October  2012

To the Parents or Guardians of incoming ninth grade students:

The World Language Interdistrict Articulation Committee comprised of middle school and high school teachers has a self-nomination process for placement into the Honors Program at Pascack Hills  and Pascack ValleyHigh Schools. 

The honors program is designed for students who demonstrate a high level of ability in oral and written expression, and who are motivated to achieve an advanced level of proficiency.  In the honors program, students will be expected to achieve a strong command of the target language, which includes accurate usage of grammatical structures and extensive application of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions.

Additionally, as with all other honors programs in the district, students admitted in the programare expected to " maintain a high level of academic interest and be self-motivated learners and generators of academic materials. "

In order to be considered for the Honors Spanish or Honors French Program at the high school:

1. Students must nominate themselves for Honors consideration.  PLEASE print out and complete  the attached Self-Nomination Form 2013.  Only students who have completed and returned the  self-nomination form to their middle school teacher by November 30, 2012 will be considered for the honors program.  Please note that this form requires a parental signature. 

2. Those students who have completed and submitted a self-nomination form on time will complete a writing task at their middle school.  The writing task will be administered by their middle school World Languages teacher.   The middle school teacher will evaluate the speaking skills of the candidates during the month of January at their middle school.   Students will be evaluated using a common rubric developed by the World Language Interdistrict Articulation Committee.

Placement into the Honors Program will be based on oral and written assessments.

If you have any questions about our Honors Program, please feel free to call me at 201-358-7020 ext. 22054.

       Sincerely,

  Phyllis Pizzolato