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Contents Letter from AOSR Associate Head

1 Pre-K News 8 Sports Briefs 13

All-School News 2-6 Elementary News 8-9 Book & Library Resources in Rome

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PPAC Notes 5 Middle School News 10 School Information 15

Falcon Flyer Distribution Pol-icy

5 News from the Counselor 11 Rome n’ About 15

PTO Corner 7 IB World 12 March Calendar 16

AOSR - VIA CASSIA 811 Phone: 06-334-381 Web:WWW.AOSR.ORG March 2006

Many American international schools, as well as schools in the United States, have adopted character education programs in recent years. As a February 2006 article in the educa-tional journal Phi Delta Kappan explains, “Character education is the responsibility of adults. While the term character education has historically referred to the duty of the older generation to form the character of the young through experiences affecting their attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors, more recent definitions include such developmental outcomes as a positive perception of school, emotional literacy, and social justice activism.”1 Many schools create their own cus-tomized character education initiatives. What do we do at AOSR? What are some of the virtues that we value, teach, and model? “Character education -the article puts forth- can be defined in terms of relationship vir-tues (e.g., respect, fairness, civility, tolerance), self-oriented virtues (e.g., fortitude, self-discipline, effort, perseverance) or a combination of the two.”2 An ever growing body of re-search in the field of education has shown that character education programs promote academic achievement. At AOSR we do not have a prepackaged curricular program that addresses charac-ter education, but it is intrinsic in what we do on a regular basis as educators. There are, how-ever, new initiatives in the Middle School to look into supplementing our work with internation-ally recognized programs. Our students are always encouraged and expected to become self-motivated learners, wholesome individuals, and active members of society. Four indicators are common in schools with thoughtful character education programs and high levels of academic achievement, according to the article referred to: Good schools ensure a clean and secure physical environment. These schools take a great deal of pride in keeping their buildings and grounds in good shape. At AOSR we believe that the physical appearance of our school is important. We take pride in maintaining an outdoor environment that students and faculty can enjoy. We pay atten-tion to our facilities so that they are inviting and functional. This in turn creates a sense of secu-rity and tranquility. Recognizing that there are always improvements to be made, we have a Buildings and Grounds Committee that meets regularly to ensure that our school grounds and facilities are maintained and upgraded when necessary. We have installed a new barrier at the

March

Important Dates

3 - 3rd Qtr Progress reports

2nd Grade field trip to Museo Pignini

6 - After school activities

session 2 begins 8 - Spanish Honor Society

Induction Ceremony, 9:30am Cafeteria

13 - PTO Meeting 9:30am Boutique 16 - HS One Act Plays, 7:00pm 17 - Tennis at Aviano 19-22 - Middle States

Accreditation Team Visit 22 - MAIS MS Honors Choir Festival - Casablanca, Morocco 24 - Tennis and Soccer,

AOSR host Sigonella

27 - PPAC Meeting, 9:30am Boutique

30 - MS/HS Spring Concert

Character and Academics: What AOSR is About By Dr. Beth Pfannl, Associate Head

Continued on page 2

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Next PTO MEETING Monday, March 13, 9:30am

in the Boutique

gate to better monitor safety on campus. A new perimeter fence will be installed this summer. We are continually seeking to improve the circulation of vehicles through our parking lots and the school bus system, as student safety is a top priority at our school. Good schools promote and model fairness, equity, caring, and respect. At AOSR we model and promote values and attitudes that we wish our students to embrace. We infuse character education across the curriculum and throughout the school, understanding that “The moral development of students does not depend primarily on explicit character education efforts but on the maturity and ethical capacities of the adults with whom they interact…. Educators influence students’ moral development not simply by being good role models -important as that is- but also by what they bring to their relationships with students day to day.”3 Our goal is to have our entire school community work together in this effort. We encourage our teachers to continu-ally grow professionally and use best practices in their teaching. Our faculty is expected to show their deep concern for the physical, emotional and social wellbeing of the children at all times, in addition to providing them with a positive, challenging and exciting academic environment. In good schools students contribute in meaningful ways. Students in our school are aware of the community and the world they live in. We encourage them to be proactive members of the school community and the society in which they live. They are reminded always to think of others less fortunate than themselves. Our students participate in volunteer activities, fundraise for charities, recy-cle, establish reading buddy relationships with younger students, and run food drives, among many other things. Good schools promote a caring community and positive social relationships. Our school is a large family that includes children, parents, and teachers from over fifty countries. We are proud of the respect and tolerance that all members of the community demonstrate to one another. We celebrate di-versity and learn about other cultures and countries. We provide meaningful opportunities for parent involvement. Our PTO has been a strong foundation with supportive and dedicated parents for many, many years. Parents are members of a principal/parents advisory committee, an education book club, and organize wonderful fundraising events for school improvement projects. Teachers and staff are an integral part of many of these events, as well as organizing cultural and educational trips for students, theatre and musical productions, declamations, after-school activities, and sporting events, to name just a few; consistently displaying their passion for our institution and educa-tional mission. To conclude, character is promoted and modeled on a daily basis alongside the strong academic programs that AOSR is known for. We can concur with the article’s authors that “It is no surprise that students need physi-cally secure and psychologically safe schools, staffed by teachers who model professionalism and caring behaviors and who ask students to demonstrate caring for others. That students who attend such schools achieve academically makes intuitive sense as well. It is in schools with this dual emphasis that adults understand their role in preparing students for future citizenship in a democratic and diverse society. The behavior and attitudes they model communi-cate important messages to the young people in their charge.”4 This is what AOSR is all about, and I am proud to be part of it. 1 Jacques S. Benninga, Marvin W. Berkowitz, Phyllis Kuehn and Karen Smith, “Character and Academics: What Good Schools Do,” Phi

