A total of 31 Elwood School District student-musicians were selected to participate in the band, orchestra and choral ensembles at the Suffolk County Music Educators’ Association’s All-County festivals.

Elwood Middle School and James H. Boyd Intermediate School fifth and sixth graders Nora Brezinski, Lukas Davis, Danika Jhaveri, Sasha Kushnir, Allen McKenzie, Allison McKenzie, Madelyn Moreno, Logan Ouziel and Abby Zbytniewski were chosen to perform in the Division 1 All-County concert, while Elwood Middle School seventh and eighth graders Margarita Agrawal, Hector Catalan, Olivia Charalambous, James D’Angeli, Efstathia Essopos, Gregory Gross, Joseph Meyer, Ashley Show, Angelica Viviani and Irena Yeung were chosen to perform in the Division 2 All-County concert; both concerts were held on March 12 at Hauppauge High School.

Elwood-John H. Glenn High School freshmen and sophomores Peter Bell, Delia Beuka, Louise Hartough, Raim Kim, Benny Lee, Davin Li, Oliva Lobue, James Mossey, Chaejung Nam, Melina Neofitos, Nolan Reinhardt and Emma Rothleder were chosen to perform in the Division 3 All-County concert, held on March 11 at Hauppauge High School.

“Selection for the SCMEA festivals is highly competitive and is based on NYSSMA scores and teacher recommendations,” said Elwood Middle School Orchestra Director Diana Gotzen-Berg. “Congratulations to our outstanding Elwood musicians.”

Additionally, Elwood’s Lucas Tast was chosen for the All-County Percussion Ensemble, which performed at the 2023 SCMEA Day of Percussion on Feb. 3.

Date Added: 3/17/2023

Despite less-than-ideal conditions, the young student-actors of Elwood Middle School put on an incredible production of “Newsies” in February. They had to practice and perform without the use of the school’s auditorium, which is currently undergoing renovations. Rehearsals were held in hallways and classrooms, with the final performances at Elwood-John H. Glenn High School.

“The hard work and dedication of our students and staff was evident in their amazing performance,” Principal Christina Moran said. “Their flexibility and ability to adapt was very impressive.”

Date Added: 3/16/2023

Elwood Middle School’s wrestling team recently worked out with Rohan Murphy, a professional motivational speaker and former star wrestler from East Islip High School. Murphy is a nationally recognized youth speaker that has spoken in over 40 states. Murphy, who lost his legs at birth, started wrestling his freshman year of high school. After a successful high school wrestling career, he went on to wrestle at Penn State University. In addition to wrestling, Murphy is also an accomplished powerlifter, competing in international competitions all over the world.

“Having a professional motivational guest speaker such as Rohan Murphy come to speak to our middle school wrestlers was an outstanding opportunity for our student athletes to learn the importance of teamwork, hard work and overcoming adversity,” Athletic Director Dave Shanahan said. “I would like to thank Coach Szokoli and Coach Ledda for organizing this outstanding opportunity for our student-athletes.”

Date Added: 3/13/2023

Elwood-John H. Glenn High School’s band and Elwood Middle School’s eighth grade band joined forces on March 3 to facilitate the middle school musicians’ transition to the high school band program, coordinated by high school band teacher Gabrielle Caviglia.

“It made my day to have students from EMS and John Glenn play together in our newly renovated band room, and they sounded amazing,” Band Director Paul Lasurdo said.

Date Added: 3/10/2023

Eighth graders at Elwood Middle School recently visited the school’s library to work on narrowing topics, formulating questions and claims, researching via the use of database articles and websites, evaluating websites, creating proper citations for sources, and learning how to create works-cited pages.

“Laying the foundation for research skills and the ethical use of information are an important part of library instruction at the middle school,” library media specialist Donna Fife said.

Date Added: 3/8/2023