By Suzanne Gorman, Head of Downtown Campus
Basketball season and holiday season are in full swing at the High School! Roundball action officially got underway with the boys’ JV and varsity teams opening at the Goshen gym on Monday night against Holy Cross, and the girls and both boys’ teams opening at home at Old Male on Wednesday against Brown. The newly minted SFS dance team made its debut on Wednesday as well, at halftime of both of the varsity games. They were fantastic! As well, they exemplify perfectly the way St. Francis students take the initiative. A couple of students wanted to start a dance team, so they got enough others to join them, organized practices, worked with the athletic and marketing departments to design and order jackets, and voila!
As to the holiday season, our hallways are full of jollity and merriment in the form of Christmas and Hanukkah decor, with trees and menorahs up, plus tinsel and lights festooning lockers and walls. In another beautifully St. Francis move, the 9th and 11th grade hallways feature ornaments with the name of each student in those respective classes.
The exam schedule is posted in this newsletter and has also been posted at School and emailed to students. Exam week is December 17th – 21st, and students generally will have one exam per day. They only need to be here for that particular exam (starting either at 9:00 a.m. or noon), but the School is open normal hours and students are welcome to be here before/after exams if they like. Exam week is an important feature of the academic program in that it gives students a taste of what they may experience with college exams and provokes the need to synthesize a great deal of information, but we don’t want it to be unduly stressful for them, either. We provide a Brain Food Buffet each day of muffins, bagels, cereal bars, etc. to make sure everyone’s had something to eat before going into an exam. The students are requesting chocolate milk be added to the offerings this year, so we’ll do our best to oblige!