Delta Kappan, February 2006, pp. 448-452. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., from Rick Weissbourd, “Moral Teachers, Moral Students,” Educational Leadership, March 2003, pp. 6-7. 4 Ibid.

All School News

Continued from page 1

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All School News

Semester I 2005-2006 Headmaster's Honor Roll GPA 4.00

GRADE 6 Elisabetta Di Lauro Oliviero Figus Shafiza Johari

GRADE 7 Pier Giorgio Russo

GRADE 11 Ishan Chellaney Jacob Kopf

GRADE 10 Garen Der-Khachadourian Dana Or

GRADE 8 Sunniva Bloem

Principal's Honor Roll GPA 3.99-3.50

GRADE 6 Claire Abbadi Gal Ben Israel Aaron Berton Mohammed Hi Bin Rossly Pietro Caneva Filippo Ciceri Margherita Cornaglia Beatrice Del Tosto Lori Der-khachadourian Riccardo Di Gregorio Syed Munim Husain Emma Johnstone Elizabeth Leavitt Priscilla Mazzoni Dominic Muenzel Franziska Neumann Julia Pitterman Valeria Scuto Lindsay Smith

GRADE 7 Claudia Argomenti Angelica Assirelli Fernando Balseiro Lago Omri Bar Natascha Begusch Noa Bittmann Rocco Cavadini Flavia Ceci Ginis-trelli Benedetta Gambioli Kathryn Isbell Martina Mannozzi Yorai Nadler Liel Schori Raviv Lisa Smits

GRADE 8 Alice Mia Addis Romy Ben-Hur Katherine Berton Elena De Giovanni Eva Ellergaard Pedersen Todd Kopf Flaminia Marrucci Jasmine Mohsin Maya Or Hugo Portugal Cindy Pratesi David Tappan Alexander Temme Luciano Wu Hanyon

GRADE 9 Majid Al-Awami Lisa Begusch Neta Ben Israel Andrew Ceen Dario Corsetti Jillian Kneeland Lorenzo Masserini Federico Merlo Seth Moore Daniela Muenzel David Prosperi Sage Rahm Victor Siegel Jiayi Wang

GRADE 10 Anna Battaglia Adriano Casale Benjamin Founes Talya Kahan Giulia Lais Daphne Maglie Silvia Maglione Mohamed Mattar Christian Melhado Tom Lea Meyer Alexandros Mitsialis Vittoria Nicolis Di Robilant Edoardo Quadri Yael Refaeli Matthew Smith Rachel Taylor Caroline Van der Does de Willebois Leilei Xu Serena Zhang Jin Kai Zhou

GRADE 11 Chiara Gambioli Michela Lombardi Konstantina Passadis Giorgia Quadri Maikel Tosti

GRADE 12 Syeda Zinnat Akhter Ana Almour Stephanie Andreucci Florencia Balseiro Lago Alexander Buckley Jonathan Csapo Alessia Fiochi Kim Gallimore Daryn Goldhammer-Blanc Gongjie Li Edoardo Linari Christina Mitsialis Maria Anna Murmura Raya Mustafa Daniele Schiavo Sabrina Triglia Yoong Jun Zeon

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All School News

Honor Roll 3.49-3.00

GRADE 6 Aisha Aliyu Ye Chen Maria Lucrezia Danieli Nicole Dibley Eugenio Foco Alessandro Guani Lorela Hoxha Theofan Mahmuti Lorenzo Mannozzi Ran Manzur Carlo Santini Guari-enti Tair Shachar Rebecca Siegel Cesare Simonelli Caroline Spogli Stefano Zheng

