Jessica Hurt, who is the assistant principal for curriculum and instruction at Hinsdale Central, was recently interviewed by The Hinsdalean for its 60 Seconds feature. In the piece, Ms. Hurt talks about being named the Assistant Principal of the Year for the DuPage Region by the Illinois Principals Association. She also discusses the joy she gets from working with children, and the supports that are available to District 86 students who don't always have an easy time in school.

You can check out the article by visiting https://bit.ly/3QjO4In. Photo credit to Jim Slonoff from The Hinsdalean.

Students from Hinsdale Central earned the top three scores on the examinations that were administered in conjunction with the American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) for individuals in grades 10 and below and 12 and below. Ethan Charoenpitaks, Yash Gupta and Layla Xiao took the top spots on the AMC 10 test, while Wilbert Chu, Sebastian Attlan and Alex Yang took the top spots on the AMC 12 test.

Chu, Attlan, Yang and classmates Jiming Chen, Kiran Gitzlaff and Alex Jiang also qualified for the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) that is being administered on Feb. 7. We will provide an additional update when we receive the results for the AIME test, and will let you know if anyone is selected to participate in the USA Mathematical Olympiad or Junior Mathematical Olympiad.

We congratulate our students on their incredible achievements, and wish those who are taking the AIME test the best of luck.

The speech teams for Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South closed out 2022 with strong performances at tournaments held in December.

Hinsdale Central took third place at the Willowbrook Winter Tournament on Dec. 17. The Red Devils also had seven top three finishes in their individual events, including tournament championships by Albin Stromberg (Humorous Interpretation), Vandana Sivakumar (Oratorical Declamation) and Jackie Vogel (Original Comedy).

Meanwhile, Hinsdale South wrapped up the year with top five finishes in individual events at tournaments held on Dec. 10 (Tournament of Roses at Naperville Central) and 17 (Willowbrook Winter Tournament). At the Naperville Central tournament, Annina Garro took fifth place in the Humorous Interpretation event, while Luiza Oliveira and Quinn Isberg took third place for the next-in finals results in the Dramatic Duet Acting event. At the Willowbrook tournament, Garro took second place in the Humorous Interpretation event, Destiny Prater took fourth place in the Poetry Reading event and Tyler Hallman took fifth place in the Original Comedy event.

We congratulate both teams on their recent accomplishments, and wish them continued success in the new year.

The Hinsdale Central boys basketball team won the Hinsdale Central Holiday Classic for the first time in the tournament's seven-year history. The Red Devils defeated Oak Forest, Homewood-Flossmoor, Marian Catholic and Oswego East en route to the title. The team was led by Ben Oosterbann, who was named the Justin Hardy Tournament MVP after averaging 21.3 points and 7.8 rebounds per game.

We congratulate the Red Devils on their success at the tournament, and wish them continued success this season.

Hinsdale South's fine arts department is hosting an encore performance of "Carrie: The Musical" prior to taking the show on the road to the Illinois Theatre Festival (Jan. 12-14 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign).

Tickets for the performance, which will take place on Jan. 11 at 7 p.m., are $20 for adults and $10 for students. You can access a flyer for the show by visiting https://bit.ly/3Zimsrc or clicking the image on the right.

Break a leg, Hornets.

The Technology Center of DuPage (TCD) is holding its annual winter open house on Jan. 19 from 6:30-8 p.m. This event will provide prospective students and their parents/guardians with a chance to learn about the career and technical education opportunities that TCD will be offering during the 2023-24 school year.

You can access additional information about the open house and TCD by visiting

https://www.tcdupage.org/openhouse.

The next District 86 Board of Education meeting will be held on Jan. 12. The agenda and packet of materials for the meeting will be posted on BoardDocs (https://bit.ly/394u9as) and shared via email tomorrow (Jan. 10).

Please visit https://bit.ly/3B4pHHk to access the latest COVID-19 data for our district, community and county. Below are the metrics we plan to update on a weekly basis.