South High Community School

🎄✨ Festival of Lights Sparkled in Worcester! ✨🎄 Thank you to everyone who joined us for the Festival of Lights on Worcester Common! A special shoutout to our WPS scholars, including performers from Burncoat High Quadrivium Chorus, Midland Street Elementary, North High School, and South High School, for making the evening unforgettable. Your talents lit up the night and made the evening unforgettable! 🌟 Stay tuned for more events celebrating the season. 🎶❄️

📢 Help Shape WPS Core Values! The Worcester Public Schools are developing core values to guide our actions, culture, and decision-making. These values are the foundation of our community, and we need your input! 👉 Participate by January 15, 2025—your voice matters! Help define the values that will shape our Strategic Plan, to be announced in Spring 2025. Join now: https://buff.ly/3D9RCu1

🎉 South High Community School Advances in State-Wide High School Quiz Show 🎉 Shoutout to these stellar students from South High Community for advancing to the Round of 16 in the High School Quiz Show! 🧠✨ Out of 66 competing teams, South High has made it to the next stage and is now in the running for the State Championship! The Round of 16 will air on March 1, 2025 when South High faces off against Weston High School. 📸 Pictured from left to right: South High english educator and team advisor Kitren Farrell, senior Shannon Dennehy, senior Phoebe McDermott, sophomore Jhailyn Boapea, senior William Giannopoulos, junior Muriel Gibbons and sophomore Charles Chase Norris.

🦃 ✨ Wishing our students, families, and staff a joyful Thanksgiving filled with gratitude, reflection, and appreciation for the diverse traditions, histories, and cultures that enrich our communities.🍁 We are thankful for the opportunity to learn, grow, and support one another. May everyone have a restful and enjoyable break! 💛

🥧 South High Community School Culinary Arts Pie Fundraiser 🥧 The Culinary Arts Chapter 74 Career Technical Education (CTE) program at South High put the finishing touches on dozens of pies for its annual Thanksgiving fundraiser! The pie fundraiser helps the Culinary Arts program pay for its sophomore class field trip to Johnson & Wales University, one of the top culinary arts schools in the country. Teachers at South High pre-order pies in advance, selecting from Apple Pie, Blueberry Pie, Pumpkin Pie and Cheese Babka. From there, the Culinary Arts students get to work, freshly baking pies from scratch—and they looked delicious! Check out some of the sights from a busy day in the kitchen! 📸

More than 50 staff and community partners were celebrated at Worcester Public Schools Evening of Innovation! It was a great night to honor the incredible staff and community partners who make a difference every day. View the complete list of honorees: https://buff.ly/3OhAvcb

Quarter 1 honor roll listings for the 2024-25 school year are now posted! 🏆 Congratulations to the many scholars who are being acknowledged for their academic achievements. Find your scholar here 👉 https://buff.ly/4fS3XRL

🌱📝 Apricot Journal Seedlings Workshop at Flagg Street School 📝🌱 Recently students from The Apricot Journal visited with sixth graders at the Flagg Street School for a Seedlings Workshop! The Seedlings Workshop is a fun writing workshop led by students of South High Community School's award-winning literary magazine, The Apricot Journal. The workshop is a great way for the high school students to connect with elementary students in the district. The workshops are student-led with editors of the magazine developing lessons and connecting with host schools. In the recent workshop, students in Ms. Grilla's and Ms. Jardine's classes dove into expressing gratitude with sentence structure and word choice. During the day, there were four small group stations for art doodles, acrostic poems, thank you notes and hand turkeys with each finger highlighting something students are grateful for. The recent stop at Flagg Street is just the latest for The Apricot Journal with seedlings workshops already completed at Worcester Arts Magnet School and May Street School. The Apricot Journal has a goal of visiting two schools each month. Great job by all participating students and a special shout out to the Apricot Journal for leading this initiative! Take a look at some of the sights from the day 📸

Thank You Veterans for Your Service!🫡 Veterans Day honors military veterans for their service and sacrifice. It’s a day to show appreciation for those who have served to protect our country. Click here to learn more about the significance of Veterans Day and how you can honor those who served: https://buff.ly/3IOnULk

Veterans Day Breakfast at Gates Lane International School of Studies 🇺🇸 The students and staff at Gates Lanes came together ahead of Veterans Day for a special breakfast to honor veterans within the school's community. Students enjoyed a delicious breakfast and quality time with a special veteran in their life in the school's cafeteria. Gates Lane staff honored those unable to attend with a special slideshow of photos and names. The amazing JROTC cadets from South High Community School also joined in on the day, presenting the colors and sharing the significance of Veterans Day. A big thank you to South High JROTC instructor Chief Master Sergeant William Butman and his students. Thank you, veterans, for your service and sacrifice! 🙏

📚✨ Attendance Matters! 🏫 November has 16 school days — let’s make each one count! 🙌 Consistent attendance helps students stay on track, succeed academically, and build great habits. 📝💪 Let’s show up, learn, and thrive together! 🎓🌟

✨ Staff Development Day Highlights! ✨ Today, hundreds of dedicated educators from Worcester Public Schools came together for a day of professional development. Through interactive workshops and teamwork, they focused on enhancing their skills to better support our WPS scholars. Pictured here are some of the Highlights: Special Education Session: Collaboratively developed IEPs with guidance from Special Education staff and Evaluation Team Chairs. Nutrition Team Trainings: The day started with Project Bread chef Sherri presenting a shawarma seasoning blend recipe and a shawarma rice bowl concept. The Burncoat quadrant held a managers meeting, while team members participated in ServSafe classes, CPR/Choke training, and a Managers 101 session for staff with less than 90 days on the job. 👏 A heartfelt thank you to all staff for your dedication to excellence and student achievement!

