School News

Students donned waders and set off into the water with collection nets at the Great Swamp Wildlife Refuge, in a continuation of this special FlexFriday series that began with a workshop in January. Students worked as a team to gather and identify the species they found and categorize them into pollution-tolerant, pollution-sensitive, and pollution-intolerant groups. Then they assessed their findings to determine what parameters might be affecting biodiversity and macroinvertebrate life. 

FlexSchool admissions coordinator Jen Madsen dedicates countless hours of her personal time to advocating for the needs of the 2e community. Last week, Jen traveled to Capitol Hill to advocate for increased federal funding for gifted and talented education through demonstration programs and research for underrepresented students including Black, ELL, low-income, rural, and students with disabilities. Left: Jen with Johns Hopkins University Prof. Jonathan Plucker and Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Right: Jen with Rep. Tom Kean.

Educators from the Great Swamp visited the Berkeley Heights campus to bring students a hands-on water quality testing program. With a demonstration using their Enviroscape three-dimensional model of a community, and a topographic model of the Great Swamp Watershed, students learned about the “real” water cycle. The presentation included discussions of what a watershed is, where our drinking water comes from, where our waste water goes, point versus nonpoint source pollution, human impacts on local waterways, and best practices to reduce our impact on local waterways. This visit will be followed up by a field trip in the Spring!

In an exuberant display of creativity, showmanship and humor, 16 performers wowed their families, peers and teachers with music, comedic skits and visual art at the Berkeley Heights FlexSchool Talent Show last Friday.

Cloud students delivered speeches at a special Town Hall the week before the holiday break. We are proud of all of those students who volunteered to run for office, and of everyone who listened respectfully to their speeches!

• President: Theodore Matthes
• Vice President: Hudson Ruff
• Secretary: Anais Miller
• Middle School Representative: Rafi Schlick
• Elementary Representative: Max Jacobellis
• Sunshine Spreader: Alistair Hooper