Rhodes Elementary community celebrates successes

Jen Cowart
Posted 10/2/14

The Rhodes Elementary School community gathered together last Friday, along with some very special guests, for this year’s first all-school assembly celebrating the achievements of many among …

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Rhodes Elementary community celebrates successes

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The Rhodes Elementary School community gathered together last Friday, along with some very special guests, for this year’s first all-school assembly celebrating the achievements of many among them.

As part of the Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS) program used at the school, students are recognized and rewarded individually, as groups and as whole classrooms for various achievements throughout the year. Principal Erica Stackhouse was on hand to facilitate the celebration.

Joining the staff and students were Superintendent Dr. Judith Lundsten and Project Citizen’s Michael Trofi and Carlos Gamba. Both Trofi and Gamba joined the celebration to help honor last year’s fifth-graders, now in the sixth grade, who participated in Theresa Manera and James Gemma’s whole-class Project Citizen projects. Both classes entered their projects into the statewide competition last June, tied for first place and were then entered into the national competition over the summer.

At the national competition, both classes’ projects ranked near the top, with Manera’s class ranking in the “excellent” category and Gemma’s class ranking in the “superior” category.

“Both projects were excellent, and to have two projects from one school, from one state, [and] both end up in the top categories nationally, that says a lot,” Trofi said.

Each student in last year’s fifth-grade classes was presented with a certificate recognizing their participation in Project Citizen for the 2013-14 school year.

Also recognized at the assembly were Gemma and his former student Nabil Chaudhry, who traveled together to Washington, D.C., from Sept. 16-18 for Constitution Day, representing the state of Rhode Island along with representatives from the other states and the District of Columbia. The pair visited the Supreme Court, Congress and the Newseum, and took part in other events throughout the 36-hours visit. Chaudhry had the opportunity to go onto the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives during his time there.

“I recently had the opportunity to speak with U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and he was very impressed by Mr. Gemma and Nabil,” Lundsten said during the assembly. “He remembered them both well and said that they made quite an impression on him.”

Stackhouse asked two of Gemma’s and Manera’s current fifth-grade students to present their teachers with a small trophy as a token of appreciation for all of their hard work and effort.

In addition to recognizing Manera, Gemma and their former students, Stackhouse also recognized Nicole DiMarzo’s class, which earned an extra recess during the month of September.

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