April 2013 / Beachwood Buzz / 1

Art –Or The

SolutionTo A Math Problem?

STORY ON PAGE 10.

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APRIL 2013

E V E R Y R E S I D E N T . E V E R Y B U S I N E S S . E V E R Y M O N T H .

THE BEACHWOOD CITY SCHOOLS BOARD OF EDUCATION BULLETIN

YOU and

YOUR

BOARD OF EDUCATIONDr. Brian Weiss, President, 464-6678 • bw@beachwoodschools.orgMitchel Luxenburg, Vice President, 382-8943 • ml@beachwoodschools.orgDavid B. Ostro, 464-0718 • do@beachwoodschools.orgJoshua Mintz, 862-1635 • jmintz@beachwoodschools.orgSteve Rosen, 292-5562 • srosen@beachwoodschools.org

Four Beachwood teams - two each from Hilltop Elementary School and Beachwood Middle School - are headed to the state Destination ImagiNation Tournament after finishing in first place in their respective age divisions and competitions at last month’s regional tournament. The state competition is in Mount Vernon on April 20.

Twelve Beachwood teams participated - eight from Hilltop and four from BMS, with 10 of the teams placing fourth or higher.

Destination Imagination is an educational program in which student teams solve open-ended challenges and present their solutions at tournaments. In working to solve challenges, the teams learn important life skills like time management, collaboration, conflict resolution, and creative and critical thinking.

Hilltop’s fourth grade Clar-Isaacson team placed first in its “Wind Visible” challenge, which explored the science of wind energy. The fifth grade Jung-Malul team won its “In the Zone” challenge, an

Beachwood’s Four 1st Place DI Teams Headed for States

assignment featuring vehicles that blended creativity with technical know-how.

BMS’s seventh grade Adelman-Rodriguez team placed first in its fine arts challenge, “In Disguise.” They also won a Renaissance Award for outstanding design, engineering, execution and performance. This award is given to teams that demonstrate extraordinary amounts of effort and preparation in their solution, or are exceptional entertainers. BMS’s eighth grade Waxman-Lenz team placed first in its challenge, a middle school level of “Wind Visible.”

The 7th grade DiVi team won first place in the middle school “In Disguise” competition.

Beachwood High School junior Zach Davis scored in the top 1 percent of all students nationwide on the recent American Mathematics Competitions 12th grade exam, and has qualified to take the American Invitational Mathematics Exam. The AMC-12 and AMC-10 math contests are 75-minute exams taken by all Honors and AP math students at Beachwood High School and

10th Grade AMC:Zhonghan Li, 10th gradeKaustav Malik, 10th gradeRyan Reilly, 10th grade

BHS Junior Aces National 12th Grade Math Exam

Zach Davis

The Four Teams Headed to the state tournament:

The Four Wonderwinds (Grade 4)Competition: WindVisibleStudents: Lauren Clar, Emily Isaacson, Sanjana Murthy, Linda YuParent Coaches: Karen Rosenblum, Alec Isaacson

Elementary Team (Grade 5)Competition: In The ZoneStudents: Richard Han, Erika Jung, Isaac Kantarovich, Bridget Lee, Shira Malul, Nihil MuraliParent Coaches: Gali Malul, Gene Jung

DiVi (Grade 7)Competition: In DisguiseStudents: Olivia Adelman, Abbey Brewer, Gaby Rodriguez, Lily Steiger, Morgan TuckerParent Coaches: Laura Adelman, Maria Anzola

Middle School Team (Grade 8)Competition: WindVisibleStudents: Andie Cohen, Julia Warner, Sean Waxman-Lenz, Jason Wu, Yuke ZhengParent Coach: Michael Waxman-Lenz

12th Grade AMC:Zach Davis, 11th gradeAmit Flank, 11th gradeMax Yanowitz, 12th grade

thousands of high schools across the United States. Juniors and seniors take the AMC 12 and sophomores and freshmen take the AMC 10. In the past two years, students have not been permitted to use calculators on these exams. Beachwood’s top performers were:

ADMINISTRATIONDr. Richard A. Markwardt, Superintendent, 464-2600 • supt@beachwoodschools.orgMichele E. Mills, Director of Finance/Treasurer, 464-2600 • mm@beachwoodschools.orgRobert P. Hardis, Assistant Superintendent, 464-2600 • rph@beachwoodschools.orgLauren J. Broderick, Director of Pupil Services, 464-2600 • ljb@beachwoodschools.orgKen Veon, Director of Curriculum & Technology, 464-2600 • kev@beachwoodschools.orgKathleen Stroski, Assistant Treasurer, 464-2600 • ks@beachwoodschools.org

Doug Levin, Director of Marketing & Development, 464-2600 • dl@beachwoodschools.org

Two teams of Beachwood fifth graders took first and second place at the Greater Cleveland Council of Teachers of Mathematics math contest for Northeast Ohio fifth and sixth graders in February. Students competed individually and with their teams in grueling rounds of problem solving, mental math and construction. They spent many hours after school preparing with Hilltop math teachers Melanie Musulin, Laura Gibson and Shelly Lewis.

