At the May 13 School Board meeting, Mrs. Sharon Phillips was recognized as the 2019 recipient of the Sue Harper Endowed Teaching Award. Mrs. Phillips is an instructional support teacher at Foster Elementary School.
Mrs. Phillips first joined the District in 1987 and taught at Markham in 3rd Grade for one year before moving to Foster in 1988 where she taught 2nd and 4th grade and is currently the IST Teacher. This is her 32nd year of teaching in Mt. Lebanon. Mrs. Phillips was nominated for this award by her colleague, Mr. Jeff Elias. In the application, Mr. Elias noted that she "sets the standard for excellence while allowing her students to take risks, play games, and have discussions about math." He also describes her as modelling patience and persistence as she guides her students. The building principal, Mr. Ramsey notes that Mrs. Phillips is known at Foster as the mother to all. She will help anyone who needs her assistance, comes early and always stays late, is a model educator and a tremendous asset to Foster School and the entire Mt. Lebanon School District.
Mrs. Harper's daughters Beth and Emily attended the Board meeting and participated in the award ceremony.
About the Sue Harper Endowed Teaching Award
Sue Harper, a beloved first grade teacher in the District for over 15 years, passed away in early 2016. In her memory, family and friends have established the Sue Harper Endowed Teaching Award, which includes a monetary gift, to be given each year to an elementary teacher.
A few weeks ago, the Mt. Lebanon High School student body took part in filming Lebo Lip Dub 2019. It was a major undertaking, directed and produced by students Emma Imbarlina and Noel Awad, and filmed by Lucy Rimmel. The cast of what seems like thousands includes 855 students from high school clubs and sports lined up along the fast paced filming route, proving that walking backwards while lip syncing is truly a 21st skill.
It was an all school effort full of energy, school spirit and fun. Thank you students for a Lebo Lip Dub to remember!
Watch the video: Lebo Lip Dub 2019.
The playlist includes:
- My House- Flo Rida
- High Hopes- Panic at the Disco
- In My Feelings- Drake
- Treasure- Bruno Mars
- Cool N Beautiful- SoundCloud Remix by @Asian_Invasion
- Stereo Hearts- Gym Class Heroes
- One Foot- Walk the Moon
- God's Plan- Drake
- I Gotta Feeling- Black Eyed Peas
- Party on Fifth Ave- Mac Miller
The Mt. Lebanon School District has been honored for the 11th consecutive year with the Best Communities for Music Education designation from The NAMM Foundation for its outstanding commitment to music education.
Now in its 20th year, the Best Communities for Music Education designation is awarded to districts that demonstrate outstanding achievement in efforts to provide music access and education to all students. To qualify for the Best Communities designation, the District answered detailed questions about funding, graduation requirements, music class participation, instructional time, facilities, and support for the music programs. Responses were verified with school officials and reviewed by The Music Research Institute at the University of Kansas.
"We are extremely fortunate to have such a strong music education program in the Mt. Lebanon School District," said Superintendent Timothy Steinhauer. "It is no secret that our success is the result of an exceptionally dedicated music faculty, talented students, and a community that has supported the arts as in integral part of a Mt. Lebanon education for over a hundred years."
This award recognizes that the Mt. Lebanon School District is leading the way with learning opportunities as outlined in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
According to NAMM, research into music education continues to demonstrate educational/cognitive and social skill benefits for children who make music. After two years of music education, research found that participants showed more substantial improvements in how the brain processes speech and reading scores that their less-involved peers and that students who are involved in music are not only more likely to graduate high school, but also to attend college as well. Everyday listening skills are stronger in musically-trained children that in those without music training. Significantly, listening skills are closely tied to the ability to: perceive speech in a noisy background, pay attention, and keep sounds in memory. Later in life, individuals who took music lessons as children show stronger neural processing of sound; young adults and even older adults who have not played an instrument for up to 50 years show enhanced neural processing compared to their peers. Not to mention, social benefits include conflict resolution, teamwork skills, and how to give and receive constructive criticism.
Congratulations to our Academic Games teams who competed in the National Tournament last weekend in Florida. Combined, our 30 students took home 21 individual and team awards. This was the largest national tournament ever, with over 1,400 students competing from states from Michigan to Colorado to Florida.
