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March 2017 - Issue #3

New Principal Coming To Decatur By Zoe FixZalkind, Josh Lee, Ananya Nanda,

Shea Perkins, and Yasmyn Sutherlin Big changes are coming for

Decatur! Starting this summer, Yolanda

Luna-Mroz will become the new principal at Decatur, taking over for Ms. K, who has been principal for the past 12 years. Ms. Luna-Mroz, who prefers being called Ms. Luna, is currently the assistant principal at Hamilton Elementary School.

The Local School Council, which is a group of parents, teachers, staff, and people from the community, chose Ms. Luna from about 20 applicants to be the new Decatur principal. Tim McCaffrey, a parent who is on the LSC, said that the LSC chose Ms. Luna because “she was the best candidate for the job!” Mrs. Sharping, who is also on the LSC, said that she is happy with the choice because Ms. Luna “has a lot of potentially good

ideas that could help the kids and teachers at Decatur.”

Dolphin Press reporters recently interviewed Ms. Luna for an hour at Hamilton Elementary School.

During the interview, Ms. Luna said that she has some ideas that she will try to do once she gets to Decatur. “I’d like to make sure Decatur is a fun

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Meet Our New Literacy Teacher By Grace Grieme, Josh Lee, Richa Sharma, and

Aubree Stephens If you go into the Decatur library, chances are

you’ll see a new face. It is Ms. Chueng! Lynn Chueng is the new literacy

teacher, hired in January to replace Ms. Drake, who left in October.

Members of the newspaper recently asked Ms. Chueng how she feels to be the new teacher. “I love my new job!” she said in an interview.

Ms. Chueng also was asked why she came here for the job, with all the other good schools in CPS. She says that she heard Decatur was a great school and she wanted to work with gifted children. She

First Dolphin Press interview!

Third Grader Goes to City Spelling Bee By Sabine Garcia

Third grader Aryan Thapa-Chhetri won the schoolwide spelling bee on January 13 and then progressed to be the youngest contestant at the citywide spelling bee on March 10!

On March 10, Aryan and his parents went to Lindblom Math and Science Academy for the spelling competition. Aryan was the youngest contestant there and represented Decatur very well. Aryan stood his ground and made it to the fourth round, but misheard the word “piccolo” as “pickelhaube,” another word on the given study list. He was even featured in an article about the city

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Decatur Wins at State Latin Convention By Noelani Siharath and Maya Strong

In February, Decatur students took part in the Illinois Junior Classical League convention, competing against junior high and high school students in academic tests and arts competitions for the first time ever. The seven amazing participants were Faiyaz Khan, Esme Pelton, Joey Giambrone, Owen Strong, Mika Mayfield, Cameron Steelberg, and Micah Kohng.

On Friday 16, 2017, Faiyaz Khan gave the beginning speech encouraging Latin and telling the story of how he came to love Latin.

“Here we are students of the Classics keeping a dead language alive,” he said. “IJCL isn’t just an opportunity for learning, it’s a time to make friends.”

During roll call, some of the Decatur Classical team members performed a handwritten rap based on the musical Hamilton.

Even though this was Decatur’s first IJCL convention, Faiyaz Khan won 10th place in the state of Illinois. He won first place in sculpture, modern myth, dramatic interpretation, and classical art and architecture, and did well in many other competitions and tests!

Another key player was Joey Giambrone, who placed first in Grammar, Mottos, Latin Derivatives, and Roman Literature!

Roman banquet toga night

Owen Strong’s second-place winning entry for the Graphic Arts: Drawing competition

Roll Call competition

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Decatur K-3 Chess Team Wins! By Jenna Cinco

On February 4th, 18 Decatur students participated in the Greater Chicago Chess Tournament at McCormick Place, and the K-3 junior varsity team won first place!

The K-3 Jr. Varsity section includes: Siri Chennareddy (overall individual champion in this section, with a 5-0 score), Lily Meegoda (3rd place with 4.5 points), Brandon Wilken (6th place with a 4-1 record), and Jack Murphy (who won the special trophy as a non-rated new player). Also included in the team were Benjamin Mellinger, Kyle Hurney, and Ivanka and Emmie Guo.

We also had three players in K-3 Varsity Section who fought hard against another team who has complete players: Yuvraj Chennareddy, who finished 3rd, Josephine Swan, who finished 5th place, and Enkhjin Namuunbayar.

