This Week at BMHS May 1 - 8, 2018

Final Exam Dates Finalized

Final exams will begin on Monday, June 18 and conclude on Thursday, June 21. Friday, June 22 will be the last day of school and will be a full day for students. Buses will follow the same schedule that was used during midterm exams. All bus routes will run in the morning at their regular pick-up times. Bus departure will commence at the end of the second exam (11:30 a.m.).




FIRST World Championships

Team 4909, Billerica Bionics, returned from this weekend's World Championships held in Detroit, Michigan with another strong showing against the best in the world. The team competed against 400 teams and finished in 53rd place. The team earned a finalist recognition for a Safety Award and Nick Benjamin was recognized for Pit Safety.


DECA International World Championships

Billerica DECA descended upon the International Career Development Conference in Atlanta, Georgia last week looking to continue its presence as a premier high school in the development of future business leaders. This was the largest competition in its illustrious history with over 20,000 competitors. Once again BMHS DECA did not disappoint as juniors Danielle Flaherty and Libby Hawkins placed in the Top 10 in the world in Entrepreneurship, Franchise, and Business Plans. Senior Olivia Smith placed in the Top 16 for Hospitality, Tourism, and Professional Selling and sophomores Olivia Rogers and Tina Tailor also placed in the Top 16 for Buying, Merchandising Operations Research. In each of these competitions 


VEX World Championships

Freshmen Christian So successfully competed at the VEX World Championships in Louisville, Kentucky on April 25-28, 2018.  Christian competed for 3 days for the qualification matches and advanced to the single elimination rounds (playoffs) as the 5th seed with a team from Arizona. He made it all the way to the semifinals before losing to the eventual the team that won the world championship from China. He had previously beaten the Chinese team in the qualification match earlier that day. Christian was the lone competitor from Massachusetts to advance that far in the competition. Overall it was a very successful competition year for Christian 81118P Team PARAGON and a lot of people in the international VEX community now recognize  Billerica, MA as a top programafter this seasons challenge.  We also learned that only 7% of all the VEX robotics team  registered in the world make it to the world championships and he came on top.  

The Red Sand Project

If you happened to be walking or driving through Billerica Center on Thursday, April 26, or the days afterwards, you may have seen what looked like red sand in the sidewalk cracks.  Art History, Photography, and Audiovisual Club students from Billerica Memorial High School participated in the Molly Gochman Red Sand Project. Often times we do not take the time to look at our surroundings.  Students and teachers from BMHS had the opportunity to participate and pay attention to our environment during this “art happening”. The Red Sands Project draws attention to modern day human trafficking and exploitation.

Ms. Davidson, Ms. Fredericks, and Ms. Bouhanda took the students to public spaces within the town to create participatory Earthworks.  The students were able to pour red sand in between cracks of the sidewalk, use sidewalk chalk, and incorporated different parts of the environment such as fallen leaves, flowers, and twigs.  Collaborative and individual creative skills were used to design artwork, taking video and still images. After taking photos the students and teachers used social media to share the project promoting effective use of the internet and while raising awareness of the vulnerabilities of human trafficking and exploitation.  

The students from these groups at BMHS were able to explore this creative outlet while also learning about human rights, social justice, and student empowerment.  Highlighting the tiny cracks in the sidewalks symbolize the way in which we step over what is not always visually obvious to us when we ignore our surroundings. Today more than 40.3 million boys, girls, women, and men live as slaves. If you are interested in learning more about this project please visit https://redsandproject.org/.

Gochman, Molly. “Molly Gochman.” 2018, mollygochman.com/about/.

Red Sand Project, Commune Projects Foundation, 2018, redsandproject.org/about/.


Another Record Falls

Our BMHS Girls 4x800 A team won the Division II State Relays with a new outdoor school record time of 9:45.70! Sophomores Nicole Anderson, Hannah Doherty, Deidra Anderson and junior Sam Maffeo earned the win and set the record.







Emergency Drill (Shawmut Construction)

Shawmut Construction, in conjunction with Billerica Police and Fire, will be conducting an emergency drill on Wednesday, May 2 at approximately 7:30 a.m. As a result you may see emergency response vehicles behind the high school during the morning hours. The drill should be concluded by 8:30 a.m. and will not interfere with high school operations.

WWII International Museum

Mrs. States brought her students to the International Museum of World War II last week to review primary source material and authentic artifacts in support of her class - WWII Eyes of a Soldier. Her students had the pleasure of working with the museum's curator  gaining insight into the life of a soldier during the our nation's greatest conflict. 

SENIOR TASK:  COLLEGE APPLICATION RESULTS

For every college that you’ve applied to, we need to know what your status is:  accepted, denied, deferred, or waitlisted.  You will need to add the results of each application to your Naviance account and set your attending college.  If you haven't heard from all your colleges yet, or if you haven't yet made a decision on where to attend, that is OK.  However, this task will need to be completed for all of your college applications in Naviance before you sign out of school at the end of the year.  

There are 7 easy steps to do this!  Please do the following:

1. Log into Naviance.  If you need assistance with your username or password, please let your guidance counselor know.  Click HERE for the link to Naviance. 
2. Click on the College top tab.
3. Click on the Colleges I’m Applying To Link, and your college list appears.
4. Look towards the right-hand side.  There is a column titled “Edit”, and pencils in the column.  Click on one of the pencils and your entire college list comes up, with boxes you can edit. 
5. Under each of your colleges, there’s a drop down menu called “Result”.  When you click on it, you can set your college result to Accepted, Denied, or a few other options (most people will only use the Accepted and Denied functions.)  If you were waitlisted or deferred, please set the field to “Unknown” and check off the “waitlisted” or “deferred” box next side of the result area.  If you chose not to apply to a school that you have on your list, please set the field to “withdrawn”. 
6. Once you have set the results for all of your colleges, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Update Applications. This brings you back to your original college page.
7. Lastly, scroll to the bottom of your college page, under the heading College That I Am Attending.  Click on the dropdown menu, select the college you will be attending, and click the update button.  Please make sure to set this field correctly; it tells us where to send your final transcript to confirm for your college that you have graduated! 

• Students will not be able to sign out at the end of the year until your data in Naviance is complete. If you have any questions about how to add the results of your college applications into Naviance, please contact your guidance counselor.