For the second consecutive year, Beachwood High Senior senior Jessica Gill is the Speech and Debate state champion for Humorous Interpretation of Literature. She took the title at the Ohio High School Speech League state tournament, Feb. 28 -March 2, in Youngstown, where overall, Beachwood’s team took eighth place in the state.

Congressional debaters Beth Moses, Anshika Niraj and Varun Jambunath each made the final round of debate. Moses placed second and Niraj fourth in a field of 167 Congressional debaters. The Public Forum Debate team of Wooyoung Lee and Max Yanowitz earned a winning record, made it to the double-octafinal round, and ultimately placed in the top 30 in the state.

ACTACTthe

Four BHS Students Earn Perfect ACT ScoresTwo more BHS students - juniors Scott Arkin and Jacqueline Reu - have earned top composite perfect ACT scores, joining seniors Graham Gobieski and Aaron Shifrin who each scored 36 earlier this year. Nationally, roughly one-tenth of 1 percent earn a top score annually - or one in 1,000 students. Just over 200 BHS current juniors and seniors have taken the ACT. The ACT consists of tests in English, mathematics, reading and science. Each test is scored on a scale of 1-36, and a student’s composite score is the average of the four test scores.

Jessie Gill Repeats as Speech & Debate State Champion

5th Graders Take Top Honors at Local Math Contest

Beachwood’s two fifth grade teams were:

Serpents: Richard Han, Bridget Lee, Shira Malul, Tal Yankevich

Power Pencils: Gabe Colmenares, Parker Gill, Priyanka Shrestha, Stephanie Yen

Pictured left to right: Varun Jambunath, Beth Moses, Anshika Niraj and Jessica Gill

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport’s Youth Art Gallery has selected artwork by BHS Advanced Art student Tanner Eitman for a special art show. Her linocut printmaking project pictured on the left will appear in the airport’s Fur, Fins & Feathered Friends exhibit that is on display through July 31.

Power Pencils

Serpents

Musicians from Beachwood Middle School and Beachwood High School earned exceptional ratings at their respective recent Ohio Music Education Association’s Solo and Ensemble Contests for band, choir and orchestra students. Eight BHS students earned the highest possible rating while performing music with the highest degree difficulty, while 19 BMS students earned a 1 rating.

For high school students, an “A” music designation indicates the complexity of the music performed is the most rigorous and challenging materials, while “1” ratings are reserved for truly outstanding performances with very few technical errors and exemplifying a truly musical expression. Thirty-one BHS and 32 BMS students participated.

BHS students who earned 1 ratings performing A-rated music:

Kiran Bangalore, violin duetJosh Carno-Harf, cello duetPaul Corty cello duetAndrew Hartstein, tuba soloJori Holloway, cello soloBingqing Hu, violin soloJon Sender, violin duetEmily Topilow, violin solo

Aryeh Carmi, piano soloMikayla Carno-Harf, string trioZoe Flate, woodwind duetOlivia Hahnemann-Gilbert, string trioJacqueline Joo, string trioJacqueline Joo, violin soloChaeHee Lee, violin duetEsther Millas, cello duetMeghan Opre, cello duet

Natalie Patten, woodwind duetMaria Perilla, violin soloAnkita Prasad, string trioLeah Roter, piano soloLeah Roter, string trioJack Spero, snare drum soloArielle Tindel, piano soloArielle Tindel, string trioJieun Yang, violin soloAllen Zhu, violin duet

THE BEACHWOOD CITY SCHOOLS BOARD OF EDUCATION BULLETIN

YOU and

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Beachwood Middle School’s 7th and 8th grade orchestras, under the direction of Lisa Goldman and Noel Bliss, presented a polished performance and demonstration rehearsal on Friday, March 8, as part of the 2012-2013 “Fab Friday” series sponsored by the Kent State University Hugh A. Glauser School of Music Division of Bands and Music Education. ‘Fab Friday’ programs bring talented school instrumental music groups to the Kent State University campus to work with conducting staff, applied faculty, graduate assistants, and graduate and undergraduate students. With this experience, students get the opportunity to

refine their playing skills and prepare for concert or large-group adjudicated events.

Musicians Shine at OMEA Solo & Ensemble Contests

BMS Orchestra Spends ‘Fab Friday’ at KSU

BMS students who earned 1 ratings:

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The Excel TECC Culinary Arts team at Beachwood High School cooked up several awards this winter, winning numerous accolades in state and regional competitions.

A team of four Excel TECC Culinary Arts seniors placed third in the state out of 24 teams at the Ohio ProStart Invitational tournament, sponsored by the National Restaurant Association. Peaches Promploy (Captain), Zack Hizer (Co-Captain), Joshalyn Coleman and Rachel Kowalski prepared a three-course offering, starting with a creamy mushroom ragout with crispy herbed polenta, followed by salmon with lemon beurre blanc over cavatelli, butternut squash, kale, asparagus and pancetta. The meal was capped with an apple flower served with oatmeal walnut tuile, mascarpone whipped cream and

Culinary Students Win Awards at Recent Competitions

caramel sauce. Peaches Promploy’s slicing and dicing dexterity was also recognized, as she won an award for “best knife skills.”

