Pattonville School District

Congratulations to Pattonville High School junior Kellen Thames who was selected as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Athlete of the Week. https://www.stltoday.com//article_b346d7fa-3fe3-11eb-9422-

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Holman Middle School seventh grader Adam Smith. He was recognized by teacher assistant Ms. Anmarie Ascoli.

The Pattonville High School band program is taking the stage and making music virtually. A live holiday concert is not possible, so band directors Denny McFarland, Anna White and Laura Livesay found a way to coordinate a virtual performance instead that will feature audio and visual components. Students who chose to attend in-person classes recorded their parts in small groups on the theatre stage this week and Villemade students submitted their music electronically. The tech-savvy educators and communications specialist Mike Johannes will produce the event mixing multiple audio tracks together to make it sound like one performance.

In Digital Media 1, students in Ms. Sam Early’s class at Pattonville Heights Middle School have been working hard to learn about design elements and principles while creating some really cool artwork on their iPads. Early introduced two applications to students: Pixlr, which is a website to create graphics, and Canva. Students are required to kind of do basic assignments in both, and then after they determine which one they prefer, everything else from beyond that point can... be in their choice. They have also used Google Drawing because it is one of the few applications that students can use on the computers in school and on their iPads at home. We've also been using the Sketches School app on the iPad for students to be able to create outlines of pictures and images they find online, Early said. They can insert the image into Sketches School to create a black outline of it and remove the image from the background. Then all they have is essentially what looks like a coloring page. They then take that coloring page and put it into Pixlr where they can basically create a grid with nine copies of it and color each one individually. That's what we used for the 9 Colorway project, Early said. They found a picture online, they created the coloring book outline page on Sketches School and then they inserted that picture into Pixlr and were able to add the colors to it. The inspiration behind that project was Andy Warhol after doing a whole unit on pop art. Recently, we’ve been doing some of our bigger projects where the students have had a little bit more freedom in what they’re actually creating. She created a website to be a digital art gallery so students' work can be showcased. Each week, as students complete new projects, I just take them from Canvas and upload them to that website. Check out their work by visiting https://sites.google.com//digital-media-virtual-galle/home

*DUE TODAY* To help plan for the remainder of the school year, Pattonville families are asked to select their children’s learning option for the second semester by Friday, Nov. 6. Families have two learning choices: - Villemade Virtual Academy (100% virtual learning) or - In-person learning with phases that change depending on the health conditions in the community and in our schools. All families must complete an online form in their Parent Portal in PowerSchool indicatin...g a learning choice for their child(ren) by Friday, Nov. 6. Read More: http://bit.ly/PSDLearningChoice

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Parkwood fourth grader Carly Ratcliff. She was recognized by teachers Miss Audrey Masek & Miss Kristen Buescher.

Pattonville Heights Middle School social studies teacher Madeline Marren decided to write a new version of "Let It Go" from Frozen to remind students to turn in all of their missing work before the end of the grading period which is next week.

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Parkwood kindergartener O'layah Sinks. She was recognized by teacher Ms. Tiffany Laughlin.

How to perform in a pandemic? That is the question. The Pattonville High School Pirate Players found the answer and will broadcast their virtual fall production, Shake It Up: An Evening of Shakespeare, on Nov. 6-7 at 7 p.m. on YouTube. Register online (http://www.pirateplayers.org/box-office) and a link will be emailed. Tickets are free but donations are appreciated. With so much uncertainty, they selected Shakespeare because it is in the public domain and they could adap...t it as they created the performance. We started with the entire canon of work and we spent a week in breakout groups on Zoom where the kids were scanning through different Shakespearean plays and finding scenes and monologues that they liked, theatre director Ms. Lara Corvera said. We did readings, had some back-and-forths making selections and talking about if we wanted to include them or not, and we just kept scaling it down and down. Over the course of about a week, the company of 16 students went from the entire canon of Shakespeare to the 21 scenes and monologues they put together. Some of these are modernized and some of them are kept classical. Corvera said the students did a lot of their own filming and editing and the entire process was a very fluid process. It was just really collaborative, that’s the only word I can think of, she said. The kids were watching the final version and a girl who normally does lighting said it was weird working on everything rather than being super focused on just one area of tech, so it was fun because they got to see what other areas normally get to work on. The shows start at 7 p.m. each night and will last an hour and 20 minutes. At 8:30 p.m., the students are hosting a talkback on Zoom. It’s something professional groups sometimes do after shows and the kids said they wanted to try it, Corvera said. They will talk about the process of making the show and a Zoom link will be included in their registration. All the world's a stage, and while the students will not be performing live at the high school, fans of the theatre can still watch the fall production. Register online to receive information about the Pattonville Pirate Players' virtual evening of Shakespeare which will stream the evenings of Nov. 6-7 at 7 p.m. REGISTER: http://www.pirateplayers.org/box-office

