GOODNEWSThe Ewing Public SchoolsJune 2005

Due to budget restraintsNO Summer School Programs

will be offered by the Ewing Public Schools

during the Summer of 2005.

Safety TownJune 30 - July 11

Contact: Jean Conrad609-538-9800 x1302

for application

On April 18, 2005 Ms. Chiavuzzo, Mrs. Walker and 30 Ewing High School freshmen joined several Mercer County high school and college students, and politicians to hear a presentation given by Mikhail Gorbachev at the Sovereign Bank Arena. Gorbachev was the last communist leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991. During his term he instituted various policies including his political policy of Glasnost and economic policy

Ewing High Students Attend Gorbachev PresentationWhitney Lewis, EHS Freshman

Have a Happy Summer!!GoodNews will resume

with the September issue of the Observer

The recipients of the 2005 Teacher of the Year Awards were honored at a luncheon on April 29th. Jan Fay, 2004 Mercer County Teacher of the Year, was a guest speaker. 1st row (L to R): Joan Zuckerman, Principal Antheil; Sharon Solomon, Lore; Jan Fay, 2004 Mercer County Teacher of the Year; Inetta Emery, Principal Parkway; Danielle Miller, EHS; Superintendent Ray Broach. 2nd row: Darrell Jackson, Principal FMS; Donna Andreas, Antheil; Don Barnett, FMS; Betsy Turgeon, Parkway; Rodney Logan, Principal EHS.

Nearly sixty years since Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps, the now elderly survivors of the Holocaust are turning to a new generation to preserve their testimony about their wartime experiences for future generations. Holocaust survivors are steadily dwindling in number. Many have made it their mission to educate the world that anti-Semitism and racism easily lead to murder, and to speak about the horrors they and their families suffered. With the passing of time, it has become urgent to find a new generation to continue the survivors’ mission and tell their stories after the survivors can no longer do so. On April 12, the Adopt-a-Survivor (AAS) program was introduced to the Trenton area at Ewing High School. Six Holocaust survivors were adopted by twelve Ewing High sophomores. The adopted survivors—Moshe Gimlan, Vera Goodkin, Marion Lewin, Ruth Lubitz, Charles Rojer and Jack Zaifman—were originally from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Belgium. The AAS program pairs a survivor with one or more students. The students embark on a joint journey with the survivor through discussions about life before, during and after the Holocaust. Participating students will be able to represent the survivor and tell the survivor’s story with accuracy and feeling in the years to come. In addition, each student makes a commitment to tell the survivor’s story in a public venue in the year 2045, a hundred years after the liberation of Auschwitz. The twelve student adopters are Dave Angebranndt, Tyler Barnes, Annie Cook, Liz Dunham, Emily Everett, Curtis Fornarotto, Vildana Hajric, Devon Jones, Jen Meade, Billy O’Callaghan, Nikyta Sharma and Melysa Wilson.

Adopt-a-Survivor Program Begins at Ewing High School

Teacher of the Year Recipients are Honored

of Perestroika. His policies reopened churches, released political prisoners, and lifted bans on previously censored books. The 20th anniversary of Perestroika was one of the essential themes of Gorbachev’s presentation. The policy’s main goal was to make the Soviet economic system more efficient. Perestroika involved the transfer of control from the government to the business owners. This policy

continued on page A2continued on page A2

The Ewing Public SchoolsNovember 2012

When The Ewing Public Schools opened up its doors for the 2012-13 school year, it welcomed 36 new teaching staff members to the district.

This was in stark contrast to a few years prior when only a half-dozen new employees came on board in 2010. The number of new hires certainly created a busy summer for administrators through-out the district.

“Probably the most important thing we do is make sure that we have quality, passionate people working with our students,” Superintendent Mike Nitti stated. “So our Educational Leadership Team spends a great deal of time interviewing and vetting prospective candidates in a competitive environment.”

The search for strong educators is a comprehen-sive one, and the district has many targeted skills and attributes that it looks for in a potential new hire, but Superintendent Nitti shared that there of-ten are certain things that distinguish one candidate from another.

