The Column

No class for CPFA or PALCS on Friday, February 11 due to a Teacher In-Service Day.

Progress Check 1 for MP3 is on Monday, February 14. Marking Period 3 Interim Report letters will follow within the next few weeks.

No class for PALCS or CPFA on Monday, February 21 to celebrate Presidents' Day!

Our next Pillars meeting will be held virtually on Monday, February 28 at 5:00 p.m. in Mr. Allen's Zoom room.

THIS FRIDAY IS THE LAST DAY of the CPFA Yearbook Flash Sale!! The Yearbook is being sold for the lowest price ever of only $40.00!! Go to Balfour.com and search for The Center for Performing and Fine Arts to buy your copy!

Join us on Thursday, February 17 during lunch for an informational session about the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. PAFA is both a museum and an institute of higher education, offering undergraduate and graduate programs in Fine Arts.

ORDER IN THE COURTROOM! Tickets are now available for the CPFA Winter Middle School Play Sandbag, Stage Left, or One Dead Dolly directed by our very own Mrs. Brigitte Rottman! Tickets are available on the CPFA homepage and at cpfa.BookTix.com. Come support these remarkably talented students in this hilarious murder mystery that parodies films like Witness for the Prosecution and Twelve Angry Men! Performances are Thursday, February 17 - 19, 2022 in the CPFA Atrium Theatre.

This year’s CPFA Winter Fine Art's Exhibit will showcase High School and Middle School students’ fine art in a new, unique and collaborative manner. The culminating curatorial debut by students and Fine Arts teachers will take place during the school day for students.

Family and friends of the CPFA community will be invited to attend a special tour of the gallery exhibit for reflective, critical, community collaboration on Tuesday, February 22 and Wednesday, February 23, after school from 3:15 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. National Art Honor Society (NAHS) students will be our tour guides.

***Sign-up to tour our opening event HERE!***

Highlights to view will include the AP Photography students' photographs of the CPFA dance students, Middle and High School student work contributed to the online national ‘American LOVE Project’, as well as Middle School Fine Arts Integrated thematic ‘Water’ posters that were created with water conservation as inspiration. This year we will utilize the new tv screens throughout the building as a new manner of creative presentation! There will also be performances from the CPFA jazz band, The Jazz Mavericks, incorporated throughout the tour. You can stop by any time during the event and feast your eyes and ears on the delights of our students' many talents. All CPFA safety protocols will be in effect during the tour event.

On Wednesday, February 23, 2022, Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School is bringing the powerful educational program, SAFER Choices, led by Mike Domitrz, to our students. This interactive presentation will provide students with information that will empower them to make safer choices in their lives and in the lives of their peers, especially concerning healthy relationships, sexual decision-making, respecting boundaries, porn, sexting, consent, and stopping sexual assault from happening. There will be three separate sessions for high school, middle school, and for parents.

• The high school session will be on at 9:00 a.m., both virtually and on-site at our USP location on Paoli Pike. All interested high school CPFA students are welcome and encouraged to attend on-site.
• Our middle school session will be held virtually at 11:00 a.m.
• The third and final session, for parents, will be held virtually at 7:00 p.m.

Please check out the Safer Choices Letter to Parents for more information and the Permission Form for Participation that can be send to Ms. Mary Beth Stefanski.

If you have questions about the event, please contact Ms. Mazzio at lmazzio@palcs.org.

Our *final* Friday Night Café of the 2021-2022 school year will take place on Friday, February 25 at 7:00 p.m. in the CPFA Atrium Theatre. Our Tri-M Music Honor Society would like to invite all Middle School and High School students, both on-site and remote access, to sing a song, play an instrument, perform a dance, deliver a monologue, or even showcase your recordings, video projects, and artwork on the video wall. Watch for sign-ups on the CPFA Homepage during the week of February 14.

New Student Auditions for all CPFA classes begin this month. CPFA, particularly the Music Department, would like to ask for help from everyone in our community to spread the word about all of the programs that CPFA has to offer, especially the instrumental music program, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 Pandemic. We will be inviting all string, woodwind, and brass instrumentalists to enroll in the Orchestra classes for next year, and we will be looking for talented guitarists, bassists, keyboard players, drummers, and vocalists to enroll in the Modern Band. Please help us attract students who are interested in a personalized small group musical experience that incorporates music theory, composing, songwriting, and arranging in addition to our concert performances. Word of mouth is our best recruiting tool!

A special *Thank You* goes out to Ms. Bennet for her incredible instruction, to Mr. West for leading our live streamed event, and to Mr. Council for his hours of video editing for us!

CPFA's Tri-M Music Honor Society collected gently used shoes in all styles and sizes this fall as part of a Shoe Drive Fundraiser. The CPFA community collected 30 bags of 25 pairs of shoes each, for over 1,500 shoes! The shoes are on their way to Florida where the host company will be using them as inventory for micro-enterprises in Haiti and other underdeveloped countries, teaching budding entrepreneurs how to run their own shoe company.

