Media and News Archive

Our photographer utilizes a zoom lens to great effect to document Dalton's Middle and High School musicians in performance at the 2016 Winter concerts. Click the title or Read More for links to the galleries.

Dalton Squash has shot out of the gate early this season, triumphing over several talented league and non-league opponents. J. Colby Clark profiles the team.

In the first week of gameplay of the winter sports season, Wrestling won its opening tournament and Boys JV Basketball brought home a pair of impressive wins.

Grade 4 completed their annual simulation of the Ellis Island experience for European immigrants to the US. The event began when the "immigrants" were "ferried" to the 9th floor, which teachers and parents transformed into the Great Hall of Ellis Island. Thanks to everyone (parents, teachers, administrators and staff) who helped "process" this particular wave of immigration.

Photos provided by George Fan

Catching up on our past two days here first is our fifth day.

Close to 9000 language teachers from around the world gathered at the Boston Convention Center for the annual ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Convention. This year marked the 50th anniversary for ACTFL and the conference boasted the largest attendance in its history.

Reports Crain's New York Chris Raymond: "On a field trip to Memorial Sloan Kettering, Simone Braunstein witnessed how swiftly a surgical robot could slice through a Tootsie Roll—and saw just how quickly an operation could go wrong if the doctor at the controls made an error, often due to lack of sensory feedback.

8th grade students in Adam Lanphier's Mandarin 3MS class recently connected with students from Taiwan and the Boston Latin School as part of a NSLI-Y (National Security Language Initiative for Youth) program. The students in Taiwan presented short talks in Chinese on the theme of “relationship building in language immersion.” The groups then engaged in a discussion with the different classrooms and answered questions from U.S. students about the theme, learning Chinese or life in Taiwan.

Dalton brought home two championships last weekend, both of which were won in dramatic fashion.

Fifth grade students visited the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia for an exciting day of learning and hands-on activities. They concentrated on learning about the treasures and findings from Sir Leonard Woolley's discovery of the Royal Graves at Ur.

Football extended its undefeated record to 5-0 and Girls Varsity Soccer took down previously undefeated Horace Mann to highlight the end of the regular season for Dalton's fall teams.

It makes sense that in these days coming up to Halloween that a new Maker Spirit is now haunting the Media Lab in room 1103, turning it overnight from Media Lab to Fab Lab. Watch the video to hear Middle and High School Art Teacher Mira Gelley and High School Computer Science and Robotics Teacher Charles Forster introduce the new features and ideas behind them.

Over two weekends in October, Dalton World Language faculty participated in a workshop to familiarize themselves with the OPI – Oral Proficiency Interview – a proficiency-based assessment for language learners. Dr. Cynthia Martin, a professor of Russian language from the University of Maryland, led the workshop and shared a wealth of ideas over the four days.

During two weeks in October, students in Mme. Viard and Dr. Langer de Ramirez’s Spanish 2MS classes have been learning about El Biblioburro – a school teacher from Colombia, who brings books to children in rural areas who don’t have access to libraries. He delivers the books via two hard-working donkeys to the children in Magdalena Province's interior.

Boys Varsity Soccer broke out of its skid and picked up its first two wins of the season last week, as it shut out league foes Poly Prep and Fieldston.

The First Program Library was thrilled to host  award-winning author and children's illustrator Grace Lin. Grace has over 20 published books. Her visit marks the first time the First Program Library has hosted an Asian-American author, who almost exclusively features Asian and Asian-Americans as the main characters in all of her stories. Students K-2 have been particularly delighted with her books series featuring the Asian-American twins, Ling and Ting, which First Program Librarians Maria Paz Alegre and Lynn Frielinghaus have been reading with students in preparation for Grace’s visit.

Girls Varsity Soccer traveled to Tarrytown last week to take on Hackley in an exciting rematch of last year's NYSAIS final.

Girls Varsity Volleyball has gained momentum recently, winning its last three games in straight sets.

The Dalton Alumni Council hosted a topical panel discussion "Media Coverage of This Most Peculiar Presidential Election" on October 6 in Dalton's Martin Theater. Every seat in the theater was filled as three distinguished members of the media shared insights, impressions and anecdotes about the current election.

On Sunday afternoon at Van Cortlandt Park, Girls Cross Country outran teams from across the city to win the first Mayor's Cup in Dalton history.

Girls Varsity Tennis took home a win for the first time in three years to cap off this week in Dalton sports.

Parents, students, faculty, staff and friends gathered last weekend to demonstrate their Dalton High School Homecoming spirit and enjoy fun, games, music and barbecue. The weekend event started when Dalton athletes met their Trinity School competition on volleyball and tennis courts on Friday evening. Then, Saturday's action took place on the many fields of Randall's Island on a perfect fall weekend.
Watch the video that captures only a fraction of the fun and community spirit. A warm and deserved thank you goes to members of the Parents Association, Dalton Athletics, maintenance and security staff for making the day an annual success.