“We look for people who have a legacy of success and achievements in their background,” Nitti stated. “Nobody does great things by accident; it takes hard work, dedication and perseverance. These are the same traits that characterize an excellent educator.”

In this vein, the new hire ‘Class of 2012’ has many accomplished academicians, scholars and artists in their ranks but, a bit more surprising, a high number of highly skilled and very successful athletes.

According to Su-perintendent Nitti, perhaps it shouldn’t be considered a sur-prise. “Many of the traits that you need to be a top level athlete translate well to teaching,” he stated, “and quite often these athletes want to give back to young people, just as they were positively in-fluenced by teach-ers and coaches in their past.”

New Parkway School Psychologist, Debra Vento, had a decorated career as a high jumper at Duke University where she was Atlantic Coast Conference Champion and placed third in the NCAA championships. According to Ms. Vento, her experiences as an athlete carry over every day to her duties as an educator. “Being a college student-athlete, you have to develop strong time-management and organizational skills,” she stated. “That has really helped me handle the demands of my position.”

New EHS Social Studies teacher, Martine McGrath, and Lore special education teacher, Amanda Pone, excelled as distance runners in track and cross country as college student-athletes. Ms. Pone was a standout at Lebanon Valley College and Ms. McGrath earned Di-vision 3 Academic

All-American Honors here in Ewing at The College of New Jersey.

Legacy of achievement for new hires“The stamina and mental toughness you develop

as a runner can certainly help you as a teacher,” Ms. Pone stated with a smile. “As an athlete, you recognize that sometimes things won’t go as planned, and you have to adapt and overcome chal-lenges.” “That certainly translates well to teach-ing,” Ms. McGrath added.

Joining Pone and McGrath in track and field exploits is new EHS special education teacher, Ok-sana Cheeseman, who was an elite level shot putter, representing Russia in numerous international com-petitions and winning a bronze medal at the Euro-pean Championships. Lore Social Worker, Casey Dashnow, EHS Business teacher, Jeff Snyder, and

Health and PE teacher, Devon Marx, excelled in other arenas, with Ms. Dashnow participating in volleyball at Stockton College, Mr. Snyder playing baseball at the highest levels and Ms. Marx playing center midfielder for the successful women’s soccer program at Rowan University. “Both sports and education are about a variety of different people coming together and collaborating to achieve a common goal,” Ms. Marx commented.

“I really do believe that often excellent athletes make outstanding educators,” Mr. Nitti concluded. “They are motivated, determined team players. We are happy to have them and all our new staff members and wish them success as they begin their careers in The Ewing Public Schools.”

Amanda Pone

Oksana Cheeseman

Devon MarxDebra Vento

The Ewing Public Schools

On October 6th, EHS Assistant Principal, Scott Sheplock, conducted a tour of the high school facilities for the EHS Class of 1962 as part of their 50th reunion festivities.

Ewing High School would like to extend its congratulations to James Evans, Nour Srouji, Blake Lawson and Jonathan Heutmaker for being named Commended Students in the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program. A Letter of Commendation from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), which conducts the program, was presented to these scholastically-talented seniors.

About 34,000 Commended Students throughout the nation are being recognized for their exceptional aca-demic promise. Commended Students placed among the top five percent of more than 1.5 million students who entered the 2013 competition by taking the 2011 Prelimi-nary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

Antheil’s Fall Book FairOn September 19th, Antheil Elementary School

kicked off their annual Fall Book Fair. The Book Fair at Antheil is a great way to begin Antheil’s new initia-tive ‘Reading Across the Olympics’, where students are recognized each month at a reading rally for doing the right thing: reading, reading, reading!

At Antheil, reading is a priority so the Book Fair is a highlight each year. The theme this year is ‘Every Reader Is a Star’ and the students were excited to have a week dedicated to reading. Throughout the week, the students had the opportunity to work with teachers and parent volunteers, choosing books that are both interesting and on their reading level.