Junior Summer Kolt and senior Ryan dela Vega received gold medals for their seven-layer Dobos torte and chocolate-almond coconut cake at the FCCLA-Ohio Association’s regional tournament in March. They will compete in the FCCLA-Ohio state competition in April.

In the same competition’s Culinary category, a team of juniors – Siana Doss, Charles Jonayon and Mackenzie Steels – took home a silver medal with their presentation of spring mix salad with raspberry vinaigrette, chicken veloute with mashed potatoes, sauteed and julienned squash and green beans and strawberry napoleon triangles for dessert.

Seventeen of 18 Beachwood students from the Excel TECC Early Childhood Education program earned gold medals in the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America, Ohio Association’s regional competition in March. One student earned a silver medal, while 15 received scores high enough to qualify for the FCCLA-Ohio state competition in April. Early Childhood Education teams compete based on challenges usually found in the classroom, such as scheduling assignments and activities, child assessment, behavior management, health & safety and managing parent relationships.

Early Childhood Education Students Qualify for States

In March, Hilltop families were treated to an evening of student performances from around the world, highlighting culture and family traditions. For Hilltop’s Multicultural Night Celebration, students created flags representing their country of origin or a family tradition, along with a family heritage project.

Third grader Sanjanasri Vedavyas and eighth grader Swathi Srinivasan

10 / Beachwood Buzz / April 2013

Art, Or The Solution To A Math Problem?by Brett Zelman

Arthur Gugick has loved math for as long as he can remember. He won math competitions in New York City, where he grew up, and went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he triple-majored in mathematics, physics and astronomy.

A mathematician? Definitely. A scientist? Possibly. An artist? Not him. Other people might look at his efforts and see masterful pieces of artwork, but Gugick, a math teacher at Beachwood Schools since 2003, sees them as math problems.

For the last 10 years, teaching hasn’t been Gugick’s only profession. He began his hobby of building structures out of Lego® – landmarks and mosaics – around 10 years ago. To date, he has created about 75 landmarks, including the Terminal Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the White House and even his own house; and 40 mosaic paintings, such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Grant Wood’s American Gothic, and portraits of Jerry Garcia and Jimi Hendrix.

The process of creating a landmark usually takes Gugick about three months total, while a mosaic takes closer to two months.

“One of the hardest parts is choosing what I want to build. I have some prior knowledge of what looks good, but actually selecting what to build is the hard part,” says Gugick, who spends about two weeks planning before actually starting to build the model.

For the landmarks, Gugick can usually find the original architectural blueprints online. He will also look at Google Earth to get different perspectives of the buildings.

Then he spends time doing the math – rations, proportions, and scaling are all involved in pre-planning his structures. He also had to design and write his own computer program when he was building St. Basel’s Cathedral

in Moscow, because the circular domes proved difficult to scale down based on the blueprints.

An argument against Gugick’s being an artist is that he sometimes breaks his pieces down in order to reuse the Lego® pieces. Some projects, like the White House, require the use of new Lego®. But if he needs a more faded look, as he did when building the Rialto Bridge in Venice, then he will reuse the pieces from something he had already built.

Gugick considers the Taj Mahal his masterpiece, which he was recently commissioned to build for use in an Australian film. He was contacted by the writer of the screenplay and was flown to Australia for a couple of weeks.

“It was amazing. They put me up in a bed and breakfast, and I really got to see Australia,” he told us.

Gugick is enjoying Lego® success. More recently, he has been focusing on his mosaics, including lenticular mosaics, where you can look at the picture from different angles and see something totally different. He has sold two of these to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in Orlando, Florida. They bought one that turns from Batman to the Joker, and the another of Darth Vader that turns Annikan Skywalker. Ripley’s may soon commission Gugick to create more, such as Ren and Stimpy, and

April 2013 / Beachwood Buzz / 11

Dorothy and the Wicked Witch. Gugick has already been featured in

Wired Magazine, The Washington Post and The Plain Dealer. He never expected his hobby to turn into such a big deal, let alone a second occupation!

When he first told his students about what he was doing, he was a little nervous about how it would sound. They lightly jeered him until he showed a slideshow of his works. The students realized these weren’t the Lego® structures they built as kids.

“I’m an adult playing with Lego®,” he said with a smile. “It was just something I did for fun, but I’m glad I started doing it.”

Pictured from left: St. Basil’s Cathedral, Jimi Hendrix, The Shining, and Gugic with the Dome of the Rock.

Upper right: A lenticular mosaic featuring Batman and the Joker.

To see some of Gugick’s works, visit www.gugick.com.

Photo, bottom right, by Marc Golub.