Newsletter for Heritage/Academy Parents Special Recognition 2013

AMERICAN HERITAGE • AMERICAN ACADEMY

Patriots’UPDATE At a Glance... The Class of 2013

325 graduates in this year’s class

$65 million in scholarships offered by colleges, universities and Bright Futures

100% of graduates accepted to college

2013 OUTSTANDING LOWER SCHOOL

STUDENTS

5th Grade HeritageTimothy EspositoZaina Ghantous

Joanne HanerLogan KapitFlora Ranis

5th Grade AcademyPaul Lansingh

Darby NashValentina Nordone

6th Grade HeritageGabriela Coutinho

Trishala KumarAzzara NincevicHemangi Rajpal

Diego RamosKaitlyn SeeseNaomi Spargo

6th Grade AcademyBryanna Arias

John Greengrass

The Miami Herald Silver Knight Awards is one of the nation’s most highly regarded student awards programs. The purpose of this program is to recognize outstanding students who have not only maintained good grades, but who have also unselfishly applied their special knowledge and talents to contribute significant service to their communities. Past publisher, Pulitzer Prize winner John S. Knight, instituted the program at The Miami Herald in 1959.

The program is open to high school seniors in Dade and Broward Counties, who have high GPA’s and hundreds of hours of community service over their four

Silver Knight winners: Rohan Batra, Faculty Advisor Mrs. Adrianne Shienvold, Me-lissa Danz, Drew Kurzman, Brendan Krimsky, Christie Ramsaran, Miguel Paredes

Silver KnightsStudents Recognized at Silver Knight Awards

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Jr. High Offers Clubs to Rising 6th Graders

As the school year drew to a close, Ms. LaTorre, Interclub Council, and 30 clubs held an informational fair for the students in sixth grade. The goal was to let the upcoming seventh graders know which clubs they could join next year. Close to 200 AA and AH Sixth Graders attended. Some of the clubs represented were Birthday Wish, Make a Wish, One Planet United, JH Debate, Astronomy, Harry Potter, and Andrea’s Angels. Many of the tables had give-aways and the PTO provided snacks

years of high school. Each school may nominate one student in any or all of fifteen different categories.

The nominees must each submit an extensive application, which includes documentation of all they have done and achieved during their four years of high school. A panel of independent judges interviews each candidate; each panel selects one Silver Knight and three honorable mentions in their category.

This year, American Heritage had thirteen nominees: Morgan Baskin (Social Science), Rohan Batra (Mathematics), Melissa Danz (Journalism), Sameer Kailasa (General Scholarship), Brendan Krimsky (Speech), Drew Kurzman (Music & Dance), Sara Lichterman (New Media), Francisco Mestre (Business), Daniel Notman (Vocational Technical), Miguel Paredes (World Languages), Christie Ramsaran (Art), Andrew Rubio (Science), John Wiltshire (English & Literature). We are very proud of all of them.

All nominees for both Dade and Broward Counties were recognized at a very special ceremony on May 22 at the James L. Knight Center in Miami. Special congratulations to Silver Knight winners Rohan Batra and Christie Ramsaran; each received the coveted Silver Knight trophy, a Silver Knight medallion, two round trip tickets to anywhere in the continental United States, and a check for $2000. Four students received Honorable Mention Awards; each was presented with an engraved plaque and a check for $500.

Congratulations to Melissa Danz, Brendan Krimsky, Drew Kurzman, and Miguel Paredes.

(Silver Knightscontinued from p. 1) Congratulations to...

• Broward County Schools District Literary Fair winners: Glenn Medina, Freshman: First Place—ABCDarian Poem, “The King of Speed” Ishan Outram, Freshman: First Place—Literary Comic Strip on Oliver TwistIsabella Hendricks, Senior: Second Place—Short Story, “Andy” Thirty-one high schools participated, and there were over 100 entries for each writing category!

In the junior high competition, Kishan Patel won first place for his literary newspaper, and Nicholas Abrahams won second place for his myth.

• Chris Ralph, who was selected from 40 young playwrights across the state of Florida by the Gorilla Theatre in St. Petersburg, to have his work produced. He will also become a member of the Dramatists Guild (Writers Guild) and receive a royalty for his performance of Phone Card Debacle. He is now a professional writer. Chris recently spent a week in St. Pete working on his play with the Artistic Managing Director and with union actors.

