I am going to try really hard to act as if I am really missing the snow, but....I am not. Sorry if you are missing it, but not having to worry about snow days right now has been so nice. I will really try to get a better attitude after the holiday break and cheer on some snow for those of you that want it. As for now, let it be warm, let it be warm, let it be warm!!

This will be my last post until after the new year. It has such a great unofficial first half of the school year. Since my last post, we have been so lucky to have ANOTHER Gatorade Volleyball Player of the year. It is so hard to believe for the second year in a row, EWG has received this honor compliments of Jenna Bridges. Please take a moment to see the recent honor that was seen on our local news:  http://wpri.com/2015/12/15/hometown-hero-jenna-bridges/

The holidays become holidays for everyone when our DECA students, under the organization of student Sydney Anderson (below checking her list and organizing the gifts) and Mr. Krom and Mrs. Kennedy takes care of those less fortunate. Any students in need receive gifts galore that were donated by teachers, community members as well as a $2000.00 donation from Walmart. Thank you to everyone involved.

I wish you and your loved ones all the joy and peace at the Holidays and throughout the New Year. Thank you so much for allowing me the pleasure of sharing times with you and your children. 

Fondly, Mrs. Chandler

For the first time ever, we are exhibiting our district's award winning waterfowl art work from the Federal Junior Duck Stamp Competition. Each year our district is the powerhouse in the state, winning more than half of all awards state-wide. It's really a bit of a phenomenon... Also, our district is second, nationwide to only one other-a district in California. 

Details: Art show SH Library

Reception: Thursday, December 17, 5-7pm

**Followed by the Holiday Chorus Concert in the auditorium (7-8pm)

Please consider supporting our Hockey team fundraiser next Thursday, 12/10 at UNO's in Warwick. Enjoy a good meal and tell them you are with EWG Hockey.  If you want to print out the ad, use this link:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/EWGRSDweb/contentweb/CommunityAnnouncements/WWEWG%20Unos%20Fund%20Raiser.pdf

Congratulations are in order to some of our EWG Musicians.  On November 21, many of our students auditioned for the RI All-State Ensembles.   The following band students were accepted to the 2015-2016 RI All-State Ensembles:

Marcus Simonini (grade 12) – ranked FIRST in the state, and takes the ONLY spot as Sr. Division Jazz Guitarist.  This means Marcus will have the honor of performing at the August 2016 Newport Jazz Festival!

Ben Gurnon (grade 9) – ranked FIRST in the state on TWO separate auditions: Timpani, and Snare Drum.  Since both auditions were for the same group (Jr. Division All-State Band), Ben has chosen to perform on Snare Drum.

We also had a chorus member  accepted to All-State this year:

Molly Kupa  (grade 10) – Accepted as an Alto to the Sr. Division All-State Mixed Chorus.

 

 Our DECA students at the high school have begun their yearly  drive to get gifts for every family in need from our district for the Holiday. If you would like to donate any gift cards in any denomination from any establishment, please feel free to send them in with your children or drop them by yourself and we will be sure to get them to a very thankful family.  I will show in my next post some of the results of the generosity of this district and our faculty and staff. You will be amazed. 

**Special thanks to Walmart of Coventry for their very generous donation of $2000.00 to support the DECA holiday drive!!

Exciting Event:  Our Drama students will be presenting A Christmas Carol

this Thursday 12/10 through Sunday. What a great way to introduce your children to the Arts!! Our students have been working day and night to prepare and are hoping to pack the house. Come get in the holiday spirit with a visit to this production.

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Don't forget the EWG PTA Holiday Bazaar tomorrow 12/5 at Metcalf Elementary school. It runs from 9-3 and is sure to have something for everyone!!

One week away from Thanksgiving break and I realize we have so much to be thankful for at EWG. We have such amazing students that never cease to amaze me at every turn. One exciting and amazing event we have had recently was having Senior, Jenna Bridges sign her national letter of intent for University of Hartford on her last night playing Volleyball in our Gym. We are so proud of Jenna and all our senior athletes.