During this year’s tournament, Coach Chris tried hard to balance our players in the K-6 sections and split the group between Junior Varsity and Varsity Teams. The first group contains Anujin Namuunbayar, Jacob Hansen, and Tyler Weigand. The second group was Jenna Cinco, Ethan Ding, Journey Jackson, and John Seward. Both of these

groups did quite well in this very competitive sections.

The K-6 Junior Varsity Team got the 8th place out of 22 teams; while K-6 Varsity finished 4th. Watch out, we’re coming back next year!

Finally, to top it all off, Avi Kaplan competed alone in the K-9 section. It was not until his last game against the section winner that decided his overall standing. Still, Avi got a very good showing with 3 points and was placed 7th.

Congratulations Dolphins!

also liked that it was small. Ms. Chueng started teaching in 2014 at

Pershing Elementary School, and also taught at various city colleges. She started reading as early as kindergarten, and likes non-fiction books best.

Outside of school, Ms. Chueng likes to travel, watch movies, read books and art. Her favorite book is Travels with Charlie by John Steinbeck, and, yes, she does prefer books over movies. She does not speak any other languages, though she has learned Spanish, Korean, and German.

So if you see her in the halls, make sure to say hi to our new teacher Ms. Chueng!

New Literacy Teacher

Approximately 60 Decatur students from the choir sang at the Chicago Cultural Center to celebrate Black History Month. The kids sang “We Shall Overcome,” “Lift Every Voice,” and a Michael Jackson medley. About 2,000 kids performed in total.

Choir Performs Downtown (continued from page 1)

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Third Grader in City Spelling Bee

spelling bee in the Chicago Sun Times! Aryan made it to the citywide spelling bee because he won the

Decatur Classical schoolwide spelling bee on January 13. Participants in the schoolwide spelling bee were chosen after

participating in each classroom’s spelling bee. The top four students in each grade got to compete in the schoolwide spelling bee, and there were twenty-four participants in total. The entire school gathered in the multi-purpose room to watch the spellers. After about six rounds of increasingly harder words, five students (Aryan, 6th grader Faiyaz Khan, and 5th graders Jacob Hansen, Laerdon Kim and Josh Lee) reached the challenge words that they had not been able to study beforehand. When the competition got down to Aryan and Faiyaz Khan, Aryan spelled two challenge words in a row to win the schoolwide bee. His final word was “predominant.”

The third grader was not surprised that he made it to the schoolwide spelling bee and was only a little surprised to win the entire competition.

But winning a spelling bee comes at a fairly big price. When

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1st GRADE:

Allison Lee, Christa Lariosa, Simona Arsic, Bella Blankenberger

ALTERNATE: Haroon Mandur (102)

2nd GRADE:

Calvin Bucher, Kyle Hurney, Enrique Morales, Miles Weber

ALTERNATE: Siri Chennareddy

3rd GRADE:

Emma Strong, Charlie Duggan,

Aryan Thapa-Chhetri, Liam Minkov

ALTERNATE: Tom Greenwald (107); Susan Tang (105),

All the Classroom Spelling Bee Winners

4th GRADE:

Michael McCaffrey, Isla Gard, Peter Xu, Zoe FixZalkind

ALTERNATE: Ryder Page (109); Gaya Garapaty (106)

5th GRADE:

Laerdon Kim, Marinel Workman-Mandell,

Josh Lee, Jacob Hansen

ALTERNATE: James To

6th GRADE:

Faiyaz Khan, Esme Pelton,

Amelie Sanchez, Owen Strong

asked how long he studied for the schoolwide spelling bee, Aryan replied, “Multiply 31 x 30,” which totals 15 and a half hours.

Aryan then had to take an online spelling bee to qualify for the citywide spelling bee.

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6th Graders Attend Archeology Dig

By Maya Strong The Archeology Dig was held on January 23rd,

2017 for the 6th grade and was organized by Magistra Cohen, the Latin teacher at Decatur.

Retired Latin teacher, Dr. Judith Hayes, visited Decatur to speak to the 6th grade students. She brought along four portable archeology digs with items hidden in sand, and the students dug through the sand to recover items such as mosaic tiles, seeds, bricks, bones, and a necklace to experience a “dig” first hand.

Students Win School History Fair Awards

By Josh Lee The History Fair Awards ceremony was hosted

on March 10th. History Fair is an annual project run by 6th grade teacher Mrs. Sharping. Both 5th graders and 6th graders participate in History Fair, with the winning 6th graders going on to represent Decatur in the citywide Chicago History Fair.

