in the spirit ...

langley eNews

October 8, 2020

from the ptsa president

As we move into the rhythm of the fall, Langley's PTSA committees continue to find ways to help parents and students engage and connect at Langley and in our community. Despite the need to stay physically distanced, there are things we can do, including getting outside to enjoy this beautiful weather! Here’s an engagement checklist for the coming weeks. Read on for more!

Connect at Langley:

Share ideas with us for connecting and supporting our school community through this form.
Encourage your student to check out and submit a piece to Langley’s student-run literary magazine, Kaleidoscope.
Purchase Langley spirit wear items for your student – or treat yourself! See the items here.
Join PTSA by Oct 19 to be entered into the parent member raffle.
Donate a gift card for the PTSA teacher and staff raffle. Contact Kristen Simko at kristen.simko@gmail.com to donate.
Create a yearbook senior ad for your Class of 2021 student by Oct 24.
Support our Langley Courtyard landscaping project.

Community Engagement Opportunities:

Donate or get involved to help those in need through Volunteer Fairfax.
Sign up for a community event, such as the Rise Against Hunger Race to School Challenge 5K and 10K fundraiser. Students can earn community service credit! Register here.
Register for Setting the Tone: Habits for a Smooth Virtual Learning Experience webinar on Oct 15 with author Ana Homayoun, sponsored by Safe Community Coalition. Register here for this free webinar.

We will keep you posted as our efforts progress!

~ Kitty Gonzalez, PTSA President

support the ptsa

support our teacher and staff raffle: One perk of PTSA membership for our teacher and staff members is that they are eligible for frequent raffles for gift cards! Our first winner this year was Gina Song, a teacher in Langley's Science Department, who received a $25 Amazon gift card.

In the past, we’ve given away $5, $10 and $20 gift cards to Amazon, Dunkin Donuts and several local businesses. It’s a great way to show Langley teachers how much we appreciate them for all the work they do with our students. If you’d like to donate, please email Kristen Simko at kristen.simko@gmail.com.

win a saxon blanket: Parents, click here to join the ’20-21 PTSA and have a chance to win one of two Saxon fleece blankets. Deadline to be part of the raffle is Mon, Oct 19.

Your Langley PTSA membership and donation will support our students’ experience this year with teaching tools and technology, student programs and guest speakers, staff support and professional development and student awards and scholarships.

Thank you for supporting your students, teachers and staff, and Langley!

learn to drive

attention, sophomores: Langley is conducting a Partners in Safe Teen Driving (PSTD) seminar on Mon, Oct 12 at 6:30 pm. The seminar will be held virtually using the 9th period BBCU link that is already available. Students must attend virtually with a parent or legal guardian and fill out an exit ticket at the end to earn credit. Attending a PSTD seminar is a state requirement in order to pass classroom Driver Education as part of the Health and Physical Education 10 curriculum and to obtain a DEC-8 (pink) card.

behind the wheel: Is your student learning to drive? Behind the Wheel (BTW) courses are a part of the process and are available both privately and through FCPS. After closing due to the pandemic, BTW classes through FCPS are back in session! Click here to register.

verify your directory information

The PTSA works with AtoZ Connect to create Langley’s database for our student directory. This year our directory will be online only.

Returning families: you can verify your information now for our AtoZ directory database. Please take a moment to make sure your family’s contact information is up to date.

Login to AtoZ Connect here to verify your data for Langley HS. On your Households page, click on the orange Please Verify button for each parent, student, and home address.

New families: look for an email invitation to verify your data coming soon!

affiliate fundraising

Will you and your household shop on Amazon Prime Day on Oct 13 -14? Have you registered Langley High PTSA to benefit from your purchases? Here's how:

Visit www.smile.amazon.com
Click Accounts & Lists
Click Your Amazon Smile and enter Langley High PTSA
Save and shop!

Update all the devices used to shop and buy on Amazon and allow your purchases to help our school fundraising.

psat

This year the PSAT will be offered to juniors only and will take place on Thurs, Oct 29 at Langley. Juniors and their families should have received an email from Langley on Sun, Sept 27 with info and an Intent to Participate form. The form is due Fri, Oct 9. (No walk-ins will be allowed.) Questions? Contact Janice Dabroski at jldabroski@fcps.edu.

Due to the PSAT, Langley will follow an asynchronous schedule on Oct 29.

national merit scholarship program

Congratulations to Claire Chou on being named a National Merit Semifinalist. She joins the 13 Langley semifinalists announced last month.

In addition, congratulations to the following Commended Students in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program.

