Last month, the Lawrence Township Board of Education begin its public meeting with our traditional Spring Recognitions Ceremony. Here’s what’s not so traditional: we had so many students and faculty to honor that the proceedings ran for 90 minutes, a new record!
Here’s a sampling of the awards reaped by the LTPS community:
• More than 120 students and teachers raised $131,000 for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, dedicated to funding research for childhood cancers.
• Three Lawrence Intermediate School students and one Lawrence Middle School student won awards at the 60th Annual Mercer Science and Engineering Fair under the guidance of Gifted and Talented teacher Jessica Heller.
• Lawrence High School students Julia Gromek and Aaron Wilson-Watson are finalists in Photographer’s Forum Magazine’s annual photography contest.
• Jeff Molinelli, LMS physical education teacher, was named Boys Basketball Coach of the Year by the Trenton Times.
• John Ritchie, special education teacher, was named Boys Ice Hockey Coach of the Year by the Trentonian.
• Mike Underwood, LHS physical education teacher, was named Girls’ Swimming Coach of the Year by the Trentonian.
• Eight LHS seniors were named commended students in the 2013 National Merit Scholarship Program based on superior performance (top 5 percent of the country) on PSATs. Michael Baicker and Darius Teng were named finalists in the Merit Scholarship Program, the top rung of the contest.
• LHS senior Irene Connelly is one of 3,000 nationally selected candidates in the 2013 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program.
• Gordon Wolf is the 2013 Mercer County Wrestling Champion and The Trentonian’s CVC Wrestler of the Year. Leslie Freitag is a member of the Field Hockey All-CVC 1st Team.
• Kate O’Rourke was named Swimmer of the Year by both the Trenton Times and the Trentonian. Peter Finnerty is the Trentonian’s Boys Swimmer of the Year. Shurman Riggins won the Delaware Valley Chapter of the National Football Foundation’s Scholar-Leader Athlete Award.
• The LHS Varsity Boys Basketball Team won the 2013 Central Jersey Group III Sectional Championship.
As if this wasn’t enough, the Lawrence Township Education Foundation presented LTPS staff with 13 grants, totaling $44,732. That’s in addition to the $97,000 previously awarded this school year. LTEF’s generosity will fund curricular enhancements outside the constraints of our budget. More information is online at ltefnj.org.
And our deepest thanks to Fred Vereen of Every Child Valued, who presented an award to a new community service organization at LHS called Threads.
Laura Waters, Ph.D., is president of the Lawrence Township Board of Education. Her email is laurawaters6@gmail.com.