• The cast of Elegies who will perform the play at an Edinburgh, Scotland, festival this summer.

During the 2003/2004 school year a cast of high school actors found themselves putting up a little show called Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raging Queens at Heritage. It shared stories of those now remembered on the 40-acre AIDS memorial quilt; the friends who helped the sick through the illness; and all the friends who were left behind to merely remember. A new cast is being assembled for the Edinburgh production.

More Congratulations to...

Meet the 2013 Valedictorian and SalutatorianBradley Snider, the Class of 2013 valedictorian, attended American Heritage school for the past four years. An AP Scholar with Distinction, this young man is also a National Merit Finalist. He took 10 AP classes during his high school career and earned a GPA of 5.85.

M.I.T., Georgia Tech, University of Florida, Princeton University and University of Michigan were all interested in this young man. He has settled on Princeton and plans to major in Mathematics.

While this student performed well in all subjects, math is his favorite. Among his classes were: Calculus AP BC, Competitive Calculus, and Multivariable & Differential Equations. Bradley is the first Heritage student to qualify for the United States Junior Math Olympiad; he is also the only Heritage student ever to twice qualify for the United States Math Olympiad.

Perhaps almost as much as he loves math, this young man is passionate about music. In the band, Bradley was the Drum Major. Combining music with community service as a member of the Broward Symphonic Band, he participated in free concerts for the community. By volunteering with IMACS (the Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science), he shared his love of math with younger children.

Salutatorian Joshua Wang earned a GPA of 5.73. He combines his interest in math and computer science with a love of music. During his high school years, Joshua has distinguished himself in a number of ways. A Concertmaster of the Florida Youth Orchestra from 2007 to this day, he won first place in the state for Violin Senior Concerto. He earned third place at the National Student Television Network Fall national; received a first place award in Theta Functions at a National Mu Alpha Theta Convention.

Accepted to Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth and Georgia Tech, he has settled on Brown where he plans to major in Computational Biology.

Bradley Snider, Valedictorian

Joshua Wang, Salutatorian

As a result of competition in the state History Fair, Heritage has five projects going to the national competition and three alternates, should a winner be unable to attend. The competition is held at the University of Maryland.

Senior (High School) Winners:Jessica Sottile, Chris Ralph, Daniel Levene & Kaitlyn Samons - group performanceIsabela Mansour and Maria Yidi - group websiteNikki Mariutto - individual documentaryStephanie Katz and Gabrielle Michaeli - group exhibit

Junior (Junior High School) WinnersElizabeth Herrick - individual documentary

Alternates:Harshi Gupta - individual paperElliott Riches - individual performanceAJ Kolondra and Kishan Patel - (junior) group website

Students Qualify for National History Day

Competition

Math Team Finishes Well...On to Mu Alpha Theta CompetitionThe Heritage Math Team had a very successful year. The team finished in first place at all three Region 5 FAMAT (Florida Association Mu Alpha Theta) competitions. Impres-sive, in that Region 5 has more stu-dents competing than the other four Regions combined. When all five regional scores were tallied, the team finished second overall.

There are three additional state-wide Invitational FAMAT competi-tions. At the first two, the Heritage team finished second; and at the third tournament in March, the team finished first in the state, beating Buchholz HS (their first loss in seven years).

Heritage qualified 13 students to take the “American Invitational Mathematics Exam.” Only the top 7,500 scores from 400,000 tests are invited to participate. In addition, two students qualified for the Math Olympiad for which only 500 from the 7,500 eligible qualify.

The team also placed at PuMac (Princeton University Math Compe-tition) and the HMMT (Harvard / MIT Math Competition).

This summer, some of the math team will compete at the ARML (Ameri-can Regions Math League). Then in July, the top twenty from the Heritage team will be compete at Mu Alpha Theta Nationals.

A very good year, indeed!

“Silvergold” Accomplishes Another First for Heritage Debate

Congratulations to senior debaters Cameron Silverglate and Ethan Gold-stein, who have become the first Heri-tage debaters to receive the prestigious National Forensic League Academic All American Award!

