Bon Appetit!

Family and Consumer Sciences-Sewing

The students in the Sewing classes displayed 28 quilts for “Project Linus” in the Library on May 27^th.

Tech Drawing

Tech Drawing was very active in May – with the highlight being our field trip to New York. We began by touring ground zero to view the architectural progress on the site. The steel was coming out of the ground for the Freedom Tower, which was very exciting to see. We then walked over the Brooklyn Bridge

to see first hand the structure we had been studying – it was fantastic! We ended up at the Guggenheim Museum to see the ‘I Want To Believe’ exhibit “Inopportune.” “The students were very well behaved and very much engaged,” commented Susan Nazath.

The Advanced Tech Drawing classes are building North on the computers. They are using site plans, Google earth and self generated surveys to make it as detailed and accurate as possible. Upon completion, one will be able to take a virtual walk through of the building.

Tech 1 students are being introduced to the 3d software (Revit) that they will be using next year if they continue on with the program. They are building tree houses and are having fun and hardly realizing that they are learning the basic command sets of the program.

Technology

The North Print Design classes just completed the National Honor Society invitations and programs for the Thursday June 5, 2008 NHS Induction Ceremony.

Nick Simko, is having an exhibit of his photographic work at the Middletown Library Art Gallery June 14-29^th, with an opening reception on Saturday June 14^th (2-4 pm).

Visual and Performing Arts-Functional Design

Ms. Trocchia judged an art contest for costume character design. All students entered a T-shirt contest for the Middletown Great Race 2008.

World Language Department –Coordinator, Lynn Zink

At the Senior Awards Night, Katelyn Whalen received the FLENJ Award (Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey) for her achievements in the French language. Casey Crist, Nora Doughtery, and Kaitlin Savage received the Spanish Honor Society scholarships.

The Italian Honor Society students have been collecting men’s clothing for a homeless men’s shelter in New York City.

Viki Panagakos took her Spanish classes to see a Flamenco show at the Count Basie Theater. Afterwards, they ate lunch at a local restaurant. Her Spanish IV classes made puppets and performed skits related to the history of Spain. These puppets were placed in the front showcase.

Spanish and French classes, of various levels, have been using the laptop computers on the cart for the presentation of different language topics.

The Italian I classes have been experiencing IDE portal applications in their daily lessons.

French Honor Society students have been selling friendship bracelets in order to raise money to help purchase a special wheelchair for a North student with cancer.