EMS Students Excel At Regional Mathleague Competition

On March 14, The Elisabeth Morrow School hosted a Mathleague divisional contest which featured 36 teams in grades 3 to 6, representing eight schools:  Golda Och Academy, Rutgers Prep, Solomon Schechter of Bergen County, Sacred Heart School, Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart, Oakland Public Schools, and The Ridgewood Avenue School.  In all 144 students competed, at their respective grade levels, in a four-part competition featuring number sense, sprint round, target round and team round challenges.  

The Elisabeth Morrow School students dominated the competition with three first-place team finishes (for grades 3, 4, and 6) and two individual champions, Peter Staphos (Old Tappen, NJ) in the fourth grade and Austin Kwak (Fort Lee, NJ) in the sixth grade.  Overall, Austin finished with the highest score for all competitors in the competition.

"Our school did exceptionally well," said Elisabeth Morrow Math Department Chairperson, Carol Toth. "This competition gave us a chance to see just how well our students could do against other schools. And, in fact, in another divisional contest that took place on the same day at another location, we scored better than their top scoring teams at most levels."  

The first place teams from this competition will move on to the state playoffs later this spring.

Results

3rd Grade:  First Place Team.  Individual EMS results:  Rohan Buluswar (2nd), James Grant (3rd), Andrew Hyde (8th), Purvi Jonnalagadda (10th)

4th Grade:  First Place Team (John Mauro, Peter Staphos, Shelby Kim, Ronit Malde), Second Place Team (Keeka Takehana, Annabelle Xing, Malachy Guzman, Aidan Kim).  Individual EMS Results:  Peter Staphos (1st), John Mauro (2nd), Shelby Kim (4th), Aidan Kim (5th), Ronit Malde (6th), Keeka Takehana (7th), Malachy Guzman (9th)

5th Grade:  Second Place Team (Cole Knie, Cameron Woo, Reha Mathur, Oren Berkowitz), 6th Place Team (Zachary Brooks, Margo Costigan, Sangmin Lee, Kris Pursiainen).  Individual EMS Results:  Cameron Woo (3rd), Reha Mathur (4th), Oren Berkowitz (6th), Cole Knie (9th)

6th Grade:  1st Place Team (Austin Kwak, Tanvi Jonnalagadda, Allison DeRose, Shant Amerkanian), 2nd Place Team (Harry Moon, Alex Nelson, Maggie Sheridan, James Wedgbury).  Individual EMS Results:  Austin Kwak (1st), Tanvi Jonnalagadda (2nd), Allison DeRose (3rd), Shant Amerkanian (4th), Harry Moon (6th)

Competition Aggregate (highest scores for the entire competition):

1st Austin Kwak

2nd Tanvi Jonnalagadda

3rd Allison DeRose

5th Peter Staphos

7th Shant Amerkanian

8th Cameron Woo

10th Reha Mathur

Full Results at Mathleague.org

EMS Students Ace National Language Exams

EMS Le Grand Concours winners pose with their certificates 

by Evan Brown
Director of Communications and Alumni


The Elisabeth Morrow School takes great pride in announcing that several 7th and 8th grade students attained national awards for their scores on national French, Spanish and Latin Exams.


This year, over 146,000 students participated in six levels and three categories of the National Spanish Examination. Twenty-one 7th and 8th grade EMS students attained national recognition in levels “01” and “1” (the highest and second-highest achievement levels ascribed to the test) in Regular and Bilingual categories.  National Gold Medals were awarded to 7th-graders Annika Kim and Pantelis Paliouras and to 8th-grader Justin DeRose.


In the National French Exam, nineteen 7th and 8th graders achieved levels “01” or “1” including 4 state winners, Casey McConville, Abigail Rivoir, Peter Shamamian and Justin Trout, attaining top-ten scores in New Jersey. Two National Gold Medals were awarded to 7th-grader Melissa Sweetwood and 8th-grader Casey McConville.


The National Latin Exam saw five Elisabeth Morrow students achieve the highest national standard, "Summa Cum Laude" (with the highest of praise): Joseph DeRose, Peter Shamamian, David Yang, Justin Trout, Sang Uk Park.


The National Spanish and Latin Examinations are standardized assessment tools forGrades 6 -12, given voluntarily by over 3,800 teachers throughout the United States in order to assess the proficiency and achievement of students who are studying these languages.  While the National French Examination (Le Grand Concours) is an annual exam and competition for grades 1-12 in all 50 states and abroad.  All of the language exams are certified by their respective teacher associations.

