Upper Adams students celebrated Hispanic heritage this month with dancing, food and games.
Hispanic Heritage Month is commemorated Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 each year. At Biglerville High School, the Latinx Club hosted its fourth annual Fiesta Friday school wide assembly. The festive event included traditional dances performed by the Bailes Mex Club and music from the high school band, according to the school’s Facebook page. Young women showed off their quinceañera dresses, and many students joined in a group dance in the gymnasium.
“The fiesta ended with all students who wanted to come down on the floor and participating in dances together,” Principal Beth Graham said at Tuesday’s school board meeting. “It was a very successful event, and our kids did a great job at putting it together with minimal help from adults.”
Senior student Jesus Sanchez-Martinez created and taught a classroom lesson for 11th grade social studies students, according to Graham. He brought in traditional Mexican breads, costumes, and demonstrations to educate students about the dances that would be performed.
Sanchez-Martinez was also among four students who recently attended educational translation and interpreter certification training at the Lincoln Intermediate Unit. He underwent training alongside fellow Upper Adams students Christopher Trejo Hernandez, Stephanie Garcia Bobadilla and Valeria Zumoya-Alvarez. Graham said they were the only students in a room full of adult learners.
“The kids came back and said it was the hardest thing that they’ve ever done,” Graham said. “This was for school based interpretation, so any kind of technical education language, and then that had to be interpreted into Spanish. So it was a great experience for them, but it was extremely difficult.”
She said while the students are fluent conversational speakers in English and Spanish, the training required them to master professional-level reading and writing skills in both languages. To be eligible for the training, students had to score extremely high on advanced Spanish exams.
“This one-day, intensive program prepares bilingual and multilingual individuals to serve as certified interpreters in educational settings across York, Adams, and Franklin counties,” Graham’s report stated.
At Upper Adams Middle School, students celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month by hosting an authentic Hispanic luncheon for staff that included homemade enchiladas, tortillas, ceviche, quesadillas, and much more, according to Principal Shane Brewer. The celebration also marked the culmination of the English as a Second Language curriculum. Students wrote descriptive paragraphs on the foods they made.
In other news, a group of high school students recently sent handmade cards to a local World War II veteran just before his 100th birthday.
Board member Loren Lustig got to know veteran Richard Sites of Gettysburg through his volunteer work with the Volunteer Nurses Association of Hanover. Lustig, who is a veteran himself, said he visits veterans who are in hospice care to provide them friendship and company.
Through his visits, Lustig learned how Sites served in the U.S. Army Air Corp during World War II as a tail gunner on B-24’s.
After students from teacher Wesley Heyser’s class gave a presentation to the school board about their American history studies, Lustig invited the students to send Sites birthday cards ahead of Sites’ Oct. 19 birthday. Several students sent Sites messages of hope and encouragement. Lustig brought the cards to Sites and his daughter a few weeks ahead of his birthday.
“I cannot tell you how well received, how much that those cards meant to this vet,” Lustig said, voice cracking with emotion.
Sites later died on Oct. 1, just 18 days shy of his 100th birthday.
Lustig thanked Heyser and his students for their efforts.
Also on Tuesday, the board unanimously voted to hire William Thomas as assistant principal at the intermediate school and Jenna Henry as assistant principal for the middle/high schools.
The Upper Adams School Board’s next regular meeting will be Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. The curriculum and extracurricular committee will meet Nov. 4 at 6:30 p.m., followed by the business and operations committee. The policy committee will meet Nov. 6 at 9 a.m.
Mary Grace Kauffman, freelance reporter, worked six years as a full-time reporter for newspapers in Pennsylvania and Maryland. She has covered topics including business, crime, education, government and features. Mary Grace has a bachelor's degree in communication/journalism from Shippensburg University. She resides in Adams County.