Husky Happenings - April 2009

April 2009

HUSKY HAPPENINGS The Quarterly Newsletter of Dumont High School

The Horizon Fast Approaches By the time you receive or read this last issue of the 2008-2009 Husky Happenings series, not only will the fourth marking period be under way, but we will also be in the throws of preparing for the end of the school year. Prom, graduation, final exams, and scheduling are but a part of what we will planning and finalizing as June 23 draws closer. Looking back on the closing year, much has been done this year to lay the groundwork for the future of Dumont High School’s students. A short synopsis of our achievements this year: • A reorganization of the Student Council was initiated. This supports our commitment to empowering the Student Council to become a more active and organized voice for the student body. • A 20 members Curriculum Council was established to research, recommend, and design more flexible and relevant learning opportunities for our students. Specifically, the faculty has investigated offering a Freshman Seminar course, expanding our Option Two opportunities, creating an Economics/Financial Literacy course, and developing a means of channeling students into their interests through a Pathways program. • A proposal for Dumont High School to reinstate Midterm Exams is being considered for the 2009-2010 school year. •Many teachers have taken the opportunity to learn and utilize current technologies to assist with their classroom teaching, thus potentially engaging more students in non-traditional means. •The Guidance Department is preparing to invest in the widely used Naviance software program. This technology will allow for better parent-counselorstudent communication and college or career planning. It has been my absolute pleasure to serve as your child’s Principal. For the remainder of this school year, I look forward to celebrating the many achievements and honors our students have earned. For those families who will be returning in the fall, be sure to keep an eye out for the progress we will continue to make in our efforts to become the ideal high school for all of our students. Cordially, Michael Parent, Principal

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In This Issue page 2

Need To Knows Guidance News Athletics News

page 3

Clubs & Student News

page 4

Boosters & Parent Groups News Upcoming Events

HUSKY HAPPENINGS April 2009

Need to Knows School Phone Numbers

Dumont High School Main Office (and to call a student in as “absent”): (201) 387-3000 Guidance Department (direct number): (201) 387-3010 Athletic Department (direct number): (201) 387-3094 DHS School Nurse: (201) 387-3000, ext. 3605

to meet their teachers and become familiar with the high school. All parents of all students are encouraged to have their students attend. 4th Marling Period report cards will also be distributed that day.

Senior Awards Night

Varsity Wrestling Under the direction of Head Coach John Monaco, the team finished their season at 6 and 15 overall. They made significant gains this year as a team and several individuals had very successful seasons.

Senior Awards Night 2009 will take place on Tuesday, June 9 at 7:00 PM in Girls Varsity Basketball the DHS Auditorium. Letters of invite Under the direction of Head Coach will be sent to seniors who are asked to David Cieplicki, finished the season at 16 wins and 11 losses. The team be present that evening. qualified for the Bergen County Tournament, as well as The State September 2009 Basketball Tournament, where they School will open for students in won their first round game. Special Progress Reports - 4th September on Wednesday, September 2, congratulations are in order for Coach 2009. Marking Period Cieplicki for being named to the New Progress Reports - 4th Marking Period Jersey Basketball Hall of Fame. This is a Progress Reports for the 4th Marking well-deserved honor, and Dumont is Period will be mailed home on May 1, very proud of him. 2009.

Report Cards - 4th Marking Period

Final report cards for the 2008-2009 school year will be distributed to students on the last day of school (June 23). Please ask your child for his/her report card so that you may review the grades, and if necessary, make an appointment with a guidance counselor. Students who owe fines to the school will not be given their report cards. These fines can be accrued in any of the following ways: •Failure to return the school issued ID card •Damaged school issued ID cards •Damaged or lost textbooks •Damaged or lost calculators •Damaged district property

Guidance News

Boys Varsity Basketball

Under the direction of Head Coach Adam Sidrow, finished the season 14 ane 11 and qualified for the State Tournament. The team beat Pompton The Guidance Department and the Lakes in the first round of the administration have worked very hard tournament and lost in overtime to to schedule each and every student for Mahwah. the coming school year. On June 23rd, all students will receive their 2009-2010 schedule. Any student who wishes to Boys Varsity Bowling have their 2009-2010 schedule changed, Under the direction of Head Coach must do so by 3:00 pm on June 23. Marc Ferrara, finished their season with Counselors will not be available during a record above 500 and finished in 7th the summer months. place in the league. They competed at a high level and lost several contests by very few pins.

