Twenty-one Rondout Valley High School students earned the New York State Seal of Biliteracy.<\/p>\n
Rondout Valley High School graduates Diego Castro Linares, left, and Ziqing Liu earned the Seal of Triliteracy by demonstrating proficiency in three languages. (Photo provided by Ulster BOCES)<\/p>\n
The seal will be affixed to their diplomas and included in their school transcripts. In addition, two students achieved the Seal of
Triliteracy designation \u2014 the first in the school district\u2019s history to do do.<\/p>\n
Students earn the Seal of Biliteracy by successfully completing coursework in English and a world language, while also completing a major research project and an interview conducted in their target language. Their presentations typically last 10 to 20 minutes, and are followed by a 10-minute question-and-answer session with a panel of evaluators fluent in their chosen language.<\/p>\n
Rondout Valley High School students who earned the New York State Seal of Biliteracy. Front row, from left: Gypsy Wish, Hanna Rylewicz, Grace McArdle, Liz Hanigan, Ziqing Liu and Diego Castro. Back row, from left: Sienna Greenberg, Camille McMillan, Hudson Paley, Fahad Bhuiyan, Harris Kyaw, Borny Patwoary, John Basten, Tristan Cantello and Jacob Kraft. Not Pictured: Tatiana Claros Munoz, Maven Flamhaft, Grace Kiszkiel, Jack Kotsides, Ruby Ortner and Ivy Vazquez Avila. (Photo courtesy of Ulster BOCES)<\/p>\n
This year, the projects ranged from biographical reports on athletes, artists, and authors to explorations of culture, to presentations on the environment and magic realism.<\/p>\n
The Seal of Biliteracy Committee supports students throughout the process through mentoring, research guidance, and presentation preparation. Committee members were Spanish teacher Victoria Robertson, the program\u2019s coordinator; world language teacher Patricia Abi-Hassan, English language arts teacher Robyn McDonough, school Counselor Alison Klein, Library Media Specialist Tara
Thibault-Edmonds, and English as a new language teacher Rebecca Horwitz.<\/p>\n
Seniors Diego Castro Linares and Ziqing Liu demonstrated proficiency in three languages. Castro Linaries recounted the path he took to earn his Seal of Triliteracy. \u201cI am El Salvadorian, and growing up we would speak only Spanish at home, and I would visit my family in El Salvador multiple times per year,\u201d he said in a press release. \u201cMy Seal of Biliteracy project in Spanish was on El Salvadorian culture and how beautiful the country is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castro Linares began studying French in seventh grade, following the advice of his mother. \u201cI have enjoyed the challenge to push myself to learn a third language and try for the Seal of Biliteracy in French,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhat inspired me most was all the support I had to challenge myself and to achieve this goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liu\u2019s family owns Asia, a restaurant in Stone Ridge. She shared that she speaks Mandarin Chinese at home and has studied Spanish since middle school. \u201cGrowing up at my parents\u2019 restaurant, I am able to use both Chinese and Spanish at times when I am working with customers, and it really helps me to communicate and meet their needs,\u201d she said in the release.<\/p>\n
As a junior, Liu earned her first seal by giving a presentation in Mandarin on the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival. This year, she presented in Spanish, focusing on the role of rice in Chinese and Latin American cultures, earning her seal in Spanish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI plan to major in hospitality in college,\u201d she said, \u201cand I feel that, especially in that specific industry, there is a diverse range of people and cultures that would require me to know more languages to be able to connect and network with others.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other students receiving seals were John Basten (French), Fahad Bhuiyan (Spanish), Tristan Cantello (French), Tatiana Claros Munoz (Spanish), Maven Flamhaft (French), Sienna Greenberg (Spanish), Elizabeth Hanigan (Spanish), Grace Kiszkiel (French), Jack Kotsides (French), Jacob Kraft (French), Harris Kyaw (French), Grace McArdle (Spanish), Camille McMillan (Spanish), Ruby Ortner (Spanish), Hudson Paley (French), Borny Patwoary (Spanish), Hanna Rylewicz (Spanish), Ivonne Vazquez Avila (Spanish), and Gypsy Wish (Spanish).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-one Rondout Valley High School students earned the New York State Seal of Biliteracy. Rondout Valley High School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[85,267,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,127497],"class_list":["post-339511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-rondout-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}