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FRIDAY FOCUS
Runnels Weekly E-Newsletter from Head of School Marcia Mackay
Dear Runnels Family,
In this week's Friday Focus: True Dedication; Spreading Comfort, Joy and Care; Strings Students Participate in Professional Development Clinic; Building Digital Skills with The Hour of Code; A Raider Christmas Play; Scenes from Poetry and Myth; Thank Yous; Friendly Reminders;
Hero Spotlight; Weekly Photo Album; and Athletic Corner.
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Don McMath
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A Sign of True Dedication
As an enduring tribute to his extraordinary generosity, support, and friendship to our school, "Building One" has been officially named "McMath Hall" in honor of Mr. Don McMath, the man who saved it after the flood.
"Building One received some of the heaviest damage on the campus," explained Chairman of the Board of Trustees, President of Runnels, Inc., and Founding Headmaster Dr. L.K. Runnels. "Before Don McMath came along, our original contractor for 'Building One' had had enormously expensive and unnecessary 'repairs' planned for the building."
Though Mr. McMath and his company, McMath Construction, were initially brought in to work on the buildings throughout the rest of the campus, he agreed to have a look at Building One. After assessing the damage, his response was kind-hearted, generous, and encouraging: "I can get the building back up and running for you at a reasonable price."
Just like that, he stepped up and took on the extreme challenge of resurrecting Building One, home to our kindergarten through third grade classrooms, the Elementary Library, the Drama Room, and several key school offices (while also restoring the rest of the campus).
"We have been truly blessed by having the services of a contractor the caliber of Mr. McMath," said Dr. Runnels. "His company's hard work, generosity, and concern for our school helped us get back on campus in 10 short weeks."
Mr. McMath and his wife, Debbie, who selected the new paint colors for the interior walls and lost furnishings, have embraced our school family like part of their own.
Another very important factor was the tireless work
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Installing a new sign near the side entrance to McMath Hall are (from left) Runnels building and grounds crew members Kody Howell, Kenny Copsey and David Cummings.
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of our other major contractor, Wayne Catalano, whose responsibility was to "mitigate" the damage of the flood (i.e., to tear out and remove the damage from the flood and decontaminate the remaining structures). Next week's Friday Focus will detail his contributions.
Again and again, Mr. McMath has worked with us to find solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems. His unfailing support, boundless generosity, and exceptional commitment to our school have earned a permanent place in our hearts.
On behalf of our whole school community, we extend our grateful appreciation and thanks for Mr. McMath's unwavering support, devotion, and generosity to Runnels and are excited to dedicate "Building One" as "McMath Hall" in his honor. Your extraordinary friendship and spirit of kindness have touched the hearts of so many, and will continue to touch the lives of our students for years to come. Thank you, Mr. McMath.
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Comfort, Joy and Care for the Needy
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Sixth-grade Girl Scouts Sarah Burleigh, Emma Collett, Maddy Reonas, Brianna Williams and Amelia Breeden prepare to serve up a feast at the St. Vincent de Paul Sweet Dreams Homeless Shelter in November.
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On Nov. 21, 6th-grade Girl Scout Troop 10164 volunteered at the St. Vincent de Paul's Sweet Dreams Homeless Shelter. Emma Collett, Maddie Reonas, Sarah Burleigh, Brianna Williams, and Amelia Breeden served dinner to the women and children temporarily housed there. The girls' parents provided part of the meal that was served. Residents enjoyed ham, cheesy stuffed pasta bake, green bean casserole, salad, rolls, cookies, and brownies.
Girls from the troop volunteered at Sunrise Senior Living on Dec. 2. Emma Collett, Maddie Reonas, Sarah Burleigh, Brianna Williams, Hannah Landry, Amelia Breeden and Samantha Marino helped at a bingo game for the residents and awarded prizes to the winners. They also sang Christmas carols while the residents enjoyed dinner.
Members of the Junior Beta Club recently gathered  in the Drama Room to help make mats for the homeless out of plastic bags. Guiding them through the activity was quilter Carol Bell whose quilting group meets weekly to make mats for those in need. "Our club members assisted Ms Carol and her group by collecting, flattening, and tying strands of plastic bags together," said Junior Beta Club sponsor Christine Pousson. Margaret Baird, the wife of 5th-grade science teacher John Baird, is a member of the quilting group. (Photo: Junior Beta Club members help quilters transform ordinary plastic bags into mats for the homeless.)
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Strings Students Participate in Professional Development Clinic at LMEA Convention
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At the LMEA conference are (from left) guest clinician Dr. Sandra Dackow, Runnels String Orchestra Director Jennifer Cassin, and fifth-hour strings students Farzeen Wahid and Ashley Belcher.
