June 16, 2023

Greetings Lincoln Educational Stakeholders,

Happy beginning of summer!  The purpose of this message is to bring you some district information at the close of the school year.  There are many exciting initiatives and projects taking place in the Lincoln Public Schools. While this message is a bit of a long read, it contains information about exciting projects and initiatives taking place in our schools that support our collective vision of making Lincoln Public Schools a world class educational experience for our students. I also want to inform parents/guardians about some of the outstanding work our faculty, staff and administration were part of this past year.  

The Physical Education Center is nearing completion and will be ready for our students in the Fall.  Our grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled to coincide with the first few weeks of school.  This structure will provide our students with a state of the art athletic space for our expanding needs.  The Physical Education Center will be the state’s first net-zero energy school facility when it opens and is estimated to save $1.5 million in electricity bills over the next two decades. Lincoln High School is one of a handful of schools in the nation that have won a US Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools Award. The Green Ribbon Schools Award recognizes our commitment to sustainability, student well-being, and environmental awareness. It is only natural that Lincoln continues to serve as a regional exemplar by constructing Rhode Island's first net-zero energy school facility. 

Continuing with the upgrades at Lincoln High School, we will be embarking on a front entrance project for LHS.  The front entrance project (below) is part of Lincoln High School Renovation Phase II, which included our beautiful new Physical Education Center along with solar panels, landscaping, a new façade, and updated signage. 

The library media center projects are nearing completion at Central and Saylesville elementary schools. Work on the newly renovated media centers at Lonsdale and Northern Elementary Schools has already begun.

The end of this year’s legislative session included approval of a $25M bond referendum for Lincoln voters to consider on November 7th, and extended the State’s school construction bonus incentives, which would fund half of the project. The bond, if approved by voters on November 7th, would provide each of the four undersized elementary schools with new gymnasiums, science labs, and renovated cafeterias. Based on the Rhode Island Department of Education's school guidelines, Lincoln's elementary schools only offer students one third of the gym and cafeteria space they should have. 

By combining November's bond with the newly created revolving capital fund and federal funding, the District would embark on a $50M elementary school renovation plan that takes advantage of $20 million in temporary State and federal aid. This would reduce Lincoln's contribution to just 25% or $12.5M of the entire plan - a tremendous win for all residents.

Lincoln Schools are fortunate to have such a supportive educational community, strong ties to town and state government and an outstanding faculty and staff that supports our mission and vision.  In particular, I appreciate the town leadership, town council, budget board and Lincoln school committee’s support of my vision and the vision of my team to make Lincoln a standout among districts in Rhode Island. 

Sincerely,

Dr. Lawrence P. Filippelli

Superintendent of Schools

Lincoln High School Highlights

Academics

• Approval of the Culinary CTE Program 

• The incorporation of the “Lion's Mane Food Truck” into the curriculum 

• Golden Apple Award Winner - Casey Carr

English Department

The English department was very proud that our English SAT proficiency rating rose to 70%, which is a 4-percentage point increase from last year's results. We utilized the Horizon platform to provide students with supplementary materials in an online environment similar to the actual SAT. We will expand this work next year, including the use of the platform for PSAT preparation. 

We have continued to align our curriculum with StudySync, our selected high-quality curriculum. We are also working to align all of this work with the Vision of a Graduate and Performance Assessment initiatives. Our AP classes continue to meet with success during the year and on the AP Exams. Mr. Morgan, who teaches the AP Literature course, led his students to an improvement in AP score averages last year, and I expect the same to be true of this year. Mr. Schofield's AP English Language class tends to be a popular option for grade 11 students, and he expects an increased average on this year's exam as well.

Jessica Galla and Joy Maimoni, our Reading Specialists, continue to refine and revamp the Reading Enrichment course to meet the needs of our struggling readers, while also supporting teachers and students via their work co-teaching in Science and Social Studies, working on the MTSS team, and co-chairing the Literacy Committee.

Our Journalism and Media Communications CTE program, in an effort to adapt and reflect trends in the larger world, focused their efforts on the online version of the school paper, The Lion's Roar. Likewise, rather than publish physical copies of the newspaper, students in this program published the first edition of a Lion's Roar magazine, which was a major accomplishment for our student journalists and their phenomenal advisor, Doreen Picozzi. Similarly, students in the program produced a weekly news show, The Morning Roar, rather than daily announcements. Please see this additional information from Doreen regarding the Journalism and Media Communications CTE accomplishments:

* Two Lincoln High School rising seniors received full scholarships to a week long workshop in North Carolina on Elon University campus as part of Elon University's Emerging Journalist Program.  Brett Germani and Brianna Bressan, both of whom completed the Exposure Component as Sophomores, have been accepted into "Immersion"  a residential learning workshop. The program covers all student expenses, including travel.  Exposure offered students virtual classes in journalism and communications. "Immersion", the second component, engages high school students from around the country in authentic applications.  Students who complete the Immersion program will be assigned two mentors, an Elon communications student and a professional journalist, to help identify, report and produce multimedia stories during their senior year of high school.  The program is made possible by the Scripps Howard fund, and the educational initiative is free to all participants.  They are leaving on Monday!

