The 2021 Winter Arts Blizzard made landfall this week, covering East high school with creative and compelling works of art – ceramics, paintings, show choir numbers, Black Music Ensemble performances, string quartets, original songs, chilling violin performances, and more. Today, students put on an all-day show in our Margaret Williams Theater. In addition to a live audience rotating throughout the day, performances were live streamed into classrooms. Over lunch, students enjoyed open mic performances in the forum and throughout the halls and offices carols were sung. Thank you to our fine arts students and staff for sending us into winter break on such an inspiring note! 

Students in East's PRIDE program just finished an incredible 5 week series with Dane Arts Mural Arts. Their work will be featured on a mural outside the Madison Youth Arts Center in late summer 2022. We can't wait to see it come to life! Thank you, DAMA, for giving our students the opportunity to use their voice to transform public spaces, all while honing their creativity, focus, patience, and teamwork.

Stockings and hearts were filled this week when members of East’s Raza United (formerly Latinx Student Union) and Sisterhood (focused on AVID and honors/AP students and supporting and celebrating Black Excellence at East) teamed up with American Family Insurance to volunteer at the Empty Stocking Club. What a rewarding opportunity to spread joy in our community!

We are incredibly proud of 2018 East graduate Lydia Nyachieo, whose success is no surprise to us: “Ms. Nyachieo is one of the most intellectually mature individuals I have had the opportunity to teach in 18 years of experience with Advanced Placement and honors students….she contributes warmth, nobility, genuine curiosity, and an example of earnest, methodical inquiry to her classroom community and to the social fabric of our school," said East Math Teacher, Cynthia Chin. Lydia will begin a master's degree program next year in the United Kingdom as a winner of a prestigious Marshall Scholarship, which is awarded to just a couple of dozen American students each year. She will graduate from UW-Madison in May.

The calendar for the 2022-2023 school year is now available. Each year, a committee made up of district staff and Madison Teachers Inc. representatives meet over a series of months to finalize the upcoming calendar.

You can still contribute to the Share the Joy Campaign to provide clothing, family board games, books & holiday movies, school supplies, and more to families this winter. Please visit our GoFundMe Page (gofundme.com/f/ShareTheJoy2021) to make a donation. Thank you and we wish you and your loved ones a Joyful Holiday Season.

The East High School Scholarship Application for this year opened to Seniors on Wednesday, December 15th. Completing this East High Scholarship application allows eligibility for 100+ scholarships made possible by very generous donors from our east side community! The deadline to complete the application is Friday January 21st, 2022.

AP Spanish Hispanohablantes classes are replicating works of famous latinx artists this week as part of their summative on beauty and anesthetics. Spanish Teacher, Barbara Davis, received a $500 Donors Choose grant for materials to make the project possible. Spanish Language Arts students are also finishing a unit on street art in Latin America. They designed their own universally comprehensible messages and created original works.

The Varsity Girls Basketball game scheduled for Friday, December 17th at 7:15pm has been changed to 6:30pm. Doors will open at 6:00pm.

The Varsity Boys Basketball game scheduled for Tuesday, December 2nd against La Follette has been rescheduled to Tuesday, December 21st at 1:00pm. Any students that got their tickets at the presale should hold on to them to use at the rescheduled game. There will not be another presale and lost tickets cannot be replaced. Students who paid for a presale ticket, but cannot make it to the rescheduled game, can get a refund issued when school reopens after Winter Break. Doors will open at 12:30pm.

The JV and Varsity Boys Basketball games scheduled for Tuesday, December 14th have been rescheduled to Tuesday, December 28th. JV will play at 11:30am and Varsity will play at 1:00pm. Tickets will go on sale at 11:00pm on December 28th.

East's mobile food pantry will be open on Thursday December 23rd and 30th from 2:00-3:15pm. Due to low numbers, the mobile pantry will not be continuing in 2022.