Pattonville continues to offer free curbside meal pickup for Pattonville students once a week. Families can pick up meals from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 5 to 6 p.m. on Mondays at Pattonville High School (except for days when school is closed due to holidays, breaks or winter weather). For the upcoming winter break, there will be no meals offered on Dec. 28. Meal service will resume on Jan. 4. Read more: bit.ly/psdmeals20

Congratulations to 2020 Pattonville High School and Pattonville Band Boosters alumnus Thomas McFarland for being named the 2020 High School Band Directors National Association (HSBDNA) National Marching Band Student of the Year. He was also a finalist for the National Concert Band Student of the Year. McFarland is currently attending Missouri State University and is a member of the drumline for the Missouri State University Pride Bands and plays vibraphone in a jazz combo. He...Continue reading

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Drummond fifth grader Dimarvion Waldon. He was recognized by art teacher Ms. Carolyn Elliott.

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Holman Middle School sixth grader Javier Reyes Damian. He was recognized by teacher Ms. Trina Cornell.

Pattonville High School hosted a Senior Blast tonight for the Class of 2021 featuring fireworks, snacks and a free T-shirt. The free event was scheduled just prior to finals to give seniors some encouragement and to celebrate that they are halfway to graduation.

Congratulations to Pattonville Heights Middle School seventh grader Harmoni Nunley for winning third place in the Money Smart St. Louis (Money Smart STL) Creative Arts Contest. The contest encouraged sixth through eighth grade students to create a 1-minute original song and submit a video answering this year’s Credit Awareness Month question. She won a prize of $250 toward a college saving award. Seventh grade counselor Ms. Laura Lancaster was her sponsor and won a $50 grant to use for students at Pattonville Heights.

The Pattonville Fire Protection District delivered two red sleighs full of toys to be given to Pattonville students in need. The red sleighs (technically an antique fire truck and an ambulance) pulled up to the Pattonville Pattonville Early Childhood Center and the nine elves (technically firefighters) quickly unloaded the vehicles. The fire district has been collecting toys for Pattonville students for nine years through its "Breakfast with Santa" event at one of its fire st...ations. Due to COVID-19, they had to cancel that event and found other ways to solicit donations, and the community rose to the occasion. Through private donations and toy drives like the one senior Jaxon Luraschi helped organize at Pattonville High School, this year’s Fill Up the Fire Truck Christmas Toy Drive was one of its largest ever. Other large donations came from the firefighters themselves, Arch Amusements, Superior Heating and Cooling and Zoltek Corporation. Our community came out and they had a huge donation, probably the biggest pile of toys we’ve ever received through this donation process, said Kenny Krieg of the Pattonville Fire Protection District. Hopefully we’ll be able to help several families that otherwise may not have had as much of a merry Christmas.

Congratulations to Pattonville High School freshman Kylie Surratt for being named first-team all-district for girls volleyball. She was among the area leaders in blocks, digs and kills this season.

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Parkwood fifth grader Jake Nagle. He was recognized by teacher Ms. Regina Wright.

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Drummond fourth grader Danyelle Trammell. She was recognized by teacher Ms. Brittany Garcia.

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Bridgeway second grader Tamia Hardwrict. She was recognized by teacher Ms. Emily Lerman.

Pattonville School District is now hiring for Food Service positions. We offer: *Part-time and substitute positions *Employee benefits (for part-time employees)... *Competitive pay *Average 3.5 hours per day If interested or have more questions, please visit http://bit.ly/PSDFoodService20

Watch KSDK News Frank Cusumano's feature story about a father and son's shared love of basketball. The varsity team, coached by Pattonville High School business teacher Kelly Thames, is off to a 3-0 start and ranked No. 4 in the Gateway Sports Venue Large School Boys Basketball Power Rankings (Dec. 13-20). Junior Kellen Thames is averaging 19 points and leads the area with 9.33 assists per game.

To help plan for the remainder of the school year, Pattonville families are asked to select their children’s learning option for the second semester by Friday, Nov. 6. Families have two learning choices: - Villemade Virtual Academy (100% virtual learning) or - In-person learning with phases that change depending on the health conditions in the community and in our schools. All families must complete an online form in their Parent Portal in PowerSchool indicating a learning... choice for their child(ren) by Friday, Nov. 6. Read More: http://bit.ly/PSDLearningChoice

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Drummond fourth grader Selena Jackson. She was recognized by reading specialist Ms. Laura Witte.

After learning about space, students in Mr. Hunter Drew’s science class at Pattonville Heights Middle School did an activity last week to better understand the scale of the solar system. The Solar System in the Hallway activity consisted of a scale model of the solar system so students could better comprehend the size and location of the planets.

PIRATE PRAISE Today's student is Rose Acres second grader Parker Gliedt. She was recognized by teacher Ms. Heather Strohmyer.