The teams practiced very hard throughout the year so kudos to all of the students and coaches.
In Elementary Division, Sarah Davies and Annie Pugh took 30 students throughout the year to local tournaments, 17 of whom qualified for the national tournament. In Middle Division, Jen Marnik and Brad Kavo 21 students, 17 of whom qualified for nationals. Finally, Ben Minett and Ben Kavo had 13 high school students, 10 of whom qualified for nationals.
In addition, Hailey Latona was part of the 1st place national championship team for THEME. This year's theme was Women Who Changed the World.
Congratulations to the following students:
Elementary Division (4th-6th grade)
Lucian Mikush - 1st Place with a perfect score in Linguishtik, 3rd Place in Presidents
Atlantic Rajakumar - 4th Place in Propaganda
Together, Lucian, Atlantic, and Pierce Latona were part of the 9th Place team (out of 44) for Presidents
Additional team members were Ben Dougherty, Mae Cano, Madeline and Rachel Capriotti, Anton Skorskiy, Sally Tan, and Jessie Yang.
Middle Division (7th and 8th grade)
Adam Ash - 7th Place in Presidents
James Brown - member of the 3rd Place team for Current Events
Cooper Zentner and Adam Ash were part of the 8th Place Propaganda Team
Amy Tan and Eli Seaman were part of the 4th Place Propaganda Team (out of 45)
Additional team members were Yash Botre, Keerthi Girish, Logan Kuhlman, Aunomitra Mandal, Andrew Reis, Anvi Tatkar, and Vishnu Venugopal.
High School
Hailey Latona - 2nd Place in Propaganda
Kate Kessler - 9th Place in Propaganda, part of the 2nd Place team in Propaganda (out of 33)
Josh Dougherty - 10th Place in Theme and part of the 2nd Place team in Theme
Leah Vuillemot - part of the 3rd Place team in Propaganda
Shane Bonner and Hailey Latona were both part of the 4th Place team in Propaganda
Additional team members were Erin Duffy, Kelly Gorman, and Morgan Steiner.
At the May 13, 2019 School Board meeting, Dr. Heather Doyle presented a review of the Mt. Lebanon School District's Gifted Program. See the links below for the presentation and the Gifted Services Program Review report.
MTLSD Gifted Presentation to the Board May 13, 2019
Mt. Lebanon School District Gifted Services Program Review
The Mt. Lebanon High School Dance Company Auditions will be held on Tuesday, May 28th at 4:00 PM in the High School Dance Studio, room D 105. High school students who want to audition must pick up an audition letter and permission form from Mrs. Kapron in the High School dance studio, room D 105. Middle school students who are in 8th grade must pick up the audition letter and permission form in the Principal's office at their school. A mandatory audition meeting will be held on Monday, May 20th at 3:30 PM in the High School Dance Studio. If you cannot make the meeting on May 20th a make-up meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 22nd. If you plan to audition you must attend one of the after school mandatory meetings at the high school. You will learn the audition combination at the mandatory meeting.
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High School Social Studies teacher Ms. Tina Raspanti was selected for the Transatlantic Educators Dialogue (TED) Program. This is a one of a kind opportunity for educators in the United States of America and the European Union to come together online for shared exploration and examination of a variety of educational topics, such as immigration, religion in education, active teaching methods and issues related to identity and difference. This year there were nearly 700 applicants from the US and the European Union with only 52 teachers selected, representing 23 different countries in the EU and 22 teachers from the United States.
TED represents a unique experience in educational diplomacy and facilitates the exploration of new and diverse cultures. It is also a chance to build networks with European colleagues and foster global learning opportunities.
Synchronous sessions take place weekly on Sundays for ninety minutes using Blackboard Collaborate. Prior to each weekly session, participants will have respond to thematic essential questions to initiate the conversations and represent diverse US and EU perspectives on the weekly topics such as Impressions of the Other and Cultural Awareness, Creative Pedagogies and Instructional Practices, Migration/Immigration & Its Impact in the Classroom, and Opportunities for International Collaboration.
The participants are meant to share their experiences with other educators, maintain connections with other participants, and have their students engage in online classroom exchanges.