State Champions
Community Middle School are state champions in two recent science and math competitions. The teams took first place overall in the New Jersey MathCounts and received a gold medal in the Science Olympiad Championship.
Community Middle School’s Daesun Yim earned a place on the four-person New Jersey State team when he took the first place individual win in the recent MathCounts competition. This is his second time on the New Jersey team. He, and three other students from across the state, will participate at the national competition.
The coach of the first place team, Alice Z. Doehner, is designated as the New Jersey State Team coach. She was the coach of both Community and Grover middle school teams. Grover Middle School team placed third.
Both teams placed in the regional MathCounts competitions and vied for state honors last weekend. They participated in the sprint, target, and team rounds.
The Community Middle School Team members include Shir Aharon, Nick Kosar, Jason Steinberg, Daesun Yim, and Josh Sung.
The Grover Middle School Team members include Jeffrey Farm, Kevin Gu, Ming-Ming Tran, and Daniel Xia.
At the end of three rounds, the top 10 individuals were ranked by overall score. Leading the individuals was Daesun Yim, first place; Jason Steinberg, fourth place; Josh Sung, sixth place; Nick Kosar, seventh place; and Daniel Xia, tenth place.
A rapid-paced countdown round took place among the top ten placing the students in a head-to-head race to correctly answer a math question in 45 seconds or less. The winner, in a best of three situation, continued in play until bested by another faster math student. At the conclusion of the countdown round, Xia had moved to ninth place overall, Sung was in seventh place, Kosar was in sixth place, Steinberg was in fifth place, and Yim retained his first place ranking.
Grover Middle School took the first place spot in 2003 and 2004. Last year Ian Frankel (who took the first place individual win), Peter Maa, and Daesun Yim went to the nationals with coach Nicole Yudin from Grover.
The National competition takes place Thursday to Sunday, May 5 to 8, in Detroit, Michigan. Visit www.mathcounts.org for information.
This is the fourth year that Community Middle School Science Olympiad Team has claimed the state championship in the New Jersey Science Olympiad Championship. The team took first place gold in 16 of 25 events while also receiving medals for two second places, one third place, one fourth place, one fifth place, one sixth place, and one seventh place. The state finals were held in Edison on March 15.
The competition team includes Monika Mostowy, Moya Chin, Kathi Li, Shir Aharon, David Goldfinger, Peter Maa, Victoria Chang, Ryan Pais, Priya Marathe, Lekha Racharia, Gita Gnanadesikan, Gregory Doidge, Taylor Lee, Jamie Joseph, Isaac Cheng, Vidya Nandapurkar, Aparna Shankar, Jonathan Kaufman, and Aparaajit Sriram.
Coaches included Arthur Downs, Wanda Rinker, and Mort Levine; assistants were Joe Benci, Denise Weber, Virginia Baner, and Parris Lattanzio. In the regional competition Community Middle School placed first in division B; Grover placed fourth. High School South placed first in division C; North placed fourth.
The CMS Science Olympiad Team will go to the National Competition at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, in May to vie for the national title. For information visit www.nyscienceolympiad.org.
Word Challenge
The first-place state winner in the New Jersey State Readers Digest Word Challenge Competition is Grover Middle School sixth grade student Ming-Ming Tran. Ming-Ming will travel to Orlando, Florida, in April to compete in the national competition.
On March 18 the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District hosted the state finals for the Readers Digest Word Challenge Competition. One hundred students from around the state competed in this event, with six WW-P middle school students qualifying for the event. Chris Cimino, weatherman on NBC, hosted the final round.
The students from WW-P who qualified for the state competition include:
From Community Middle School: Spencer Palombit, grade 6; Daesun Yim, grade 7; and Chris Bergman, grade 8.
From Grover Middle School: Ming-Ming Tran, grade 6; Keerthana Krosuri, grade 7; and Nonie Sethi, grade 8.
Spanish Club
Amanda Amarotico, who began the Spanish Club at Millstone River School, recently coordinated the first-ever district celebration. Students, families, and teachers, gathered together to enjoy a meal and get a taste of all that the students had learned during the eight-week club.
Grades 4 and 5 Spanish teacher Amarotico started the club for the purpose of celebrating and extending the language and culture of Hispanic students in the district. The world languages program for grades K to 8 is under the direction of Rosanne Zeppieri.
Sessions included dances, poetry, and stories, as parents shared images and experiences from Colombia, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina.
Pennies for Patients
Dutch Neck Elementary School students participated in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Pennies for Patients Program. The program raises money to find cures for leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma while providing information and support services to patients and their families. Pennies for Patients teaches students caring, sharing; respect for others; the value of community service; and support of an important cause.
During the three-week program coordinated by Nancy Dunn, the school’s guidance counselor, $3,”546.23 was collected.