Mark Alink

Alison Buckler

Anna Carlucci

Lucy Chen

Christopher Cheng

Erika Chung

Avin Curtis

Cassandra Dallas

Stanislava Datskovska

Alexandra Dodzin

Stephen Draughn

Jackson Ellinger

Maximo Ellis

Luke Flaxman

Alexandra Gagnon

Jacob Hochstein

Leanne Hou

Taj Hutchinson

Daniel Kalish

Areej Khatri

Alyssa Kim

Andrew Kim

Srinija Kovvali

Brandon Liao

Olivia Lin

Nicholas Loria

Anand Menon

Genevieve Middleton

Kwanwoo Park

Eshna Parth

John Racich

Jonathan Reiss

Matthew Skakula

Colleen Sherry

Rupa Siva

Eleanor Smedberg

Ellison Soobert

Henry Swartz

Zachary Tam

Summer Thomas

Steven Trautwein

Emily Wu

Jennifer Wu

Tianyi Wu

Hyebin Yang

Miles Yang

Amanda Yo

Alexandra Zaffuts

Thomas Zavrel

Stephanie Zhang

Matthew Zheng

literary magazine

Are you interested in publishing your writing or art? Check out Kaleidoscope, the newly launched, student-run website of Langley’s literary magazine club. Students can submit writings or art year-round, and Kaleidoscope will be publishing students' works every month. All students can send in submissions and all works are welcome! Join in on the fun!

Submissions of any theme can be published at any time, but be sure to send your spookiest stories, photos, poems and more for the upcoming Halloween edition. If you have questions or a piece to share, email langleykaleidoscope@gmail.com. Other questions? Contact the club sponsor, Ms. Christina Mitro, at camitro@fcps.edu.

pen pals around the world

Écrivez aux étudiants! Pen Pals Around the World is a program initiated by Langley's National English Honor Society (NEHS). We connect Langley with students from all over the world and foster friendships through an age-old way of communicating – handwritten letters.

By writing handwritten letters, we hope to establish a personal exchange of ideas and cultures between students. This year, given the COVID-19 outbreak, we have built an online forum in which students can upload photos of their handwritten letters to share with students in other countries.

More than 200 students from Langley and schools around the world participated last year, welcoming students from France, Ukraine, Japan, Morocco, Germany, Turkey, Congo and more.

There are no prerequisites for this activity and you don't have to be a member of the NEHS to participate. Please fill out this form if you wish to join our international exchange! Questions? Contact Mrs. Chern at rdchern@fcps.edu or email langleypenpals@gmail.com.

virtual college week

This year, FCPS is holding a Virtual College Week Oct 19-23 instead of the traditional College Fair and College Night activities. Students and their parents may participate in any or all of several live, virtual sessions. Participants will learn about the current college admissions process and how to prepare for the next chapter of their educational journey.

View the College Week schedule here. Advance registration is required. You'll receive a unique access link 24 hours before the event(s) that you register to attend. Register here.

service learning

Although students are practicing social distancing right now, they can still provide service to the community. Virtual service learning can be as simple as shopping for food and delivering it to a food pantry (students must do all aspects of this service) or helping neighbors by walking the dog, raking leaves or mowing the lawn (remember, this is service so the student cannot get paid).

Hours earned in conjunction with an organization should be verified by an adult with the organization. Hours earned at home may be verified by a parent. For virtual service ideas, students should log on to their x2Vol account or visit Langley’s service learning webpage. Questions? Email Betsy Shomaker at enshomaker@fcps.edu.

sports notes

baseball: Interested in trying out for baseball? Click here and complete the form, using your FCPS student email address to log in. Those completing the form will be included in the Baseball group in Schoology for info and communications. Questions? Email jwsronce@fcps.edu.

crew: Langley Crew practices on Saturdays at LHS at 9 am for the women’s team and at 11 am for the men’s team. These practices are for both returning and new athletes, and there is no cost for attending. We can’t use equipment (i.e., ergs) for safety reasons, but our own fabulous coaches are conducting the practices. Check our website for further details and this promotional video.

staff spotlight

Which Langley staff member is the only person in her household not to have graduated from Langley? That would be Nancy Ayoub, Administrative Assistant to Principal Greer. Her husband, Charlie, is class of ’81 and her three children are Chaz ’07, Caitlin ’08 and Cameron ’13. As a new Langley parent in 2003, Mrs. Ayoub became involved in several volunteer activities supporting the school. She then started working at Langley in 2008.

Mrs. Ayoub has been Administrative Assistant to Principal Greer for three years. Her day-to-day responsibilities include scheduling appointments for Principal Greer, recording time and attendance for employees and substitutes, and keeping the Langley HS website up to date with announcements and events. Before this, she was the Activities Office Administrative Assistant and in charge of facility and room use as well as helping with student-athlete eligibility. Throughout her years at Langley, Mrs. Ayoub’s favorite part of her job has been being able to continue to interact with Langley's students, faculty and staff.

In their free time, the Ayoub family members are huge sports fans and especially enjoy attending Nationals and Orioles baseball games as well as Washington Football Team games. Mrs. Ayoub knows basketball quite well also, and played while growing up and attending school in Wheaton, MD.

