The annual P.E. Flag Football Super Bowl was a nail bitter this year! Twelve teams competed for the coveted award of “Super Bowl Champion”.  Period 6 was in the lead by one touchdown with 30 seconds left to play. Max Morrissey, from period 3 throws a “Hail Mary”, the football is tipped by an opposing player and lands in the hands of a period 3 teammate to tie the score. The  period 3 & period 6 team decided to end the tournament with a 2018 Co-Championship!

The Lyme-Old Lyme High School Mock Trial team competed on Wednesday, December 12th against a team from Valley Regional High School at the Middletown Courthouse.  The team competing was the Defense half of the team comprised by lawyers Connor Wyman, Sarah Hayward, and Kellie Sablone.  The witnesses for the defense team were Ava Berry, Jack Manthous, and Kate Cheney.  The students are required to prepare a defense and prosecution of a case in preparation for the competition which involves months of long hours and hard work, all overseen by their coach, LOLHS Social Studies teacher, Sarah Hylas.  The competition is a practicum of law but also  part theater. The students demonstrated their expertise of courtroom procedures and developed their roles into believable characters which can make one feel as if they are, in fact watching a real courtroom trial.  The students not only walk in with a rehearsed plan but must also be able to improvise and respond to the other team’s actions, all  while remaining in character.  The entire “trial” is overseen by a real-world judge or lawyer who then uses a rubric to score each students’ performance, leading to a team’s overall score.  Unfortunately the scores are not immediately released but as a person watching this particular competition, it is my opinion as a former Mock Trial coach that the team from LOLHS is a hand’s down favorite.  The students did an outstanding job and were commended by the judge, a real-world lawyer at the state level as well as the President of the High School Mock Trial competition.  He specifically highlighted the performance of Kate Cheney as the best performance of her particular role that he has seen.  Congratulations to the students who competed and their coach, Mrs. Hylas.  The other half of the team, the Prosecution, will be competing Wednesday, December 19th, again in the Middletown Courthouse. 
                                       Way to go Mock Trial Team!

Congratulations to Lauren Birk for being selected as Rotary Student of the Month for her excellence in Social Studies. Mrs. Todd commented on Lauren's talents. She states: "​I have had the honor of teaching Lauren for two years at LOLHS and it has been incredible to watch Lauren grow from a quiet, but always academically strong, freshman into an active participant in my Global Issues course. She is definitely my "go-to" student who is never afraid of answering the tough questions about the world issues we cover in class. She has developed her history skills throughout her high school career and it is evident in Global Issues this year that she is going to do her part as a contributing member of not only our country but also our world community."
                                Well Done Lauren!

LOLHS' Spectrum Organization has partnered with a community member and are currently working on "11 Acts of Kindness", which is meant to honor the eleven victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. 

A decade ago, at the end of my first semester teaching at Wharton, a student stopped by for office hours. He sat down and burst into tears. My mind started cycling through a list of events that could make a college junior cry: His girlfriend had dumped him; he had been accused of plagiarism. “I just got my first A-minus,” he said, his voice shaking.
Year after year, I watch in dismay as students obsess over getting straight A’s. Some sacrifice their health; a few have even tried to sue their school after falling short. All have joined the cult of perfectionism out of a conviction that top marks are a ticket to elite graduate schools and lucrative job offers.

I was one of them. I started college with the goal of graduating with a 4.0. It would be a reflection of my brainpower and willpower, revealing that I had the right stuff to succeed. But I was wrong.The evidence is clear: Academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence.

​Across industries, research shows that the correlation between grades and job performance is modest in the first year after college and trivial within a handful of years. For example, at Google, once employees are two or three years out of college, their grades have no bearing on their performance. (Of course, it must be said that if you got D’s, you probably didn’t end up at Google.)
Academic grades rarely assess qualities like creativity, leadership and teamwork skills, or social, emotional and political intelligence. Yes, straight-A students master cramming information and regurgitating it on exams. But career success is rarely about finding the right solution to a problem — it’s more about finding the right problem to solve.
In a classic 1962 study, a team of psychologists tracked down America’s most creative architects and compared them with their technically skilled but less original peers. One of the factors that distinguished the creative architects was a record of spiky grades. “In college our creative architects earned about a B average,” Donald MacKinnon wrote. “In work and courses which caught their interest they could turn in an A performance, but in courses that failed to strike their imagination, they were quite willing to do no work at all.” They paid attention to their curiosity and prioritized activities that they found intrinsically motivating — which ultimately served them well in their careers.

