MAST Students Behind Effort to Have President Obama as Graduation Speaker - Key Biscayne - MiamiHerald.com

MAST Students Behind Effort to Have President Obama as Graduation Speaker - Key Biscayne - MiamiHerald.com

By H. Groschel
Key Biscayne Times

Everyone affiliated with MAST Academy on Virginia Key is still abuzz: How did they do it? How did MAST become one of six finalists nationwide in the Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge, where President Obama will speak at the winning school's commencement ceremony?

The answer is easy: Because of five seniors who worked day and night to answer the call. Entrants had to submit four essays describing how their school is helping prepare students to meet the President’s 2020 goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. MAST also sent in optional materials: a 2-minute video about their public magnet school and supplemental academic and demographic data. Tosca Lichtenheld, Margaux Herrera and Chelsea Westra wrote the four mandatory essays at home and at MAST before classes, during their jam-packed days and after school. Tali Burger shot the video footage with a video camera checked out from MAST’s Media Center. Michael Ronzetti edited the video footage.

When the Final Six were officially announced on Friday, April 9, 2010, three of the five students were out of town on senior-year college visits and other travel. However, everybody heard the news in a flash because of old and new communications methods: school PA announcements, phone calls, texting and Facebook. This reporter interviewed Tosca Lichtenheld via phone while she was at an airport to return home to Key Biscayne from a college visit.

Tosca, who recruited her classmates to work on the application package, recalled, “Ms. [Jennifer] Fernandez, the MAST Activities Director, found out about the competition after the White House announced it in early March. The senior class officers were asked if they wanted to participate.” Tosca, Senior Class Vice-President, took charge of the effort after several days went by without action, and asked people she knew could do the job to participate. The next step was to get information about the Challenge from Principal Fisher and Lead Teacher Dr. Haun.

The essays were essential. “Margaux and Chelsea are excellent writers, and they have immersed themselves in the MAST experience”, Tosca recalled. Margaux is the Chief Editor of Mako Fuka, the MAST yearbook. Chelsea is Editor-in-Chief of The Beacon, the MAST newspaper. “We did [the essays] in about a week, and pulled all-nighters to finish the application. We reread the essays dozens of times” and were supported by teachers who also reviewed the essays: Ms. Paisley (Yearbook and Spanish), Ms. Sutton (Newspaper and English) and Dr. Scanlon (English).

The three young women did much of the work at home but Tosca recalls that they wrote and edited during “any free school time we could get – if we finished a test early we would meet. I missed many lunch periods. We put the essays online in a Google Document so that multiple people could edit them simultaneously. We highlighted items with a color-coded system to identify what to cut or change. At the same time we sent Instant Messages to each other” within the Google software. In this way they communicated on weekends and after school even though everyone lives in various part of Miami-Dade County.

Tosca’s friend Tali captured the footage for the optional video. The team had 2 minutes to tell the story of their school and its people and to sell it to the application reviewers. “A Day in the Life at MAST” came in at 1:55 minutes after Mike spliced and edited the footage. “Mike is very good with computers and videography and has experience with editing software Final Cut Pro”, Tosca added. Other students played key roles in the movie. Andrew Mead(e), a senior who plays in the unique steel drum school band, performed pieces that were recorded as background music. The video began with a voice over: “Welcome to MAST Academy – Here is a look at a typical day at a non-typical High School”. Student classroom work and activities were featured, followed by participant commentary. Tosca gave examples: “Andrew Wach was building a CO2 powered car in Wood Shop. Another segment showed sophomore girls in Chemistry Lab, and another featured two student government representatives.”

Three data supplements were included in the package. Tosca explained that President Obama said this “was optional, but we thought we could strengthen our application by showing that MAST’s diverse student body is united in academic excellence.” Dr. Haun and Principal Fisher provided the information in areas such as graduation rate, test scores and Advanced Placement test pass rates.

The Commencement Challenge application had to be submitted online by 11:59 p.m. on March 15. The team took a jump drive with all the information to Principal Fisher’s office to submit MAST’s entry only to be denied. The school’s Internet security firewall prevented a direct upload of the video to YouTube. Ms. [Melissa] Fernandez, the school’s IT specialist/English teacher, was able to put the video on the school server and the upload was completed.

What happens next for MAST Academy and the other five finalists? A professional production company will come to each school and, with student input, film a showcase video. When this will happen is unclear. The six videos will be placed on the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov/commencement), and the public will vote to select the top three schools. President Obama will pick the winner.

Students, faculty, alumni, parents and other school supporters will be pulling out all the stops to get votes for MAST via social media and person-to-person appeals. Having the President speak at the June 7 Class of 2010 graduation is an incredible prospect for this high school in the nation’s 5th largest school district. For Tosca, the journey to the Commencement Challenge Final Six was important as well. “Hard work and teamwork pay off. I believe this is what President Obama would want us to show other students.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/12/1575436/mast-students-behind-effort-to.html#ixzz0l8ki8jJF