GRADE 7 Danyal Al-Awami Jacob Campbell Zhen Ni Chen Megan Ferguson Petra Franic' Kenshi Fujiwara Tommaso Gandelli Yael Gazit Nicolo' Genovali Daniel Gilad Frederik Jonsson Katharine Kadenacy Sidak Kaur Niccolo' Lais Anna Lin Jacopo Lorenzi Alice Malentacca Hana Mattar Michael May Alexandra McCourt Ilai Meyer Peter Neumann Jie San Jenny Tcheng Daniel Voight-Lask Nicholas Woolcott

GRADE 8 Elnur Alibayli Richard Barad Nur Synhada Bte Rossly Leila Founes Amedeo Jiang Miranda Mancini Shahar Nof-Agam Michael Refaeli Massimo Zheng

GRADE 9 Lorenzo Bassetti Gabriele Fabozzi Jonathan Farache Melanie Ferguson Toshihisa Fujiwara Shira Gazit Pierre Jabban Morea Mahmuti Sophia Matthews Luka Mestrovic Thomas Newberg Martin Oberle Giuseppe Saviano

GRADE 10 Alessio Daswani Stefano De Angelis Aaron Dungca Alexa Goldhammer-Blanc Liya Kahan Stella Laurenzi Ludovico Linari Giovanni Mucciolo Crishan Perera Gioia Raccah Elena Toscano Karim Zelenka

GRADE 11 Sabina Abdullaeva Roisin Agnew Darcy Borg Alexandra Di Caprio Sara Gainey David Grosso Christopher Haight Tajnim Imami Nuwanthika Jayati-lake Mary Larocco Nathan Miller Annika Neumann Irma Orlandi Elena Testi Nina Van der Does De Willebois John Welsh Muriel Wolodarsky

GRADE 12 Raffaello Amorosi Ludovica Bassetti Rebecca Blume Joanna Casco Brian Culley Nadine Fentsch Marin Finerty Roy Forberg Simona Grimaldi Sean Hooker Joshua Kneeland Ranieri Maglione Flavio Massari Roma Rispoli Claire Sensi Mandi Shenedjela Ides Van der Does De Willebois

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All School News

PPAC Meeting Notes February 27, 2006

The meeting was attended by the following: Mirella Csapo, Anna de Besi, Eric Dennis, Grazia Deulus, Carolyn Grosso, Laurenne Hemily-Figus, Millie Kneeland, Marilena Leavitt, Jan Miller, Ginny Newberg, Beatrice Taylor, Carolina Trimboli Pitterman, Dr. Pfannl, Associate Head • Dr. Pfannl reported on her recruiting trip in the United States and Canada. It was a successful trip with 8 new teachers offered positions to date. Candidates for the principal position were interviewed as well. • The AOSR secure website will be ready to go up in the very near future. Parents and students will be able to access secure information (i.e. Report Cards, field trip information, etc.) with a user name and password. • Security issues were discussed including the new safety barrier at the entrance to the school, and the eventual use of SMS software for sending messages to the AOSR community. • Concerns/questions were expressed about the Middle School lockers, coat racks for some elementary school class-rooms, additional cabinets for art displays, possible Latin and/or Chinese classes as after school activities, and a Wellness Day for ES. • Parking Lot and Buses: Increased supervision of children getting on buses, the possible installation of speed bumps in parking lot, and periodic safety inspections of buses. • Past issues of the Falcon Flyer (dating back to 2002-03 school year) are available at www.aosr.org • HS College Counselor, Kate McKenna, was congratulated for her work with seniors and the college admission process as well as high school teachers for their help and guidance. The next PPAC meeting is Monday, March 27, 9:30 am in the PTO Boutique.

The first Parent Book Club meeting was held in the cafeteria on February 9th and the turnout was good. The dis-cussion that took place was lively and participants supported each other with their stories and knowledge of parenting. Dr. Simona Reichmann, a psychologist here in Rome, has agreed to volunteer to co-facilitate the group with AOSR School Counselor Elisabeth Escobar. The next meeting will take place on Thursday, March 2nd at 9:30 am in the cafeteria. Dr. Reichmann will give a presentation on "The Process of Changing Behavior." We will have a list of books at that time to pass around. We hope to meet two times a month and eve-ryone is invited to attend, EVEN if they don't read the book. Participants can sit and listen to the discussion, as it can be very informational and supportive. If you have further ques-tions, please contact Elisabeth Escobar at the school. Hope to see you there!

