Classes began at San Domenico School on Monday, August 23, with a renewed sense of excitement and commitment to excellent teaching and learning. This year's new school year is particularly memorable for the high school class of 2013 as they are given new digital tools: Macbooks assigned to each sophomore.
"At San Domenico, we believe that technology is a tool that complements learning," explained Dr. David Behrs, San Domenico’s Head of Schools. "I strongly believe that each student should have equal access to a tool that is so essential to today's high school student." San Domenico first piloted a 1-1 laptop program as part of the freshman year experience. This year marks the expansion of the school's integrated technology program into the second year of high school.
"Teachers expect a student to walk into the classroom with a notepad and a pen," elaborated Dean Partlow, Division Head of the San Domenico High School. "By utilizing a 1-1 laptop program, our faculty are confident that they can incorporate thoughtful use of computer technology into any class setting with a minimum of challenge and frustration."
San Domenico intends to expand its 1-1 laptop program for all of its high school students in the fall of 2011. Additionally, faculty studies are considering appropriate expansion of integrated technology programs into its coeducational Middle School and Primary School programs.
An additional upgrade in technology access this year is the new use of student e-mail and web application access for all high school students. Powered by Google Apps for Education, a suite of web applications designed for use in educational institutions, San Domenico's new student e-mail experience will allow for greater communication and collaboration between faculty and students and between the students. "The ease with which our students approach the familiar 'gmail' interface allows communication to be central to the student experience," according to Christopher Sokolov, Director of Technology. "In addition to the email application, the 'docs' feature of this suite will allow us to continue in the direction of being less reliant on printouts and paper consumption in keeping with our school's long standing commitment to sustainability," he pointed out.
Posted
by apapsys
on Wednesday August 25 at 01:21PM
Eighth Grader Paige Waters (right) and incoming new San Domenico eighth grade student Lulu Bernstein are headed with their AAU basketball team to the grade based AAU National Championships in Rochester, Minnesota in early July.
Paige and Lulu are members of the San Francisco based Mission Rec. Basketball Team coached by Oscar Jimenez. The team has a 32-3 record and qualified for the Nationals in May’s Reno Regionals Championship Game. The girls will face the best Division I teams in the country and are looking forward to the competition!
The first “celebratory load” was delivered to San Domenico School’s newest composting site this week. With the blessing of school leaders and help from students and parent volunteers, the site, which is in the northwest corner of the campus, was cleared and leveled to accommodate compostable manure from the 30+ horses in the San Domenico Riding School. The project’s vision became a reality when Riding School Director Susanna Denham initiated a new kind of stall bedding that makes the carbon/nitrogen ratio more usable as compost, in addition to reducing the waste (i.e. manure) by 50%. By eliminating an outside vendor for manure collection and generating compost on campus, San Domenico will save approximately $20,000 annually.
Sustainable San Domenico Director Shelly Flint and parent Vernon Huffman oversaw installation of the site’s water source, an artesian well located on San Domenico land, which will aid the composting process. The well also feeds the school’s nearby one-acre garden.
Flint and Huffman with Barn Manager Roberto Cervantes (left) and Riding School Director Susanna Denham (2nd from right).
The San Domenico Dance Department, San Domenico Singers, and the San Domenico Art Department present the annual "Concerto da Primavera" and Spring Art Show on Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. in the Hall of the Arts.
Join this celebration of the four elements -- featuring student art, choreography and musical selections from Medieval to modern, classical to hip hop. Selections include works by Hildegard of Bingen, Bach, Mendelssohn, Morton Lauridsen, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Michael Jackson and Simon and Garfunkel. Tickets are $5 at the door and benefit the Dance Department and San Domenico Singers.
Congratualtions to senior Sabrina Wise who beat out 800 entries in the Marin High School Poetry Competition to win second prize for her poem, "Four Miles." Sabrina graduates from San Domenico’s high school in June and plans to attend Whitman College in Washington state this fall.
San Domenico School is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. David Behrs as Head of School, effective August 2, 2010. The announcement follows an eight-month national search conducted by the San Domenico Search Committee with the guidance of Gregory Floyd & Associates in Maine. Prior to his current position as President of St. Mary-of-the-Woods in Indiana, Dr. Behrs served as both the Associate Provost for University Initiatives and the Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management at Dominican University in San Rafael. He always planned to return to Marin where his wife, Maureen, has remained a beloved member of the county as a first grade teacher at Tam Valley Elementary School in Mill Valley. Read the full press release here.