Schedule Changes for the 2009-2010 School year

Athletics News

Varsity Cheerleaders

Girls Varsity Bowling The team finished their first season at 15–1 and won the BCSL American League Championship. Brianna Carlo finished the season with a 199 average and the team finished fourth in the county tournament.

Under the direction of Coaches Alyssa Ruggero and Jaclin Solari, the Final Exams 2009 cheerleaders did a tremendous job with The schedule for final exams will be their Competition squad and cheering distributed and put on the website as teams. The Competition squad trained soon as it is established. and competed all season in competitions Varsity Ice Hockey and hosted a very successful competition at DHS. The cheering Under Head Coach Pete Becker, Move Up Day team also cheered at all of the home finished the season 9-8-2 overall. They qualified for the State Tournament and On Monday, June 23, our annual Move boys and girls basketball games. lost to a very good Arthur L. Johnson Up Day in which students have the Regional High School team, who was opportunity to follow their 2009-2010 seeded seventh in the state. schedules will be conducted. It will also be a chance for our incoming Freshmen

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HUSKY HAPPENINGS April 2009

The Spring Sports Season

of the year. The final competition was March 12.

Baseball, Softball, Track, and Golf are now underway. Come out and show Dance Team your support! All sports schedules are The Dance Team, under the direction on the DHS website, Athletic of Miss Koblitz, competed at their last competition at Hofstra’s Dance Department link. Competition on March 21. The team also participated in the Winter Club Carnival on March 13, in addition to running an Italian Night Fundraiser Dinner on March 31.

Clubs & Student News Debate Team

February was a good month for Varsity Debate. On February 5, DHS hosted a Varsity Debate during the school day. Teachers volunteered their rooms as audience as teams from Cresskill, Fair Lawn, NV Old Tappan, NV Demarest, and Dumont competed, debating the issue of increased federal spending for alternative energy incentives. The Dumont team took third place. On Feb ruary 26, another Varsity Debate was held at Leonia HS, involving teams from Leonia, Dwight-Engelwood, NV Old Tappan, NV Demarest, North Bergen, and Dumont. The Dumont team of took the third place trophy. In addition, one Dumont High School Debate Team student was recognized as the outstanding judge by the coaches at the tournament.

Art Honor Society

Ecology Club

The Ecology Club continues to create recycling awareness with their aluminum recycling program, which they decided to expand, and storm drain awareness program. The club will be finalizing their storm drain education program in the grammar schools.

Forensics

The DHS Forensics team recently competed at Raritan High School for the 2009 Championship Tournament. Overall the team placed 2 out of 10.

Math Team

Math Team members had a busy February. There was a home meet during the third week of February, as well as an away meet later on that week. Students are looking forward to the dinner meet at Tenafly, which is the last away meet of the year.

The Art Honor Society created illustrations for the Oracle. The topics were works of literature studied in the Media Club English classes. The students took a field The Media Club hosted the annual trip to the Museum of Modern Art on Winter Carnival "Fun"draiser on March March 26. 13. Clubs and classes set up booths with games and prizes. The Media Club sold food at the event. Last year's World Languages Honor carnival proved to be very successful for most DHS classes and clubs. Also, the Societies Media Club voted to purchase a Mac The Spanish Honor Society (advised by Pro computer to be used for video Mrs. Luciano), the Italian Honor editing. The computer is now located in Society (advised by Mr. Joe Materia), the video/photo lab in the basement to and the American Sign Language be used in conjunction with the media Honor Society (advised by Ms. Lynch) club and video production class. Media inducted over 40 new members on April members have been working on setting 7. This was the first induction ceremony up this lab as an editing/project room. for the ASL Honor Society. Media students also offered "SO Night 2009" DVDs for sale at the end of the production nights. The DVDs are in the Chemistry Team process of being edited and burned for The Chemistry Team and Medical those who ordered. Explorers held their second competition