No School on Tuesday, November 5 Teachers have a professional development on Tuesday, November 5 🗓️ so there will be no school for students! 🏫

👟 Inter-High Cross Country Championships at Green Hill Park 👟 It was great to see many of our high schools and student-athletes come together for the Inter-High Cross Country Championships at Green Hill Park! It was a tough 3.1 mile course filled with steep hills, but competitors from across WPS gave it their all and displayed tremendous sportsmanship, cheering on runners from all teams. For the girls race, South High finished in first place to take the city championship while Burncoat came in second. Doherty and Worcester Tech tied for third in the team standings. For the girls individual winners, Chase Sullivan of Burncoat led the group in first place while Regan Maxwell of South High and Avery Corriveqau of Worcester Technical came in second and third place respectively. In the boys race, Burncoat High came in first place for the team competition while South, Worcester Tech and Doherty rounded out the teams. For boys individual winners, Alfonso Huaman of Worcester Tech led the race in first place followed by Griffon Spofford of Burncoat and Isaiah Jacques of South in second and third place respectively. Check out a few images from a great day of cross country! 📸

🎃✨ Pumpkin Drop Physics Lesson at South High Community School! ✨🎃 Students at South High used their Physics Free Fall unit to get further into the Halloween spirit with a fun pumpkin drop lesson! Students recorded video of the drop and then marked the position of the pumpkin at set time intervals. With the information, they were able to create a motion diagram, position vs. time graph, velocity vs. time graph and calculate the acceleration due to gravity of falling objects near Earth's surface. It was a great time for all involved, except for maybe the pumpkins!

South High Community School Hosts Doherty Memorial High School in Football 🏈 South High recently hosted Doherty High for a matchup of WPS teams on the football field. It was a terrific fall night for football with plenty of fans from both schools in attendance. Doherty came out on top with a 28-6 victory over South. Cheerleaders from both teams were in action as well with a friendly battle taking place at the 50-yard line during halftime. Statistically for Doherty, senior Josh Romeo threw three touchdowns with junior Ryan Dennis (two touchdowns) and sophomore Chris Lefebvre (one touchdown) on the receiving end. Donte Aghapour ran in for a touchdown while Carlos Tumer (12 tackles), Tom Kursonis (eight tackles, two sacks) and Jailen Givins-Osafo (nine tackles) bolstered the defense. For South, sophomore running back Peyton Mosely finished with 86 yards on 21 carries while junior Uche Mba grabbed four receptions for 44 yards and one touchdown. Defensively, Aedan Gonzalez and Mba finished with eight tackles while freshman Cyrus Johnson recorded an interception. Take a look at some of the scenes of the game! 📸

Seasonal Clothing Donation from Cradles to Crayons 🧥 Recently the Family and Community Engagement Office received its annual donation of seasonal clothing packs from Cradles to Crayons! Thanks to this amazing partnership, schools were able to order specific items for students, and Cradles to Crayons did the rest, delivering a truckload of essentials just in time for winter. The items donated included long sleeve shirts, pants, sweaters, socks, underwear, and winter coats! 🚚✨ A huge shoutout to everyone involved—especially our fantastic wraparound coordinators and the dedicated staff from the McKinney-Vento office—who helped sort and distribute these much-needed donations! We can’t wait to see these items go to our WPS families! 🧦💖

Happy National Principal Month! ✏️ October is all about celebrating the dedicated principals that help shape our school communities. Their passion and commitment to WPS students and staff inspires us every day! We know this image doesn't capture all our amazing WPS principals, so drop a comment to give a shout-out and say thank you to yours!

💫 Highlights from the Burncoat Quadrant SEPAC Meeting! 💫 A big thank you to all the amazing parents and caregivers who attended the Burncoat Quadrant Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) Welcome New Parents Meeting on October 17 at Norrback Avenue Elementary! 🌟 It was wonderful connecting with everyone and sharing valuable resources on the special education support available for your children. From speech and occupational therapy to Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services, we hope you left feeling more informed and confident about the comprehensive support available in Worcester Public Schools! 💬💡 Missed this one? No worries! There are still two more chances to attend: 📍 North Quadrant: Tuesday, October 29 @ Roosevelt Elementary 📍 Doherty Quadrant: Thursday, November 7 @ Nelson Place Elementary 🎒 Don't forget—every family receives a welcome packet full of helpful resources! Childcare will be provided at both upcoming events to make attending easier for families. We’re here to support you every step of the way! ❤️

Worcester Public Schools Receives Game Changer Award at Worcester Chamber of Commerce Game Changers Conference 🏆 The Worcester Public Schools recently received the Game Changer Award from the Worcester Chamber of Commerce, which celebrates local organizations that drive meaningful change within the Worcester community. Superintendent Rachel H. Monárrez accepted the award on behalf of WPS. WPS was recognized as a Game Changer for its on-going commitment to Career and Vocational Technical Education (CVTE) programming for high school students and adults. WPS was also recognized for its Innovations Career Pathways programming and Adult Night Life classes, both of which provide opportunities to acquire the skills and experiences needed to enter the workforce. The WPS College and Career Readiness team were also on-site, sharing insights directly with employers about the career technical education programs available in our high schools. Career technical educators from Worcester Technical High School were also in attendance to network with local industry leaders. The Game Changers Conference connects local industry leaders, employers, and training experts to explore innovative strategies for workforce development.