Former Kilmer Student Nominated for Hollywood Music in Media Award

Former Kilmer student Rachel Brett cut her debut CD in 2011 and was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award in the Pop Category for her original song "Liar."

While she did not win, the nomination is a huge honor. We send her our congratulations!


Find her web site at www.rachelbrettmusic.com

* * *

District 12 Honors Orchestra

On Monday, November 12, 35 Kilmer students auditioned for the District 12 Honors Orchestra. The students listed below were accepted (out of the 525 that auditioned!) into this prestigious group and will be performing the first weekend on January. Please join us in congratulating them and the Kilmer Orchestra Director, Marci Swift, on this incredible accomplishment.

BASS
Leah Smith – 4th chair

CELLO
Hayun Chong – 3rd chair
Ellison Kang – 14th chair

VIOLA
Brian Anderson – 1st chair
Sieun Lee – 3rd chair Jordyn Park – 9th chair
Devyn Lee – 12th chair
Andrew Zhang – 16th chair

VIOLIN
Yonna Kim – Rank 6 – Violin 2 / 2nd chair
Hannah Yu – Rank 15 – Violin 1 / 11th chair
Grant Li – Rank 16 – Violin 1 / 12th chair
Kathleen Kim – Rank 17 – Violin 1 /13th chair
Joanne Lee – Rank 18 – Violin 1 / 14th chair
Dahway Lim – Rank 24 – Violin 1 / 20th chair
Melody Chiang – Rank 29 – Violin 2 / 7th chair
Sam Safadi – Rank 30 – Violin 2 / 8th chair
Timmy Chan – Rank 31 – Violin 2 / 9th chair
Joo Eun Kang – Rank 29 – Violin 2 / 17th chair

* * *

Current and Former Kilmer Students Involved in American Youth Percussion Ensemble

The strength of Kilmer Middle School's music program is shown in the involvement of a number of current and former Kilmer students with the American Youth  Percussion Ensemble. This ensemble traveled to Indianapolis in March to perform as part of the Music For All Festival (full article in Vivace!, the American Philharmonic Orchestras' newsletter, issue 47, number 6, titled "Percussion Ensemble Performs at National Festival" ).

Kilmer alumnae involved in this performance were:
Stephen Creighton
Cliff Crawford
Grant Hoechst
Gwen Jeong

Current Kilmer students who are part of the American Youth Percussion Ensemble are Patrick Brinza and Derek Kartalian. This Percussion Ensemble is described by Kilmer Band Director Brett Dodson as "arguably the highest quality of its type in the nation."

* * *

Kilmer Students Achieve WAY Above State on AMC 8

Over the past four years, Kilmer students have been over represented as compared students state-wide on the AMC 8, an annual math exam for eighth graders sponsored by The Mathematics Association of America.

Congratulations to our amazing mathematics faculty for these incredible results and to all Kilmer students past and present on their achievements on these tests.

* * *

18 Former Kilmer Students Named National Merit Semifinalists

18 former Kilmer students were named National Merit Semifinalists for 2013. This is a testament to their own hard work and to the teaching and support of their current and former teachers.

Madison HS: Katherine Fowler, Jeremy Park

Marshall HS: Annmarie Brinza, Sarah Chapin, Isabel Gross, Nicholas Kemp

TJHSST: Allison Chou, Michael Cooper, David Gao, Shohini Ghosh, Clara Guo, David Guo, Benjamin Hsu, Seon-Yong Lee, Eric Lin, Ian McConnell, Brandon Pang, Seung Young Park

Our heartfelt congratulations to all of these students!

* * *

Awesome Year-End Cumulative Success for Kilmer in WordMasters Challenge!

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the Challenge, and coached by Barbara Appling, the school's seventh graders placed first in the nation in the year-end cumulative standings among 294 school teams participating at this grade level and in this division. At the same time, the school's eighth graders placed third in the nation among 302 competing teams.

Four of the school's students won highest honors for year-long individual achievement as well: Seventh graders Melody Chiang and Khoi Tran both earned perfect scores in all three of the year's meets and placed among the 7 highest-ranked seventh graders in the entire country in the year-end standings. Eighth grader Dhriti Vij was one of only two eighth graders in the country to earn perfect scores all year long, while his teammate Kunal Shroff placed among the 14 highest-ranked eighth graders.

* * *

Brainy Bunch First Lego League Robotics Team Places 2nd in World Invitational!

