A Synopsis of Recent Rocket Pride Accomplishments, Awards, and Events
Congratulations to Bob Hines, Social Studies Resource Teacher, who has been selected to receive the Archeological Society of Maryland’s Patricia Seitz Memorial Teacher of the Year Award. He will receive this award at the annual Spring Symposium which is held in St. Mary’s City, Maryland.
Jiayi Yang, a junior at Richard Montgomery High School, is one of the two final candidates for Student Member of the Board of Education. The candidates were selected by students at a nominating convention held Thursday, March 5 at James Hubert Blake High School, from among five students who were vying for the position. The two finalists will campaign until the election, scheduled for Wednesday, April 29, at all secondary schools.
Elena Perry, senior, is a finalist for the Bill of Rights Institute essay contest.She was featured recently in The Washington Post.
Congratulations to Robert Cai, junior, who has been selected to receive a Howard Hughes Medical Institute/National Institutes of Health/Montgomery County Public Schools (HHMI/NIH/MCPS) Student Internship for the 2009-2010 school year. The internship program begins Monday, June 22, 2009, and continues full time for eight weeks through the summer.
Congratulations to Alex Steinbarth and Lisa Deng, IB Art students, who have been selected for scholarships to the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery in Glen Echo’s National Park. These students submitted some of their works to be reviewed and were awarded the scholarships based on the merit of their portfolios.
Richard Montgomery High School could have another International Brain Bee winner. Recently, Julia Chartove, junior, won the United States National Brain Bee. She will represent the United States and Richard Montgomery High School in the International Brain Bee in Toronto this August.
Congratulations to Alie Brooks, junior, and Kristy Choi, sophomore, on their first published articles in The Washington Post. Their reviews of Einstein High School's Flowers for Algernon and Gaithersburg High School's And Then There Were None were the best written for the Post's Young Critic Program and were printed in the Montgomery County Extra Magazine.
The Tide recently won a gold rating from the Maryland District of Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Also, several students won individual awards. Congratulations to Daphne Mlachila, Leslie Adkins, Upasana Kaku, Valerie Soon, Linyao Sun, Maya Krishnan, and Deepanjali Jain.
The Siemens Foundation recently selected Sarah Paleg, senior, as a finalist in the 2008-2009 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology. With its high academic standards, rigorious judging process and emphasis on authentic scientific research, the Siemens Competition is regarded as one of the leading science and mathematics researchbased competitions for high school students. A banner will be displayed acknowledging our finalist at Richard Montgomery High School.
Cayla Jakubowski, freshman, was recently recommended and is serving as a student representative on the Curriculum Advisory Assembly (CAA) during the 2008-2009 school year. Student contributions to the efforts of this group will benefit the curriculum and instructional program throughout Montgomery County Public Schools.
When you see Waleed Ovase, Zach Pine, Ben Cahill, Drew Gallagher, and Peter Radonic, congratulate them on their participation in the Department of Energy's Science Bowl. They represented Richard Montgomery High School with lots of enthusiastic school spirit last month.
We would like to congratulate the many choral students who are performing in the auditioned honors choruses. In this year's Montgomery County Youth Chorus (10th -12th grade), were Molly Brand, Jennifer Chaitin, Kevin Egan, Matty Golub, Elliott Kim, Elanna Newman, Mary Saffell, and Dennis Ting.
Nora Elbayoumy, Ruthie Prillaman, and Zack Phillips will be performing this semester in the Montgomery County Public Schools 9th grade honors chorus.A large number of students also were accepted into the Maryland Allstate Choruses: Kristy Choi, Kevin Egan, Matty Golub, Kazune Kitani, Ruthie Prillaman, Mary Saffell, and Ivy Zhou.
Congratulations to Daniel Raeder for his first published article in The Washington Post. His review of Blake's Brigadoon ran recently in the Montgomery Extra section. He's the fifth Richard Montgomery High School student to be chosen from thoughout the metropolitan area for this distinction. He joins Julie Cheng, Waleed Ovase, Allie Brooks, and Kristy Choi, who were all published in the Post this season.
The Richard Montgomery High School Shakespeare Club has been invited to perform at the Secondary School Shakespeare Festival at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Thursday, March 5, 2009. The students are scheduled to be on stage from 1:50 p.m. - 2:20 p.m.
Congratulations to sophomore Justin Wolin, winner of the Junior Achievement Essay Contest sponsored by the Carlyle Group of Washington D.C. Justin received $20,000 for his 1500 word essay on why the Washington area is a great place to start or grow a business. RMHS Runners-up include Kevin Chai, Elena Perry and Jeff Rappaport, who each received $10,000.
Congratulations to Rosanna Kim, senior at Richard Montgomery High School, who is a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Young Scholar. The mission of the program is to help students with exceptional promise reach their full potential through education.
When you see Stephanie Bastek, please congratulate her on winning the F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Contest for High School students. Stephanie's short story was selected from over 200 entries; she was recognized at the F. Scott Fitzgerald conference held at Montgomery College in October.
The Tide submitted its seven issues from the 2007-2008 school year to be judged by the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA). NSPA is a nonprofit member organization that works with high school and other secondary school publications- newspapers, yearbooks, magazines, broadcast programs and online publications. The Tide received a "first class" rating from NSPA. NSPA was particularly impressed with The Tide's coverage of school news and activities.
Congratulations to Ms. Nancy Shay, English Resource Teacher, who was awarded a $1000 grant for Richard Montgomery High School, from the Montgomery County Public Schools Educational Foundation. The grant is to fund a project entitled, Cluster Literacy Magazine.
Ms. Ariella Gilbert, school counselor, recently made a guest appearance on the MCPS cable program, Our Schools Today. The show titled “Homework: How Can I Help” addressed the appropriate role of parents and guardians in supporting their children when completing homework. The show will air numerous times during the month of November on the MCPS cable channel.
