Connetquot Central School District

Connetquot’s Board of Education honors several student achievements at 5/28 Meeting

At the May 28 Connetquot Board of Education meeting, the Board of Education, Superintendent Dr. Centamore and members of the administration recognized several students for their outstanding achievements:

LI’s Best Young Artists:
Vy Nguyen and Katherine Novick were named Long Island’s Best Young Artists. The artworks of the two student-artists were among the 87 submissions selected to be exhibited in the Heckscher Museum’s Best in Show Exhibit. The artists were selected out of 456 entries into the competition.

2024 Congressional Art Show:
Sidney Shurgin and Sofia Policano placed at the 2024 Congressional Art Show Competition. Sidney came in first place and Sofia received honorable mention.

BAFFA:
Students Logan Bujold, Drew DeSiano, G DiNero, Hayley Eguizabal, Lily Goldofski, Daniela Hernandez, Samantha O’Donnell and Sophia Tax entered the Bay Area Friends of the Fine Arts (BAFFA) High School Exhibition. G DiNero was awarded honorable mention in Sculpture, Hayley Eguizabal came in third place for Digital Art, Daniela Hernandez came in third place for Sculpture and Sophia Tax came in second place for Digital Art.

Locust Valley Film Festival:
With 16 participating high schools and over 1,000 entries, only 60 films made it into the 18th Annual Locust Valley Film Festival. In the animation category, Connetquot’s Jonathan Peter Dreyfus (“Spider-Man (2002) In a Minute”), Lily Abigail Goldofski (“Safety First”) and Victoria Eller (“Brothers”) were accepted into the festival. In the commercial category, Vincent Maravaglia was accepted into the festival for his film, “Zorbeez”. In the animation category, Hayley Eguizabal came in first place for her film, “A Happy Wife”, and Madison Fiorini came in third place for her film, “Shadows of Doubt”.

ThunderVision:
Connetquot’s broadcast journalism class, “ThunderVision,” took first place in the Best Opening category at the BASH Awards on May 21. Students Sarah Dempster, Victoria Eller, Jake Hertig, Vincent Maraviglia III, Jason McCloud, James Poulin and Chloe Young were honored as well as advisors Alan Fertmann and Ross Grandin.

Middle School Robotics:
The OBMS Robotics Club had excellent qualifying rounds while at the FIRST LEGO League Challenge. They qualified for this year's FIRST LEGO League Championship. This was their first time advancing beyond the qualifying event. In January, OBMS Team 3592 also was awarded the Engineering Excellence Award at the league qualifying event.

At the FIRST LEGO League Championship, held at Hicksville High School on March 10, Team 3592 placed 11th out of about 120 participating schools throughout the rounds of competition.

The Board of Education honored Brayden Corrado, Daniel Ehlers, Jake Gesseck, William Hackett, Javier Hernandez, Noah Huff, Gia Tehrani, Tristan Nani and Benjamin Povey for these accomplishments. They also honored team leader Mr. Doug dos Santos who was the recipient of this year’s Coach/Mentor Award.

SkillsUSA:
The following students competed in Regional-level competitions and advanced to State-level competitions for SkillsUSA in a variety of vocational skill categories: Ava Cregg (Action Skills Teaching Competition), Hannah Elramly (Crime Scene Investigation), Alexa Hernandez (Senior Cosmetology), Molly Murphy (Marine Technology) and Emma Thom (Health Knowledge Bowl).

Outstanding Achievement Award:
Ronkonkoma Middle School eighth grader Jessica Pantanjo received an outstanding achievement award from the National Association of Secondary School Principals.