1

On Wednesday, November 7th, the School Districts of Bucks County hosted an Arts

Exposition at Bensalem High School that featured and highlighted the depth, breadth, and

variety of the arts programs offered in Bucks County public schools. The Arts in our schools

can proudly be defined by focusses that extend far beyond the standards of the ‘fine arts’

such as painting, drawing, and sculpture. Our public schools also offer arts education in

areas that include: dance, music, photography, literary arts, theatre arts, digital media, and

more. There were wonderful live performances including: Band, Orchestra, Choral and

Dramatic Performances; Fine Arts displays of Paintings, Drawings, Pottery, Sculptures; along

with Digital Media and Creative Writing.

2

Franklin Institute’s Julia Skolnik is so proud of Bensalem’s think tank teachers and FI Master

Educator team, advancing awareness of emotions and their effect on learning. Another

meaningful day of learning took place on November 21st with 400+ teachers about the

science of emotions in the brain and building students' skills in self-awareness and self-

regulation through mindfulness and mindset.

3

High school and middle school orchestra director, Paul Nespola congratulates the following

Bensalem Orchestra students who represented our schools at the Bucks County Music

Educator's "String Day" Festival on Saturday, November 3rd. String Day is a one-day festival

held in Newtown and is made up of over 125 top string students from all over Bucks

County. The students are given music when they arrive in the morning, they rehearse all

day and perform a concert in the afternoon. Our students did a great job performing with

the 5th grade, and 7th - 9th grade orchestras, and we are very proud of them.

They are: From BHS: Belinda Lerner, Luki Chen, Leah Peragine, Victoria D’Agostine, Kasta

Marigna, Audrey Hyers;

From Shafer MS: Madisyn Wagner, Patrick Jenkins, Maria Davis, Keelyn Fitzgerald, Audrey

Yale, Victoria Mocarski, Peyton Miller, Iris Ta, Marissa Eardley, Madison Thai, Jessica

Canizares;

From Snyder MS: Shannon Sharpe, Nikki LaFontano, MacKenzie Liddell, Martha Cuna-

Flores, Nayeli Jiminez, Jennifer Kolano;

From Valley ES: Victoria Nespola.

4

On November 3rd, the BHS Fightin’ Robotic Owls competed in Ramp Riot 19, an off season

competition hosted by Wissahickon High School. The Fightin’ won the Spirit of Ramp Riot

Award for their innovative way of starting new FIRST Robotics Competition teams, like

William Tennant and Neshaminy.

5

On November 8th, 43 Bensalem High School students were inducted into the National

Honor Society. After the inductees recited the Poem, BHS principal Mr. William Ferrara

welcomed everyone. Sarah Farooq NHS Treasurer spoke about Service; Secretary Suhani

Patel spoke about Scholarship; Vice President Grace Fan spoke about Character; and Aditi

Rao President spoke about Leadership. Mr. Ed Tokmajian, member of Bensalem Township

Council gave the Keynote Address. Congratulations to the 43 inductees: Samuel Arjona ,

Uzeir Badalov, Stacy Bediako, Treesha Brahmbhatt, Rachel Dicks, Sumaiya Difaa, Ryan

Fadako, Jessica Francois, Emily Gladu, Samantha Ho, Josh Hornickle, Karina Kohli, Insiya

Lambe, Jonathan Larbi, Angelina Lee, Kristine Nguyen, Theresa Nguyen, Matthew

Nowaczyk, Eric O'Driscoll, Janvi N. Patel, Meet Patel, Nisarg Patel, Shiv Patel, Shyam Patel,

Sneh Patel, Vinay Patel, Tanvi Patnaik, Mehrbano Rana, Mariyam Raza, Shane Shaji,

Matthew Silano, Jinal Sindhvad, Busra Sivri, Hayley Skillens, Mackenzie Spear, Gideon Tan,

Taryn Tartt, Tori Tavernier, Julia Ting, Rona Varghese, Ethan Whiting, Isaiah Wilson, and

Emily Wineburg. They join the 32 current members: Laura Agyemang, Rayhona Aliakbarova,

Noah Brodecki, Grace Fan, Sarah Farooq, Brittany Hood, Chloe Hysore, Thomas Kelly,

Christina Kurian, Ashley MacQuaid, Abdullah Mahmood, Jayda McKelvey, Emily McLaughlin,

Jayme McVeigh, Janvi Morker, Wendy Palamarchuk, Akshar Patel, Dhruvi Patel, Heer Patel,

Hetavi Patel, Janvi Patel, Japan Patel, Kruti Patel, Shiv Patel, Suhani Patel, Michelle Rana,

Aditi Rao, Madison Sibley, Esra Sivri, Kylie Smith, Allison Trinh, and Amy Truong.