On April 23 San Domenico senior Kate Smith traveled to New York City as a representative of Teens Turning Green, to participate in e4-NYC: Eco Expo for Environmental Education. The student-run conference was held at The Collegiate School, where Kate led panel discussions on the many different ways to live an all-encompassing eco-lifestyle – from the clothes they wear, to the food they eat, to the classrooms that students spend all of their time in. She also facilitated a workshop on EcoFashion and how old clothing can be made into fun, new styles without using excess energy and materials to do so. Other panelists included prominent "green" entrepreneurs, including Barney's New York fashion director Julie Gilhart.
Kate Smith is co-president of Teens Turning Green, a national student led movement devoted to education and advocacy around environmentally and socially responsible choices for individuals, schools, and communities. She became involved in the organization during her freshman year at San Domenico and as president has worked with many green company owners, environmental activists, and local and state politicians to change policy that will protect the health of consumers and the environment.
More than 140 students from 16 Marin County middle schools participated in the 28th annual Margie Burke Memorial Speech Tournament hosted by Ross School on Saturday.
San Domenico seventh-grader Adam Libresco was named a tournament champion. In addition to the overall titles, judges awarded gold, silver and bronze medals in 32 separate event rooms for dramatic interpretation, impromptu, original prose and poetry and persuasive speaking. These included: a bronze for Dramatic Interpretation for Sarah Modlin (8th grade); a gold medal for Dramatic Interpretation for her sister, Emily Modlin (6th); and a gold medal for Persuasive Speech for Nicole Stock (6th).
"More impressive than all the medals, is that every one of our students recited a piece that was creative, emotional, intelligent, persuasive, original, provocative, and entertaining," says faculty moderator Mirza Khan. "I am, once again, deeply proud of our students."
Each year high school French teacher Mme. Dunlap enters her top students in the French National Contest. This is a rigorous, comprehensive exam, testing listening comprehension, reading and grammar in French. After months of weekly practice exams, each of the three nominated French students placed in the top 10 of their levels in both the Northern California (out of thousands of students) and national rankings (out of tens of thousands). Feliciations to all!!!
Sophomore Jacqueline Rees-Mikula: 7th Northern CA, 7th National (French 3) Sophomore Kali Collmore: 6th Northern CA, 6th National (French 3) Senior Liz Ryan: 7th Northern CA, 10th National (French 4)
Marea Otter '11 has been named California Fire Exploring Academy 2010 Explorer of the Year – and award given to just one individual from the entire state for “positive attitude, hard work, dedication and leadership exemplifying the ideal firefighter.” She was selected from a pool of more than 150 boys and 10 girls. Fire chiefs from across the state chose Marea, making her the second girl in the history of this program to receive the award.
On April 23, Emma Feshbach ’11 was awarded the Youth Award for Environmental Leadership at the annual Marin Conservation League dinner. She was nominated by SD science chair Hilary Staples for her years of student leadership on the annual Green conferences at San Domenico. Emma credits the school’s commitment to sustainability for encouraging her involvement and thanked the many attendees for all they have done to protect Marin. She also pledged to help continue the work they do and encouraged other youth as well.
Inspired by San Domenico’s science program, Emma is looking at universities with active science research departments, particularly in evolutionary Biology. For Emma, having a twin brother with autism has also developed in her a curiosity about the working of the brain. This summer she will be living in Boston and interning at the M.I.T Media Lab, supporting research programs and helping supervise a program there for teens with autism.
Emma is also the recipient of Next Generation’s 2010 Marin Youth Activist Award.
For the fourth consecutive year, the Social Justice Club and Painting and Drawing students are collaborating on The Memory Project. The Memory Project is an organization that links children living in orphanages throughout the world with high school artists from the United States. The student artists use photos provided by the orphanages to draw or paint the portraits of the children who then receive the artworks as keepsakes from their childhoods. In years past, San Domenico students have created portraits for children in Egypt, Iraq, Mexico, and Myanmar. This year, the students will be painting and drawing portraits for children living in Uganda.
Just in time for Earth Day, Sustainable San Domenico has planned an e-waste pick-up day. On Wednesday, April 21, representatives from Marin Sanitary Service will be in the school’s Visitor Parking Lot from 7:30 am to 12 noon. The following items will be accepted for recycling: battery back-up systems, cables, cords and wires, cell phones and accessories, computers, digital cameras, fax machines, flash drives, hard drives, iPods, laptop computers and accessories, microwaves, modems, monitors, mp3 players, Palm Pilots and PDAs, PC cameras, printers, televisions, used batteries – size AAA to size D, and cell phone batteries.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, San Domenico School presents the “Green Scene,” a day-long workshop for students to connect and collaborate with like-minded youth and key community members in pursuit of a healthier and more sustainable future. The program begins with an opening ceremony at 8:15 a.m. on Friday, April 23 and runs until 3:00 p.m. A wide range of workshops will be offered throughout the day, including sustainable gardening, composting, eco-cuisine, a t-shirt reuse project, a panel titled “Students Leading the Way”, and the unveiling of San Domenico’s own carbon footprint study. There will also be a screening of the documentary film, Fresh.