Elisabeth Morrow Students Take First Place Team Trophies in Every Grade Level at Inaugural Math Contest.

4th Grade Winning Team:
Reha, Cameron, Oren and Sangmin

by Evan Brown
Director of Communications and Alumni

On Monday April 30, The Elisabeth Morrow School hosted the first-ever, elementary Math League Contest to take place in Northern New Jersey.  The contest, organized by EMS Math Chair Carol Toth for students in grades 3 through 6, was administered by Mathleague.org and are modeled upon the larger MathCounts National Competitions. 

The Elisabeth Morrow Math scholars faired exceptionally well, garnering first-place, all-around trophies in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade, making a clean sweep of all divisions. In addition, the EMS team registered two 1st place individual winners: Peter Staphos (in grade 3) and Dylan Rhee (in grade 5).  As well, Dylan was the highest individual scorer for the entire competition.  Elisabeth Morrow also had the highest overall team score from its all-girl, sixth-grade team:  Stephanie Li, Emily Yu, Kira Trout and Chrissie Anagnos. The team was coached by EMS Math teacher, Sarah Ehatamm.

MathLeague.org competitions consist of several challenges that require a variety of math skills and abilities.  Students are tested through mental-math problems, group problem solving, sprint rounds featuring multiple choice, and targeted rounds that allow for the use of approved calculators.  The competition fielded teams from a number of prominent regional independent schools, including: Princeton Academy, Solomon Schechter, The Wilson School, The Peck School, Far Hills Country Day, Rumson Country Day and The Red Oaks School.  In all Elisabeth Morrow hosted 175 students for the afternoon competition.

EMS 7th Grader Wins National Gold Medal

Into The Light - Sarah Abrahamsen, EMS '13

by Evan Brown

Director of Communications and Alumni

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards have "an impressive legacy dating back to 1923 and a noteworthy roster of past winners including Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, Robert Redford and Joyce Carol Oates," according to its website.  The Elisabeth Morrow School is proud to add another name to this Award's storied history.  EMS seventh grader Sarah Abrahamsen (Hackensack, NJ) earned a 2012 National Gold Medal and the distinguished honor of Best In Grade (only 4 recipients receive this honor per grade level), with her photograph, Into The Light.  

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards fielded submissions from 200,000 students nationally, in 28 categories, from grades 7 to 12.  Only 1500 received Gold or Silver Medals.  In order to attain this high honor, students needed to achieve "Gold Key" recognition at the regional level. This year, The Elisabeth Morrow School had 6 artists and 1 writer receive Gold Keys:  along with Sarah; Erika Herman (7-Teaneck, NJ), Josh Lerner (7-Englewood, NJ), So Young Jang (8-Fort Lee, NJ), Annakatrina Zeidwig (8-Tenafly, NJ), Rene Spiewak (7-Englewood, NJ), and Annika Kim (7-Englewood Cliffs, NJ) sent work to the national competition.

Considering the number of applicants, attaining this level of success does not come easy.  Elisabeth Morrow's first Scholastic gold medalist Evan Goldstein '06 (now attending Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT) remembers the challenge of getting his poem ready for the competition:  "I rewrote the poem seven times, all with the help of Ms. Nicolaou.  Without her, and the support of the EMS Writing Club, I would never have known about the competition, let alone had an opportunity to win.  Ms. N taught me how to write well, but also showed me the value and beauty in writing, which goes beyond any one competition."
  

Elisabeth Morrow students have done particularly well at Scholastic. Just last year, Caroline Myers (Cresskill, NJ - now attending Linden Hall in Lititz, PA) and Lauren Park (Englewood Cliffs, NJ) received National Gold Medals.  In all, our school currently boasts 14 National Gold Medals over the past 6 years.  


Regarding this accomplishment, EMS teacher Lisa Nicolaou noted:  "Our success at EMS with Scholastic is a combination of many factors--A talented group of students, a supportive administration, the time we dedicate to writing here, and our (teachers) ability to motivate and nurture."  She also felt that the school's approach toward encouraging originality and imagination played a vital role:  "With our students, we want them to find a way in, to find their creativity.  We want them to be inspired and lead without being pushed.  We especially want this in middle school, at a time when they are trying to figure out who they are and what they believe in."  

Sarah Abrahamsen will join this select group of middle and high school students on June 1 for the National Medal Ceremony at Carnegie Hall.  As well, Ms. Abrahamsen's work will be on display with 500 other works of art and writing at the Art.Write.Now NYC Exhibition at Parsons The New School for Design.