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Runnels fourth and fifth hour strings students took part in a teaching demonstration at the Louisiana Music Educators Association's (LMEA) 2016 Professional Development Conference held Nov. 19-21 at the Crowne Plaza in Baton Rouge. The demonstration, entitled "The Young String Orchestra: A Powerhouse of Sound," was presented by guest clinician Dr. Sandra Dackow, who arranged a piece by Mozart for the workshop. Dr. Dackow, who holds three degrees from the Eastman School of Music and serves as music director of the Hershey Symphony Orchestra in Pennsylvania, has published more than 100 works for student orchestras and is an author of Alfred's Orchestra Expressions, Tempo Press's Expressive Techniques for Orchestra, and a co-author of the MENC (NAfME) Complete String Guide.
Tempo Press, Dr. Dackow's exclusive publisher, recently donated six boxes of music to our strings program, including complete sets of scores and parts as well as methods books. The value of the music exceeds $10,000. We sincerely thank Dr. Dackow and Tempo Press for this generous gift to our school.
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Building Digital Skills with Hour of Code
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First grader Trinity Perkins plays a game that teaches programming protocols as she participates in the Hour of Code in the Elementary Computer Lab this morning.
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Runnels students in grades 1-3 joined millions around the globe this week in exploring the world of computer programming by participating in The Hour of Code.
"This is a global initiative that aspires to bring computer science to over 10 million students, especially under represented populations, including girls," explained Elementary Introduction to Computer Science teacher Sheri Allen, who guided Runnels students through Hour of Code activities in the Elementary Computer Science Lab. "I chose to work with lower elementary students on this because I feel these activities will encourage them to be persistent when they come across difficult material. It will also spark their interest in computer science."
The Hour of Code calls for students to use popular games, toys and movies, such as Minecraft, Legos and Star Wars, to learn beginning coding skills. "They watch instructional videos and build coding blocks to manipulate the characters," said Ms. Allen. "Coding requires students to think critically and problem solve in a creative way that's also fun."
She added that grade 4-6 students in her Introduction to Computer Science class practice coding every single day, using Scratch and Python coding languages. "Hour of Code activities are lagniappe for these students," she said.
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| The 2A cast of 'Together, Forever. A Raider Christmas'. |
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A Raider Christmas
Story on Stage
In late July, elementary drama teacher Julie Horridge made a special trip to school to pick out the musical her 2nd and 3rd graders would do for Christmas. She carefully set aside the scripts on a shelf in the Drama Room. Then came the flood. Her scripts were lost along with many other cherished children's plays that had been stored in the Drama Room. Though the script was lost, Christmas was still on its way, and Mrs. Horridge and her students were determined to produce a holiday play.
"During the last week or so at Brighton, my third-grade classes and one section of second grade set about brainstorming ideas for our play," said Mrs. Horridge. The only requirement was that it be set in Louisiana and have something to do with Christmas."
Eventually, she explained, the idea of including the flood and how it affected Runnels as part of the play surfaced, and ideas began to "blossom."
Though Mrs. Horridge handled most of the writing and production tasks for the new musical entitled Together, Forever: A Raider Christmas herself, many ideas were contributed by students. "Throughout the process, I asked them for their input on each scene and whether it 'felt good' to them," she said.
The music, Mrs. Horridge explained, is a patchwork of songs from well-known works including
Oliver,
A Christmas Story,
Bye-Bye Birdie, and
High School Musical. "Some of the songs only needed slight word changes to make them applicable to our scenes," she added.
Together, Forever: A Raider Christmas was presented this week in the Elementary Drama Room by the students in 2A, 3A, 3B and 3C. It was greeted with much acclaim and will be added to our new library of student musicals and dramas.
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Reide Walker as a Queen Bee and Molly Bush as a Book Louse in the 4th and 5th grade play, 'Joyful Noise.'
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Scenes from Poetry and Myth
Upper elementary drama students in Melissa Bush's classes drew inspiration for their December plays from the worlds of poetry and mythology.
The 4th and 5th grade students in second hour drama offered their portrayals of house crickets, book lice, honeybees, water striders, butterflies, and cicadas as presented in Paul Fleischman's Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices.
"As a class," said Mrs. Bush, "we wrote an introduction, which students performed at the opening of the play. The students also did research on their insects, finding factual elements from the poems to see how the author took the facts about the bugs and transformed them into creative peeks into the 'secret lives of insects.'"
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Carter Parsons, grade 4, as Orpheus in 'Mythology Madness!'
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Students in fourth hour drama class (all 4th graders) based their performances on ancient mythology. To generate ideas for their show, the class read several short plays about some of the most popular Greek and Roman myths. "As a group, the class performed Echo and Narcissus," said Mrs. Bush, "because they loved the characters and message of the play."