The projects were a mix of websites, documentaries, and even one performance!

The theme for History Fair projects this year was Taking a Stand. Some of the winning 6th grade project topics were the Japanese-American internment, in which Japanese-Americans were sent to concentration camps after the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941; the Chicago Defender, a famous black newspaper in Chicago; and Ben Hecht, a former reporter who became a screenwriter in Hollywood.

The 5th grade winners were Hannah Glassman, Maya Strong, Jane Bazzell, Isai Balamurugan, Lily Meyer, Marinel Workman-Mandell, Josh Lee, Sammy Shin, and Richa Sharma.

The 6th grade winners were Ariana Rashid, Chloe Symons, Eleanor Corken, Neha Rishi, Annika Nelson, Amelie Sanchez, Zoe Barilla-Deuschle, Charlynne Ligo, Micah Kohng, and Faiyaz Khan.

Students Push For Expansion By Anujin Namuunbayar and Grace Grieme

On February 22, students Michael McCaffrey and Jacob Hansen gave speeches to the Chicago Board of Education about expanding Decatur (see speeches on next page).

Michael is in 4th grade and he wanted to do this because he wants an actual cafeteria and more gym. Michael said that he wrote about the things he was mad about, and that he put his ideas into paragraphs and installed proper grammar. Michael said he was not even nervous at all.

Jacob is in 5th grade and wanted to do this because he would like to go to school here for 7th and 8th grade. Jacob said that he made the speech with his mom’s help.

At the end of his speech, Michael invited Frank Clark, the Chairman of the Chicago Board, to visit Decatur. Mr. Clark said that he would come and complimented Michael and Jacob. “Both of you young men represented your schools, your institutions your parents very well,” Mr. Clark said.

Both Michael and Jacob thought that the Board of Education took the issues at Decatur seriously and that they were appreciated.

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By Michael McCaffrey Hello. My name is Michael McCaffrey and I am a

fourth grader from Decatur Classical School. Thank you for listening to what I have to say today.

I would like to ask for your help improving some things at Decatur. I think the place to start is improving the gym. The problem is we do not have a gym at Decatur. On rainy days, we either have gym in our small multipurpose room or in our classroom, which means no exercise. And I don't think it is fair that kids at other Chicago public schools are able to have a nice big gym while we have to pay money that cannot be used for other things and get a contract signed to play in a gym for only once a week for six weeks a year.

Listen to this upsetting fact. That is only 2,100 minutes for a student who stays at Decatur from k through 6th grade. If we had our own gym, students will get an average of 25,900 minutes in K to 6th grade.

Also, we don’t have a cafeteria at Decatur. This means that we have to eat lunch at our desks and we can't eat with our friends. If we had a cafeteria we could eat wherever we want. also, kids from different classes like to eat with each other and can't because we eat at our desks.

When you were a kid, having lunch with your friends is important. Kids get to socialize with one another and chat.

The way to fix this would be turning the multi-purpose room into a cafeteria.

I would really appreciate it if we could work together to make Decatur a better place.

By Jacob Hansen Hi. My name is Jacob Hansen and I'm a fifth

grader at Decatur Classical School. I'd like to tell you about the difficulties the kids at our school face because they don’t have a place to go for 7th and 8th grade. In fifth grade, kids at my school start to get worried and stressed out. They are only 10 or 11 years old and they are very worried about getting good grades and taking tests to get into 7th grade.

Decatur is a testing school. Kids come from all over the city to go there, and we work 1 or 2 years above grade level so we do the 7th grade curriculum in 6th grade, which makes it harder to go back to a neighborhood school for 7th grade, so most kids try to test into another selective enrollment school or an academic center.

In 5th grade, we think a lot about having to leave Decatur. We worry that we will not be able to continue at the same kind of education and classes that we've had here at Decatur.

The kids who go to Decatur are very interested in learning. I've learned so much from my classmates. Because it's such a small school I know all the kids there and the teachers know all the kids very well. My grade has only 29 kids total, and most of us have been together for most of our grade school. We are sad that our class will be all split apart. Whatever school we go to for 7th or 8th grade, we are usually not with more than a few of our classmates from Decatur. It’s very hard to change to a new school where you hardly know anyone in 7th grade. It’s hard to think about splitting up from my friends and starting somewhere new especially because I will have to do it again two years later when we go to high school.