***Congratulations to the following students for making it into to the Region 6 Choir: Steven Barnes, Isabella Rottman, Katherine Horoho, Emily Rau, and Rachel Lewiski, and to CPFA Vocal Teacher Mr. Nicholas Harmantzis for this outstanding accomplishment!***

CPFA High School vocalists Steven Barnes, Michael Meck, Isabella Rottman, Katherine Horoho, Emily Rau, and Rachel Lewiski (pictured below with Mr. Harmantzis) successfully auditioned and were selected to represent PA Leadership Charter School and CPFA in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) District 12 Choral Festival, which took place on Friday, February 4, 2022 at Unionville High School. All six of CPFA's auditioning students were accepted to participate in the district festival out of an auditioning pool of over 600 vocal and instrumental students from public and parochial high schools in Chester, Delaware, and Philadelphia Counties. During the PMEA festival, the students had the amazing opportunity to audition and be selected to progress to the PMEA Region 6 Choral Festival in March, which includes the top vocal students from five counties in Southeast PA. Way to go!!

Meet Tiernan McCulloch! Tiernan is a current remote access CPFA student who attended on-site for both his Freshman and Sophomore year. Tiernan started 2D animating when he was very little, and created dozens of little 30 second and one minute monster films. When he came to CPFA he was determined to improve his film skills, particularly in regards to animation!

In the summer of his freshman year, Tiernan created a Godzilla film using 3D animation and submitted it to G-Fest, an annual Godzilla convention. He was then invited to participate in the annual Godzilla Film Festival. In his sophomore film he created a 2D animation called Arachnidian Funk - which featured music he wrote in his PALCS piano class, and drawings he did in Film and Video. He is planning to submit Arachnidian Funk, and his film Cryptic Cardboard (also created in film class) to a film festival this month.

After he had completed a few longer animations at CPFA, he wanted to expand his work, and smooth out his animation skills. So, he pitched a proposal to his CPFA teachers to do an independent study where he could use all of the skills he had learned in Drawing and Painting, Piano, Digital Media and Sculpture on one big project.

This year, Tiernan is studying music remotely with Mr. West and working on creating a 3D and a 2D film with Mr. Council. He started by working on 3D skills by doing some test pieces with some of his monster figures. The stop-motion animation project has taken up most of the year and features an epic battle between a character investigating the scene of a crime and a mysterious monster. The story-line was developed by Tiernan who wrote the dialogue, created and painted the scenes and backgrounds, and is recording and editing the film with the direction and feedback of Mr. Council. When the 3D film is done, Tiernan plans to spend the rest of the year working on another 2D animation.

Tiernan one day hopes to attend a film school in New York City or The George Romero Film School in Pittsburgh, where he also hopes to study Special Effects in the Tom Savini Special Effects Program. Below is a video from his YouTube channel where you can see his first 3D animated film, a test-strip of an animated Predator from this year, and his 2D film from his Sophomore year.

The middle school dance students celebrated National School Choice Week, January 23 - January 29, 2022, by performing the official 2022 National School Choice Week Dance to “The Biggest Moment of Our Lives.

Thank you to Ms. Brooke Shilling for an outstanding physical devised theatre workshop! High school students explored developing characters with inspiration from nature (earth, wind, air, and fire) and animals. This led to wonderful, and often hilarious, group improvisations!

Mrs. Duncan's Middle School Beginner Ballet Technique class performed a sneak peak of their Spring Dance Concert piece for Ms. Mazzio to show their appreciation for her during National School Counselor's Week. We look forward to seeing their full performance later this spring!

CPFA is excited to announce that our community has been invited to participate in The Harmony Conference, a gathering of students, interns, and professionals with an interest in Music Therapy. Everyone is welcome to attend! The sister schools of Rowan, Immaculata and West Chester University, are partnering with the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) to host the mini-conference virtually in honor of World Music Therapy Day, March 1, 2022, and our very own CPFA alumni and Music Therapy Club members at Immaculata University, Aliah Chinofsky and Amy Egan, will be in attendance!

The virtual conference will take place on Sunday, March 6, from 9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. The theme of the conference will be Lived Experience and will focus on music therapy experiences with various populations, settings, goals, etc.

To attend, please register HERE; The Zoom link will be provided after registration.

To learn more, check out the conference webpage that consists of the schedule, guest speakers, and all of the information one would need HERE!

Attention all students who are turning 17 (or older) by June 20, 2022!

If you are looking for summer employment and you like the words summer - camp - outdoors - children - tons of fun - nature - Paradise - then here is a job opportunity for you at Paradise Farm Camp, nearby, in Downingtown. Check out Paradise's website and application link HERE! There are paid and non-paid positions. You would gain so much experience in life, for your resume, have the summer-fun time of your life, and work with children who need fun cool teens to work with! If you want to know more about the camp, the website is very informative and you can ask Mrs. Okcuoglu, whose children have attended this camp for over 10 years! They NEED counselors this year to make the program run - so, consider applying!

Senior and Graduating Junior Musicians are invited to perform in our annual Senior Music Recital, which takes place on Tuesday, May 24 at 7 p.m. in the CPFA Atrium Theatre. We would like to set the concert program by the end of February so that you have time to practice your music along with all of the other busy obligations you have in your final year as a CPFA student. Speak to a music faculty member for more information.