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Periscope

The latest issue of Periscope is presently underway. For this issue, students have shown a higher level of self-motivation; many have generated their own story ideas, and student reporters now submit photographs to accompany their own stories. This issue will kick off the training program for those students who wish to be involved as staff members next year. All potential editors will "shadow" the current editor as she works on all aspects of this issue. A copy-editing session will be held soon to prepare articles for layout, and students interested in learning layout techniques will begin training. The advisors of the paper are planning a redesign of the newspaper's layout. The redesign project will be announced to the students once candidates for the position of Layout Editor have apprenticed the current editor through one complete issue. It is expected that the new design will not be launched until the 2009 fall issue. The goal of the redesign is to produce a newspaper that reflects a more sophisticated use of the InDesign software program, and rivals other schools’ newspapers aesthetically. Periscope has also taken advantage of opportunities to connect with the Dumont community. On March 13, Periscope staff members once again hosted a booth at the DHS Winter Carnival, an annual event open to Dumont residents. The newspaper is also now available to residents at Dumont's Public Library.

Student Council

The Student Government sponsored a beard competition between male teachers. The winner, Mr. Lugo, earned over $400.00 for a charity of his choosing.

Unity Club

The homeroom collection of pop-tabs for Ronald McDonald House Charities ended on February 20. Mr. Breheny’s and Mr. Monaco’s homerooms tied for first place. Both homerooms collected over 14 containers of pop-tabs. Ms. Babashak’s homeroom came in third. During February, representatives from the Unity Club gave up their evening hours to be recreational aides to young children at the homeless shelter in Englewood. Both our students and the young children had a great time.

HUSKY HAPPENINGS April 2009

Finally, a number of Unity Club members assisted at a Habitat for Humanity work site. Accompanied by Ms. Mascarelli and Mrs. Maynes, these students painted, spackled, sanded, insulated and hauled construction materials at Habitat's Edgewater site. The students and chaperones were tired and quite dirty at the end of the day. However, they felt great that they could help a needy family. The administrators at the site praised the DHS students for their hard work and fortitude.

Junior Class

Boosters & Parent Groups News Project Graduation

All Project Graduation meeting dates and information can be found on the Project Graduation link on the DHS website.

The Junior Dance was held on Friday, March 20 at the Knights of Columbus in Dumont.

Project Graduation 2009 Meeting dates for the remainder of the 2008-2009 school year are:

Senior Class

•Thursday, May 7 •Thursday, June 11 •Tuesday, June 16

The Senior Class has been making final arrangements for their prom scheduled for May 15, 2009 at the Park Ridge Marriott. The Class of 2009 and their guests are very excited!

National Honor Society Induction 2009

This year’s National Honor Society Induction will take place on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 in the DHS Auditorium.

Art/Industrial Art/ Science Show

The annual end of the year Art, Industrial Art, Science Show will be conducted on Tuesday, May 26 at 6:00 PM.

All meetings are held at 7:30 pm in the Media Center. For any questions, contact Peaches Fiorelli at (201) 385-2666 or at [email protected] Project Graduation 2010 Meeting dates for the remainder of the 2008-2009 school year are: •Tuesday, May 19 •Monday, June 15 All meetings are held at 7:00 pm in the Media Center. For any questions, contact Stephanie McClinton at (201) 385-1542 or at [email protected]. Project Graduation 2011 The next meeting date will be posted on the Project Graduation website when it is set.

Upcoming Events April • 25-27 Band Trip @ Virginia Beach • 28 Key Communicator Meeting 7:00 pm May • 2 SAT Test @ 7:30 am • 4-8 AP Tests • 9 Senior Citizen Prom 12:00 pm • 11-15 AP Tests • 14 DYT One-Act Plays 7:00 pm • 15 HAD Program for Seniors 8:00 am • 15 Senior Prom 7:30 pm • 18 State Biology Exam 8:00 am • 20 National Honor Society Induction 7:30 pm • 22 Memorial Day Observance 9:00 am • 25 School Closed • 27 DYT Drama Banquet/ Induction 5:30 pm • 28 Spring Sports Awards Assembly 7:30 pm June • 3 Ensemble Concert 7:30 pm • 8 Review Day (D Day) • 9 Review Day (A Day) • 9 Senior Awards 7:00 pm • 10 Review Day (B Day) • 11 Review Day (C Day) • 12 Final Exams - single session • 15-17 Final Exams • 15-18 Single session days • 18 Yearbook Signing Luncheon • 18-19 Graduation Practice am • 18 Final Exam Make-ups • 19 Single session day (E Day) • 22 Single session day (E Day) • 22 Graduation 7:00 pm • 23 Move Up Day - Single session day September • 2 First Day of School for 2009-2010 school year

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