 I am also thankful for the hard work of our teachers. I recently popped into the classroom of one of our English teachers that had her class engrossed in the book, Of Mice and Men.  Mrs. Brennan was so skilled in helping her students master the art of close reading. Close reading requires the student to get deeply involved with the text they are reading. It requires the students to notice features and language used by the author. Mrs. Brennan was modeling for her students and they were responding.

Having students complete high school is a major accomplishment and one that our school community and families are so thankful for. One of our students, Marshal M. recently completed his requirements and received his diploma to the smiles of his Mom, teachers and of course Marshal. Congrats to him and his family. 

Upcoming events:

   WEDNESDAY, November 25, our Football Team will play East Greenwich at East Greenwich in the Thanksgiving Game. It is at 6PM under the lights. Hope to see you all there! The boys always play hard and look forward to the support.

  SAVE THE DATE:

I wish you all a relaxing and restful Thanksgiving. Enjoy your families and friends.

As usual, the past couple of weeks have been busy for our students at the Senior High School. The end of the month concluded with a very successful "Pink Out" to support Breast Cancer organizations. As you can see by the pictures, even the staff joined right in to support the effort!! Thanks to the work of our student council, close to $300.00 was raised.




















One of the highlights of the past couple of weeks was the work done in one of our Transitions classes to prepare our students for the world of work. The students trained long and hard to master interviewing skills. When they were ready, our Director of Administration, Mr. Bob Ross, took time out of his very busy day to interview all the students on camera! Students will view the video's and receive feedback on how to improve their skills. It was very impressive to see the work that was put into such a realistic and relevant activity.
















Upcoming events at the Senior High:

•  Our fantastic Music program will be having a concert this Thursday, November 5 at 6:30 PM in our Auditorium. I have had the pleasure of hearing the students rehearse and they are SUPERB! I hope you can come out and see them perform.
•  The National Honor Society is hosting a blood drive this Monday, November 9 at the high school in the multi-purpose room from 7:30- 2. 
•  Our D1 Volleyball team will be playing in their quarterfinals next week at home! Stay tuned to our announcements for more details. Our girls love the support!
•  There is no school next Wednesday, November 11. Our thanks to the men and women that have kept and continue to keep our world safe! 

Enjoy the warm weather!

Senior Days have  already begun for our fall sports. Yesterday was Boys Soccer and today it is all about the girls at 3:30.

Save the Date:
  November 18, 2015 - We will be having an informational night for parents. A panel of experts will be speaking to parents about many of the trends we are seeing with our young people in way of risky behaviors.

Did you know this about the new "e-cigarettes?

In the spotlight:  Our "new to EWG" teacher, Mrs. Hartley has joined the "share with a colleague" movement. During a recent faculty professional development session, she brushed up the staff on some instructional strategies she uses in her classroom. There are some great "experts" at EWGSH, she is one of them.

If you want to see a sample of some of the exciting things happening in our library/media center, just click on the link: https://youtu.be/k4RYTFqE2zY

Congratulations to members of EWG math team for successfully navigating

through the highly competitive math competition on 10/21/2015. 

The team members participating were:

Mitchell Ambrosino  (high score of 5)  Senior

Jael Matteson  Senior

Lacey Griffin Sophomore

Ryan Booth Sophomore

Avery Daigle Freshman

Scott Mitchell  Freshman

Daniel Butler  Sophmore

Next meet is December 2,

Spooktakular is here: Come see the amazing work of our students tonight at the high school. It is open until 6PM.

Good Afternoon,
  It has been a busy couple of weeks. Spirit week was last week and the students had a great time in spite of the weather. Noah Jussila and the student council planned a fun filled week that ended with a great Spirit day pep rally It really was a fun time for all with the senior class
showing just that, "CLASS."  The pictures are of our senior class tug of war team and of the Homecoming Dance last Friday night.
   