Her advice to the students is “Respect yourself and others. Be smart and make good decisions!”

saxons, did you know ...

… as the shorter days and colder months are rolling in, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) symptoms begin. Robert Weiss, PhD, MSW wrote in Psychology Today “What happens when SAD occurs in conjunction with other forms of depression, especially the situational depression we’re currently seeing related to the COVID-19 pandemic, political strife, large-scale fires, hurricanes, racial divides, and other major societal issues?” This is uncharted territory and self-care is more important than ever. Read the article here.

class news

Read this section for class news and click the green class buttons to go to each class page for more details.

financial aid night: LHS Financial Aid Night is on Wed, Oct 14 at 7pm. Senior families are invited to join in this virtual forum to learn about paying for college. If you have questions you’d like Student Services to address, add them in this form before Oct 14 (no personal information is collected). The link to the forum will be sent 48 hours in advance.

stadium tribute: Hail Class of 2021! If you haven't had a chance to go by Langley lately, be sure to stop by and check out the Saxon stadium bleachers. They now sport a fresh new “21”!

yearbook ads: Congratulate your graduating student by creating a senior ad for the yearbook! Designing an ad has never been easier – see this flyer for tips. Click here to create an ad and pay online, as well as to order a yearbook. The deadline is Sat, Oct 24. Use school code 4159.

Join us for our next Virtual Parent Forum at 9:30 am on Tues, Oct 13, where we will discuss key information for juniors. College and Career Specialist Hannah Wolff will tell us what steps juniors can be taking now. Assessment Coach Jan Dabroski will explain what's happening with PSAT, ACT and SAT testing. Student Services Director Braden Peterson will talk about the ways students are connecting in this virtual environment.

Click here to submit questions in advance for any of our three speakers. Please note, Ms. Wolff will only be answering questions submitted through the form. Submit your questions by the end of the day Fri, Oct 9. Join the meeting here.

Join us for our first Sophomore Parent Online Forum, Thurs, Oct 15 from 9:30-11 am. We have two wonderful speakers! Betsy Shomaker will discuss how your student can get involved with Service Learning and how to navigate X2Vol to ensure they get credit for their hours. Michael Johnson will cover Naviance and everything parents need to know about using this tool to obtain college information and the college application process. Join the virtual forum here.

For parents unable to attend, the recording will be posted on our Class of 2023 webpage.

community opps

i-495 express lanes extension project: VDOT holds the last of two public hearings on the I-495 Express Lanes Northern Extension (495 NEXT) Project today: Thurs, Oct 8, 4-8 pm at the McLean Community Center (1234 Ingleside Ave).

This is an in-person public hearing and reservations are required. To reserve a spot at this meeting, call 703-691-6715 or email 495NorthernExtension@VDOT.virginia.gov with “495 NEXT Public Hearing In-person Request” in the subject line.

habits for a smooth virtual learning experience: The McLean Safe Community Coalition is hosting a virtual event on Thur, Oct 15, 12 pm featuring noted author and educational consultant Ana Homayoun. In this pragmatic, solutions-oriented talk, Ms. Homayoun will examine how setting students up socially, emotionally and academically in the midst of pandemic pivoting and change is key to long-term well-being and engagement. She’ll also discuss how taking the time to set the tone for a smoother school year means looking at daily and weekly habits that work for your students and your family.

Ms. Homayoun is the founder of Green Ivy Educational Consulting, LLC, an internationally recognized organization that works with schools, universities and corporations consulting with parents, students, educators and employers about promoting intrinsic motivation, authentic engagement and overall wellness.

This event is free but registration is required — click here to register.

service opps

rise against hunger 5k or 10k: Join in the 5K or 10K Race to School Challenge with the McLean community and Rise Against Hunger! In the countries we serve worldwide, children walk about 3 miles to school each day. This journey leads to education and nutritious Rise Against Hunger meals. In honor of the children who inspire us daily, and to continue the programs that support them, run (or walk!) the distance they walk to school, or to school and back, and help fight hunger! Register here and complete your race between Nov 5 and Nov 10.

Students can earn community service credit! Send your bib number and a screen shot of your race times to riseagainstagainhungermclean@gmail.com.

donations needed: Looking for a way to help those in need? Local nonprofits helping families experiencing homelessness are requesting donations for clothing, food, hygiene products and cleaning products, and Volunteer Fairfax is coordinating a collection of items to be distributed to the area groups. Click here for a detailed list of requested items.

Drop off your donations at the Burkholder Building (10700 Page Avenue, Suite 101, Fairfax, VA) on Mondays through Thursdays, 12-4 pm. Questions? Contact Tejas Patel at tpatel@volunteerfairfax.org or 703-246-3553.