Middle School

Middle School News

Middle School Celebrates with Food Pantry Donations

When they saw National Pizza Day coming on the calendar for February 9, 2021, Middle School Student Government decided to celebrate the day with fun, games, and donations to the Green Cove Springs Food Pantry. “Celebrating National Pizza Day was a lot of fun,” said Josh Lewis ’25 at morning announcements, “but it was the food drive leading up to Pizza Day that we are the most proud of.”

Since fresh, hot pizzas are hard to donate, students instead collected items for spaghetti dinners (to keep with the Italian theme). Homerooms competed to see which group could bring in the most donated items, with Lower School students pitching in as well. After the final tally, it was Grade 6 for the win, with Ms. Sachs’ homeroom coming out on top with 225 items donated and Mr. Burke’s homeroom with 179 items donated. “These top two homerooms contributed about 45% of the donations,” said Student Government sponsor and Middle School math teacher Ms. Ashley Chancey, who thanked all the homerooms for their participation and their donations.

In all, the food drive donated 915 items weighing 1,131 lbs to the Green Cove Springs Food Pantry.

Middle School students celebrated the day with various games including pizza bingo, pizza box frisbee golf, and, of course, a tasty pizza lunch.

Williams Ties for 12th at Scripps

After clinching the district spelling bee in February, Erik Williams ’25 went on to win his third First Coast Spelling Bee in March, earning him his second trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

At Scripps, Erik proceeded through the quarter finals to the semi finals, which took place on Sunday, June 27 and was broadcast by ESPN. After incorrectly spelling “orismology,” the science of defining technical terms, he ended up tied for 12th place out of 209 spellers—an incredible achievement for this very talented teen. Congratulations, Erik!

White Oak Conservation

As a part of St. Johns’ partnership with White Oak Conservation, one of the United States’ premiere wildlife conservation facilities, this year Grade 6 studied the cassowary. White Oak conservationists introduced the cassowary in a video call in February, kicking off the students’ studies in all classes. In science, they conducted research on the cassowary and conservation, in history they studied where the cassowary lived and made maps of the area, and in art they painted life size cassowaries and learned how to make scientific sketchbooks. In English classes, students wrote cassowary myths and fables and a persuasive formal research paper about the need for cassowary conservation. Math classes made graphs of the populations of cassowaries over time. The students visited White Oak in hopes of seeing the facility’s cassowaries in person, but, because the cassowaries were incubating eggs, students were unable to see them. Fortunately, many other wild and endangered species were out and available for viewing (and, sometimes, feeding!) on the amazing field trip. The final product of their studies was the class presentation of all their work to the White Oak conservationists in May, also by video call.

Grade 8 Goes to Trial

In a tradition that goes back more than 20 years, this spring Grade 8 English classes re-enacted the trial scene from Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. The tradition was started by former Middle School English teacher Cheryl Townsend in 2009, and, with the exception of last year, when School was closed due to COVID-19, each spring, Grade 8 students have taken on the roles of the judge, Scout, Jem, townspeople of Maycomb, the jury, and Atticus Finch himself to bring this scene to life.

“Many of the issues addressed in this novel resonate with readers and audiences today just as they did when the novel was first published in 1960,” said Grade 8 English teacher Mrs. Thea Burke. “However, I think what still makes it such an influential work of literature are the uniquely memorable characters who bring this book to life.”