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THE RAPTOR REPORT

A peek inside the Academies of Loudoun!

THE RAPTORREPORTA peek inside the Academies of Loudoun!

DECEMBER 2022

Dr. Priddy's Message

As we come to the end of 2022, I would like to thank you for your commitment to the Academies of Loudoun and our mission to empower students to explore, research, collaborate, innovate, and to make meaningful contributions to the world in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This fall has been an exciting time as students have engaged with our rigorous curriculum in different ways to witness the accompanying student growth and achievement. The winter break is usually a busy time for us all with celebrations, family traditions, and hopefully time spent with loved ones. I hope it will also offer some time for a welcome respite from hectic school schedules. I wish the very best to you all for the new year ahead. Happy Holidays to you all!

Some New Faculty & Staff Faces

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Mr. Cos Fi

Mr. Fi received his education at University of Iowa and Northwestern University and previously taught in high schools in Iowa and Illinois, as well as Dalian, Liaoning, and Beijing, China. His teaching experiences also include stints at UNC Greensboro and the University of Iowa. Once settled in Loudoun County, he taught both Pre-Algebra and Algebra at River Bend Middle School. In his free time, Mr. Fi loves to travel. This is his first year here at the Academies where he is teaching AET AP Calculus and AOS Math Analysis and Computational Modeling I. We are thrilled to have him here as a part of our team this year.

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Ms. Caroline Cresson

Ms. Cresson graduated from Ursinus College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. She has been teaching for 13 years. She began educational career at Bishop O'Connell High School as a Chemistry and Physical Science teacher. During this time, she went back to school to get her Master's in Education with a certification in Special Education. She joined LCPS in January of 2015 as a long-term sub supporting Environmental Science and Chemistry. In the Fall of 2015, she became a full-time Special Education teacher for LCPS at Stone Bridge High School where she supported Chemistry and Physics. This is her first year here at the Academies, and she is teaching the following AOS classes: Jr/Sr Research , AOS AP Chemistry and AOS Integrated Science III/Research 10. We are so happy to welcome Ms. Cresson to our school.
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Ms. Kelly Robucci

Ms. Robucci is in her 13th year as an educator and 10th year with LCPS. Prior to taking the Placement Coordinator position here at the Academies, She was a dean at Stone Hill Middle School for five years and an English teacher for seven years. She earned her Master in Education Administration from Shenandoah University and her Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education with a focus in English from Towson University. As our new Placement Coordinator, Kelly is passionate about helping students make connections and find opportunities with business partners and community leaders. She will be assisting in finding internships, job shadowing, volunteerism, summer enrichment, mentorships, etc. for students attending the Academies. She also helps students with their resumes, cover letters and communicates opportunities through Schoology and Airtable.

Delegate Reid Presents Resolution to Academies of Loudoun Robotics Team

Virginia State Delegate David Reid presented a resolution to the Academies of Loudoun’s RoboLoCo team, which is the Academies' first robotics team. The resolution is an expression of admiration from the House of Delegates for the team’s accomplishments in a robotics competition. Earlier this month, RoboLoCo competed in the FIRST Chesapeake District Competition and won the Engineering Inspiration Award for its efforts to promote a greater appreciation for engineering. RoboLoCo’s performance secured the team a spot in the FIRST World Championships that was held in Houston last year. Congratulations to the members of Team RoboLoCo.

HOSA REGIONAL COMPETITION

Health and Medical Science students competed in HOSA (the organization for future health professionals) at the Academies of Loudoun on November 29th and 30th, 2022. First place winners are eligible to move on to the state competition, which will take place in Williamsburg, Virginia, in March 2023. Some of the competition topics included: biomedical debate, community awareness, forensic science, nursing, public health, medical math, pharmacology, sports medicine, epidemiology, clinical laboratory science, and biotechnology. Over 200 students participated in the competition.

HOUR OF CODE

The national Hour of Code initiative is a one hour introduction to computer science, using fun tutorials to show that anybody can learn the basics of coding. Here at the Academies, Dr. Chapin, our AET Computer Science teacher, led an exciting event of coding one evening with almost 400 elementary and middles school students and over 90 current Academies of Loudoun students and staff participated.

CYBERPATRIOT COMPETITION

Students in the MATA CISCO and MATA Cybersecurity pathways at the Academies of Loudoun are competing in the world’s largest Cyber defense competition, CyberPatriot XV. This year over 90 students on 20 teams are representing the Academies of Loudoun against over 2000 other high school teams. Students apply what they have learned in their classes in securing and configuring virtual operating systems and networks. Teams of 4 or 5 students are challenged to find and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The competition consists of multiple rounds where every team works on the same cyber challenges. After the second round, teams are placed into “tiers” based off their combined scores in rounds 1 and 2. The top 30% of all teams are placed in the Platinum tier, the middle 40% of all teams are placed in the Gold tier, and the final 30% of all teams are placed in the Silver tier. This year, 8 ACL teams have made the Platinum tier, 11 teams the Gold tier, and 1 team the Silver tier. Two of our ACL teams finished in the top 10% in the country after 2 rounds. The State Round (3rd round) of CyberPatriot took place on December 9th. The top 25% of each tier will then compete in January in the CyberPatriot National Semi-Finals.

Holiday Spirit

The Academies Online
Take a look at our online newspaper to find out more about what's happening here at the Academies and to find out about our competition we've called "Genius Gizmos."

GENIUS GIZMOS

The "Genius Gizmos" contest was created by The Academies Online Newspaper Club to encourage student creativity in various forms of expression, as well as participation in school events. The topic of this year's competition is to identify an invention from the 20th century or later and describe how it has inspired you. This is an open-entry contest, meaning that submissions will be accepted as anything from writing to videos to art.

AET CHALLENGE DAY

AET Challenge Day occurred on December 16th. Our AET students had the opportunity to engage in 1 of 7 design challenges, including:


  • Coin Sorter Challenge
  • Caine's Cardboard Arcade
  • Global Cardboard Challenge
  • Create a Game
  • Make Something Walk
  • Escape Room Challenge
  • Little Bits Challenge
  • Student-Designed Cryptography Maze

Wishing Everyone A Safe and Joyous Winter Break