The Brainy Bunch FLL Robotics Team, after attending 4 days of the World Invitational First Lego League Robotics Tournament in Florida, came in 2nd Place out of 59 teams in the Research category!  This means the judges were particularly impressed with their innovative solution to a real-world problem (milk contamination).  Their Terahertz device for detecting milk contamination and their subsequent pending patent really impressed the judges.   They also came in 2nd place overall during the first ever held Robot Derby (fastest robot out of the starting line).  What made this win special is how the kids rallied behind their French Alliance partners at the tournament and together they came in 1st and 2nd place!  Their team work and spirit was exceptional.


Congratulations to team members Aly Luckett, Andy Zhao, Dhriti Vij, Ryan Gottwald, Arthur Tisseront, Jordan Ganley and their coaches!


* * *

Kilmer Student Wins Award in Junior Solar Sprint Competition

Kilmer student Kathleen Kim and her teammate (who does not attend FCPS) won first place for speed in the Junior Division at the Junior Solar Sprint (JSS) held on Saturday, April 28, 2012 at Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology . Each JSS team is tasked with designing, building, and then racing a model solar electric car no larger than 30 x 60 x 30 centimeters powered by sunlight. 

The JSS is a satellite event of the USA Science and Engineering Festival and is sponsored by the U.S. Army Outreach Program. This year it was hosted by TJ STEMbassadors, Young Scholars Circle, Electric Vehicle Association and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

* * * 

Kilmer Model UN Racks up Honors at RAMSMUN

Kilmer Model UN students took many honors at RAMSMUN at Rocky Run Middle School on Saturday, April 21:

• Peter Rohrer and Tom Freebairn took Best and Outstanding awards in the European Union Committee
• the teams of  John Han and Nic Thomas, and Numan Khan and Priya Krishna  took Best and Honorable Delegations for Disarmament and International Security Council; 
• the teams of Sarah Huffman and Bella Choi, and Millen Anand and Nikhil Sakhumuri  won Outstanding and Honorable Delegation awards in the World Health Organization;  
• and Nakul Dar was awarded Verbal Commendation in the Inheritance Cycle.  

Congratulations and great work to all students who participated as well as to Kilmer MUN sponsors, Ellie Altman and Kara Tichoc.

* * *

Optimist Club Oratorical Contest

Congratulations to Clare McConnell and Thomas Mecherikunnel on advancing to the District Level in the Optimist Club's Oratorical Contest.  They took on the high school students at the Zone competition on Saturday, April 21, and came out on top.  This can be attributed to their hard work and the support of their parents and Kilmer's oratorical contest sponsors, Barbara Appling and Ellie Altman.

The District contest will be held in Richmond on Saturday, May 19.

* * * 

Kilmer Science Olympiad Places SECOND in State Tournament

Kilmer Science Olympiad came in 2nd out of 29 teams competing at the Virginia State Tournament on Saturday, April 14, 2012. 

The students (7th and 8th graders) on the team who medaled in one or more events were : Aly Luckett, Jordan Ganley, Shreya Bhatia, Sarah Huffman, Victoria Yang, Sophia Wu, Joyce Tian, Sophie Tian, Thea Prevalsky, Andy Zhao, Arthur Tisseront, Ryan Gottwald, Jake Cui, Kevin Lin, John Han, Keerthi Puvvada and Nakul Dar.

Kudos to all students who participated for their hard work and team spirit. They made Kilmer proud!

* * *

Sucess at the Virginia MathCounts State Competition

Youngchan Lee and Kevin Lin from Kilmer MathCounts team competed as individuals on March 17th, 2012 with other mathletes from various Virginia chapters at the MathCounts State Competition held at Dominion Virginia Power’s Corporate Headquarters.

During a day-long competition they achieved the following:   
Youngchan Lee   1st place individual,  2nd place count down   
Kevin Lin       3rd place individual

Youngchan Lee and Kevin Lin will both be part of the Virginia Mathcounts team to compete at the National Mathcounts at Orlando Florida on May 10th. Congratulations to both of them!

 * * *

Vienna Optimist Club Oratorical Contest

On Thursday, March 15, Kilmer held a school level Oratorical Contest of the Optimist Club of Greater Vienna.

Congratulations to ALL 29 students who gave their speeches last Thursday before the Oratorical Contest judges. Everyone who heard them agreed that all speakers came prepared with very poised and professional speeches on the topic How My Optimism Helps Me Overcome Obstacles.

For the GIRLS, runners-up are SWETHA RAMESH and ISABELLE MARICOR.  Girl’s second place winner is ELIZABETH ELLINGER and girl’s first place is CLARE McConnell.

