Twenty-two members of the York Community High School Class of 2018 have been named National Merit Commended Students, as announced by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC). The NMSC recently revealed the names of approximately 34,000 Commended Students in the 2018 National Merit Program.

Recognized for their exceptional academic promise are: Max Albers, Catherine Ayers, Timothy Baer, Nicholas Carrasco, Eric Doberstein, Corey Elliott, Ella Glabus, Brian Goldberg, Nathan Harris, Grant Hartlage, Colin Kelley, Martin Kelty, Ashley Kunesh, Linda Nguessan, Michael Pastuovic, Zorian Schiffman, Emily Schlect, Tyler Sidoryk, Siva Sreedhar, Daniel Sussman, Emily Tran and Anita Wary.

Commended Students placed among the top five percent nationally of those tested. A letter of commendation from the NMSC is presented to each of these outstanding students by York High School Principal Erin DeLuga.

Officials of National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) recently announced the names of approximately 16,000 Semifinalists in the 63rd annual National Merit Scholarship Program. Among them are seniors Hannah Cronin, Matthew Dardick, Linnea Dierksheide, Courtney Jopes, Carina Kanzler, Luke Rozmus, Anshul Shah, Katherine Tomaska and Christopher Ziebert representing York Community High School. These academically talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $32 million to be offered next spring.        

To be considered for a Merit Scholarship® award, Semifinalists must fulfill several requirements to advance to the Finalist level of the competition. About 90 percent of the Semifinalists are expected to attain Finalist standing, and in February they will be notified of this designation. All National Merit Scholarship winners will be selected from this group of Finalists. Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college

studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.

National Merit Scholarship winners of 2018 will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join more than 330,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

Scholarships are underwritten by NMSC with its own funds and by approximately 420 business organizations and higher education institutions that share NMSC’s goals of honoring the nation’s scholastic champions and encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence.

York's newly named NMSC Semifinalists are pictured in alphabetical order from left to right below:
 

High School Conference Dates/Times

Tuesday, October 3–4:00 to 8:30 PM

Tuesday, October 10–8:00 to 3:00 PM*

Sign up will be held via PowerPTC (see below) and begins Friday, September 22 at 6 AM and closes on Thursday, September 28 at 11:59 PM.

*No school for high school students only

Note: Please click this link to navigate to PowerPTC: https://www.powerptc.net/powerptc/c/21/

Please see directions on proceeding in English and Spanish with the Quick Start Guide.

As we begin to move into our course selection process, we wanted to publish our course recommendation rubrics, so families can have as much information as they can before choosing courses at York High School in January 2018.

First, you’ll note that there is a middle school evaluation as a component in the course selection process on each rubric. We believe that the educators in our middle schools play a crucial role in helping us to understand our students beyond the quantifiables because we all know that how students learn, communicate, and react to challenges can be just as important as scores on a test.

Next, you’ll find that each course uses the PSAT 8/9 to help determine which course would be a good fit for each student. Not only does this help us with course recommendations for incoming students, it is the first step to help us make sure that our students continue to show academic progress from the PSAT 8/9 through the SAT during their junior year.

Finally, some of our courses have a placement test. We use classroom tests that are embedded in their D205 English, Math, and World Language courses to reduce student stress over the course selection process and to reduce classroom interruptions in their 8th grade classes. Students who currently attend private schools will be asked to take the English and Math placement tests in early December and World Language placement tests will take place in Spring 2018.

Below are the updated course selection rubrics, and they are organized by department--English, Math, Science, and World Languages:

English Courses         Science Courses                                            

English Rubric              Science Rubric                       

Math Courses            World Language Courses                       

Pre-Algebra Rubric       French Rubric

Algebra Rubric             Spanish Rubric

Geometry CP Rubric

We hope that this information helps to clarify the course recommendation process, and we look forward to meeting the Class of 2022 at our 8th Grade Academic & Activity Night on Tuesday, January 30th.

Go Dukes!

The York Performing Arts Department is proud to present “From the Mainland to the Islands” featuring York alum Paul McDermand with a special performance by the York High School Jazz Ensemble on Tuesday evening, October 10, at 7:30 pm in the Merle E. Baker Auditorium.  Tickets are $10.00 for adults (general seating) and children 18 and under are free! Click on the link to purchase tickets!  www.ticketpeak.com/yorkdrama

Steel drum and marimba artist Paul McDermand has appeared with some of the biggest names in music including Tony Bennett, Johnny Cash, Natalie Cole and the Moody Blues.  Paul is surrounded by an all-star rhythm section culled from the stages of Stevie Nicks, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lyle Lovett and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

It’s hard to believe that just over 4 weeks into the 2017-18 school year, we are looking forward to the course selection process for our current 8th grade class--the Class of 2022.  As you may be aware, our district is no longer using the EXPLORE--a standardized test that both helped monitor students’ growth from the EXPLORE in 8th grade through the ACT during their junior year and assisted in the course selection process; instead, we have moved to the PSAT 8/9, which will allow us to monitor students’ growth from PSAT 8/9 in 8th grade through the SAT their junior year and to help in this year’s course selection process.

• Current 8th grade students in District 205 will take the PSAT 8/9 on Wednesday, October 4th, at their respective middle schools.
• Current Elmhurst residents who attend 8th grade in local private schools have the opportunity to take the PSAT 8/9 on Saturday, October 14th, at York High School.  For private school students who cannot attend on the 14th, a makeup date has been scheduled for the following Saturday, October 21st.
  • If your private school student attends Immaculate Conception, Immanuel Lutheran, or Visitation, you will be receiving a mailing from us, asking for you to confirm the information we have for your student and to indicate which test date your student will attend.

Since we needed to make a change with the standardized test, it was a great opportunity to make other adjustments to our course selection process, and we hope they will reduce student stress over the course selection process and will reduce classroom interruptions in their 8th grade classes.  These course selection rubrics--English, Math, Science, and World Languages--will be published in the next few weeks.

We cannot wait to meet the Class of 2022 at our 8th Grade Academic & Activity Night on Tuesday, January 30th.  This is a great night that allows you to hear more information about the course selection process at York, and it allows our future Dukes to see all of the amazing clubs, sports, and activities that await them in the halls and on the fields at York High School.

Go Dukes!

Below are the dates in which 8^th grade parochial students, who are residents of District 205, may shadow a current York student for the entire school day. We will allow up to 30 students per date on a first come, first served basis. Students will be assigned to shadow a York Ambassador. Ambassadors are trained to host students and acquaint them with many aspects of York High School. To request that your child can attend one of the dates, please click the link to sign up.

SIGN UP HERE

10/5/17

10/6/17

10/20/17

11/10/17

1/26/18

2/16/18

3/22/18

The Harlem Wizards are back in Elmhurst on Saturday, September 30th to entertain the crowd with high-energy exhibition play and audience participation. Cheer on our team of Elmhurst school district principals and teachers as they challenge the Wizards in a basketball game that is sure to include wild antics and lots of laughs. The event will be held at York High School beginning at 5:00 PM. Concessions, merchandise and raffle tickets will be available for purchase. Proceeds from this family-friendly fundraiser support District 205 Foundation programs and enhancements that benefit all Elmhurst public school students. Click here to learn more and guarantee a seat at this popular Saturday event.