* Lincoln High School Journalists worked on an interdisciplinary endeavor with students of architectural design and engineering, ceramic art, as well as woodworking, that resulted in a garden display at the Rhode Island Home Show at the end of the month, and a school documentary about the design and construction of the display.  Journalism students have also completed another piece on a nonprofit Home Show exhibitor called Rosemary's Wish Kids.  The charity enlists Rhode Island High School students to design and construct backyard playhouses for children with terminal illnesses.  Both documentaries showed, on a loop, during the week long home show.  LHS's "Morning Roar" news show will also broadcast from the site.  Students are creating multimedia packages to capture the experience.

* Students of LHS's Journalism & Mass Media CTE, a PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Lab, have been rising to SRL's challenges all year long.  With RI PBS, students are proud to participate in the journalism education program.  Three of our students who produced mini-docs about food's role in culture and society have recently learned that their pieces will air.

* The competitions were few and far between this year, but the following students were recognized by the New England Scholastic Press Association with special recognition awards:
* Katherine Kilsey (featuring writing)
* Alaina Arruda (broadcast)
* Brianna Bressan (broadcast)
* Natalia Klek (broadcast)
* Caitlyn Proctor (broadcast)

Our other electives enjoyed continued growth in popularity for students, so we hope to continue the success of those programs in the future. Mrs. Pavao highlights that the Multi-genre Writing class had 29 students this year, so we hope to continue the growth of that program beyond one section. Mr. Pavao taught the Pop Culture and Literary Theory course, which did not run last year but will run again next year. Film Studies has also grown in popularity with 2 sections this year and 3 sections next year. Kudos to Mr. and Mrs. Pavao for their development and leadership of these electives, which are definitely having a positive impact on our students. 

Mrs. DeRiso would like to highlight her success with her senior students who also had her as juniors. This informal looping has proven, again, to be beneficial to her students and her relationship with her learners. She commends her juniors and seniors for their growth and self-reliance throughout the year. 

Business

Cheryl Murray went through the National Board's Maintenance of Certification process this year and she will find out in December.

Cheryl also entered her EEP Personal Finance students into the Stock Market Game. Out of 637 teams in the state of Rhode Island, she had 13 teams place in the top 100, including the following high-achieving teams:  # 25, 24, 17, 15, 11, 10, and 7. Students from the three EEP Personal Finance classes earned more than $1,000.  42 students achieved a B+ or better and were given $25 each toward a Navigant account.  Lastly, 85 students became certified through Everfi's RI Financial Scholars Program, thanks to a partnership that the LHS Business Dept has with Navigant Credit Union.

World Language

Events 

World Language Week festivities continued this year with a delicious international lunch co-sponsored by the WL teachers and the Culinary teachers and students. WL students did cultural trivia competitions via digital escape rooms and also watched a French and Portuguese film. 

World Language Exams

Congratulations to several students of World Languages from Lincoln High School who attained national recognition for excellent performance on the 2023 National French, Portuguese or Spanish Examinations.

The National French, Portuguese and Spanish Examinations are administered each year in grades 6 through 12, and are sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, and the American Association of the Teachers of French. 

Portuguese

Student of Portuguese, Jose Carlos Ramos-Lopez, received a gold medal, while Vanessa Gouveia received a silver medal. Kaitlyn DaCosta, a level 2 student of Portuguese, earned a bronze medal. In addition, the following students of Portuguese received honorable mention on their respective exams: 

Lily Smidts 

Elisabeth Alves

Mia Figueiredo

Haylee Ferreira 

Dominic Primo 

Yoselin Gomez 

French

Student of French II, Gaby Lopez, received a silver medal, while Adelaide Smith, Zainabou Kante and Donovan Conway received bronze medals on their respective exams. In addition, the following students received honorable mention in French:

Emma Picard

Dina Howland

Coleton Samos

Caitlyn Proctor

Douyna Eskaf

Manna Benni

Scott Nicoll

Billy Accardi

Spanish

Finally, students of Spanish I Luke Marchand and Krystal Gonzalez both received silver medals, Eric Meza received a silver medal, and Amanda DeCarvalho, Aliza Chan, Lorelei Archambault and Wynston Domenico received bronze medals on their respective exams. In addition, the following students received honorable mention in Spanish: 

Caylin Crohan

Hailey Serabian

Julia Brunelle

Kimberly Hickey

Evelyn Gay

Meredith Dawkins

Hailey Miranda

Khadija Kouraj

Carson Mellen

Amanda Proia

Helen Green

Brynn Lugar

Caden Derenthal

Gwenyth McNulty

Madison Roddy

Holly Pickering

James Kregler

Liliana Abramek

Maimuna Bayo

Julian Paroyian

Meredith Sammon-Burns

David Silvestri

Rose Hauk

Isabella Ackerman

Katherine Kilsey

Kaetlyn Andujar

Seal of Biliteracy

Finally, we awarded the Silver Seal of Biliteracy to Yiru Liu and Jillian Reeve in Mandarin Chinese and French, respectively. 