For the BOYS, runners-up are SAM HASSETT and DANIEL NEE. Boy’s second place winner is RAMEN KHANNA and boy’s first place winner is THOMAS MERCHERIKUNNEL.

Our best wishes go to Clare and Thomas as they compete at the next level against Luther Jackson MS and Thoreau MS.  GO KILMER!

Once Again, Kilmer Rocks WordMasters!

Two teams of students representing Kilmer Middle School recently won highest honors in the WordMasters Challenge, a national language arts competition entered by approximately 220,000 students annually.

Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the Challenge, the school's seventh graders tied for first place in the nation in the year's second meet, held in February, among 294 school teams participating at this level and in this division. At the same time, the school's 8th graders tied for fourth place in the nation among among 302 competing teams.

Seventh graders Vishal Bhasin, Melody Chiang, Alyssa Czaban, Quiana Dang, Ethan Epstein, Heather Hong Fong, Emma Kohm, Jessica Lewis, Nathan Oo, Jordyn Park, Sarina Prasad, Mistaya Smith, Jay Swarup, Andy Tan, Khoi Tran, and Devlin Wesolowski, and eighth graders Kat Hanna, Nikhil Sakhamuri, and Dhriti Vij all earned perfect scores in the meet, while in the entire country only 97 seventh graders and only 24 eighth graders did so.

The WordMasters Challenge is an exercise in critical thinking that first encourages students to become familiar with a set of interesting new words (considerably harder than grade level), and then challenges them to use those words to complete analogies expressing various kinds of relationships. The students will participate in one more WordMasters meet during the coming months, and medals and certificates will be awarded in June to those who achieved and/or improved the most in the course of the year.

Successful Model UN Conference at Washington-Lee HS

The Model UN Club competed in a conference at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington on Saturday, March 3, with great results!

Spencer Weiss and Kiran Hampton took the gavel for Best Delegation in the Specialized Political Activities Committee, and Jake Biderman and Daniel XU were awarded Verbal Commendations.

Sarah Hoffman and Siri Doddi took the gavel for Best Delegation in the Social and Humanitarian Committee.

In the United Nations Environmental Program, Nikil Rao and Numan Khan were named Honorable Delegation and Namita Dongre and Rohan Taneja received Verbal Commendations.

In the Disarmament and Security Committee, Will Frank and Andrew Howard were awarded Outstanding Delegation.

On the British Crown Committee, Peter Rohrer received Outstanding Delegate and Tom Freebairn received a Verbal Commendation.

Congratulations to all of our award winners and participants!

* * *

Kilmer Students Need Your Vote!

The Brainy Bunch, Division 2 First Lego League Team,  is contesting for the FLL Global Innovation Award.  They are the VADC-FLL 1st place Grand Champions for 2011-2012 and have been invited to the World Invitational Tournament to represent VA-DC region.

Your vote and support will help them to reach their goals!

Voting Guidelines :
The voting will end on March 1, 2012 at 5:00pm.  You may only vote once per individual team invention in a 24 hour time period.  Please vote once daily for the next three days!

* * *

Kilmer Math Counts Success!

The Kilmer Mathletes have had an amazing year! 10 individuals scored over 90 points in the AMC10 test. Each of the ten mathletes will receive AMC10 award certificates for their excellent work. Students to receive AMC10 award certificates include:

• Akshay Kumar
• Dhriti Vij
• Jake Cui
• Joseph Chen
• Kunal Shroff
• Kendy Li
• Kenneth Chen
• Kevin Lin
• Mrinal Save
• Ravi Kodali
• Virginia Sun
• Vishal Bhasin
• Youngchan Lee

Additionally, we have three students scored among the top 2.5% in the nation by scoring over 115.5 in the AMC10 contests. These three students will be invited to participate in the American Invitational Mathematics Exam (AIME), which will take place on March 15, 2012. Students invited to take the AIME include:

• Virginia Sun
• Kevin Lin
• Ravi Kodali

Among the three, Virginia Sun and Kevin Lin also won the AMC10 distinguished honor roll certificates by scoring among the top 1% in the nation (with scores over 121.5).

We commend every one who participated in Math Counts and their coach, Mr. Sam Sun.

* * *

Kilmer Crowns Spelling Bee Champion!

Congratulations to our Kilmer Spelling Bee champion, Coco Strasberg, who won the Kilmer Middle School 2012 Spelling Bee on Wednesday, February 22 by spelling the word harassment.

Coco will advance to the Regional Spelling Bee, which will take place on March 18th at Hayfield Secondary.  Also, congratulations to Kilmer’s 2nd place speller, Charlie Broder, and the 26 finalists who competed in yesterday’s school-wide Spelling Bee! Great job!