It also means we are spending a lot of time thinking about grades and tests from 5th grade on rather than just learning which is what we want to do. If Decatur could have a 7th and 8th grade, these problems would be solved.

Out of more than 480 Chicago Public School, just a handful only go to 6th grade. All the rest have 7th and 8th grades. I think that Decatur deserves to have one too. Thank you.

Student Speeches for Expansion at Board Meeting

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Meet Your Student Congress Representatives

VINCE PARENTE By Maya Strong

Vincent Parente is a fourth grader at Decatur Classical Elementary School. He said in his speech that he ran for Student Congress because he wanted to make a difference in the school. Vince is experienced as he was in Student Congress before in second grade. His favorite part of being in Student Congress is the Holiday Bazaar.

OWEN STRONG

By Sammy Shin Owen Strong is 12 and is in 6th

grade and has Mrs. Sharping as a teacher. He likes chocolate-chip cookies. His favorite color is blue, and when he grows up, he wants to be a chemical engineer. One of his hobbies is coding, his favorite subject is science, and his favorite sport is kickball. Over the summer Owen went to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and he went to the beach with his family.

MATHIEU DIAZ

By Zoe FixZalkind

Q: Why did you run for Student Congress?

A: I wanted to be a part of something at school.

Q: Have you been in Student Congress or something like it before?

A: Yes, 3 times (at old school). Q: What’s your favorite part

about Student Congress? A: Working with other people. Q: What do you want to

accomplish because of your position in Student Congress?

A: I want to be a role model for other people.

Q: What’s your favorite color? A: Neon green. Q: What’s your favorite thing

to do? A: Play sports. Q: What’s your favorite food? A: Tacos. Q: What did you do for winter

break? A: I went to Ecuador. Q: What’s your favorite book/

series? A: I don’t have one. Q: Do you like Decatur better

than your old school? A: I don’t know.

EVAN RYDING

By Ananya Nanda Q: Why did you run for

Student Congress? A: I wanted to be part of a

change at Decatur. Q: What is your favorite part

of Student Congress? A: I like helping with school

events like the Holiday Bazaar. Q: What is your favorite

color? A: Black and grey. Q: What do you do in

Student Congress? A: I help decide the

decorations in the window, sort items for the Holiday Bazaar, and so much more.

Q: What is your favorite book series and/or video game?

A: Boxboxboy. Q: What is your favorite

food? A: Sushi. Q: When did you come to

Decatur? A: I came in 2012 in

Kindergarten. Q: Do you have any siblings?

If so, how many? A: I have one 16-year-old

brother. Q: Have you been in student

congress before? A: No.

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By Mina Chung-Hawke Hidden Figures is about three African-American

women who helped get the first American into space successfully.

Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) is a math genius with three daughters and only her mother there to help her. Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) supervises the “Colored Computers” de-partment at NASA, but is not being promoted to su-pervisor. Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) wants to be an engineer, but can’t be one until she takes more classes on top of her college degree.

Katherine Johnson helps figure out the calcula-tions for these flights, but her partner doesn’t feel like an African-American woman should get credit for these important calculations. Meanwhile, Mary Jackson is arguing for a court case so that she can take night classes and become an engineer, and Dor-othy Vaughn wants to be promoted to supervisor, but the woman in charge of the women’s depart-ment all together still won’t promote her.

I think this is good for kids because it teaches them about the hidden, and by some, forgotten sto-ry of how girl power got men into space.

Movie Reviews

By Brady Leonard The Lego-Batman Movie is fast-paced and just as

funny as the original Lego Movie from 2014 but also a little darker. In this movie Batman has a seemingly great life being an adored super hero but we learn that sometimes it takes a village, not a Batman. There are lots of action scenes, hilarious jokes, surprising guest stars and, according to my mom and dad, plenty of inside jokes for the adults seeing the movie. I give this movie 3 and 1/4 stars out of 5.

By Anujin Namuunbayar First, I would like to say that this movie gave me

tears. It was so sad! Yet beautiful at the same time. There was this dog named Bailey. In his second

life, his owner is Ethan. A friend of “Ethan” starts a fire in his house and when Ethan tries to save everyone, he hurts his leg. Some people may think that dogs are smart but what are they really thinking? They think about food and that their butt itches. In his third life, he gets killed by getting shot.