MUSH classes display their research on the different immigrant groups in US history.  They shared ethnic cultural foods as part of the immigration fair as well.
Yummy!
In preparation for the immigration cultural fair, students had to research an ethnic group that came to America during the great wave of Immigration during the Industrial Revolution.  They uncovered what the conditions in the home country were like, why they immigrated and what it was like in America.  As part of the assignment, they had to find a recipe and actually make an authentic ethnic dish to share with the class.  

The AP US History classes squared off in the Great Civil War Soldiers’ Debate.  Both the North and the South came prepared to verbally battle and both held their own.  And of course they debated civilly  ...
 
To prepare for the debate, students read selections of primary source diary entries and letters from actual Civil War soldiers in order to analyze why they were fighting.   The AP US History students really rose to the occasion and had a lively and informed debate. 

​Last week, the National Spanish Honor Society had the opportunity to speak with Azize Reid, who is from Venezuela. She now lives in Florida with her mother, husband, and two children. In a Skype call completely in Spanish, the students were able to ask questions about the differences between the culture in the United States and Venezuela, the best kinds of food, and the importance of learning a second language. It was fascinating to hear her speak about her experiences, and the club was honored to have had the 

Raymond Doll is the Lyme-Old Lyme Chamber of Commerce business student of the month. Raymond began his career in business education in the Investments class. Following that he took Personal Finance where he achieved the W!SE Personal Finance certification which proves he successfully demonstrated proficiency in personal finance by achieving a passing score on the nationally standardized Financial Literacy Certification test. After taking Marketing he decided to look into Sports Marketing as a possible career.
                      Congratulations to Raymond and
                 best wishes on his future in business.

LOLHS jumped into the lead and never looked back as they defeated the Thunderbirds of NBHS. Connie Pan led the scoring with 50 points followed by Ryan McTigue with 30, Josh Liefeld with 20 and Rachael Larson & Nikolai Stephens-Zumbaum with 10 points. Additionally, every team member played for a quarter with no one playing more than a half. New members are welcome!!

At the high school, we are beginning to see students with symptoms of possible influenza virus and other illnesses. We want to take this opportunity to reinforce guidelines that our school district abides by to promote wellness and minimize disease transmission in our schools.
All students should remain at home from school with the following symptoms of illness or disease:

• Body temperature of 100 degrees or greater. Student should be fever-free without use of a fever-reducing medication for a minimum of 24 hours before returning to school.
• Vomiting and/or diarrhea. Student should remain at home until they have stopped vomiting/having diarrhea  for at least 24 hours and are able to tolerate fluids and solid foods.
• Sore throat accompanied by fatigue, body aches, and fever.
• Persistent/disruptive cough that is accompanied by fatigue, body aches, and fever.
• Skin rash suggestive of a communicable disease. Students should be evaluated by a physician and may return to school with clearance from the physician.

 
It is important for students or parents to communicate with the health office if they are out with illness for more than two days. If they have seen their physician, be sure to bring a note to excuse their absence for missed days. Students should also communicate with their teachers.   When they are feeling better, plans can be made for make-up work to avoid falling behind in classes.
We encourage students to get their flu shots as a means of illness prevention. There are many opportunities to receive them through physician offices, pharmacies, and flu clinics.

As a reminder, frequent handwashing is one of the most important practices to prevent illness. If students come to school ill they not only feel ill and are unable to focus in class, but they risk the spread of illness to others. We would like to wish all of our school families a very healthy and happy Holiday Season. Please contact us in the LOLHS health office if you have any questions or concerns at 860 434-4444 X1004; [email protected] or [email protected]. 
 
Best Wishes,
Ellen Maus RN and Melissa Seckla RN         
LOLHS School Nurses