To encourage reading, Mrs. Whitner and Mrs. Con-way handed out ‘Caught Reading’ tickets to students who were caught reading independently. These tickets were used to win prizes at the Book Fair. The admin-istrators also tapped into their creativity and painted book-themed pumpkins which the students had the opportunity to win!

TD Bank Visits LoreTD Bank representative, Natalie Spatafora, recently

visited Lore School’s third graders to read the book How Much Is That Guinea Pig in the Window? Ms. Spatafora facilitated a discussion about saving for short and long term goals. In addition to donating three books to the third grade library, Ms. Spatafora left the students with several parting gifts. The students were most ex-cited by coupons to receive $10 if they open their own savings accounts at TD Bank. The lesson learned was that it is never too soon to start saving!

Fisher’s Outdoor Learning CenterThe O.L.C. [Outdoor

Learning Center] provides the opportunity for students to experience authentic sci-ence investigations at their own pace, with available assistance from high school students, college students, teachers, experts in the field and scientists.

Students are encouraged to think about, research, explore and problem solve some of the pressing issues facing their community (i.e., energy usage and conserva-tion, food security, recycling and waste reduction) as well as explore the concepts that tie together the S.T.E.M. top-ics (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). They are also encouraged to share information and results acquired from their investigations with the community through workshops, shows and displays.

Students of all grade levels are invited to participate and to get involved. There is plenty of science out there for everyone to investigate. Follow us at www.OLCFMS.org.

Commended Students in the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program

The Ewing Public Schools participated in the annual Ewing Township Community Fest at TCNJ on October 6th.

Visit our website homepage for additional photos.

“Providing A Foundation For Life”Parkway Students

Pay It Forward!The 5th grade ACE program at Parkway Elemen-

tary School has kicked off their 2012-2013 ‘Pay It Forward’ program with an installation of Alex’s Lemonade Stand during the September 18th Back To School Night.

After seeing a lemonade stand in their neighbor-hood and finding out that the proceeds were donated to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Child-hood Cancer, Nathalia Davila and Isabel Van Wagner decided to partner and create one for their ‘Pay It Forward’ project.

With information from the website, the students set out to solicit donations in order to keep down costs. With a $25 gift card donation from Shop Rite and a cookie donation from Cairo Cakes, they were on their way.

At BTSN, Isabel and Nathalia addressed the general assembly at the PTA meeting and made announce-ments in between the parent information sessions. The students raised over $300. We are very proud of these young ladies and their community spirit.

Are You Ready? At Parkway School, the Answer Is “YES”!

On Friday, September 28th, Parkway School held the first of three pep rallies for the school year. Students and staff dressed in spirit wear and school colors and filled the gym to celebrate the beginning of a new school year. The event was rounded out with our traditional parade where students sang the school song while marching.

Brian Falkowski, the School Business Adminis-trator/Board Secretary for The Ewing Public Schools, recently earned his doc-toral degree.

Dr. Falkowski has a Bachelors Degree in Mathematics Education from The College of New

Jersey, a Masters in Educational Administration from Kean University, and now a Doctorate of Education from Nova Southeastern University. He also is a certified electrical contractor and a qualified purchasing agent.

In his role with the district, Dr. Falkowski serves as the chief financial officer, overseeing the district facilities, Food Service and Transportation Departments, and working with the Board and Superintendent on governance issues.

School Business Administrator Earns Doctorate

l College courses at MCCC, Rider, TCNJ l

l Senior Experience l

l Robotics Program l

l Orchestra l

l Instrumental/Concert/Marching Band l

l Comprehensive and Inclusive Varsity Sports l

l Clubs and Activities l

l Fitness Center l

l Drama and Theater l

l 5 Advanced Placement Courses 28 Honors Classes l

l First Class Athletic Facilities l

l Innovative Science/Technology Offerings l

Ewing High SchoolOpportunities for Everyone!