6

The Bensalem High School Class of 2020 and their advisors, Ms. Kate Howell and Mr. Dave

Trotta, went to New York City on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday 11/10 through 11/12. They

had an amazing 3 days and 2 nights visiting over 16 locations. The students represented

Bensalem as they navigated the city, visited major landmarks, learned about New York City,

and bonded with their friends. The trip was a wonderful experience and one that they will

ever forget.

7

PJAS advisor and BHS science teacher, Mrs. Lisa Tokmajian made arrangements with Penn

State PhD student, Alex to come to BHS to help the PJAS students and potentially science

students with research in the science world. Alex is studying neurodegenerative diseases.

He brought a supply of fruit flies with rDNA of various human diseases ranging from

Alzheimers, Huntington's Disease, and Spinocerebellar ataxia. The PJAS students will be

able to mate these flies to monitor the effects of these traits on the fly offspring for their

PJAS experiments. Alex supplied all required nutrients, knowledge, and lab supplies

necessary to carry out this experiment. He is interested in the findings and hopes to

develop this relationship with BHS. The students are very thankful to be able to work with

him in this research and are looking forward to developing a relationship with Penn State

University Main Campus.

8

On Friday, November 9th, Robert K. Shafer Middle School hosted a Veterans' Day assembly

for their eighth grade students. The assembly opened with the presentation of the

American flag by the Bensalem High School JROTC students and the eighth grade chorus

singing the National Anthem, and included introductions and remarks from District

administrators and local government officials and their representatives. Joseph Trucks, a

local Korean War veteran, spoke about how Veterans’ Day became a national holiday. The

students heard from Shafer teacher Brian Bostic and Shafer Instructional Assistant Harold

Piper. The program featured a slide presentation of family members of Shafer students and

staff who have served in the Armed Forces.

9

Snyder students participated in the “Dancing Classrooms Philly” program led by

professional dancers/instructors Kate Rast and Andrew Polunin. Eighth grade students

completed 20 lessons to learn 7 distinctly different dances such as the salsa, foxtrot, swing,

meringue, rumba, waltz and tango within their Physical Education classes. They performed

two shows demonstrating their mastery of the various dances in front of the entire Snyder

school, as well as, parents and community members. This was the sixth year of the

ballroom dancing program at Snyder Middle School and has been proven to be very

successful with all of our students. It has shown to increase confidence, manners and

responsibility amongst other positive characteristics taught and learned.

10

Belmont Hills hosted their Barnes & Noble book fair on November 5th. During the day,

author Lauren Magaziner enjoyed her visit to the school. In the evening, families and staff

members attended and listened to readings by teachers and a performance by the chorus.

In store purchases for Belmont Hills’ totaled $2,309.58 with 15% of the net (pre-tax) sales

contributed to the school.

11

Mrs. Bell’s third grade class at Cornwells Elementary have been learning about planets and

constellations in science class. The students made constellations with pretzels and

marshmallows to follow the patterns of the stars at night. They have been very excited

about their astronomy unit and have also enjoyed reading about space in their non-fiction

books.

12

On the day before the Thanksgiving break, students and teachers took an hour of their day

to celebrate Thanksgiving together. Each homeroom had an opportunity to create their

own Thanksgiving feast. It was a great opportunity for teachers and students to sit down

and enjoy some time with one another. Teachers were gracious enough to supply their

classes with delicious meals and treats as the whole Faust community celebrated and gave

thanks.

13

First grade students at Rush Elementary are practicing their literacy skills and sharing facts

about non-fiction books. Students had the opportunity to retell important facts about non-

fiction books of their choice with up to 3 classmates. Students chose the facts from their

books that they felt were important and wanted to share. It is incredible to see how much

our young students love to read and love to talk about books.

14

In an effort to educate students about the election process, Struble Student Council held an

election of officers on Wednesday, November 7th. Students who elected to run for the

position of President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer prepared and read inspiring

speeches to all fifth and sixth graders in an effort to gain their vote. After the speeches

were read, students cast their votes on iPads for the candidate of choice. Congratulations

to all of the students who ran for office and to Sturble’s newly elected Student Council

officers: Wahida Asadi, President; Emiliano Quinones, Vice President; Emily Jones,

Treasurer; and Ava Brochon, Secretary. Special thanks to Student Council advisors, Mrs.

Robson and Miss Phy for organizing this event.

15

Valley Elementary first graders were excited to reach the 50th day of school on November

15th. They celebrated this milestone by skip counting by 2, 5, and 10 in math class. They

did a compare and contrast activity in reading where the students had to match the

pictures of cell phones, telephone booths, soda shops, record players, drive-in movie

theaters and more. During social studies students learned the timeline from 1950 to

present and how things have changed and advanced over the years. Students also viewed

commercials from the 1950s and discussed how different the commercials were from those

of today. They ended their special day with a Sock Hop. Students were dressed in their

poodle skirts and leather jackets where they showed off their dancing skills of the twist and

they even learned the Hand Jive. Everyone had a nifty time listening to all the swell music

from famous musicians of the 50’s.

16