Parent Book Club

The Falcon Flyer is a project of the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO). Its purpose is to provide AOSR information, news and events. More detailed in-formation will be provided to you from the individual classroom teacher or area coordinator. The hardcopy version of each Falcon Flyer is distributed to the YOUNGEST child in your family. Look for it in the bottom of the littlest one’s backpack. Pull it out! Read it and share the biggest part of your child’s life! The Falcon Flyer is all about YOUR chil-dren, YOUR school and YOUR community. If you don’t receive it, please call Joanne Hoberg in the office so we can correct our list. The current copy of the Falcon Flyer can always be accessed on the www.aosr.org webpage. It downloads as a PDF file, so you can send pages, articles, or photos from the web version as an attachment to an email to family and friends.

FALCON FLYER DISTRIBUTION

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AOSR Website The AOSR web site is available to all. The site

was created by Geoff Miller, the school’s IT Manager, Mr. Lars Rahm, MS and HS computer teacher, and Mi-chael Gorelick, AOSR alumnus. All school computers run the intra-net version (or “beta) of the website. Stu-dents, teachers, and the administration are able to access information on a daily basis, download forms necessary for student trips, set-up their own web pages with class-room syllabi and homework assignments. Parents can access the current issue of the Falcon Flyer in its entirety with the click of the mouse. Go to the URL www.aosr.org.

All School News continued

The next Falcon Flyer will be published by April 7, 2006 Next Deadline is Friday, March 24th, 5:00pm,

To make comments, suggestions, or volunteer to help on the Falcon Flyer, please send an email to ptonewsletter@aosr.org.

Early on Sunday morning, buses containing fifty-odd middle and high school students and teachers grappled up over the hills of Abruzzo in anticipation of a week of winter fun. As we came into the Appennini, we looked out over fields of dry grass and stony hills sparsely dotted with frosty patches of white and said to one another, “Is this enough snow to ski?” Well, Jack Frost must have been listening and with a vindictive chuckle, stirred up a five day exhibition of every type of snow imaginable: white fluffy flakes, drippy frozen rain, horizontal streaks of white, and deep frozen fogs. However the spirit of AOSR skiers is not so easily chilled and students skied and snow-boarded through it all with great delight. When the fog got too thick to see or the winds howled, we stopped for a cup of hot chocolate or a romp on the deep drifts.

Beginners were tenacious and got up after many a fall until, by Friday, they found that they were not falling at all! Advanced skiers buddied up with their friends to help with everything from learning to put on boots to skiing to-gether during free-ski times. Snowboarders who had just started found themselves carving out great backside turns rather than just falling on their backsides!

Our time off the slopes was just as cool as up on the mountain. In the evenings we chilled out watching films in the private theater and disco, battled for domina-tion of the Ping Pong table, and ate like kings. In town we had a great time discovering the bowling alley that time forgot and even swimming in a gigantic swimming pool complete with three-story water slide.

We teachers found ourselves impressed with how much improvement the students made as well as how de-termined everyone was to enjoy themselves even when the weather didn’t cooperate. We all had a great time skiing, snowboarding, and even learned how to put snowchains on a tour bus! What else could one hope for?!

AOSR Ski Trip by: Chaperones Mr. Hendry, Mr. Manccini, Mr.

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PTO Corner

PTO Boutique:The Soggy Days of Spring By Susan Haight

Escape the rainy day blues with a trip to The Bou-tique on March 7, 14, 21 and 28. Our Green Tags will go on Half Price Sale on March 14. (Vendors, please come to re-trieve any unsold items that you would like back on March 7.) We are well stocked with children’s ski clothing, videos, and lots more. The Boutique will begin to accept Spring and Sum-mer clothing in March. We will no longer take winter items. Also all ski clothing and equipment will be removed from the Boutique on April 4th regardless of the tag color. If you would like any of your items back, please take note of this date. We need to make space for summer clothes. We would like to give some advance notice of a change in April. The Blue Tags will go Half Price on April 11. (Not April 18 as advertised) The Boutique will be closed for the Easter Holiday on April 18 and April 25 while the school is closed. So finish your Spring cleaning and bring the best items to sell in the Boutique!

AOSR PTO by Cathy Garbinsky, PTO Secretary

Welcome to the club! If you're an AOSR parent, you're automatically a member of the PTO (Parent Teachers Organization). We support school activities, run Booster Bars, raise funds for special school projects, operate a Boutique on Tuesday, publish the Falcon Flyer, and much, much more. Various committees have been formed for our biggest fundraiser, Mayfair, scheduled for May 13, and they have begun planning and organizing the various activities for this wonderful fun-filled event. The PTO is still looking for volunteers to assist with Mayfair. We invite you to come to the next PTO meet-ing, March 13 at 9:30 a.m. in the Boutique and find out how you can help! PTO meetings are held in the Boutique at 9:30 and we look forward to your partici-pation. Meetings for 2006 as follows: March 13 April 10 May 8 May 30 – luncheon

If your group wants to sign up for a Booster Bar, a representative can call Susan Haight at 06 30310876,e-mail her at b.haight@agora.it or see her at the Bou-tique on any Tuesday! The Booster Bar is always looking for new volunteers: people who work with Sponsor groups and grill.