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Dalton Spanish Department is sponsoring an interactive exhibit of Diego Rivera's iconic mural, Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central|Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central. The 17 foot-long mural is displayed in the 3rd-floor cafeteria at 89th Street and can be viewed for the next few weeks.

Dalton artist/art teacher Carol Bowen takes us on a journey to Ravenna, Italy for her Dalton sponsored Faculty Travel Grant to learn about one of her artistic and teaching, passions - mosaics. Her video • Italy • Rocks • Mosaics • reports her journey and shows the intricate mosaic process she learned at the Mosaic Art School.

Language teachers from First Program, Middle School, and High School participated in a workshop to learn about best practices in oral proficiency assessment or SOPA in a two-day seminar. Facilitated by Lynn Thompson, Project Director of World Languages and International Programs at CAL (The Center for Applied Linguistics) in Washington, DC., the teachers were trained in techniques for administering the SOPA (Student Oral Proficiency Assessment). SOPA is an interview protocol that helps teachers to measure program effectiveness as well as individual student growth along their oral proficiency pathway.

In a video titled - DanceWAVE 2016: Swing Through the Decades, Dalton seventh and eighth-grade students perform social dances of the 1920's-1950's in historic settings throughout New York City. MORE...

Leo Yu rose to the top of the state competition out of hundreds of submissions for his innovative thinking and exceptional communication skills demonstrated in his EpiPop entry video. The Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge asks students nationwide to create a short video describing a new invention or solution that could solve or impact an everyday problem.

Senior Athletes 2016
Dylan Fine
Olivia Tanzman

Adam Lewis Scholar Athlete 2016
Cortland Perry

Scholar Athletes 2016
Emily Cohen
Ella Tessier-Lavigne

Warren Hines Coaches Awards 2016
Zachary Bernstein
Max Gardner
Gabi Siegal
Emma Ullman-Kissel

Dalton's Middle and High School music students and their teachers ended the 2016 school year with summative Spring concerts. View the accompanying photo gallery for a glimpse at the students' focus and concentration.

Click here to view and download the photos. 

The New York City Interscholastic Math League (NYCIML), sponsored by Google, is a non-profit organization that offers mathematics competition to all participating member schools. NYCIML offers the contest every year to high school students at three levels: freshman/sophomore, juniors, and seniors. Dalton holds competitions to determine which students will represent the school. A total of 13 students represented Dalton.  The math department administers contests periodically from October through April. We are happy to report that Dalton won second place in all three divisions!

Story and photos provided by Math Department Chair Lisa Borenstein

A decisive victory for JV Tennis and impressive feats by the Track and Field team lead this week’s highlights in Dalton athletics.

For the past several weeks, Señora Carmen Herrera’s Spanish Language and Culture High School Classes have been learning about Frida Kahlo, the boundary-breaking, brave Mexican painter who embodied strength, overcoming unthinkable emotional and physical adversity, and lived in opposition to gender stereotypes.

The idea of TEDxDalton came about when Grace Isaacman'18 served as a youth reporter at The Hewitt School’s TEDx conference. When she and Celia Heath'18 were elected to be Middle School presidents for the 2013-2014 school year, the pair immediately agreed that the first item on their agenda would be to host Dalton’s first ever TEDx event. Their dream and careful planning came to fruition once again with  TEDxDaltonSchool 2016 that took place at 89th Street on Sunday, April 24, 2016.

Dalton celebrated its second annual FLES Fest event, on Saturday, May 14, with 100 K-8 world and classical language teachers from over 50 different schools from seven different states. (Some from as far away as Rhode Island and Missouri!) Educators gathered to hear a keynote address by Dr. Helena Curtain, world-renowned presenter, teacher trainer, and author of the book: Languages and Learners: Making the Match.

The Music Department has aquired a new harpsichord, replacing an older and less suitable one that the school owned for several decades. I am delighted to tell you that it is Dalton Blue, and will get lots of use from students exploring the music of the 18th century and before.

This past weekend 27 Dalton Chess players from grades Kindergarten through Fifth Grade took top trophies in three Championship sections. Over 2300 students from almost all 50 states took part in the Elementary National Chess Championship, an intense 3-day, 7-game weekend.

This week was strong for Dalton Athletics, with Varsity Tennis picking up its first win of the season,Track and Field continuing to impress at the Ivy Meet, Varsity Baseball waging a comeback, and Golf shooting its lowest round yet of the season.

Dalton's Model United Nations team welcomed over 600 students from the New York City area to participate in the fourth iteration of DMUN (Dalton Model United Nations) on on Saturday, April 23. This year's conference, directed by seniors Angie Cui '16, Audrey McDermott '16 and Hannah State '16, was entirely staffed by students and featured the largest number of attendees in DMUN's history.

On the sunny Saturday morning of April 16, the Dalton lobby was abuzz with the chatter of teenage girls. 150 high school students were gathered for Dalton’s first ever Code Like A Girl Conference, eager to hear from female trailblazers in the field of computer science.

