Mount Madonna School (MMS) students Milana Beck, 5th, Riley Butler, 6th, and Amelia Busenhart, 8th, will be dancing in Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre’s (SCBT) upcoming production of the “Nutcracker,” December 14, 15, and 16 at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.
Gazing out from the stage in the school’s Assembly Room, thirteen second grade students stand together and collectively ask questions and share statistics with the assembled audience: “Don’t all people deserve enough food to be able to live with health and happiness?”
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Mount Madonna School student Brigg Busenhart (7th grade), is featured on the cover of the The Silicon Valley San Jose Business Journal’s 2012/2013 Giving Guide for his work as a Junior Board Member of a small nonprofit, the Tim Brauch Foundation. This foundation oversees The Tim Brauch Memorial Fund and was started by Sessions, a Santa Cruz action sports company co-owned by Brigg’s mother, Cindi Ferreira Busenhart.
The Mount Madonna School (MMS) Model United Nations (MUN) Club participated in its first meet of the 2012-2013 school year November 9-11 at Stanford University. The current student group is the largest and most participatory delegation MMS has had yet, with fifteen high school students, anchored by senior club mentor Kavi Duvvoori.
“This was my fifth and final year in MUN,” notes Duvvoori. “I co-founded the club when I was in eighth grade with my friend Zach. I have managed it since then, with some parent support. I have represented all manner of countries and characters, with specialization in dictators and genocidal regimes, and was able to bring this trend to its culmination this year.
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Mount Madonna School’s current Model United Nations (MUN) contingent is at its largest ever – fifteen delegates, including seven new participants! Club members recently participated in a training session and mock MUN hosted by the University of California, Berkeley.
On a recent sunny morning at Santa Cruz’s Natural Bridges State Beach, some 30 visitors to the beach were Mount Madonna School (MMS) students and parents taking part in LiMPETS (Long-term Monitoring Program and Experiential Training for Students), an environmental monitoring and education program that encourages participation by ‘citizen scientists.’
“I want the kids to see that they can do ‘real’ science,” says James “PD” Rohan, MMS middle school math and science teacher, “that they can contribute useful data and have fun doing it.” The event represented Mount Madonna’s third year participating in this long-term monitoring study (now in its tenth year).
Congratulations to Mount Madonna sophomore Carlo LeGan, whose Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu skills earned him first place gold in a 10-0 shut-out final match at the recent Rising Sun National Tournament in Daly City. This August 25 event marked Carlo’s fourth consecutive shut-out tournament (no points scored against him).
Longtime MMS contributor and friend, Shmuel Thaler, will be showing exhibits of his photographs in downtown Santa Cruz in September and October.
Photo at left: Shmuel in India with MMS Values in World Thought Senior Learning Journey, 2011
MMS alumna Erika Rosendale (’05) is having an exhibition of her paintings at Cafe Gratitude in Santa Cruz. An opening reception is planned for Friday, August 3, from 5:00-9:00pm.
Cafe Gratitude is located at 103 Lincoln Street in downtown Santa Cruz.
