Category: Academics News

Academics News, Newsletter

Featured Academic News of the Week

December 9, 2022
Mrs. Darragh Leddy, Math Teacher

This past Friday, the 11th and 12th graders went on a field trip with Mrs Leddy. They had the good fortune of visiting a company downtown, called Unspun. Unspun is a startup that is working hard to automate the making of clothing and they have started with jeans, but hope to expand their products to a wide variety of apparel. Furthermore, Unspun is environmentally motivated and so they are using materials that are ethically sourced and most importantly materials that will last you a long time, ideally the length of your life. So much of our clothing today ends up in landfill and Unspun is tasked with reducing that percentage and thus improving the health of our planet. Unspun is composed of many young employees that are software engineers, textile engineers, firmware engineers, marketers, human resources, and fashion researchers. The employees of Unspun took most of their morning to give HSArts 11th and 12th graders a tutorial of their one-of-a-kind machine that currently makes their apparel, explaining, the materials they use and the customers they have worked for, and the company’s overall ethos. Afterwards, Unspun prepared a panel of employees to speak with our students and explain what their job is, what makes them good at their role, and what their advice is for young, intelligent San Francisco students eager to learn and interested in contributing their talents to the workforce in not too long of a time. We are incredibly thankful that this hardworking startup took time to spread wisdom and excitement with our students as they discern their next steps. Unspun is a great company that we encourage all to check out, and maybe even purchase a pair of jeans that you wear for life and help reduce our carbon footprint! 

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Academics News, Newsletter

Featured Academic News of the Week 

December 2, 2022
Mr. Lee Randazzo, History and Science Teacher

Sometimes during class I like to put more emphasis on students learning from each other and/or leading discussions.  A great way to do this is through a “spider web” discussion.  The “spider web” is a metaphor representing how speakers and responses are passed back & forth in a group.  This is a graded assignment (even a test) in the class for that day.  Before the discussion, students do research on the topic and prepare their opinions and evidence supporting their opinions.  Then on the day of the discussion the teacher asks a big open ended question and the class takes over (with the teacher saying very little, if anything at all).  In order to earn full points on the assignment (test) students need to do much more than share relevant information.  They must also be nice to each other; encourage the entire class to participate; not have one person dominate the discussion; build upon each other’s comments; and be active and engaged.  I’ve already done a spider web discussion with the 8th grade class.  They had to reflect upon the experiences of a lowly soldier in the Continental Army led by George Washington.  By the end of the year all my classes will have a similar experience (with different topics of course). 

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Student Life News, Academics News, Newsletter

The Phoenix Won Their First Basketball Game!

Student Life News
November 18, 2022
Mr. David Gallagher, English Teacher and Basketball Head Coach

*Editor’s note: Without much Academic news to share, as classes take the weeklong hiatus during Thanksgiving, instead Coach Gallagher recounts the basketball games on Thursday.

On Tuesday, November 15th, the HSArts basketball team traveled to Stratford Middle School to take on the Stratford Lions in a series of three basketball games on their blacktop. It has been a tradition between our two schools to compete at least once a year. The HSArts Phoenix team consists of eight players from grades 5-8 including William (the Captain), Danny, Austin, Sam, Andy, Ashton, Curtis, and Joshua. The Phoenix were cheered on by several students and faculty members who made the trip. 

The first game pitted Stratford’s sixth grade team against the Phoenix. In an easy win, our boys showed great energy and spirit while coasting to victory. In the second game against Stratford’s 7th graders, the Phoenix lost a close contest that was not decided until the final buzzer. In the third and final game, the Phoenix faced off against the Lions’ 8th grade team. While our boys fought hard and played tough defense, the more experienced Stratford team won.

HSArts players showed great teamwork and sportsmanship, along with an aggressive and fast-paced style. It was a fun day for both our students and the students of Stratford school who watched from the stands and cheered their team on loudly and with great school pride. We are working to get into the CYO league next year and show what HSArts athletes are able to accomplish with their hard work and dedication. Go Phoenix!

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Academics News, Newsletter

Featured Academic News of the Week

November 11, 2022
Mr. David Gallagher, English Teacher

Our students have been hard at work preparing for upcoming writing contests and spelling bees. They have written narrative short stories based on information about California agriculture. These narratives were entered into the Imagine This…Story Writing Contest sponsored by the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating youth throughout California about the importance of agriculture in their daily lives.

For the Scripps National Spelling Bee, our preparatory school and middle school students will participate in our school Spelling Bee in January. Word lists have been distributed and a free app for mobile devices and tablets is available on Google Play and the App Store. The app is called Word Club and is adaptable to different study and quiz styles while added game-play will keep your student engaged and motivated.

Best of luck to all of our students!

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Academics News, Newsletter

Featured Academic News of the Week – Math

November 4, 2022
Ms. Darragh Leddy, Math Teacher

This year, HSArts has enrolled in the American Mathematics Competitions (AMC). The intent was to switch from the competition we previously used, Sigma, to a competition that is more widely esteemed, and offers competitions to all grade levels that HSArts has. Our vision is that our students deepen their analytical skills, confidence in math, and desire to learn mathematical concepts outside of the curriculum. As our students tend in this direction, it will open us up to more competitions; perhaps even competitions that occur in-person, on the weekends, or on teams. 

