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Written by: Joanne Wallenstein

Published: 29 September 2015

Created: 29 September 2015

Last Updated: 29 September 2015

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Scarsdale families had a blast building straw men and women at the Scarecrow Festival at Scarsdale Pool on Sunday September 27. Close to 200 people attended with 34 families signing up to build their own scarecrows. The weather was perfect and everyone enjoyed hot dogs, corn on the cob, apple cider, music, and face painting while doing some very creative work. 

Fall fun continues with a Halloween Parade in Scarsdale Village and Halloween Window Painting on Sunday October 18th.

Photo Credit: Anthony DiDomenico

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Written by: Midori Im

Published: 22 September 2015

Created: 22 September 2015

Last Updated: 22 September 2015

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Greenacres Elementary families and faculty gathered at the start of the new academic year at the annual back to school picnic. Areas of the field were marked off by classroom, so that parents and students could easily find their new classmates and informally meet their teachers. In furtherance of the school's goal of zero-waste events, composting bins were left out, and sixth graders who had moved on to middle school helped oversee trash separation. This year Greenacres, the oldest school in the district, continues to celebrate its centennial with special events which will culminate in a huge celebration of current and past students, families, and faculty at the Diamond Jubilee Gala on November 20th and a family celebration on November 29th. More information can be found at the link below.

PTA / 100th Year Celebration

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Written by: Caroline Donat

Published: 14 September 2015

Created: 14 September 2015

Last Updated: 14 September 2015

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On the evening of Thursday September 10 the curriculum at SHS turned from academics to driving safety when seniors and their parents met in the auditorium to attend a mandatory meeting for students who wished to obtain campus parking permits. As an SHS senior driver, I waited with my peers and parents in the auditorium and heard an occasional grumble from classmates about not being able to come and go quickly to obtain parking privileges. However, Youth Outreach worker Lauren Pomerantz and Assistant Principal Chris Griffen quickly drew focus and concern when they introduced speakers, Jacy Good and Steve Johnson. Mr. Griffen offered some frightening statistics: motor vehicle accidents are the lead cause of teenage death in the United States. Good went beyond the numbers to give us an understanding of what that could really mean for us.

In 2008, Good graduated Muhlenburg College as an honors student. She was excited about her plan for the future: she would move to Brooklyn, work for Habitat for Humanity, and continue dating her college sweetheart Steve Johnson. These plans were abruptly interrupted in the middle of rural Pennsylvania on her final drive home from school. Her parents were driving at a legal speed when a car drove through a red light at an intersection, causing a deadly collision. The driver was an eighteen-year-old – a senior at the local high school. He had been driving and while talking on the phone with friends when he made a mistake that took the lives of both of Good's parents.

While her parents were beyond saving, Good was rushed to the hospital. She had a ten percent chance of living through the night. "She looked like death. I couldn't recognize her," Johnson recalled.

The accident was so severe that Good can remember neither the crash nor her time in the hospital. She suffered a myriad of harm, including partially collapsed lungs, broken legs, and brain damage. Miraculously, she was eventually able to rehabilitate herself and return to her childhood home, where she realized that her parents were really gone. Good's brother had to tell their 85-year-old grandmother that her child had died while he planned a funeral and prayed for his sister.

Good stressed the idea that a seemingly small action, such as responding to a phone call, can have an enormous ripple effect. For example, her mother's death affected the hundreds of children to whom she taught English every day.

Good and Johnson spoke to their audience knowing that this new generation of drivers can prevent a similar tragedy. The founded an organization called Hang Up and Drive to educate young drivers about the danger of driving and talking on the phone. I looked around the auditorium to see the previously antsy crowd taking out phones to download apps that respond to calls and messages saying that the user is busy driving. People started signing pledges to be responsible drivers that were circulated by the speakers.

Even though the speaker's message is easy to ignore because their tragedy did not directly involve us, they are invaluable to hear as they bring us back to reality every now and then. While laws and regulations promote safe driving, the drivers and passengers are the ones who can truly control a situation. As teenagers, we will continue to want to play our music so everyone on the block can hear, and speed up like we will live forever. However, wake-up calls like Johnson's and Good's make for more moments in which we doubt our invincibility. They remind us that our fates, and the fates of others are on the road, are our responsibility.

The assembly was sponsored the Scarsdale High School PTA Safety Committee and the Scarsdale High School Administration.

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Written by: Joanne Wallenstein

Published: 09 September 2015

Created: 09 September 2015

Last Updated: 10 September 2015

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The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the names of seven students from Edgemont High School and sixteen students from Scarsdale High School who are among 16,000 Semifinalists in the 61st annual National Merit Scholarship Program.

About 1.5 million juniors in more than 22,000 high schools entered the 2016 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2014 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of Semifinalists, representing less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest- scoring entrants in each state. The number of Semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state's percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.

The names of the Semifinalists from Edgemont and Scarsdale are as follows:

Edgemont:

Jeremy B. Goldstein
Faizan M. Hussain
Aaditya Jain
Nicholas Kim
Justin L. Lue
Jared Rosner
Peifeng Wang

Scarsdale:

Mahiro Abe
Gustaf W. Ahdritz
Zachary J. Bernstein
Harry S. Chalfin
Alexander A. First
Jack Glaser
Carly A. Glickenhaus
Samuel M. Goldman
Taylor L. Lonner
Nathan Mainster
Charles B. Musoff
Uzair M. Qadir
Samantha L. Seltzer
Nicolas Stainfeld
Garrett W. Tanzer
Sophie R. Ulene

These high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,400 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. About 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.

To become a Finalist, the Semifinalist and his or her high school must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the Semifinalist's academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. A Semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record through- out high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® scores that confirm the student's earlier performance on the qualifying test.

From the approximately 16,000 Semifinalists, about 15,000 are expected to advance
to the Finalist level, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of Finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.

National Merit Scholarships
Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2016.
Every Finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit® $2500 Scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis. About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 250 corporations and business organizations for Finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor's employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 190 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 3,900 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards for Finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.
National Merit Scholarship winners of 2016 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 315,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

NMSC, a not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance, was established in 1955 specifically to conduct the annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its own funds and by approximately 440 business organizations and higher education institutions that share NMSC's goals of honoring the nation's scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence.