Senior Fall 2023 Newsletter

On Tuesday, November 21st, students and staff enjoyed an afternoon of friendly games, engaging performances, and tasty food for our 16th Annual Fall Feast! We have much to be thankful for this year!

We are thankful for Ms. Thompson, Ms. Donnelly, and Ms. Pray for putting on their aprons and working tirelessly for hours to heat food and turnover service to feed our entire building. Thank you to Mr. Sheridan for running around for all the random errands we needed.

Thank you to all the parents and guardians from the Home and School Association, National Honor Society members, and Griffin Ambassadors for all their help in heating, transporting, and serving food and making sure spaces were cleaned up throughout the day.

We are thankful for all the support of the staff to make this annual school-wide potluck an organized and enjoyable day for all.

Shout out to all of the students who participated in the Fall Feast Showcase. It was a true display of our Griffins’ varied talents. We had 5 dances from our K-POP club, 10 performances from our spoken word poetry class, 3 songs from our rock band, and a dance from one of our Dance I classes in honor of Hispanic Heritage month. A special thank you to all of our performers (mentioned below), our hosts, Carrigan Hudson and Hamin Muhammad (10th grade), our stage managers, Aubri Little (10th grade) and Jaylnne Reyes (11th grade), our Lighting Techs, Paullina Ruiz and Aaliyah Mclean (12th grade), our sound technicians, Simone Shackelford and Jason Edmondson (10th grade), our stage crew, Ibn Washington (11th grade) and Joseph Brown (12th grade), our backstage manager, Dantae Quartlebaum (10th grade), our videographer and photographers Andrea Lie (12th grade) and Lucas Corda (11th grade) and all of the amazing staff and students who helped make the event possible.

Poetry Performers: Carrigan Hudson, Melissa Golding, Dantae Quartlebaum, Aster Chau, Jade Potts, Bianca Arnone, Peyton Jones, Uthaymin Laws, Simone Shackelford, and Jason Edmondson.

K-POP Performers & Managers: Luka Rivera, Rosa Mama, Olivia Nedrick, Milan Stovall, Noah Rakawardana, Sui Men, Hannah Mangundap, Kelianna Pin, Laniya Porter, Angelica Sun, Arianna Taing, Nghi Tran, Trinh Tran, Sisi Yu, Shirley Zhang, Angela Zheng, Zilin Zhou, Cindy Liu, Angeline Korompis, Nevaeh Kelly, Thanhvan Huynh, Naydelyne Huerta-Zamacona, Helena Ho, Linna Gao, Mya Duong, Afifah Ball, My Phan, Stephanie Ramirez-Soto, Andrea Lie, Janice Loh, Shannon Shafer, and Tierra Kotanone.

Rock Band: Bertrand Arifin, Case Dougherty, Elijah Erlichman, Gianna Falcone, Godley Fils, Charlotte Gabel-Woll, Isabella Grin, Brandon Tran, and Lila Wooding. The Rock Band had its first performance during the Fall Feast, performing songs by The Cranberries, Pixies, and The Front Bottoms. The band performed "Zombies", "Where Is My Mind", and "Au Revoir". The band enjoyed performing together for the school and are even more excited for future shows.

Dance I: Nina Carango-Morgan, Aiden Pak, Breanna Pravs, Gabriella Hoekema, Hailey Ramos, Charlotte Gabel-Woll, Alisha Rai, Keelee Sacksith, Kenyatta Mcclarin, Sabree Wells, Makiylah Murray, Laylanee Osuna, Camorah Smith, and Jayde Carmogea.

Each year, we are reminded of the amazing Family we have created here at Palumbo during Fall Feast.

Mr. Teich's Astronomy Class visited two local observatories that house telescopes for looking at stars, planets, galaxies, and other astronomical objects. We went to Drexel University and University of Pennsylvania in October, spending the evening learning new things about the night sky! Students really enjoyed the tours and opportunities to look through the telescopes and take pictures with sophisticated cameras. This is the first year Palumbo has offered Astronomy as a science elective.

Students completed a Salary-Based Monthly budget. They researched a career and found the median annual salary. They made choices on various expense categories like savings, investing, transportation, food, housing, healthcare, etc to determine if their personal salary went far enough to cover their desired choices for expenses. The activity was eye-opening for students as they realized how much "life" costs!

AP Art students set up their own still life to draw from! Students made a drawing of the still life using graphite that highlighted their understanding of value, form and shading techniques.

Students in Mr. Hoffman's music classes (Concert Choir, Introduction to Music, and Modern Band) have been exploring Philadelphia's rich culture of the performing arts by attending performances around the city. During the first quarter, students attended a wide variety of performances, including music, dance, theater, and poetry. They even got to meet and interview some of the performers!

The City of the Arts initiative is designed to help students identify and attend local performing arts events in order to build cultural awareness, appreciation, and competency. Each quarter, students select events to attend based on their interests and other criteria. After attending their chosen event, students write a short reflection describing their experience and connecting it to our learning in the classroom.

The students in the photo (L to R: Andy Chen, Niki Ni, Niki Liu, Kevin Vu, Sharon Souw, Tiffany Tuyen, and Angela Tuyen) attended a Jazz Café event at Temple University at the beginning of October!

In Anatomy class, students performed a dissection of a banana to practice using surgical tools, and to practice using anatomical terminology to refer to different parts of the banana. In the future, students will be dissecting other anatomical specimens in class.

Dr. Lipschutz, Ms. Nevin, Ms. Steiner and Mr. Vail joined the team and hit the ground running. They joined the existing team of Ms. Novak, Ms. McCoy, Ms. Smith and Ms. Young. They work hard every day, in and out of teachers' classrooms to support the exceptional students in our building.