Read the full-length story here and in the Daltonian by writers Molly Shapiro and Nora Salitan.

Three Dalton teams with 12 Dalton girls compete in Chicago

From April 22-24, 12 Dalton students from grades K-5 travelled to Chicago to compete in the All Girls’ National Chess Tournament.  Competing with three teams this year in the U12, U10, U8 divisions, Dalton was one of the largest teams among the 450 girls from across the country.  Our U12 team (Langley Beaudoin, Pippa Lee, Julia Miyasaka, and Veda Safranek) placed 1^st in the country, repeating a top performance from last year as they moved up into the U12 category!  Our U8 team tied for 4^th place as well.  Individual awards were also earned by 3 girls (Pippa Lee, Veda Safranek, and Louisa Huston).  The girls worked hard to make Dalton proud and we are looking forward to building on this years’ success next year.  A big thanks to chess coaches David MacEnulty and Beatriz Marinello for their support and encouragement.

19 students from grades 10-12 travelled down to New Orleans for their now annual Spring Break trip to work with Habitat for Humanity and continue rebuilding the severely damaged houses left in Hurricane Katrina's wake. This year, Dalton's volunteers rebuilt a house on America Street, now eerily quiet, but once recognized as one of the most actively dangerous streets in New Orleans. Participants report annually that Habitat NOLA work is moving and life-changing. The students' written reflections, required for High School service credit, provide a compelling glimpse into their experiences.

Captains Jacob Ellen '16 & Jahnavi Bhavsar '19 and the Dalton Tiger Squad Team helped to raise over $76,000 for Street Squash, a not-for-profit that provides academic tutoring & squash instruction for Harlem children. This is the second year Dalton has fielded a High School team at the Street Squash Jr Cup. The Tiger Squad team placed 3rd overall.

Great event for a great cause!

Story and photo by: Jahnavi Bhavsar '19

The 2016 National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) selected Julia Martin '17 and Antonia Hellman '17 as finalists, in its Summer China program. Julia will move on to become a participant. Julia will spend six weeks in one of three Chinese cities, where she will live with a homestay family and attend rigorous daily Mandarin classes. NSLI-Y is a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State whose aim is to immerse U.S. citizens in "critical language" cultures abroad.

Photo and story by Mandarin Teacher Adam Lanphier

Dalton's five 7th/8th dance classes, nearly 80 students in all, performed an amazing West African flash mob to live drumming! First, they surprised the 2nd graders, then the rest of the 7th/8th grade, during their P.E. class at 87th Street.

The Tiger congratulates Dalton alumnus Henry Lowe ‘12 and the Villanova Wildcats - winners of the 2016 NCAA Championship. Wow! Check out a recent Dalton website article about Henry and his membership on Villanova's 'bench mob.'

Senior Simone Braunstein won the Grand Prize in Engineering at the New York City Science and Engineering Fair. She will represent the New York City Region in the Engineering Category in the Intel ISEF Finals. For the 4th year in a row, the Dalton Science Research Program will be represented at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Finals.

Dalton wishes Simone luck at the Intel ISEF Finals in Phoenix, AZ.

The Dalton community welcomed the Year of Monkey with a fun-filled Chinese Lunar New Year celebration on Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Confucius Classroom and the Mandarin program hosted the event. Over 100 students, family members, and faculty gathered at the Big Dalton Cafeteria enjoyed an evening of delicious Chinese food, performances, and activities.

On Friday, February 12, 2016, two Dalton students, Antonia Hellman (2017) and Sussan Garcia (2016) served on a student panel at the 62nd Annual Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages at the New York Hilton Midtown. Antonia and Sussan served on a panel to add student voices on topics surrounding the importance of intercultural competence.

February 10, 2016 - Dalton's Confucius Classroom invited bilingual comedian Jesse Appell to deliver a series of talks about Chinese comedy and cultural communications to high school Mandarin students and faculty.

As the winter season draws to an end and playoffs start up in three weeks, this week Dalton teams geared up in order to qualify for a spot in the NYSAIS Tournament.

A sea of blue and white filled the Dalton gym to support the Tigers on Warren Hines night, an annual winter sporting event that honors former varsity basketball player, Warren Hines (‘88). The Friday night commenced with JV basketball games at 4:15 PM. 

Dalton's K-3 chess teams won by a vary large margin at the Greater New York Scholastic Chess Championships, held on January 9 - 10, 2016. The Kindergarten and First Grade team earned 1st Place and the Primary team (Grades 2 and 3) also won, making both teams city champions in their respective divisions.

Story and photos provided by Chess Program Director David MacEnulty

Dalton's Science Research program has yielded many high-achieving and nationally recognized students in the past. 2016 will be no exception. Seniors Simone Braunstein '16 and Ella Tessier-Lavigne '16 join an elite group of 300 students who were designated Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS), 2016 semifinalists.