Congratulations to Jake Zajkowski!

Anthony Wayne-Penta FFA history was made recently at the National FFA convention. Jake Zajkowski was the first member from the AW chapter to earn 1st place in the nation! He placed 1st in plant systems division 3 of the national agriscience fair with his project titled "The Correlation of Hydroponic Growing Mediums, Seed Germination, and the Harvesting Length of Lactuva sativa."  Congratulations Jake!

Portrait of a Graduate

Over the last 6 months, various members of the AWLS staff, administration, and board members worked with Battelle for Kids to actively engage the community in developing a Portrait of A Graduate, a collective vision that articulates our community's aspirations for all our of our students. 

We wanted our Portrait of A Graduate to be locally developed, but globally positioned, and we welcomed many voices and elicited input form stakeholders inside our school system and within our community. The Portrait of A Graduate Design Team, a group of approximately 50 people, had four meetings to design our Portrait. This process was facilitated by Battelle for Kids; a national educational organization committed to working with school districts and communities to realize the power and promise of 21st century learning for all students. The final products of this work are attached to this email and can be viewed on our website.

Now more than ever, our learning experiences must continue to not only provide for the acquisition of rigorous academic content, but must also be intentional about fostering critical thinking, communication, collaboration, a learner's mindset, adaptability and flexibility, and empathy, and other 21st century skills our students need to thrive. We will work with you to engage in conversations and actions that allows our students to learn and grow in our Portrait of A Graduate competency areas. From our kindergartner's to our seniors- this work has enduring impact. Each of us will play an important role in making the Portrait of A Graduate a reality for every student as we continue to create meaningful learning experiences every day. 

We look forward to working with all of you to make sure all of our seniors are ready for the future- whatever the path they may choose.