A Message from the Admissions Office
Greetings from the Manlius Pebble Hill School Admissions Office!
 
We are excited that you are interested in learning more about MPH and pleased to offer you a glimpse of our program and community in this Discover MPH e-newsletter. Our Admissions team stands ready to assist your continued exploration of the School. While we may be reimagining our admissions process to make sure it aligns with health and safety protocols, we are confident we can offer prospective families an informative and personalized experience that deepens your understanding of MPH. We hope you will attend an upcoming virtual Info Session to connect with us and learn more! Enjoy! 

Nicole Cicoria
Director of Admissions
From the Head of School
Click here to view a brief video message from Head of School Dave McCusker. He believes your exploration of MPH may well reveal what he discovered about our community when he was a candidate for the role – and what he appreciates even more deeply now in his second year.
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MPH will be hosting the following Admissions Info Sessions:

  • Grades 1-12 Info Session: Wednesday, 2/24 at 4:00 p.m.
  • Pre-K and Kindergarten Info Session: Thursday, 2/25 at 9:00 a.m.

Please register here and you will receive an email with the applicable Zoom link.
Weekly letters such as this one represent the kinds of communications being delivered to parent inboxes from our Pre-K teachers; they are replete with information about what “the youngest among us” are learning, enjoying, and practicing, and the candid images at the end prove to be icing on the cake!
Starting the Winter Break with a Spectacular Performance!

Just prior to our December vacation, the sweet sounds (and visuals!) of our Lower School Suzuki Strings and Orchestra, the members of which had come together virtually, provided the MPH community with a beautiful send-off. Click the link below enjoy their rendition of "Wintertime in Russia."
Mi Casa
A recent unit in Señora Trouyet's Grade 3 Spanish class had students learning to identify rooms of the house, as well as some vocabulary related to furniture. With these new tools, they were able to talk about different locations within their homes. Naturally, they demonstrated this by constructing a house! Take a look at the video below! 
Bridge Students Explore Coding

Grades 4 and 5 Bridge students explored code as part of Computer Science Education Week (which they turned into two weeks!). Using the program Scratch, students used block code to write a program that animated the letters of their name, as well as a program to make a character "fly." Because several students had some previous experience in Scratch, they became peer helpers who were able to provide support. During this same week, Grade 4 students enjoyed solving some of their math equations (multiplication of whole numbers) directly on their desk -- always a fun activity! Click the image to view the full gallery!
“Communication and Community” Course Launched!

This semester we are excited to be piloting a new class for Grade 7 titled “Communication and Community: Healthy Approaches to Conflict, Collaboration, and Curiosity.” The course will focus on essential life skills for the middle school years and beyond, including initiating and sustaining a conversation, conflict resolution, social media use, mind/brain education, confirmation bias, and leadership. Middle School Division Head Mr. Spear, the primary teacher of the course, plans to invite guest presenters from among our MPH faculty, staff, and administration. Each guest instructor will teach a topic within their specialty throughout the semester, keeping the course fresh and allowing for students to build connections with our school leadership. 
  
The topics covered in Communication and Community (C&C) are an important collection of knowledge and skills for all middle school students as they navigate a time full of developmental transition and challenges. Competency in these skills is vital as students strive to build healthy relationships, work toward academic success, and perhaps most important, live healthy, meaningful lives. Students will also have the opportunity to practice these skills in a supportive, experiential learning environment.  
Student Artists Shine at Regional Scholastic Art Competition

 The Scholastic Art Awards program is the nation’s longest-running and most prestigious recognition program for creative teens. Locally, 54 school districts (public, private, and independent) sent their best student artwork to compete through multiple rounds of blind judging. Visual Art and Design Chair Teresa Henderson remarked that her students worked incredibly hard this year. "Putting their artwork out to be judged takes courage. I cannot even begin to calculate the extra hours students committed to finish their work, especially in a time when extra motivation can be harder to rustle up than usual!" The 24 MPH students who entered this year's competition garnered 33 regular awards and two special awards! MPH was the third-most-awarded school, with nine of our students moving on to compete at the national level. The amazing artwork speaks for itself. Take a look at the gallery of work and award winners below. Congratulations, artists!
AP Bio Students Make Kombucha!
 
Students in AP Biology have recently been discussing cellular energetics. The class’s robust discussion about fermentation led to students convincing Mrs. Yeager to let them try making kombucha — a fermented tea that is made with the help of SCOBYs (symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast) — in class. One can purchase these SCOBYs online or start one’s own from a store-bought kombucha drink. After the tea ferments (typically anywhere from 7 to 21 days, depending on how “sour” you like it), natural flavors, such as orange or ginger, can be added. Students were later able to take home their jar of kombucha to taste at home!
MPH Can!
“Can the Pandemic” Effort a Record-Breaking Success!

 Realizing that we truly are all in this pandemic together, and in the spirit of “paying it forward,” members of the MPH4MPH Club invited faculty, staff, and students to arrive at our recent day of schoolwide COVID-19 testing* with a “can in each hand” — in order to help address food insecurity in our region. Members of the club exercised their agency, one of our core values, by consulting with the Pandemic Response Team and working closely with Ms. Perryman to launch this bold initiative. First, they did their homework: Their research revealed that the need is great — the pandemic has brought an 80 percent increase in the number of people who are experiencing food insecurity and are dependent on the food bank in Central New York. Next, club members coined the name “Can the Pandemic” and started promoting the event to the MPH community via flyers, announcements, and social media. Then, on the day of the testing, these efforts were met by MPH students and employees, who did, indeed, arrive with a “can in each hand” — and, in some cases, bags full of cans! Ultimately, the number of cans collected on that day (and into the next week or two) amounted to the equivalent of nearly 1,000 meals. Club member Téa Hokanson commented, “It felt amazing seeing MPH do so much to help those in need. I really felt pride in our school.”
 
*Note: Precautionary schoolwide testing was provided on campus and free of charge, thanks to the Onondaga County Health Department.
We Invite You to Our All-School Meeting

Shifts in the scheduling of gatherings — and in the way in which we gather — began in earnest when the pandemic became a reality last spring. And now, every Wednesday morning, students (from all divisions), faculty, staff, and administrators convene virtually on Zoom for an All-School Meeting. In that broad-reaching forum, community members are able to share important logistical announcements and updates, but also meaningful messages, lessons, guest presenters, praise, creativity, and often even (on the “lighter side”) a few “jokes of the week,” provided by one designated student per division. We recently recorded an entire meeting to offer MPH families an opportunity to hear Upper School Division Head Mr. Montas’s remarks about Martin Luther King Day, History Department Chair Mr. Twomey Smith's comments honoring the history of the Presidential Inauguration, a couple of Mrs. Doyle's Upper School English students' recitation of their poetry (inspired by this year's inaugural poet), and Visual Art and Design Chair Mrs. Henderson's recognition of our student artists and Scholastic Art Award winners. To get a sense of what our Wednesday mornings are all about, we welcome you to join us at this particular All-School Meeting via the recording below!
Did You Know?

The students enrolled at MPH come from 32 local school districts!
Read More Like This!

If you would like to see complete issues of Snapshot, our weekly e-newsletter to current MPH families — and the publication from which most of the stories above have been excerpted — click here.