Admission is free for San Domenico students, $10 all others, and registration is now open. All participants will be provided with a healthy, organic lunch in the school’s award winning one-acre teaching garden. For more information, call 415-258-1975.
San Domenico is the recipient of the National Association of Independent Schools' 2007 "Leading Edge" award for sustainability and in 2008 the school's Garden of Hope was registered as a Bay-Friendly School Garden by StopWaste.Org, the Alameda County Waste Management Authority which promotes waste reduction.
Looking for a deal on a getaway or rare wine? San Domenico School’s annual online auction is now open! Most opening bids start at half off, like rare and “cult” wines, vacation packages, restaurant gift certificates, hotel stays, event tickets, and original artwork. The online potion of the all-school auction will culminate in a sold-out live auction and dinner gala on April 30 at the Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco. The event, which is planned months in advance by parents, is expected to raise more than $200,000 to support instructional resources, financial aid, and faculty enrichment. Bidding is open to everyone through April 28. Register at sandomenico.org or call 415-258-1931 for more information.
Leena Culhane MS'04, a UCLA sophomore and Fairfax resident, is launching her first full-length album, Songs for the Record, during a Northern California launch party at the Sleeping Lady Café in Fairfax on Friday, March 26 at 9pm.
Already popular on iTunes, Leena writes, sings, plays, and co-produces all the songs on the album and many of them feature Bay Area locations and experiences, while addressing important contemporary themes: taking a stand, confronting distance, and living your song. The album was released on iTunes earlier this month and has received early acclaim.
High school alumna Jessica Tierney '00 will receive her PhD in Geology, Paleoclimatology and Geophysical Chemistry from Brown University this May, and Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory has already offered her the NOOA UCAR Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Her parents credit San Domenico’s all girls program for “the fine educational foundation provided... [which empowers] the girls to go out and take on the world as powerful women. That is exactly what Jessica did and is doing.”
On Tuesday afternoon, our 7th and 8th grade Mathletes teams competed in the final county meet of the season. After the scores were tallied, the winners for the 09-10 season were announced: San Domenico's 7th grade Mathletes won first place!
Congratulations to all of the students who participated, and especially to our 7th grade team: Kendall Christie, Adam Libresco, Will Martel, Rachele Nagler, and Manisha Patel! Thank you also to our incredible math department and to our Mathletes moderators, Brooke Gelber and Jock Christie!
Posted
by apapsys
on Wednesday March 17 at 01:28PM
San Domenico eighth grader Sarah Modlin was awarded 1st place in the junior division (14 and under) by the National Association of Teachers of Singing vocal scholarship auditions on February 27 in Santa Rosa.
She performed two pieces, L'ho Perduta, Me Meschina from “The Marriage of Figaro” by Mozart, and “The Sun Shall Be No More Thy Light” by Dr. Maurice Greene. She will receive a monetary prize to further her voice training.
Sarah's formal voice training only began (with faculty member Marian Marsh) when she entered sixth grade at San Domenico, although Sarah has participated in musical theater in the past.
“Singing is so personal, because my instrument is me,” Sarah says of choosing to study voice.
SD’s 2008 middle school graduate Seth Coad-Douglass recently competed in – and won! – the 2010 Marin Music Chest Scholarship for vocalists, with former SD teacher, Connie Herbert, accompanying on the piano. He sang "Now, O Now I Needs Must Part" by John Dowland and "Vittoria, Mio core!" (in Italian) by Giacomo Carissimi. The scholarship award he received will be used to support and further Seth’s musical training. At the end of June, he will perform with the American High School Honors Performance Series Choral Group at Carnegie Hall in New York. Seth is also the recipient of a San Francisco Choral Society scholarship.
The first “celebratory load” was delivered to San Domenico School’s newest composting site this week. With the blessing of school leaders and help from students and parent volunteers, the site, which is in the northwest corner of the campus, was cleared and leveled to accommodate compostable manure from the 30+ horses in the San Domenico Riding School. The project’s vision became a reality when Riding School Director Susanna Denham initiated a new kind of stall bedding that makes the carbon/nitrogen ratio more usable as compost, in addition to reducing the waste (i.e. manure) by 50%. By eliminating an outside vendor for manure collection and generating compost on campus, San Domenico will save approximately $20,000 annually.
