Students enjoyed a guest presenter in College Seminar this week. Tina Romano, Senior Training Consultant with Impact Factory (and VIMSIA parent) presented to our DP students on personal impact, first impressions, positive communication and building confidence. Students engaged in role playing, presenting and all around collaborative FUN! Thank you, Tina, for supporting our students' development!
Photography teacher Mr. Jones, Coach Nurse and PGIA students!
Mr. Jones, photography teacher at Virgin Islands Montessori School & Peter Gruber International Academy arranged a unique opportunity for sixteen PGIA students to visit a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in Havensight. Students were given an official tour of the ship (Silhouette of the Seas) and were then given time to take photographs of the Royal Caribbean ship! Students were treated to lunch at their amazing buffet!
A huge thanks goes out to Mr. Jones and Coach Nurse profusely for making this happen!
Students in Ms. Mattingley's lower elementary class have been working on group cooking projects. Here you see Lily, Nicholas, and Jocelin preparing sushi for their classmates.
Time to share some good news! This fall Mireille “Mimi” Boumedine, 9th grader at Virgin Islands Montessori School & Peter Gruber International Academy (VIMSIA), applied for the Aspirations in Computing award sponsored by the National Center for Women & Information and Technology. As a 9th grader, this was her first year of eligibility. There are two levels of the award, regional and national. We still do not know about the regional results (for us that is the PR/USVI region), but the national award winners are now official.
There are usually approximately only 15 girls who achieve the national award recognition. Mimi is not one of those this year. There are more 350 nationally who receive the honorable mention at the national level. Most of them are not in 9th grade. Mimi recently was notified that she received the national honorable mention award!
She is the first Virgin Islands student ever to receive any kind of national level award from the Aspirations in Computing program. Congratulations Mimi!
We have five students from grade 10 traveling to Vienna, Austria this year to do an exchange program with a Montessori-IB school in Vienna. This is not the first time that we have collaborated with this school, as they sent an exchange student to our school a few years ago. Our grade 10 students are traveling to Austria for two weeks in February and will be attending classes on a daily basis, as well as partaking in many excursions around this modern and cosmopolitan city. The students are being accompanied during their travel by a grade 10 parent, Ms. Teresa Ethen. Once they arrive in Vienna, however, they will be living with host families for the two weeks. It is interesting that this school is similar to our school in the fact that they have a Montessori program up to eighth grade and then they have an IB program till graduation. Our families are very excited for this big adventure, and the Austrian families are very excited to host. One or two of the Austrian students will be coming to St. Thomas in April/May to experience the opposite side of the exchange. International education at its best!
Our students with their host brothers/sisters.
Andy Yu in his new bedroom at his host family’s house.
Zack with the Spanish students at the Boadilla School.
Last week Tuesday six of our 7th & 8th graders left on a jet plane for a six week Spanish Immersion Exchange Program. Andy Yu, Joaquin Hawkes, Noah Ballas, Zachary Edwards, Nathaniel Levine and Lindsay Barr will be attending classes at another IB school, Boadilla, in Madrid. They will also be living with host families. Ms. Bonnie Barr & Ms. Amy Ballas will be the chaperones during the six weeks. Ms. Barr will be there for the first three weeks and Ms. Ballas will be there for the final three weeks. Ms. Barr has reported that the students are settling in and having a great time thus far. They have already been skiing and have plans to go to amusement parks with their host families. They will be going on field trips to museums such as El Prado, Reina Sofia & Alcala de Henares with the school. There are also day trips planned by Ms. Barr to travel to neighboring cities such as Segovia, Toledo & Avila. I will keep you updated weekly on the adventures that our students are having in Spain! ¡VIVA España! ¡VIVA PGIA!
Noah, Joaquin & Lindsay getting ready for class.
VIMSIA is proud of the students who competed in the National Scholastic Chess K-12 Grade Championships in Orlando, Florida this past weekend. Congratulations to Rohan Nagi who came in first place in his division (unrated 9th graders), Drake Walters who placed in the top ten (unrated 5th graders), Miles Tolud who placed third in his division (undrated 6th graders), and Tendaji Davis who placed first in his division (unrated 2nd graders).
Congratulations to VIMSIA Chess Coach Darryl Allen, who tied for first play in the coaches play division!
Congratulations to the hard-working cast and crew of Romeo and Juliet! Congratulations to Ms. Bump on an amazing play!
VIMSIA's College Counseling Department hosted our annual Alumni Lunch today! Eleven alumni including: Christina Brett '17, CJ Fahie '16, Niquay Leonard '17, Kobe Potter '18, Silas Wisehart '18, Nalani Figueroa '18, Vanshika Lulla '18, Ali Bartsch '17, Leah Trotman '17, T'Leah Serieux '17, and Vernelle Callwood '18 returned to campus to speak to our Diploma Program students. They shared advice and insight about life after high school and their adventures in college. Students engaged in discussion about the college experience and how the IB Program prepared them for academic success. Many thanks to our alumni for the support of our students!
