Deer Park Schools End December With Special Activities

DEER PARK, NY — Several Deer Park schools hosted special events before the December holidays.

Virtual authors

Young adult authors Kwame Alexander and Judy Blume made a virtual visit to Robert Frost Middle School.

The authors conducted a book reading from Alexander’s novel-in-verse “Booked,” as well as involving students in a creative writing exercise for creating their own characters. Finally, Alexander interviewed Blume about her legendary career as the writer of timeless books such as “Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret” and “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.”

“Kwame is one of the most popular authors with our students, so to hear him live was really engaging and will only encourage our students to read more,” said English Language Arts Director Justin Uliano.

Compassion and publishing

Jennifer Arella’s class at Deer Park’s John F. Kennedy Intermediate School spent the past two months writing essays and creating illustrations for their book “Make Kindness Contagious,” which was recently published.

“I am so proud of my students’ hard work writing and illustrating this book aboutkindness,” Arella said. “Their writing and illustrations in the book truly embody themeaning of kindness and making it contagious.”

Well-deserved recognition

Meanwhile, Deer Park school trustees honored several students.

At the Board of Education’s Dec. 19 meeting, Robert Frost Middle School students Abigail Daniel and Ibrahim Faisal were honored for their participation in the Town of Babylon Veterans Day Awareness Week essay contest. Daniel earned first place in the competition, with Faisal taking second.

“I think it’s very important that our students understand the value of service and be
able to express their appreciation,” Superintendent James Cummings said.

Next, the board recognized five Deer Park High School students attending the Wilson Tech program at BOCES who participated in the annual holiday dinner: culinary students Adrian Rosario, Andrew Vanegas, Joseph Ventincinque and Ramon Zapeta Leon, and aviation student Zamani Simon.

As a result of the district’s partnership with Western Suffolk BOCES, Deer Park juniors spend half of their school day at the high school and the other half learning different trades at Wilson Tech. Every winter, the WSBOCES superintendents and boards of education are treated to a dinner by Wilson Tech’s culinary students. For this event, these juniors get to work in the kitchen, out on the floor serving, and at the serving and carving stations. During the cocktail hour, all the Wilson Tech students present demonstrations on the programs they are participating in.

“In my estimation, it’s a really great way for the board to see the students thriving in a program that we invest in,” Cummings said. “We are proud of them. It’s a nice night, because we also get to sit and meet the students and talk to them in a way that we normally don’t get a chance to. We thank them for giving us such a nice night and sharing their experiences at BOCES with us.”