Ewing High School Open HouseThursday, November 15th l 6:30pm

?Superintendent’s Office609-538-9800 ext. 1102E-mail: cpankiewicz@ewingboe.orgWebsite: www.ewing.k12.nj.usFor Questions or Information,

Please contact:

GoodNews is an official publication of The Ewing Public Schools

©2012 GoodNews

Design and Layout by Daniella Crescente

The Ewing Public SchoolsNovember 2012 Schedule in Ewing SchoolsNov 1 Family Math Night Gr 4 & 5 @ PES - 6:30-8:30pm Nov 3 SAT @ EHSNov 6 Schools Closed - Staff DevelopmentNov 7 TEMPO Ex Bd @ 7:30pmNov 8-9 Schools Closed - NJEANov 12 Parkway - 5th Grade Parent Mtg @ 6:30pmNov 13 Antheil - PTO @ 6:45pmNov 14 TEMPO Gen Meeting @ 7:30pmNov 15 EHS - Open House @ 6:30pm FMS - FPA Mtg @ 6:30pmNov 15-20 LPA - Book FairNov 15-21 FMS - Book FairNov 19-21 Parkway - Book FairNov 19 Single Session K-8 Only - Conferences FMS Evening ConferencesNov 20 Single Session K-8 Only - Conferences Elem Evening ConferencesNov 21 Single Session K-12 - NO PM EDPNov 22-23 Schools Closed - ThanksgivingNov 26 BOE Meeting @ PES - 8pmNov 27 Parkway - Picture MakeupsNov 28 Lore - Picture Makeups

Please visit our website daily for up-to-the minute information.

Board of Education Mrs. Karen A. McKeon, Dr. Ruth Palmer, President Vice President Mr. Carl Benedetti, Jr. Ms. Maria Benedetti Mr. Kenneth J. Bradley Mr. Kevin J. Ewell Mr. Anthony D. Mack Mrs. Stephanie Staub

Mr. Bruce J. White

ewing twp recreation infoPlease check the Virtual Backpack link under our website homepage headlines for important information pertaining to Ewing Rec opportunities and events. Details and registration forms are posted on the Virtual Backpack/Community Information page of the website.

Emergency School ClosingsAn Instant Alert will be sent out and a message will be posted on the district

phone system (609-538-9800), the district homepage, Comcast Channel 19 and Verizon Channel 31.

Should there be a delayed opening, all students are to report to school 1 hour and 30 minutes later than normal. Do not drop your child off at school at the usual time as there may not be sufficient staff for supervision.

Delayed Opening Hours: Early Dismissal Hours:Ewing High 9:15am Ewing High 12:15pmFisher Middle 9:55am Fisher Middle 12:55pmElementary 10:30am Elementary 1:40pm

Superintendent Letter Regarding FundraisingDear Ewing School Community,

We are very appreciative of the efforts of any group or organization that works to support our students. We know that fundraising endeavors on the part of parent and community groups enable our students to enjoy some opportuni-ties that they may otherwise be unable to experience.

However, please understand that the administrative team of The Ewing Public Schools does not want to see events involving alcohol connected to our students.

First and foremost, the Board has a policy prohibiting the consumption of alcohol at school-sanctioned events. Furthermore, as an organization that is dedicated to serving children and acknowledging the societal problems of youth drinking and binge alcohol consumption, we do not want there to be any direct connection or undesirable entanglement between our schools and the use of alcohol. Finally, the Board and administration always has to be concerned about potential liability consequences emerging from any event taking place on behalf of our students.

That being stated, some of these events and fundraisers designed to benefit our students and programs are taking place off school grounds without the express approval, or even knowledge, of the administration and Board of Education. As a result, please consider this correspondence official notification to all involved parties that The Ewing Public Schools formally requests that there be no connection between alcohol and any event organized to support our students or programs.

If the administration becomes aware of such an event, we will request that any connection to alcohol be removed. The administration may also request the inclusion of a disclaimer on any form or ticket stating that this event is not sanctioned or endorsed by the Board of Education.

In closing, a note of sincere appreciation to any individual or group that works on behalf of our students, and our thanks for respecting and understand-ing our position.

If you have any questions, please contact my office.Michael Nitti, Superintendent of Schools