It’s a fun way to serve our school and meet people. You can sign up by calling Donna Ferguson at: 06 3313652 or As-trid Van Der Does at 06 30361550.

News from the Computer Lab by Mr. Tebo

Students in elementary computer classes are having a lot of fun and learn-ing too. The older kids are working on webpages, third grade is browsing the web, and the younger kids are making

slideshows with PowerPoint and KidPix. We just earned a bunch of money to buy digital cameras. Dur-ing our bake sale and booster bar on March 6, 2006, we earned a combined 870 Euro. This money will be used to purchase digital cameras and even possibly a digital camcorder. These cameras will allow students to learn about photography, put pictures on their web-pages, create collages, and do much more. Thank you so much for your help and support. Without you, the parents, there is no way we would have earned so much. Way to go!

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Waddle you know about penguins? The kindergarteners can tell you! In February we learned all about these fasci-nating friends. Penguins can dive, swim, slide, jump, and they love to “party,” but the one thing they can’t do like other birds is fly! We read penguin stories, painted pen-guins and wrote facts about them. This month we also had a wonderful time creating cards and little things for our friends for Valentine’s Day. On top of that, we celebrated the 100th Day of School and Carnevale! On 100’s Day we shared our collections of 100 items, drew what we think we might look like at 100 yrs old, and read stories about 100’s Day. For Carnevale the children looked adorable in their costumes and had a ball dancing the Tarantella in the quad with the elementary school. Thank you to all the par-ents who helped out with the festivities! We hope you all had a safe and restful Settimana Bianca.�

Elementary School Assembly

On the morning of Friday, February 17th, the Winchester High School Orchestra from Massachusetts, under the di-rection of Mr. McCann, played for the elementary school students. The children were introduced to different musical instruments and were an appreciative audience. They sang along during the last piece, “Sponge Bob Square Pants.” These thirty three student musicians are spending a week in Rome. One question on their “Spirit of Rome” scaven-ger hunt is how many columns are standing in the Roman Forum!

“Carnevale” Celebration

The elementary school students cele-brated “Carnevale” on the last Friday before the February break. In the after-

noon all the children were wearing costumes or masks and everyone, including teachers, danced “La Tarentella” on the quad after the second graders had performed it. Many thanks to Ms.Ciuffreda for being a wonderful dance teacher. The students were so enthusiastic; especially the Pre-K students who were fast learners; that they danced a second time!

Kindergarten celebrates Carnevale

Once upon a time in the Pre-K 4… by Ms. Kimberly Murphy

We are finishing up a study of fairy tales. The children have read, compared and contrasted books like The Three Bears and Somebody and the Three Blairs, as well as The Three Little Pigs and The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. The children have heard fairy tales from other cultures like Tikki Tikki Tembo and The Empty Pot. They have acted out The Three Billy Goats Gruff and one of the many versions of Cin-derella. The children have retold stories like The Mitten, Jack and the Beanstalk by making and using their own props. They have told the story of Chicken Little to a friend using our flan-nel board pieces. This week, the group is writing and illustrat-ing an original fairy tale of their own making. If you would like to read our newly written fairy tale(s) , please look for them on our classroom library shelves next week! Pre-K students retelling story of Chicken Little

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Elementary School News - continued GRADE ONE - Ms.Tebo & Ms.Tausend February was a very exciting month of celebra-tions! We had Valentine’s Day, the 100th Day of School, and Carnevale! We also learned about the different winter sports and where the city of Torino is! It was neat to see all the newspaper articles and pictures students brought in to share about the Olympics. Reading groups learned about the moon, stars and solar system, trickster tales and sea-sons. In math we did a lot of measurement. We learned about feet, inches and centimeters. We enjoyed measuring classroom objects with our own feet! In writing we wrote winter poems about the Olympics. In March, students will be making a timeline about their own lives and we are look-ing forward to making our very own tooth fairy pillows!

GRADE FOUR - Ms. DePaolis & Ms. Piccirilli Please ask your child to describe the cloud for-mation, wind conditions and temperature each day. The fourth graders are studying weather and can even fore-cast it! In conjunction with this science topic the stu-dents are creating web site pages in computer class with Mr.Tebo. The authors in grade four were very proud to present their books to parents last month in the elemen-tary school library. They are very excited about meeting a “real” author, Caroline Lawrence, on 9 March and having the opportunity to ask her questions about her mystery novels set in ancient Roman times.