But I’m only going to give you one spoiler. I think I cried a trillion times. I’m not kidding! Go watch it yourself! This movie is about a dog who wants to figure out what is the meaning of life. One more spoiler: In his third life, he fights crime with his owner. But was his purpose to sniff, track, and find? So, what is the meaning of life? And how does he keep being born all over again? The only way to figure that out is to watch the movie. The movie is about an adventurer who wants to make everyone happy. It is also funny. Bailey calls kissing “face licking”. I did not mean to gross you out there. Also, he calls a donkey a “horse dog.”

At the end, he finds out what a dog’s purpose is. Sort of. Every life, when he dies, he asks himself if he learned what a dog’s purpose is. And every time, he gets closer and closer to finding out what a dog’s purpose is and finding Ethan. But how will Ethan know that the dog is really Bailey? Is there a special way to find out if Ethan remembers Bailey? But you got to remember that Bailey looks completely different now. But what does Bailey look like now?

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place for students so that you like coming to school and you enjoy your time here,” she said.

One idea that she’s considering is using the multi purpose room as a cafeteria so kids can eat lunch there instead of in their classrooms. She'd also like to have lots of different special activities every day and after school. She will try to get more art and creative activities at Decatur. She also wants kids to have recess outside every day.

Ms. Luna thinks that expansion is important especially if the school gets a middle grade. “It sounds like we really need it,” she said. Ms. Luna said she was surprised at how small Decatur was when she visited, especially since Hamilton is much bigger.

Ms. Luna is interested in using novels more in teaching about reading. For the older kids, she believes in a novel-based curriculum because if she has a class read a book you can explain what the story is about and what you are learning from that story. She also wants to make math more about centers and processes, where kids come up with solutions any way that they can. She thinks kids should have choices about how they learn.

Some of you may have heard of Hamilton's NO HOMEWORK policy. They do not have homework until the 5th grade in part so kids have more time for after-school activities. When they do have homework, they do not have daily homework but portfolios which they get weekly. Ms. Luna wants to talk to parents and teachers and get their input as to whether this might work at Decatur too.

Ms. Luna said she wants to utilize the playground and the grassy areas more because when she drove by she was amazed by how much land is near Decatur. She may try to have more classes outside.

Ms. Luna said that her ideal teacher is caring and energetic, and really loves kids.

As a child, Ms. Luna wanted to be a doctor and then a lawyer, but she became a teacher instead because she wanted to work with kids. She grew up in Chicago and has never lived anywhere else in her life. She went to Burley Elementary, Franklin Fine

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Arts, and Lane Tech. She went to DePaul for college and also went to National Louis University.

Ms. Luna started teaching in 2004 and was initially a 4th grade teacher. She taught at Stockton Elementary School in 2010, then later started teaching at Hamilton and became the assistant principal there.

Her favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird. She said that she has probably read it 30 times and that she likes the themes of the book. She said that it gives her perspective and hope when she reads it.

Ms. Luna likes documentaries and historical movies, especially about World War II. She said that, for fun, her favorite movie is Zootopia.

Ms. Luna’s favorite singers are Michael Buble and Tony Bennett, and her favorite song is Ain't Too Proud to Beg by the Temptations. Ms. Luna plays piano and sings, and thinks that these are important parts of her even if she does not do them professionally. She has performed with kids at Hamilton and hopes to do so at Decatur!

If she could be any historical figure, she would be Abraham Lincoln or author Maya Angelou.

Her favorite color is blue. If she was not a teacher, Ms. Luna would love to

be a food critic. Along with English, Ms. Luna speaks Spanish,

understands a little bit of Italian, and has always wanted to speak French.

Ms. Luna and her husband have two children, Caleb, who is in 8th grade at Hamilton, and Abraham, who is in preschool and was adopted about two years ago.

New Principal to Start This Summer

Ms. Luna with Student Reporters

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4th Graders: Mina Chung-Hawke, Jenna Cinco, Zoe FixZalkind, Sabine Garcia, Grace Grieme,

Brady Leonard, Michael McCaffrey, Anujin Namuunbayar, Ananya Nanda,

Domi Norborg, Shea Perkins, Aubree Stephens, Kelly Suh, Yasmyn Sutherlin

5th Graders: Shumei Gong, Josh Lee,

Lily Meyer, Richa Sharma, Sammy Shin, Noelani Siharath, Maya Strong

Thanks to Ms. K, Mrs. J, Mrs. Sharping, Mrs.

Regalado, Mr. P, and all the parent volunteers for your help!