Brooklyn Education: Math bee at St. Ephrem School

St. Ephrem School held its Junior High Math Bee in December. Twelve students in Grades six through eight participated in the contest. They spent several months preparing for the bee under the tutelage of Mrs. Madeline Scotto.

Congratulations to the winner, John Lavelle (eighth grade), and runner-up, Anthony Pollari (eighth grade), who lasted 17 rounds of difficult mental math. John, who also won the bee last year, will represent St. Ephrem School in the Diocesan Math Bee.

Accepted Students Night at Fontbonne Hall Academy was held on January 22 in the school gymnasium.  Prospective students and parents had the opportunity to meet each other and learn more about Fontbonne from current students, teachers, parents and alumnae.

They learned not only about Fontbonne’s rich history filled with beautiful traditions, but also about the school’s current focus on being a premier all-girls college preparatory school. Principal Mary Ann Spicijaric spoke about several exciting new programs that will be available to the Class of 2019.

WILD (Women in Leadership Development), an after-school and Saturday program for all grade levels, will consist of guest speakers and workshops to help students increase self-esteem and self-confidence.

New science programs include Advanced Physical Science (APS), which will be the ninth-grade science course. This class will present basic chemistry and physics in a hands-on manner.

Advanced students will take Honors Advanced Physical Science and have the opportunity to take the Chemistry and the Physics Regents as ninth graders. A pre-college engineering program with Brown University is also on the horizon. The online course for students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades will be taught by a Brown University professor.

Fontbonne students are already participating in the Science Research Program, a three-year sequence of classes beginning in the 10th grade that challenges a student to design a research objective and carry out a procedure to investigate and collect data. The student works under the supervision of a university scientist.

In addition, Fontbonne students will be able to participate in a new entrepreneurship program that will consist of Introduction to Business, Introduction to Entrepreneurship and a summer internship. Fontbonne also offers a new English elective, Print Journalism, which will lead into Broadcast Journalism in 2015-2016.