GRADE FIVE - Ms. Hogan & Mr. Waters & Ms. Wheeler The Fifth Grade can hardly contain their excite-ment about rehearsals for the upcoming musical "The Jungle Book" to be performed April 6 and 7. We are busy creating costumes, memorizing our lines, and learn-ing the music and dancing for this lively performance. We are also planning two field trips to Roman historical sites. The first is to the Basilica of San Clemente, a won-derful example of numerous stages of Roman history. The second trip will be to the Museo Della Civita Ro-mana where there are remarkable models of Ancient Rome during the empire, as well as examples of Roman armor, weapons, and cultural artifacts. We will also be studying everyone’s favorite math topic: Fractions and Decimals which makes some fifth graders’ hair stand on end.

GRADE TWO - Ms. Prisco & Ms. Ciuffreda

For Carneval the second graders learned a traditional Italian dance, “La Tarentella”. They wore costumes to per-form the dance and played tambourines and bells in the quad on Friday, February 17. Afterwards Mrs. Ciuffreda and the students taught the dance to the other classes in the Elemen-tary school. On Friday, March 3 the second graders will visit the prehistoric section of the Pigorini Museum at E.U.R. This fieldtrip is an important part of the social studies program about fossils, early man, farming and smelting metal. The children will be able to see many of the things they have been studying: bones, pots and artifacts in metal.

GRADE THREE - Ms. Rumsby & Ms. Chiaramonte After our hugely successful Bake Sale and Booster Bar 3rd Grade will be using some of the profits to go on a field trip to Palidoro to learn how to make mozzarella. That will put us in good stead for our visit to Paestum in May. Not only do we get to see Greek temples but we are also right in the middle of ‘mozzarella country’. We are continuing our work with the water cycle. Sadly, Ms. Broeg will be leaving us to continue her teaching prac-tice in 5th grade. We wish her the best of luck. We are also working on area and perimeter and will be moving on to circumference, diameter and decimals. This new math program gives us lots of activities and different perspectives for each area. The mimosa trees are already in bloom after our unusually long cold and extremely wet winter. Let’s hope spring brings us some more sunshine so we actually get to see some evaporation rather than precipitation.

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� � � ���� � � � � ��� �� � � By Sarah Ellyson, Middle School Coordinator

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11

From the Counselor Kate McKenna

counselor@aosr.org

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� � � �� � �� � ���� � � �� � �� � ���� � � �� � �� � ���� � � �� � �� � ���� � � � � � � � �� � � �� � ����� � � � �� � � �� � ����� � � � �� � � �� � ����� � � � �� � � �� � ��������11th Graders have begun their individual college meetings with Ms. McKenna. Please ask your

son or daughter about this meeting and his/her list of colleges.

11th Graders Need to Register for the SAT

by March 31st

� � � ���� �� � � � �� � �� �� �

Saturday, � � � �� � This is extremely important

ALL 11th graders should consider taking this test even if the student is not sure whether he/she will go to college in the States. Many of the UK, Canadian, and European Universities expect AOSR students to have an SAT score because we are an American High School.

All registration is done ONLINE.

Visit: www.collegeboard.com (AOSR’s CEEB Code is 748480; our TEST CEN-TER Number is 58380). Testing begins on Saturday morning at 7:45 and ends around 1:30. It is extremely important for 11th graders to take this test in the spring—please do not wait until the fall of next year.

� �� � �� � �� �� � � � �� � �AOSR will serve as a Testing Center for the upcoming SAT I, SAT II, and ACT Tests. SAT I and SAT II tests will be administered at AOSR on May 6th and June 3rd for students who have registered online through The College Board (www.collegeboard.com). Students who did not reg-ister in time may attempt to test “stand-by” by arriving to the school the morning of the test at 7:15 am. The extra testing spaces are distributed on a first come first served basis!

12

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13

Sports Briefs

By Doug Kneeland

Parents of Falcon Athletes Do you have a son or daughter who is competing in high school sports at AOSR, or who is in middle school and would like to compete in sports when they enter high school? Join the Parents of Falcon Athletes and help to support our teams. Contact Carolyn Grosso at 06-3036-1525.

Cheerleaders

Falcon Cheerleaders Bring Down the House in Germany

The AOSR cheerleaders put on an incredible show at the European Championships in Germany on February 25. Teams from 28 schools competed in a packed house at the Sports Arena in Mannheim, site of the European basketball championships. The Falcons worked incredibly hard to learn new rou-tines that included lifts, flips, strength and flexibility. Cheerleading is not for wimps; this is a real sport that requires conditioning, concentration, and athletic ability. Coach Angela Natale’s squad continued to improve throughout the year. Cheerleaders included captain Valeria Cogliani, Neta Ben Israel, Shira Gazit, Jillian Kneeland, Morea Mahmuti, Sophie Matthews, and Jen-nifer McNeill. Congratulations girls on doing an incredible job repre-senting our school.