Each student also performed a one-minute monologue about his or her favorite mythological character. The children did the research for the monologues and Mrs. Bush wrote the scripts.
Both classes earned hearty applause from appreciative audiences after performances in the Drama Room this week.
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Military pilot Major Merle Walker and fifth-grade students.
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Flying Lessons
In connection with their studies of aviation in John Baird's science classes, the fifth grade welcomed military pilot Major Merle Walker to Runnels on Dec. 5. He shared insights about his life in the cockpit and held a lively Q and A session with our well informed and inquisitive students. Many thanks to Major Walker for taking the time to visit with our students and to Runnels dad Bruce Kelfstrom for facilitating his appearance at our school.
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Sadie Edwards, grade 3, with her picture, 'City with Sun,' on display at the Visual and Performing Arts Showcase and Book Fair at Barnes & Noble on Dec. 2.
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Arts Showcase Wrap Up
We sincerely thank all of the students and teachers who participated in the Visual and Performing Arts Showcase and Book Fair at Barnes & Noble at Citiplace last weekend. The art show was magnificent and the performances, extraordinary! We also thank everyone who stopped by and purchased books in support of our library programs. A thank you also goes to our Student Ambassadors for greeting patrons at the welcome table and Beta Club and National Honor Society members for manning the gift wrap stand. As always, the staff of Barnes & Noble did everything in its power to make our event a great success.
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Dec. 11: Advanced String Orchestra
performs during brunch service at Boudreaux's Restaurant on Government St. from 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Dec. 12: "Tacky Holiday Sweater Day" for students and staff.
Dec. 13 - 16: Midterm Exams for Jr./Sr. High
.
Click here
for schedule
Dec. 13 - Last Day To Donate to "Toys for Tots" at Runnels Elementary! The U.S. Marine Corps Reserve's "Toys for Tots" program provides books, toys and other gifts to children in need over the holiday season. If you would like to contribute, please bring new, unwrapped toys to school and put them in the "Toys for Tots" collection boxes located in the foyer of the Elementary School Office in McMath Hall on or before Tuesday, Dec. 13.
Dec. 15:
Elementary Chorus Concert
, 2:30 p.m., Drama Room.
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Hero Spotlight
"Drama and Dessert" Events Benefit Theater Department
St. Joseph's Academy held two benefit "Drama and Dessert" events in December to raise funds for the Runnels Theater Department. St. Joseph student Vivian Brown, who has worked on community theater productions with Runnels K-12 Theater Program Chair Neena Kelfstrom, came up with the idea. The first "Drama and Dessert" performance was Cafe' Murder, directed by St. Joseph's Academy senior Caroline Chevert, and the second was Marmalade, an original play written and directed by St. Joseph senior Chloe Bergeron. "Drama and Desserts" proved a great success. More than $2,000 was raised to benefit the Runnels Theater Department. We send our grateful thanks to the students at St. Joseph's Academy for devising this creative pathway for helping our school.
Homegrown Author Donates Books
Children's author and Baton Rouge native Julie Sternberg has donated copies of her books (
Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie,
Top-Secret Diary of Celie Valentine series, and more) as well as books on our Amazon Wish List to our library program. We thank Ms. Sternberg for these thoughtful and treasured gifts.
 A Surprise from Jostens
Mitchell Haynes of Jostens (the company that supplies our school rings, letter jackets, graduation supplies and other items) surprised us this week with a $500 donation from his corporate office. Many thanks to Mr. Haynes and the other big-hearted folks at Jostens.
Photo: Assistant Head of School and Junior and Senior High Principal Conchetta Foshee receives a donation from Jostens delivered by Mitchell Haynes this week.
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Three members of our varsity girls soccer team participated in a national college soccer event last week, reports High School Athletic Director Tookie Johnson. "Ally Garrity, Lainee Alfonso and Avery Hamachek represented Baton Rouge soccer clubs at an amateur soccer showcase tournament in North Carolina." The event drew high school age players from all around the country.
The girls soccer team dropped a game to U-High, 5-0, this week.
Basketball
The Raiders and Lady Raider basketball teams traveled to Catholic High Point Coupee this week. The varsity boys team won its game, but the girls basketball team lost in spite of putting forth a great effort.
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DONATE TO OUR DISASTER RELIEF FUND
Please consider making a tax-free donation to the Runnels Disaster Relief Fund. Contributions will be directed toward flood recovery and reopening our main campus as soon as possible. We are immensely grateful for your continuing support as our school rebounds from this unprecedented event.
We are Raider Strong!
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17255 South Harrell's Ferry Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70816
225-751-2192 |
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PRESCHOOL THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL
