On Friday morning, Dec. 8th , Dania Vazquez, MMA’s headmaster, will represent our community at the Hyde Square Task Force Annual Breakfast. She has been honored to be selected as their Inspiring Leader of the Year. Highlights of her remarks are below. They reflect her belief that love and positivity hold our community and our work together.
“The sense of connection and responsibility define community for me. The journey of bilingual education - a 42 year journey for me – is steeped in what my ancestors taught me, even demanded of me. It’s steeped in the recognition of the urgency to embrace our identity, our language, and our culture most especially in the face of racism and inequities. Erasing decades of inequity will take hard work from each generation, focused and grounded in who we are as a community. The work we do every day at Muñiz Academy – the only dual language high school in the New England region – is a labor of love, of commitment and of passion for our community that I hope represents those values.”
As part of their curriculum this year, Special Education students in Ms. Vanessa’s class have been working on a Garden Project. Unlike lectures and worksheets on healthful practices, gardens provide an experiential, hands-on environment. Working in a garden is a real-world activity that engages students and encourages them to explore and reason independently.
Nutrition education helps to change students’ preferences for food over the long term. Repeated exposure to gardens and what they produce can also build the emotional connections to food that are essential to behavior change. When students spend weeks or months growing their food, they feel proud of and connected to it. – which is key to trying new dishes with an open mind. There is also something very powerful when you are responsible for creating and nurturing it. You not only get to watch it grow,you get to eat the fruits of your labor.
This week’s lesson has expanded to the benefits of herbs, some of which are also
used to season food and make it more delicious
We wanted to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who participated and donated during #GivingTuesday this year!
We were blown away with everyone's generosity and we can't thank you enough. This year we were able to raise $9,000 to help support our students' education. We know this will change so many of our students' lives and it is because of you.
We thank you for being a part of the MMA community. We are so grateful to know that our students have supporters rooting cheering on their futures.
If you still wish to make a donation, our Giving Tuesday campaign will be open to the end of the year. You can click the button below to donate.
We could not have done this without you all!
Every year November and December is recruitment time for next year’s 9 th grade.
Visits are made to the different 8 th grades in BPS to inform students of the benefits found at the Muniz Academy. This year, the student recruiters to date, have been very energized to share with potential new students the exciting and interesting features of the Muniz Academy.
Pictured: Brenda, Dereck, Yeimi, Zaire, and Raydeli
Elections for new Student Council Members took place on Tuesday, Nov. 8th. The week prior to elections was filled with campaign posters, speeches and general glad-handing activity. There were many more candidates this year than last year. The final roster of winners is as follows:
12th Grade
Gabriel (Zaire) Brown
Taina Gonzalez
Mariana Troncoso
11th grade
Yeimi Sosa
10th grade
Brittany Perez
Giselle (Gigi) Diaz-
Raydelli Castillo
9th Grade
Dereck Medina
Brenda Troncoso
The new Student Council members had the opportunity to meet with Members of the Muniz Academy Board at the November Board Meeting. There was lively discussion between the two groups. Some items on the student council slate this
year pertain to establishing more clubs after school, having more tutoring for some students, a winter dance, changing the school menus and lengthening school lunch periods by 10 minutes. Some student council members are even considering the return of uniforms!!!
The day before Thanksgiving the entire school enjoyed a Friendsgiving banquet featuring a huge array of delicious favorite foods brought in by every single one of the students. Everyone had a chance to savor arroz con gandules, pernil, guacamole & chips, pastelitos, mac and cheese, spaghetti, bar-b-que meatballs, mashed potatoes, tostones, fresh tomatoe salad and of course, every imaginable chip possible.
It was the first time the school was able to celebrate this grand tradition, since 2019! Everyone had a yummy time.