Falcons Fall in Heidelberg The AOSR Falcons boys and girls basketball squads fin-ished the season with disappointing losses in the first round of the European Basketball Tournament in Heidel-berg, Germany on February 23. AOSR played teams from American or international schools in Germany, Spain and England. The odds were stacked against AOSR, with the girls and boys playing their games at exactly the same time but in different gyms, making it impossible to cheer for each other. Despite this big disadvantage, both teams fought hard and played tough games. The Falcon boys were led by senior co-captains Mike Na-tale and Josh Kneeland, playing the last two games of their high school careers. Mike led the Falcons in scoring for the season, and he was a force in every game. Josh fin-ished the season with a strong game, scoring 8 points and playing strong defense against Rota, Spain. Other Falcons with strong games in Germany were Jacob Graham who dominated the boards throughout the year, sharp-shooters Chris Haight and Jacob Kopf, and the ever-hustling David Grosso and Sage Rahm. David Meshvin-ski, Aaron Dungca, and Adriano Casale also played for AOSR. This group of veterans will return next year to give the Falcons an experienced squad. The Falcon girls faced difficult odds, with only 6 players making the trip to Heidelberg. Senior captain Stephanie Andreucci played her last two games. Sabina Abdullaeva, Serena Zhang, Jillian Kneeland, Melanie Ferguson, and Lisa Begusch rounded out the Falcon squad. Congratulations to all of the Falcon student athletes. They represented the school well in Germany, showing a lot of class and sportsmanship throughout the week, although some parents may not have recognized their boys when they got off the team bus in Rome sporting Mohawk hair-cuts.

Basketball

AOSR Cheerleaders

The AOSR tennis team, last year’s runners-up in the 10 team Mediterranean Tournament, is counting on a new batch of young players along with seasoned veterans Jacob Kopf and Alexa Goldhammer to take the title. Last year’s 3rd place European finisher Roy Forberg will be present to impart his expertise. Coach Canter is optimistic and looks forward to meeting with new players on March 6th, 1st day of practice. Coach Desideri is looking ahead to another possible fine season for his boys soccer team, reigning European Champs. Again, if you'd like to try out stay in touch with your fellow footballers to know the dates. They will be posted on the sports bulletin board. Coaches Henderson and Wilhite are determined and anx-ious to field a winning girls soccer team this year, and with the likes of returning players Marin Finerty and Daryn Gold-hammer anything is possible. Go Falcons!

Tennis/Soccer

14

The AOSR High School and Elementary School libraries will lend books to all families as well as students in the community, The HS library has approximately 5,000 refer-ence volumes, and , with the ES library, there are 25,000 books on the lending stacks, in addi-tion to the monthly magazine subscriptions, and with the recent contributions from parents, embassies and donations from the PTO, the library has grown both in volumes and technologi-cally (with internet access and color scanners). The Elementary School library has age-appropriate literature for the Pre-K to Grade 5

set. These are available for loan --- just bring in your Parent ID card. Parents must register to check out books from the High School library. Registration number is available from the HS librarian. The largest lending library in Rome is at the Santa Susanna Catholic Church on Via XX Settembre. This library has approx 12,000 volumes and, while the books are all in English, the library is open to people of all nationalities and religions. You must obtain a library membership. Books are loaned for a period of 2 weeks. They have a wonderful lit-erature collection, including the entire fiction collection of the British Council . In addition to ten shelves of British lit-erature, the Santa Susanna collection includes six shelves of American literature, two of French, one each of Italian, Rus-sian, Asian and German. It has much non-fiction as well: four shelves of American history, two European, one of World War II, 1 1/2 of Italian history, and one each of Vatican and Roman history, as well as a half shelf each of Latin Ameri-can, Austrian, Asian, Irish, and Middle East history. There is a whole shelf devoted to Vatican mystery series done by Ellis Peters. The hours, terms, and directions can be found on the website: www.santasusanna.org/library. The British Council, at Via Quattro Fontane ("Four Fountains") #20, has a large collection of videos and some DVD's. Videos and DVD's can be rented for one (new releases) or two weeks (classical or older films). They have an extensive Shakespeare collection, including those produced for the BBC. They have rooms of linguistic study material. These resources are mainly for teachers of English rather than the general public. This, too, is a subscription library, and costs E80 for full annual borrowing privileges. Their phone is 06-478141 or email at sac.roma@britishcouncil.it. More info is available at: <http://www.britishcouncil.org/it/italy-english-rome-sac.htm> There are two other libraries with large collections that encourage library use but do not allow borrowing. The American Academy on the Gianicolum Hill (phone 06-58461) has a 130,000 volume collection of classical studies, art and architecture. They do not allow borrowing but do have two beautiful reading rooms, one of which was designed by acclaimed architect and alumnus, Michael Graves. The Centro per Studi Americani (National Center for American Studies) on Via Caetana near Largo Argentina (which is also a beautiful building) doesn't seem to have a working web-site but it is a wonderful tourist destination. Also, the British Council Library and the American Academy often have cultural evenings including "meet the author" usually in English or Bilingual English/Italian. The American Studies Center also hosts seminars and "meet the author" evenings, but they tend to be in Italian. People who join these libraries can get onto mailing lists for invitations. In addition, for little readers, the Bibli Bookstore, at (www.bibli.it, in Italian only) in Trastevere hosts a story hour every Sunday afternoon, sometimes in English. It has a cinema, a live music venue, and a tea room. Lion Bookstore, at Via dei Greci 33 (near the Spanish Steps), is run by AOSR alumni. They have a wonderful collection of new English language titles and a wonderful painting gallery and exhibition space. They can be reached by phone at 06-3265-4007. In addition, Feltrinelli International, on Via V.E. Orlando (at Piazza Republica) and The Almost Corner Book-shop (06-5836-942), (Via dal Moro, Trastevere) have good non-fiction and fiction collections, also in English. Happy reading!