  The Homecoming dance was also well attended and super fun for all.
  Although the football team lost their Homecoming game, we are still so proud of all their effort and hard work and we look forward to a win this Saturday, 10/10 at home at 2 PM.
  Parent conferences are Thursday 10/8 from 6-8 PM and Friday, 10/9 until 11 AM. There is no school for the students on Friday or Monday so I hope they, and you, have a really restful long weekend.
  I am looking for new members for our School Improvement Team. If you are interested, we are meeting next Wednesday, 10/14 in the School Library.  Our Chairperson, Mrs. D'Andrea is very good at keeping it on time. It is from 6-7PM. Feel free to stop by and join.
  As always, feel free to call me anytime you have any concerns or questions.

Happy Friday!

  It has been a great couple of weeks since my last post. I have had some fun with the students on Twitter with our first "Twitter Hunt" won by Maddie Quigley. She was the first to solve a difficult math riddle (supplied by our Superintendent) that had to be solved to receive a clue to find the hidden Knight I hid on the campus. I want the students to have some fun with their teachers, administrators and each other with a silly game anyone can play. They just have to follow me on Twitter @EWGHigh. We will be having our second game next week. Encourage your children to join the fun and take a well deserved break from their studies to win a prize. 

  I have stated on many occasions what special students we have at EWG and recently I got to see them in action once again. Elena Miceli and Jamie Fitspatrick kept a tradition going by organizing a group of very special upper class students who gave up their time to run a Welcome Breakfast for new students to EWG. It is so hard to move to a new school let alone in high school. It warmed my heart to see such a special event for our new students. Many have come to me to let me know how helpful it was for them. 

  I also found out another student, Thomas Ricciutti, spearheaded a group of scouts, parents, brothers and sisters etc. to cleanup the nature trail behind Metcalf school for use by our cross-country teams. What use to take a weekend for just a small group of people to do was done in just a few hours thanks to Tom's work. Mr. Hamlin, our Jr. High Cross Country Coach (and person that had to spend his entire weekend with a small group prior to the help) was so pleasantly surprised and thankful for the help!

  The two prior examples are just two of the many wonderful things that happen on a regular basis with out students, your children. The students never look for recognition which is why they are just so special. 

 As usual, there is some great teaching and learning going on. Even in the unbearable heat we just had, the students were busy, without complaint, in classes, halls, out among the campus doing everything from capturing film for a video production class to studying scientific terms to making beautiful music. 

  What's coming---Spirit week begins September 28 and closes out with a 2PM Homecoming Football game on Saturday, 10/3 followed by our Homecoming dance that night. 

  I hope you all enjoy the weekend. 

I am so excited to start this new school year off with my own Blog. My hope is to publish every couple of weeks on a Friday so you have a feel for what is going on at the High School.
We have just completed our second week and there are already some great things going on. While popping into classrooms, I see a great deal of student engagement and enthusiastic teachers and staff. Mr. Hamlin is piloting the use of Vocabulary.com and our students are already number 1 in the state. What a great way to build academic vocabulary through the use of technology.
Our clubs and athletics are off and running. We have our first Football game on Saturday in Westerly. It is an injury fund game, but we are excited to "kick off" a great football season. Next Monday, 9/7, our Boy's Soccer team will be at home at 3:30. Our Girl's Soccer team will be home Tuesday, 9/8 at 3:30 and the Girl's Volleyball will also be home at 6:30 PM. We will then open the home Football season on Saturday, 9/12 at 2PM. If you are looking for some fun, come out and see the teams.
Word on the street is our Drama students will be performing A Christmas Carol this year!!! If you haven't seen the EWG students perform, you haven't seen anything. I will let you know more about that later on.
I attended a brief meeting of new students being invited to apply for the National Honor Society this morning. It is amazing to see how the National Honor Society is growing. We certainly have an awesome group of students at EWG.
I plan on spending the long weekend just being a Grammie to my grandson and I hope you will all enjoy the time with your friends and families!