The All American is presented by the National Debate Honor Society to senior graduates who have earned more than 750 debate points; maintained a near perfect GPA; scored over 2000 on the SAT; and left a lasting mark on the future of their team.

Cameron and Ethan competed on the Heritage debate team all four years of high school, earning many first place trophies and making it to Nationals five times. Both Cameron and Ethan have earned over 1900 debate points during their time at American Heritage. Congratulations, Cameron and Ethan, on all of your accomplishments as Heritage Debaters!

New at Heritage: Junior High Speech and Debate! Beginning in the fall semester of 2013, Heritage will offer junior high speech and debate as an elective class and as an extracurricular activity. The speech and debate elective class will introduce students to a variety of speech and de-bate activities, including partner debate, philosophical debate, political debate, current events, public speaking, creative writing, and presentational skills. Junior high students will have the opportunity to debate competitively at local tournaments and after-school practices.

This past year, the junior high school students have gotten a taste of what speech and debate has to offer. High school debaters Jared Sutton and Sydney Britton, among others, led a junior high club in debate-related activities and political discussions at weekly junior high debate club meetings. Junior high debaters also got their first tournament experiences: eighth grader Suganth Kannan competed in congressional debate at a couple of tournaments, while seventh graders Nithya Kasarla, Jordan Parker, and Zach Spicer, competed in impromptu speaking at their first tournament. Seventh grader Max Kingsley won first place in extemporaneous speaking, giving current events speeches, and becoming Heritage’s first junior high first place winner this year.

To finish the junior high debate year, the debaters held a mini-debate tourna-ment, where each junior high debater competed with a high school debate part-ner. The first place winners of that tournament were ninth grader Max Gazero-glu and seventh grader Skylar Britton. They debated whether or not our War on Drugs in Latin America is achieving our goals. For more information about the junior high elective debate class, or the junior high debate team, contact Mr. Childree at david.childree@ahschool.com

Heritage Team Meets Robotics ChallengesThe American Heritage Robotics team participated in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) World Championship in St. Louis, Missouri. The Heritage team was named the best team in South Florida, 2nd in the state, and 54th internationally! Robots are judged on design excellence, cometitive play, research, business plans, and teamwork, among other things.

Congratulations to the “Ninjaneers“! More than 10,000 students from 37 countries put custom-built robotics to the test. The three-day event for students ages 6-18 drew a crowd of thousands for the final competitions.

Heritage Robotics Team holds strategy meeting at the St. Louis competition held in April

Sun-Sentinel Awards 2013Recognition for Patriot Post

Staffer of the Year:Lautaro Grinspan & Morgan Baskin 1st Place: News Section2nd Place: Graphics/Illustration: Bella Hendricks3rd Place: Features Section Honorable Mention:Best OverallEntertainment SectionSports SectionPrint Layout/Design

Entertainment Writer: Zachary SlotkinEditorial Writer: Morgan Marquez

SPORTS UPDATE

• Heritage athletics won the All-Sports award from the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel and the 5A FHSAA Floyd E. Lay Sunshine Cup All-Sports Award.

• The Miami Herald 2013 Athletic Awards:

Congratulations to the following athletes who won the 2012-2013 Player of the Year in his/her sport:

Daniel Spas - SwimmingRaigyne Moncrief - Girls BasketballGianna Arrizurieta - Softball Jenna Goodrich - Softball Pitcher of the YearBrandon Diaz - BaseballShaun Anderson - Baseball Pitcher of the YearWalter Tucker - Boys Track Donald Tomlinson - Boys SoccerAlyssa Robinson – Girls SoccerJorge Garcia – Boys Golf

Heritage 2012-2013 Coaches of the Year:

Nobutaka Tan - SwimmingBrandt Moser - Boys GolfCindy Marcial - Girls SoccerRichard Jobson - Boys SoccerCorey Hicks - Boys Track

In Other Sports News...Heritage alumnus Jorge Garcia took home his second-career AJGA victory by four-strokes at the Thunderbird International Junior.

Conducted by the American Junior Golf Association, the Thunderbird International Junior was a 54-hole stroke play competition played on the par-72, Raptor Course at Grayhawk Golf Club.

The event featured 48 boys and 30 girls, ages 12-18, from 17 states and 14 countries. The Boys Division played the course at 7,112 yards.

GRADUATION 2013