Attention all dance students!

A location for our Spring Dance Concert has finally been chosen! This year we will be performing at Unionville High School in Kennett Square. Please mark your calendars for the following rehearsal and performance dates:

• CPFA Rehearsal: Friday, April 22 at 10-3pm
• DRESS REHEARSAL: Wednesday May 4 and Thursday May 5 at 4:30-8:30 p.m. at Unionville High School (750 Unionville Road, Kennett Square, PA);
• DANCE CONCERT: Friday May 6 at 7:00 p.m., students arrive 4:30 p.m.; doors open at 6:30 p.m.; curtain 7:00 p.m.

Rehearsals and participation in the Dance Concert is mandatory for all dance students.

The next NHSDA meeting will be Tuesday March 1, 2022.

Members of the National Honor Society for Dance Arts will be collecting canned goods for the Chester County Food Bank from Monday February 28 through Thursday March 10, to celebrate Dance A Difference. This will be the fourth year our chapter of NHSDA takes on this service project. Over the past three years we have donated 800 lbs of food to our local food bank. Please consider bringing in canned goods (soups, peanut butter, cereal, rice, beans, pasta, canned tuna and chicken) to help our community. Last year's amount was 350 lbs; let's exceed that!

Questions about tickets and/or volunteering can be addressed to CPFA Theatre Parent Liaison Dawn Pfeifer Reitz by emailing dawn.p.reitz@gmail.com or texting (610) 207-3090.

The winter months can be challenging, both physically and mentally. February’s counseling theme is Self Care! Check out the Guidance CPFA Canvas page under the Self Care header for more information and resources, as well as a Self Care Portal created by Ms. Mazzio!

Marking Period 3 Progress Check 1 is Monday, February 14. If you need support, to request an extension, or have any questions, please email Ms. Mazzio (lmazzio@palcs.org).

A reminder: If any student who applied to colleges are in need of mid-year grades to be sent, please contact Ms. Mazzio at lmazzio@palcs.org.

Like dominoes, a kind act can always spark another! PALCS is now collecting unopened cereal box donations. All of the donated boxes will be filmed in a domino chain before being donated to the PALCS pantry. Please drop off all donations with Ms. Severson in the lobby.

Standardized testing will be coming up in Spring 2022. If your student has any medical needs that may require medical assistance at testing sites, it should be documented in Magnus. Please consult the school nurse if you have any questions about medical guidance with standardized testing.

With Covid, colds, and flu season among us, please stay home if you're feeling unwell! Please continue to wash and sanitize your hands frequently, maintain distance between yourself and others when possible, and wear your mask appropriately. Please find Chester County resources below:

Chester County Health Department Resources:

https://www.chesco.org/4376/Coronavirus-COVID-19

https://www.chesco.org/4822/COVID19Vaccine

https://www.chesco.org/4460/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Testing-Information

https://www.chesco.org/4397/Coronavirus--Resources-for-Schools

This year, CPFA has added COVID testing as another layer of protection for our in-person students and staff. Our goal is to keep everyone as safe as possible, to optimize health, safety, and learning. Covid PCR testing is done weekly at CPFA for those who have signed up. Participation in this program helps schools stay safer against the risk of COVID-19. Pool testing, which is a PCR test, is used to detect COVID in asymptomatic students and staff in our schools. This program is completely optional. You may opt-in by signing the consent, utilizing the link attached. To opt-out, simply do not sign up. Students and staff WILL NOT be tested unless we have consent on file. We will be testing a designated group of middle and high schoolers each week. Again, only individuals with consents signed will be tested. This is a self-administered nasal swab test for ages 13 and older(Anyone under 13 needs the school nurse to administer the test for them). Test results come back in approximately 48-72 hours. Any positive results will be notified and contact tracing will occur per policy. This program will help keep students in the classroom and reduce the spread of COVID-19 through weekly testing for students and staff.

To opt in to the program for both students and staff, please visit the following site:

https://testcenter.concentricbyginkgo.com/invite-by-code

Access Code: 0VIWN8

Please make sure you have downloaded the Remind app on your phones and any other mobile devices you may have. This the platform we use to best communicate with our students and families in case of school closings or emergencies.

If you are not on the Remind group for CPFA, you can text @palcscpfa to the number 81010 to get text messages, or download the app and search for @palcscpfa or CPFA Parents. Once you have downloaded the app you will be prompted to enter your email address, enter an emailed verification code, and select your school and role. We are identified as Pennsylvania Leadership Cs, in the class called CPFA Parents. If you have any questions, please reach-out to Ms. Sophia Severson (sseverson@palcs.org)

After school events and activities at CPFA are only made possible by our student, parent and family volunteers! You can always find volunteer opportunities HERE.

If you want to get involved, but aren't sure how or for what, we encourage you to touch base with CPFA Administrative Assistant Ms. Sophia Severson (sseverson@palcs.org).

Check out the January edition of The Column here for more information on the exciting Theatre Department collaboration with set designer, Zoe Hurwitz, the Fine Art's Department American Love Project, and so much more!