On Thursday, October 16, 2008, Petar Georgiev, a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, was awarded one of the 2008 10, 000 Nordstrom Scholarships during his 5th period class. A “Prize Patrol” from Nordstrom came to Richard Montgomery with Mr. Jerzy Romanowski, Diversity Affairs Director of Nordstrom, to present the surprise award. Also included in the presentation were Petar’s parents, Ms. Jennifer Hoover, IB coordinator, and Dr. McLeod, principal.
Rosanna Kim came in 5th in the nation for a personal essay which she submitted to the Kaplan/Newsweek "My Turn" essay contest. There were 9,000 submissions; Jeremy Blair and Sara Bloem both won the National Council of Teachers of English Writing Contest for 2008. Only 16 students from the state of Maryland were selected.
Ms. Leslie Jessell, Mathematics teacher, has been awarded a Fulbright Teacher Exchange grant by the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Ms. Jessell is one of approximately 450 U.S. citizens who are abroad for the 2008-2009 academic year through the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program.
Mr. Jon Goetz, Mathematics Teacher, is a recipient of the Marian Greenblatt Excellence in Teaching Award, the Sallie Mae First Class Teaching Award, and the GTE Growth Initiatives for Teachers (GIFT) Fellow grant which is awarded to a secondary math/science team.
Congratulations to the Richard Montgomery High School International Space Settlement Design (ISSD) team who won first place in the 2008 summer competition at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The Richard Montgomery team, participated with two other high schools, Durango High School (Durango, Colorado) and Apeejay High School (India). The competition involved preparing a proposal for a settlement to orbit the Earth, holding 18,000 permanent residents, and was judged according to stringent guidelines. Richard Montgomery team members included 12th graders: Aziz Nawrozie, Eric Kim, Sara Bloem, Weili Shi, Wint-nie Aung, Eddie Lee, and Sophia Chang; and former students: Takashi Katani, Nick Shawen, Mona Zhang, and Crystal Wang.
Congratulations to Ms. Amy Weaver, Ceramics teacher, who was one of seven teachers selected nationally to participate in an international program in Denmark for 5 weeks beginning in January, 2009. “Project Network” is a program that helps create a network and a dialogue within the same generation of ceramic artists at the International Ceramic Research Center, Guldagergaard. At the end of the program there will be an exhibition catalogue and one exhibition which will include all of the participants for “Project Network” 2008-2009. This is a great opportunity for Ms. Weaver, as well as the Richard Montgomery High School students, who will be able to see the various ceramics that are created and displayed in Denmark as well as all the countries represented in the program.
The National Merit® Scholarship Program is a program created to recognize academic scholarship based up student scores on the PSAT, a test which serves as an initial screen of approximately 1.4 million students. In early September, about16,000 students, or approximately one-third of the 50,000 high scorers, are notified that they have qualified as semifinalists. This year, 40 Richard Montgomery students were identified as semifinalists, an increase of 3 students from last year’s senior class. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must advance to Finalist standing in the competition. Congratulations to our 40 semifinalists!!
THE TIDE, our school newspaper, was awarded a gold medal certificate by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. This prestigious award is given only to the top tier of high school publications across the nations. Congratulations to the writers and editors!!
Peter Perry, instrumental music teacher, was a presenter at the 2008 Maryland Music Association Conference. His presentation was entitled “From the Student’s Home to the Rehearsal Room: Using Everyday Technologies for Music Teaching and Learning”.
Congratulations to National Board Teachers!!! Mr. Brian Donlon, Ms. Lori Martioski-Taylor, and Ms. Jinjer Azuree. Like board-certified doctors and accountants, these teachers, besides state certification, have achieved National Board Certification. They have met additional rigorous standards through intensive study, expert evaluation, self-assessment and peer review.
Brooke Kao won first prize in painting at the Yellow Barn High School art contest. This was against several schools in the local area, including Einstein's Visual Arts students. She also won another award, from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, the eleventh annual Ida F. Hamovicz Visual Arts Award for Montgomery County High School student. She has received a solo exhibition of her work at a local gallery in Silver Spring.
Elena Perry won the International Brain Bee Championship in Montreal and received $3,000, a personal trophy, and a traveling school trophy.
Daniil Kitchaev, Abiola Laniyonu, Martin Petrov and Ailun Wang as a team finished in 5th place in the UMD High School Programming Contest. They received a cash prize of $500.
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Elena Perry won first place at the U.S. National Brain Bee Championship in Baltimore and will now represent the USA at the International Championship in Montreal in May
Gazette article about Elena
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Matthew Golub is a finalist for The Bronfman Youth Fellowship. Bronfman Youth Fellows spend their summer before their high school senior year traveling through Israel, exploring their Jewish Identity and engaging with thinkers, authors, artists, and educators.
Sarah Paleg is the the winner of a fellowship in The Legacy Heritage Fellowship Program. Mentored by senior exectutives and informed by specially-designed seminars, the Legacy Heritage Fellow, serve as articulate proponents of Middle East peace.
Kiegnan Montgomery is the 2008 winner of The Mary Loftus Sportmanship Award of the InterSchool Horse Show. This is an award given to the rider whose peers and instructors nominate as the best representative of excellent sportsmanship.
Benjamin Lu (IB 12th grader), has been selected as a finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search and is now competing against 40 other high school students across the nation. Ben’s award is for his study of signaling molecules involved in cancer cell growth. Ben is part of a group of students who participate in the NIH Summer Internship Program. Ben noted Ms. Sekhsaria and Ms. Martioski as influential and supportive teachers at RM. This is the first time that a student from Richard Montgomery High School has been named a finalist