Visual Arts (2-Dimensional/Graphic Design)

• Digital Design:  Approval of Curriculum for new course

• Food Truck Design:  Graphic Design students designed LHS graphics for Food Truck wrap

• Graphic Design Room update

• Digital Cameras & Drawing Tablet equipment added to Graphic Design program

• Received Lindsey Burkee grant to design Date Rape posters with health classes

• Interdisciplinary Propaganda Posters with R. Almeida History class and Graphic Design 

• Represented RI & RIAEA as national representative at Conference in which new Art Curriculum and Initiatives were announced

• Represented RI Art Educators advocating for Arts Education in RI High School graduation requirements

• Graduation Planning & Execution

• Student Art displays for Senior Awards Night & Graduation

• Student Artists Awarded…

Senator Jack Reed Art Competition winners--

                    2nd Place Winner: Sophia Ashman

                    Staff Choice:  Amelie Archambault

             Hera Gallery:  First Place Overall:  Amelie Archambault

Music

David Enos (Band) and Brandon Lahoud (Chorus) 

• Band and Chorus Holiday Concert December 18, 2022

• Jazz Band, Concert Band, and Chorus performed for all Lincoln elementary schools with performances in the Lincoln High School Auditorium

• Band and Chorus Spring Concert May 13, 2023

• Band collaborated with Rhode Island Professional Firefighters Pipes and Drum Band at spring concert

• Band and Chorus performance at LHS Graduation June 2, 2023

• Band performed at Lincoln Town Administrator’s Inauguration 

• 4 Music Scholarships awarded, The John Azevedo Music Scholarship (2 recipients), and the Dan O’Neil Memorial Music Scholarship (2 recipients)

• Choir was invited to perform the National Anthem to URI basketball but was canceled due to rescheduled match date

• Select Chorus this year included many more students who could not have been a part of Chorus in school due to scheduling reasons; involvement was at 18 members

• Re-evaluated Choir curriculum with student run Executive Board to improve organization, content, warm-ups, & create exciting fundraising opportunities for students.  This resulted in a year where many students took advantage and we had increased involvement. Positions included President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary. Group met once a week before Select Chorus rehearsal. 

• Class representatives that joined the Executive Board meetings once a month to see how the process works and add extra input including successful apparel campaigns.

• Student-run Chorus Executive Board ran our Freshman Roar table & were excellent role models in helping incoming freshmen become interested in Chorus.

•  Marching Band performed at home football games, pep rally, Columbus Day Parade in Woonsocket and Lincoln Memorial Day Parade 

• Student-run Band Executive Board

• Parent run Band Booster Club

• Band Banquet 

• Band & Chorus students participated in Rhode Island All-State Ensembles, Rhode Island Solo & Ensemble Festival

• Band, Jazz Band, and Chorus together attended Music In The Parks in Pennsylvania with a successful award ceremony at Hershey Park May 5-7, 2023

• TRI-M restarted this year with 2 successful Open Mic Nights on December 21, 2022, and May 17, 2023

• Jacob  Kamborian was selected to perform at Carnegie Hall with a select performance choir, won the CS Music Recognition for All-State as the only recognized member for RI

Athletics

Fall 

• Unified Volleyball State Championship 

• Boys Division I Goalie of the Year - Oskar Caldarone 

• Football winning the Thanksgiving Day game 

• Field Hockey Division II State championship runner ups 

Winter

• Wrestling Division II Regular Season Co-Champs 

• Wrestling 100 win club - Zachary Henault 

• Girls and Boys swim Paul L Rossi Memorial Sportsmanship Award 

• Jillian Leahy All Division, All Class, All State, All New England, and All American in weight throw 

• Christian Toro All Division, All Class, All State, All New England, and All American in weight throw 

Spring 

• Boys tennis appearance in singles state championship since 1988 Camden DiChiara 

• Unified Basketball State Champions 

• Boys Volleyball Division II State Champions 

Division I Students 

• Christian Toro - Duke University (Track and Field)

• Jillian Leahy - Brown University (Track and Field) 

• Aidan Moreau - Northeastern University (Track and Field)

Math

• Implemented a new high quality curriculum

• Kerry Johnson was nominated for the PAEMST "Presidential Awards for Excellence · in Mathematics and Science Teaching"

• SAT math scores went up

History 

• Golden Apple Award - Casey Carr

• Continued Development of Curriculum/Scope and Sequence to align with new State Standards

• Frank Yip, Chris Allen and Patti Vivari developed teacher training/lesson ideas to help students develop their online reasoning skills. This was developed from the SHEG Civic Online Reasoning Course that Frank and Chris attended in a previous year.

• Club for Change, through the leadership of Sarah Lane, volunteered throughout the school year to help local charities and organizations:

  • Made fleece blankets for Lincoln Animal Shelter 

  • Clothing Drive for Federal Hill House

  • Sorted food at the Northern RI Food Pantry

• Chess Club - Advised by Frank Yip