Rye Neck Middle School sixth graders delivered more than 80 paper tissue flowers to first responders at the Westchester County Convention Center on Valentine’s Day. The flowers were brought to nurses, national guard members, clinicians, first responders and other volunteers who are helping in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines at the state-run site.

“The sixth graders were excited to say Happy Valentine’s Day and thank you to the volunteers who are helping to provide COVID-19 vaccines,” said Allison Reynolds, a math teacher and sixth grade adviser. “COVID has changed their lives, it has changed all of our lives, and they know that the vaccine is the greatest step towards a return to normalcy that they can ask for.”

The students have begun discussing what they can do next to continue to let the volunteers know that they are appreciated.

As part of the Counseling Department’s Invisible Line program, eighth graders participated in interactive, mock auction activities on Jan. 22 to reflect on different values they identified as important.

Working with an imaginary budget of $1,000, the students collaborated in small teams both with in-person and remote learners to bid on values – such as creativity, happiness, love, wealth, respect, friendship, popularity, integrity, acceptance and power – based on their belief system. The activities were designed to help students communicate and collaborate in a group where each person has a different perspective and recognize that the prioritization of values may vary from person to person.

“While we planned this lesson with intended objectives, above all, we wanted the kids to have fun,” said middle school counselor Samantha Chu, who organized the activities along with high school counselors Susan Hannon, Amanda Mahncke and Evan Miller. “The past 11 months have been nothing short of challenging, and the kids have shown an incredible amount of resilience and perseverance. With the requirement to socially distance, I am so glad that we found a way to safely continue these transition groups and spend time with my students in person once again.”

For the second part of the program, students will explore the symbolic meaning of the values auction and how values guide one’s thoughts and behavior in the real world.

“During the auction, some groups learned that they could keep bidding in an effort to raise the price and force the other group into bankruptcy, leaving them to be the only remaining bidders on their most desired values that were up next for auction,” Chu said. “In these scenarios, the students quickly realized that their ideal values for integrity and power did not match their actions in the auction.”

As Rye Neck Middle School eighth grader Ella Grann sat in her school’s Performing Arts Center, she diligently took notes as a group of high school students recited lines from her original play. Grann, who wrote the short play during lockdown last spring, said she was inspired to reflect on the similarities between the coronavirus pandemic and other viruses, such as the smallpox pandemic, Spanish flu and Ebola.

“The main message [of my play] is that humanity can overcome pandemics even if society is changed forever,” Grann said. “Other generations made it through these epidemics and pandemics, and we can make it through the coronavirus.”

Grann’s play tells the story of four girls living in different pandemics or epidemics. One of her characters, Emma, faces smallpox at a time when marriage was a way that a woman’s worth was measured; Mary’s indecisiveness impacts how careful she is about avoiding the Spanish flu; Nyah is living in Kenya when the Ebola virus starts to spread; and when Sophia was a young child, her parents immigrated to the United States from Mexico and are now facing the coronavirus pandemic.

Theater director and drama teacher Scott Harris, who taught Grann in his drama class last year and also directed her in the middle school production of “The Wizard of Oz” the prior year, recognized the young playwright’s talent. After reading through her drafts, he invited Grann to listen to his Intermediate Acting class students read aloud her play.

“This is an integral part of the development process for a young playwright,” Harris said. “It allows her to hear her words spoken aloud rather than just reading them in her own voice off the page. This helps the playwright shape her script and realize what is working and what needs revision.”

Harris described Grann’s play as ambitious and advanced for such a young student.

“I was very impressed with the complexity of the character development and the mature themes she tackled,” he said. “Rather than sit back and simply relax during the school shutdown, Ella took it upon herself to synthesize what was happening in the world around her and compare that to previous pandemics, then boil all of it down to a short play that also deals with women’s issues.”

Grann said she was grateful to her teacher and the high school students for reading her play aloud, which helped her refine it and make any necessary revisions.

“I enjoy all of the playwriting process, especially hearing my words come to life,” she said. “I loved writing at the most random times when my ideas sparked. This was the first play that I have written, but I guarantee it will not be the last.”