Nov. 13, 2017

Volume 3, Issue 10

York City

School

District

Sign up today for United Way, prizes

The Monday Memo 2017-18

By Robert Bernhart

Director of Human Resources

T his is the week! It’s here! Today marks the start of the District’s 2017 United Way Campaign! Today

through Friday marks the start of what is hoped to be another successful Cam-paign that benefits the United Way of York County and its many fine agen-

cies.

Pledge forms will be placed in your mailboxes today, with the hope that you’ll consider supporting the many worthwhile initiatives that actually touch us in the School District of the City of York. Did you know that the 100 Book Challenge, Ready Rosie and Ready Freddie, the Youth Court Alli-ance, or the Truancy Prevention Initia-tive probably wouldn’t be possible

without United Way Support?

Interestingly, FOCUS was the recipient of a Community Innovation Zone Grant from the Office of Child Devel-opment and Early Learning for the 2015-2016 school years. This three-year grant formed a partnership with McKinley K-8 to enhance and stream-line early learning through third grade services for families and students. In addition to the United Way, Martin Library, the Community Progress Council, Communities and Schools, and the University of Pittsburgh are all partners in this program. And these are only some of the programs that the

United Way of York County supports.

There are thirty six (36) organizations that are supported by United Way dol-

lars in York County – all are listed on the back of the pledge form. For exam-ple, American Red Cross, Communities in Schools, the Community Progress Council, Family First Health, Pressley Ridge, and the Salvation Army are all

supported by the United Way.

While I could go on and on about how the United Way of York County touch-es the lives of people in the York County area, I only ask that you consid-er helping to support the Campaign this year. It’s very easy to do – simply com-plete the pledge form and return it to the school office. Central Office em-ployees may turn their completed forms into the Office of Human Re-sources. The Campaign runs Monday

through Friday.

Remember that the District has again provided some nice incentives for par-ticipation. The school that raises the most money and has the highest per-centage of participation will enjoy a

Prizes!

School with the highest amount raised and most par-ticipation gets a lunch donat-ed by ARAMARK!

Vacation days! United Way T-shirts!

lunch donated by our partners at ARAMARK, along with several vaca-tion days donated by members of Cabinet that will be raffled off. Unit-ed Way t-shirts are also available for those who pledge $5.00 or more per

pay.

On behalf of District leadership, I’d like to thank you in advance for your support of this year’s Campaign, as there are many people in the com-munity and many programs that rely

on our collective support.

Page 2

Fall, harvest celebrations abound

Kindergarten and Transitional First at Ferguson had a Fall Harvest day! With over 100 pumpkins and apples donated, all students enjoyed painting pumpkins and

the yummy apples.

Cornerstone makes caramel apples for their November

PBIS reward! Students who earned 15 PRIDE tickets

were able to make caramel apples to take home! They

did a great job and exercised patience by waiting until

they left the building to eat them!

At Ferguson, second-grade students rotated between the four

classrooms for activities that focused around pumpkins. Students

listened to a story and created a pumpkin craft with Mrs. Keeney.

In Mr. Schneider's class students learned about the life cycle of a

pumpkin and enjoyed a pumpkin seed snack. With Mrs. Wein-

stein, students practiced their cooking skills when they made and

ate pumpkin pie pudding. In Miss Kauffman's class students inves-

tigated pumpkins and got to explore the "guts" and seeds of the

pumpkin.

STEAM Academy students launched “Peep Pumpkins” across the gym during the Design Challenge using only rubber bands, glue, plastic spoons and popsicle sticks! Competing for the treasured Scarecrow Trophy, students cheered and supported their teammates as they debuted

their catapult built for distance, fineness, and accuracy.

Page 3

Tricks, treats and community

Hannah Penn hosted its third annual TRUNK OR

TREAT. The turnout was amazing by students,

families and staff. At one point there was over

200 people in attendance! There were various

members of the community that graciously vol-

unteered their time and products to make this

event a success. The York City Fire and Police

Department attended allowing students and

parent to tour their various vehicles and offer

learning opportunities to all. Students were also

able to dance the night away as the DJ played

their favorite tunes. This was a great time to get

students and their families together in a safe

environment to enjoy Halloween! Students re-

ceived plenty of candy and bonded with their

teachers. Thank you to everyone who made this

event a success!! Students, staff, and parents

loved it!