All students in grades 6, 7 and 8 are going to take AMC8 the week of January 17th in school. AMC8 has many topics not yet discussed in 5th grade, and so they will merely prepare for AMC8 this year. We have given our high school students the option of enrolling in AMC, but are not requiring it. So far, we have 5 high schoolers that have opted to take the AMC10 (for 9th and 10th graders) or AMC12 (for 11th and 12th graders). The high school test is administered on November 10th and November 16th in school. The test consists of 25 multiple choice questions in an allotted 75 minutes. Students are not allowed any technology aids on the test.  The AMC10 and AMC12 are quite difficult exams, requiring students to prepare in advance daily. If you believe your child has the available time to prepare for the AMC please encourage them to talk to Mrs Leddy to sign up and get caught up with preparation material. This is a nationally recognized competition that holds esteem among many universities, including MIT, as well as scholarship foundations. Taking this exam is a great privilege and one that should be treated with preparation, seriousness, and determination. We look forward to continuing to foster our students’ desire to excel in math!

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Academics News, Newsletter

Featured Academic News of the Week 

October 27, 2022
Ms. Min Zang, Chinese Language Teacher

Beginner Level Chinese focuses on listening and speaking skills. Since Chinese takes longer to memorize, these auditory and verbal skills help students pick up the language more easily. Teachers add pinyin, a phonetic alphabet, to each of the Chinese characters along with its English definition so students can identify sounds and meaning. This eliminates guesswork and gives students the confidence to practice basic conversation sooner.

By the end of Quarter 1, students learn pinyin, standard greetings, birthdays, and can understand and answer basic questions. Students can introduce themselves by name, birthdate and age. We will find new and different ways to communicate as Quarter 2 begins.  

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Academics News, Newsletter

Featured Academic News of the Week 

October 20, 2022
Ms. Lona, Academic Director

Quarter 1 is over, and report cards will be shared later today.  We planned for it to be sent out yesterday, but PraxiSchool had some technical issues. Hopefully you’ll get to view them very soon. Overall, our students are doing very well in their academic and arts classes. We hope to see them continue to work hard in Quarter 2!
Next week, we welcome all of our families to sign up for Parent-Teacher Conferences. This will give you one-on-one time with the teachers to discuss about how the student is doing in class and how they are progressing. Please make sure you schedule a time on the shared Google Sheets by Monday evening, so our teachers to plan and prepare for the conferences.

Thanks, see you all soon!

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Academics News, Newsletter

Featured Academic Class of the Week 

October 13, 2022
Ms. Ginnie Wu, English and History Teacher

In English 8, we spent Quarter 1 reading Macbeth and exploring the significance of ambition, loyalty, retribution, and fate. This week, students are putting the final touches on their literary poster project. Each student chose one theme, one motif, and two symbols that they found most intriguing while reading Macbeth. Then, they selected quotes from the play that best demonstrated these choices, wrote analyses of the quotes, and used the online design platform Canva to create their posters. 

Our Modern World History class is currently discussing the political, economic, and social changes that came with the rise of big business in the 2nd Industrial Revolution. In Quarter 2, they will be completing a research project on a company of their choice. 

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Academics News, Newsletter

Featured Academic Class of the Week – Integrated Sciences

October 6, 2022
Mr. Ray Chen, Math and Science Teacher

Starting this school year, our innovative Integrated Science curriculum aims to incorporate computer science and data science into our core scientific subjects, such as physical science, biology, and physics. Students are learning these subjects while using computers to build models, simulate results, and analyze the resulting data. For example, our “Integrated Science – Bio Focus” class is working on reproducing current Australia’s rabbit crisis using JavaScript. Students code this real world problem of  “breed like rabbits” by randomly simulating 3-4 liters per year and 1-12 babies per litter per doe rabbit. Another coding project my math students are working on is using repetition to tell if a number is prime. The manual process of telling prime is tedious but JavaScript only needs 8 lines to take input and give output, true/false of prime. Students not only build up their coding skills but also get the important sense that their future careers may benefit from computer science and data science. 

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Academics News, Newsletter

Featured Academic Class of the Week: Pre-Algebra

September 29, 2022
By Mr. Brian Nieh, Math Teacher +

Hello! Our students just completed the Chapter 2 test on fractions, and as a class showed good overall improvement…yay! With Chapter 2 behind us, we move on from fractions to decimals and percentages. Just as there are an infinite number of numbers between whole numbers 1 and 2, there is a boundless world of math waiting ahead of our students beyond simple arithmetic. But in order to get there, we need to keep practicing, doing problems, and getting very familiar with times tables, converting fractions and decimals, and order of operations (in other words, our first chapters). 

To all the students: Don’t fear homework, it’s good for you. It builds character. Keep up the hard work! Your future mathematician self will thank you 😀 

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