BOOKS & LIBRARY RESOURCES IN ROME

15

School Information

Headmaster: Larry Dougherty 06-33438-331 Headmaster’s Secretary : Domenica Losani 06-33438-331 Associate Head: Beth Pfannl 06-33438-326 Principal’s Secretary: Alessandra Cozzi/ Cathy Garbinsky 06-33438-326 Admissions: Don Levine 06-33438-300 Reception/Secretary: Joanne Hoberg 06-33438-300 Financial Consultant: Elisa Bruno 06-33438-338 Boarding/Finance: Estelle Dougherty 06-33438-339 HS Counselor: Kate McKenna 06-33438-327 Counselor: Elizabeth Escobar 06-33438-389 Nurse: Diane Cullen-Moore 06-33438-321 After School Activities: Christine Hogan, Margaret Ciuffreda 06-33438-320 ES Coordinator: Susan Prideaux 06-33438-350 MS Coordinator: Sarah Ellyson 06-33438-336 Resource Specialists: Ellen Buckley 06-33438-302 Jessica DiCori 06-33438-390

All telephone and internet address corrections should be emailed to principalsoffice@aosr.org.

AOSR Via Cassia 811

00189 Rome, Italy Internet: www.aosr.org

School Number: 06-334-381 Fax: 06-3326-2608

Helpful Resources: Wanted in Rome—www.WantedInRome.com -- a biweekly print and free web publication which lists news, features, and events of interest to the English-speaking community in Rome. It also sponsors a free classified ser-vice including housing. Roma C'E —www.Romace.it — A great resource for movies playing in and around Rome for those who can handle a little bit of Italian. The "Cinema" reference on the homepage sends you to a screen where you can choose to see where a movie is showing and when, by selecting either title ("titolo"), type ("genere"), director ("regia"), ac-tor ("attori"), or nationality ("nazionalita"). You can also select movies that are in their original language ("versione originale"). English Yellow Pages – www.englishyellowpages.it — A terrific, free print and web directory of all English-speaking businesses in Rome, Florence, Milan and Naples. More than just a phone book, EYP sponsors a free clas-sified service, great reference information (weights and measure conversions, national holidays, basic vocabulary, and maps) as well as a photo gallery of people and events in the English/US community here in Rome, which are able to be downloaded from the website! On-line Public Bus and Train info in Rome—www.atac.roma.it—The Rome's public transportation agency offers an on-line directory, in choice of either Italian or English, giving address-to-address directions, using public bus, metro, and tram lines, AND plotting it out on a map! On-line Train information and reservation service for Italy -- www.trenitalia.it -- Italy's vast national train service is available on-line, in English. Times, train types, trip duration, cost, and purchase is easily accessible. For daily Italian newspaper and radio news in English, see www.AGI.it/english, a special service by Agenzia Giornalistica Italia on behalf of the Italian Prime Minister’s office. The American —www.theamericanmag.com — is a new monthly magazine for Italy’s English-speaking community, including a huge list of restaurants. American citizens may want to register with the US Embassy and ask to be included on the e-Embassy Rome email list to be notified about security alerts and other important information for Americans living in Italy. Call 06-46741 or send an email to USEmbassy@lb.bcentral.com. Rome Airport Information (Fiumicino or Ciampino airports) including flight arrivals and departures can be found at www.adr.it.

Rome n’ About

16

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