Congratulations to this years top raffle ticket sellers, Michael Holt 64 books and Sarah Sables 42 books. Ms. Holt will receive $1,500 off of tuition next year and Ms. Sables will receive our second place prize, $650 off tuition! Congratulations to our top sellers and to all of our families. Your diligent efforts produced our best sales ever with 55,450.00 - 1109 books sold Our top raffle winners, 1st Place ticket #01734 and 2nd Place ticket # 08305 are both members of our VIMSIA family. Thank you very much for this record breaking support.
Sincerely,
Mary Capellas, Raffle Chairwoman
On behalf of the entire faculty and staff at VIMSIA, we’d like to sincerely thank the PTA and all the parents who donated so many delicious dishes for the Staff Holiday Party. A very special thank you goes out to Mr. Terris Bynum (DJ Tee) for providing us with great music and endless dancing and Jeanne Walters for spearheading the event! We are so grateful to have such an amazing group of supportive and caring parents. Thank you for throwing this amazing party!
On Friday, December 7, 2019, the grade 11 and 12 DP Global Politics class welcomed Mr. Michael Feshbach. Mr. Feshbach taught a lesson on parliamentary systems. He spoke in depth on the unicameral national legislature of Israel, the Knesset. He discussed how governmental parties have to work together in order to accomplish goals. He also spoke in broad terms on the role of how parties of any government should listen and respect different views and opinions and still be able to work together to come to agreements that benefit everyone.
VIMSIA would like to congratulate Lourdes and the Switch on the release of their debut album. We are proud of Varsity Soccer Coach, John Hairston and this amazing accomplishment!
During the morning one of our little friends was looking through our "readers" (books not in our library corner). I suggested she find an available older friend to read to her. Two great things happened:
1. the younger child got her hands on work she is not ready for yet.
2. the older child gets to solidify her reading knowledge by reading to a friend.
On Thursday, December 13, 2018, PGIA students in grades 7-10 had the unique opportunity to take part in Digital Citizenship workshops from the National Center on Computer Education (NCCE). These workshops took place at school on Thursday and Friday.
These pictures show some grade 7 students working with the professional presenters (from the Pacific Northwest). They built circuit boards using bananas! And also learned many other topics of digital citizenship, including some neat tools for school and being safe online.
Ms. Bolinger and our Montessori classrooms would like to extend a huge thank you and expression of gratitude for a very generous act of kindness to one of our VIMSIA families for donating classroom carpets. Look at this wonderful classroom carpet in Ms.Bolinger's class. Most of our class carpets were soaked and ruined from Hurricane's Maria and Irma. Gracias to our donor who prefers to remain anonymous!
This week four 8th grade students participated in the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) American Mathematics Competition (AMC). Students sat for a 40 minute very challenging test. Tests will be sent off to be scored by the MAA. Congratulations for participating to Zack Edwards, Joaquin Hawkes, Lennon Richman, and Andy Yu. We hope to receive score reports by mid-December. If this is, feel free to change the wording as needed.
Charmaine A. Duncan, Chief Accounting Officer
We are pleased to announce that Ms. Charmaine Duncan has joined our team as the Chief Accounting officer. Charmaine is part of the Administrative team and will report directly to the Head of School.
Charmaine is a parent and former Board Member of VIMSIA. She comes to us from Caribbean Auto Group and TJ Johnson Automotive Group, where she has over 14 years of experience in accounting procedures and reporting. She has served on the Board of Trustees as the Treasurer for several years, thus she has a wealth of existing knowledge of the school.
Charmaine grew up in St. Thomas and attended St. Peter and Paul Catholic High School. She attended Howard University after graduation.
On Wednesday, November 7, 2018 Peter Gruber International Academy (PGIA) 8th grade students stepped into the limelight during Dancing Classrooms VI culminating event!
Dancing Classrooms started in only two schools in 1994 with Piere Dulaine a professional ball room dancer who as a young person, had moved from Palestine over to Birmingham, England and really struggled with self confidence and self esteem. It was through dancing that allowed him to stand a little taller and gain confidence. When he was older and a young professional, Dulaine wanted to give that back to the young people. Today, Dancing Classrooms is in over 30 locations nationally and internationally. Dancing Classrooms VI has been in the Virgin Islands since 2009 and last year served 1,000 student - 5,000 students have participated in program overall.
Dancing Classrooms VI's culminating event was a demonstration of a lectured lesson. It was the students' 19th lectured lesson - keep in mind four of those were before the hurricanes- and conducted under the direction of Mary Capella, teaching artist.
MYP Interdisciplinary Art and PGIA Visual Art & Art Coordinator, Jana Ferguson has participated with Dancing Classrooms for four years. Eighth grade students use their art period to participate in the Dancing Classrooms VI program.
Aside from teaching our students ballroom dancing, the program challenges them to get out of their comfort zone, respect one another and respect themselves. The younger students are excited to enter the program and the older students love to watch and dance along, reminiscing on their own experiences. It has become a tradition at the PGIA.
Science club in full swing thanks to Ms. Kessler.
Virgin Islands Montessori School and Peter Gruber International Academy - a Montessori and International Baccalaureate Toddler through grade twelve private school in the beautiful U.S. Virgin Islands. Ask for Admissions 340-775-6360.
VIMSIA 6936 Vessup Lane, St. Thomas USVI 00802 info@vimsia.org Phone: 340.775.6360 Maps and Directions Staff Portal