The Physical Education department had to be very resourceful this past quarter as they didn't have a gym to teach class in. Classes participated in Yoga in the Auditorium, bowling in the indoor section on the roof, games on the roof and ultimate frisbee in the park across the street. This was not an ideal situation, but the kids and the teachers did a great job being flexible.

What was your journey to get to Palumbo?

Originally, I applied to be an asbestos supervisor. With no opportunities present, I attended an open house, and landed a job with School Climate.

What is your favorite thing about Palumbo so far?

Palumbo's students are very easy to work with, respectful, and have plenty of opportunities to excel (be it sports, or after school events).

What is one thing you wish your students knew about you?

I am a jack of all trades.

Anything else you'd like to share?

My favorite color is red. My birthday is in February. Strawberry Shortcake is my weakness. I am a collector of video games, Funko pops, and comics. I enjoy giving gifts at the most random times.

The Hispanos and Latinos Unidos club created a beautiful ofrenda during Día de los Muertos to remember and honor loved ones who have passed away. Come check out the club Mondays after school with Ms. Cozza in room 323.

The Rock Band has started up once again this school year, practicing at least once a week in Mr. Pedone's room. We spent our first meeting moving all the band materials out of storage and quickly hopped into experiencing playing music in a band. The members of band come with varying levels of experience. But all members have excitedly practiced in and out of rehearsals. The team recently had their first school-wide performance during Fall Feast. Rock Band meets on Mondays after school in room 329.

The Palumbo Speech and Debate Team had a great start to the 2023-2024 competition year, by gaining a bunch of new members, seeing our Public Forum debate teams notch two wins apiece in city competition, and kicking off the invitational competition schedule with the Villiger Invitational at St. Joe's University. Wish us continued success! See Ms. Sundeen in room 434 for details on joining the Team!

Palumbo Book Club launched this year as the brainchild of seniors Sara Elfaki, Liz Horta Marrero, Micayla Prendergast, and Alexa Horner. Book Club started off by reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn for the month October! We also went to the Free Library of Philadelphia for a book talk and meeting with Ibi Zoboi, who was discussed her new book, Nigeria Jones. Book club generally meets once or twice a month on Thursdays in Ms. Frei's room (204).

In just one month, the Robotics Team was able to teach 3D design and coding to new students and build a driveable robot. If interested, talk to Mr. Burwasser (room 401) or Mr. Kirby (room 502).

SRPS focuses on transforming students' lives through running, mentorship, and goal achievement. It aims to empower students through long-distance running, fostering resilience, discipline, and academic improvement. The primary goal of SRPS is to inspire and support students, typically from middle and high school (Grades 6-12), in achieving the completion of a full or half marathon. Beyond running, it strives to enhance academic performance, reduce violent behavior, and instill life skills such as resilience and perseverance.

Achievements:

• Significant increases in students' GPA by 41%.
• A notable reduction in violent behavior by 50% among participants.
• Remarkable promotion rates (99.5%) and high school graduation rates (91%) with subsequent college acceptances (90%).

🏅Shout-outs to Marathon Finishers:
Congratulations to Madeline Winarto, Rulan Zheng, Geubrinarizky Jalil, Jeffery Chen, Kristy Lei, Vicky Dong, Eric Guo, Kevin Chen, Xier Lin, Rajip Thapa, Doha Gassem, Ryan The, Thierno Barry, Charles Tran, and Afifah Ball for completing the 26.2-mile Philadelphia marathon through Students Run Philly Style (SRPS)! Your determination, perseverance, and commitment to crossing the marathon finish line are commendable. You have demonstrated exceptional resilience and the strength to achieve ambitious goals. Kudos on this extraordinary accomplishment!

NHS members offer regular tutoring on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday advisories in room 436 Students are welcome to drop-in for tutoring on days they need it or request one-on-one tutoring that works around student schedules.

Can you guess the staff theme this year?

Teacher McGeehan, Ms. Raspanti, Ms. Eck, and Mr. Wang took students to the Vote Early Day event at City Hall, hosted by PA Youth Vote. As a part of the program, 10th grade student Aster Chau performed a poem with members of Palumbo's Sunrise Movement organization joining them on stage. The intention of this event was to build community and promote civic engagement, particularly among youth who are or will soon be eligible to register to vote.

The following students earned ALL A's on their 1st quarter report card.

The following students earned all As and Bs on their 1st quarter report card.

🥰

Before Thanksgiving, Charity Club organized a food drive and helped raise $1303.00 for Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

National Honor Society organized a toy drive and donated a FULL BOX for Toys for Tots!

Thank you to all who donated!

As an academic magnet school, the primary mission of The Academy is to provide our students with a comprehensive academic preparation for the rigors of higher learning. The Academy’s mission includes raising the aspirations of each student, developing universally applicable problem solving techniques, acquiring technological skills, and instilling a lifelong passion for learning that includes a rich cultural arts experience. Griffin Pride! Nothing Less Than Success!

• We believe that each member of the school community plays an important role in the success of the school. We celebrate diversity while, at the same time, embracing individuality so that all are valued and respected. And this belief is a cornerstone of what our school embodies.

• We believe that by offering a robust array of extracurricular programs, instructional partnerships, and a variety of elective courses, our students are presented with an opportunity to utilize cultural and athletic opportunities to nurture personal growth and development.

• We believe that by offering a varied selection of Honors and AP courses, students will be prepared to successfully meet the challenges of higher education.

• We believe that to become 21st Century problem-solvers, we must challenge our teachers and students to grow and adapt to the ever-changing technological advances of our world.

Palumbo’s Profile of a Graduate is a direct adoption of the District’s Profile of a Graduate. The district’s Profile of a Graduate is a student that is a critical thinker, a creative and innovative practitioner, communicator, skillful and knowledgeable professional, and culturally competent citizen.