(Above) Princesses, Superheroes, Zombies, and other scary and not so

scary characters invaded the parking lot at Jackson K-8 on Tuesday,

October 31, 2017 for the Annual Trunk or Treat event sponsored by

the Jackson PTO, Jackson Staff, and After School Program. Over 125

students participated in the event. Candy was plentiful, smiles were

rampant, and the enthusiasm level was off the chart. This was the third

year for Trunk or Treat at Jackson K-8 and it was the largest attend-

ance to date. The students were talking about the event all day long.

Staff came wearing costumes as well. One staff member dressed in

traditional German Lederhosen. It was a fun event for all. This event

is one of the most popular events held at the school.

- Principal Philip Livelsberger

Page 4

Celebrating PRIDE at Steam

The Steam Academy held its first ever creative cos-tume dance as a reward for positive behavior for the month of October. Students arrived at school in costumes that had to be at least 80% homemade, then attended a dance later in the day. Students were involved in the whole process of designing their costumes, to preparing decorations, and requesting

songs for the dance.

Generous donations of food was donated by Ara-mark, and drinks were donated by Rutter’s Dairy. Penn State also funded a mini grant for a DJ Club that provided black lights and DJ speakers. Thanks to all who helped make this PRIDE event a success, the

students and staff had a blast from start to finish.

- Karen Kesavaramanujam

On Friday, November 3rd, Devers students attended a PRIDE assembly to learn about showing respect to people in our community. Students in grades K-8 heard from Bill Kohler, a retired Army medic and Chris Grove, a

York County firefighter.

The audience learned that service to our country and community is one of the highest

forms of respect they can show.

The assembly served as the kickoff for the month of November in which Devers class-rooms picked a service learning project to

initiate and engage in.

Devers students are involved in the following

projects this month:

1. Devers Food Pantry – creating a pantry and

organizing a food drive

2. SpiriTrust Lutheran Homes – visiting resi-

dents

3. York County Food Bank – organizing a

food drive and walk-a-thon

4. Kiwanis Lake and Lincoln Park Clean-up

5. Writing letters and sending care packages

to our military members

6. Reading to Kindergarten and Pre-K buddies

7. Dollars-4-Scholars Penny Drive – raising

money for this program

8. The Malala Foundation – reading the book, I am Malala and organizing a Read-a-

thon to raise money

9. Holding a flower sale to raise money for

Devers

10. Color Run Benefit to raise money to pay

medical expenses for a local hero

- Kevin Leitzel

Devers students pick projects

Next month’s PRIDE assembly at Devers will fill us in on how their projects went!

Page 5

Free haircuts for good behavior

Shells sink….Dreams float….Life’s good on our boats…. Enrichment provider Bambi Montouth gave Mckinley after-school program 4th and 5th grade students a aluminum foil boat engineering challenge. The chal-lenge was to build a boat using only two pieces of aluminum foil and a piece of tape. 1st step was to see if their boats would float. 2nd step was to see how many pennies the boats would hold before sinking. The win-

ning boat held 436 pennies!

- Laurie A. Freeland, Site Coordinator

The Barbers at The Basement Barbershop agreed to allow eight students a month to receive FREE haircuts as an incentive for positive behavior and participation in the

DaViS Afterschool Program.

Barbers Woody Lopez and Black the Barber were excited to have the opportunity to

give back.

McKinley students steaming along

Let’s support them, too!

The Basement Barbershop

158 S. Pershing Ave.

Phone: (717) 900-7145

Pictured (left to right) Quadir Robinson, Jamoni Rivers, Javon

Rivers and Kevin Ramirez.

Page 6

News from William Penn

Luis Villarini and Jenifer Hernandez represented William Penn Senior High School well at this year's Rotary Four-Way Test Speech Contest. Their speeches about Immigration and Homelessness were informative and brought true awareness to those in attendance. They look forward to returning next year with others from the high school! The winning speech

was Music Education.

Don’t miss this weekend’s play! Representing at Rotary

William Penn Art Students participated in the second annual YCASE (York Community Art Scholars Exhi-bition) sponsored by York College of Pennsylvania. On October 19th-21st, our students’ exhibited art work at the Marketplace Art Galleries at 37 West Philadelphia Street in York PA. This exhibition was to showcase the talent of our high school students through their artwork. Members of the York Col-lege Art Department selected pieces to move onto the Finalist Exhibition. Two William Penn students

won awards at this event. Sophomore Emily Vergara (left) won a Juror’s Choice Award for her low-poly illustration of a blue bird. Freshman Bryan Espinoza

(right) won first place in the Graphic Design category for his Circlism piece, Religious Gathering.