* * *

Kilmer Students Attend Noblis Lecture

Eighth grade Kilmer students Aly Luckett, Jordan Ganley, Dhriti Vij, Ryan Gottwald, Andy Zhao and Arthur Tisseront attended a lecture at Kilmer Middle School's partner, Noblis, in Falls Church by Dr. John Moore, a professor from the MIT Media Lab in Boston.  His thought-provoking lecture gave 40 students from Kilmer, Thomas Jefferson and Bishop O'Connell as well members of NOBLIS, the Governor of Maine and other notable figures from the Military, a look into the future of how medical care may be delivered differently in the future, and specifically how the doctor/patient relationship is poised for change in the next decade.  

Kilmer students were, in fact, officially recognized and applauded by the host at Noblis who stated that "we have students from our partnership school, Kilmer Middle School, here today: Please stand up! I understand that these students were a part of the Virginia State National Science Olympiad Team!  Let's give them a round of applause!"

* * *

Fairfax Science Olympiad Invitational

Congratulations to all 45 students who participated in the Fairfax Science Olympiad Invitational:

Nicole Shumaker, Sandy Ng, Peter Rohrer, Raymond Lee,Victoria Yang, Shreya Bhatia,Teja Vayuvegula, Krishna Vemulapalli, Aly Luckett, Katrina White, Jordan Ganley, Andy Zhao, Francis Chen, Kevin Shen, Michael Ning, Hayun Chong, Thea Prevalsky, Keerthi Puvvada, Nakul Dar, Ryan Gottwald, Jake Cui, Sophia Wu, Jay Swarup, Akshat Kumar, Akshay Kumar, Quianna Dang, Sieun Lee, Joyce Tian, Kunal Shroff, Nikhil Sakhamuri, Ravi Kodali, Pallavi Bhave, Kiersten Paul, Coco Strassberg, Kevin Lin, Kendy Li, Jodie Lee, Ellison Kang, Anna Park, John Han, Abby McShane, Olivia Marcantonio, Katheryn Barnhart, Siri Doddi, and Shweta Watwe.

Congratulations to the Kilmer Teams for placing 4th, 6th, and 7th overall!!!  with 26 competing teams.
Kilmer students received medals for the following events:        

• 1st place: Mystery Architecture(Green), Water Quality(Green), Mission Possible(Green), Write It Do It(Yellow)        
• 2nd place: Metric Mastery(Yellow)   
• 3rd place: Anatomy(Red), Dynamic Planet(Yellow), Metric Mastery(Red) 
• 4th place: Disease Detectives(Green), Anatomy(Green), Mousetrap Vehicle(Red)
• 5th place: Meteorology(Yellow), Awesome Aquifers(Yellow), Microbe Mission(Yellow), Water Quality(Yellow), Storm The Castle(Yellow)          
• 6th place: Road Scholar(Green), Meteorology(Green), Rocks & Minerals(Green)        

 Thank you to all of the students for their team work and commitment. Congratulations on great results!  

* * *

Kilmer Student Work Featured on E-Luminate Web Site

The student work created by four current eighth graders at Kilmer (the students were in 7th grade when they researched and put together the project) is featured on the E-Luminate (formerly called Books of Hope) web site as a sample book.

According to the E-Luminate website, the organization is "a 501c3 nonprofit service-learning program that engages U.S. schools at all grade levels in creating nonfiction electronic educational materials (in the form of PowerPoints, PDFs, Word documents, videos, audio, etc.) for some of the world's most vulnerable children."

The assignment, currently in progress in the classrooms of two of our 7th grade teachers, creates an authentic learning experience for our students as they create educational material that will be used in Uganda and Sierra Leon.

The project on display, titled Main Events of World War II, can be viewed under the RESOURCES tab of the E-Luminate web site. Select SAMPLE BOOKS and scroll to Advanced Resources.

* * *

Kilmer Students Achieve WordMasters Success

Two teams of students representing Kilmer Middle School recently won highest honors in the WordMasters Challenge, a national language arts competition entered by approximately 220,000 students annually.  The school’s seventh graders place second in the nation among 294 school teams and the eighth graders placed third in the nation among 302 competing teams.

Seventh graders Joseph Chen, Melody Chiang, Casey Lauer, Allison Park, Jack Simmons and Khoi Tran earned perfect scores, an honor they share with only 51 other seventh graders in the country. Luke Bulkeley, Andrew Dudzik, Nikhil Sakhamuri, and Dhriti Vij were among the 51 eighth graders nationwide to earn perfect scores.