Academics

The 20th Annual Santa Cruz County High School Poetry Competition Reading will take place on Monday, May 20 at 6:30pm at the Santa Cruz County Office of Education.

More than 300 high school students from all over the County entered the competition, and nine Mount Madonna School (MMS) students have had works selected for the final anthology of 50 published poems, with three MMS students receiving honorable mentions.

The ninth grade class recently returned from a Learning Journey they call “Flow with Water” or Yeyeco Ica Atl in the language of the Pimungan people, the first human occupants of California’s Santa Catalina Island. The class went to Catalina Island off the coast of Long Beach and joined the Catalina Environmental Leadership Program (CELP) for a week of outdoor field studies, leadership challenges, and personal growth.

India is a place of dynamic diversity in landscape and lifestyle. It is not the vast disparities of wealth, which can be found in our own country, but the contrasts between the environments that struck me. The landscape shifted from agrarian countryside to a skyline dominated by looming high rises still clasped in their scaffolding. I saw old men wearing traditional Indian clothing standing next to people in suits talking on their cellphones. India presented many contrasts between archaic and modern ways of living. Witnessing people living in so many different ways brought to the forefront of my mind the question, “What is the best way to live?” - Bryson Smith, MMS class of 2013 

The senior class' concluding reflections about their recent Learning Journey to India are now posted on the Bodhicitta Project blog. Read more at: http://www.santacruzlive.com/blogs/mtmadonna/

Attention parents: All MMS students who have library books and/or textbooks checked out have received a list of those books.

It is not uncommon for state legislators to receive hundreds – if not thousands – of letters from their constituents, all of which are usually acknowledged via a formal response drafted by the recipient or a designated staff member. Sometimes, however, a more personal acknowledgement is called for.

The Mount Madonna School (MMS) graduating class of 2013 and the current third grade class have a special story to tell together. They are the first two classes who have maintained a mentoring relationship across divisions for three consecutive years.

Guest panelists and participants at Mount Madonna School’s (MMS) recent 4th annual Career Forum shared a broad array of educational and career-related experiences, and advised the assembled high school students to take calculated risks, be open to opportunities, and find supportive mentors.