2024–2025 School Year in Review

Dear Parents,

We are pleased to share a look back at the highlights and accomplishments of the 2024–2025 school year.

• On September 6, 2025, Erudite began its 11th school year!

• More than 270 students, ages 1.5 to 17, attend our school.

• Our faculty includes 60 teachers and teaching assistants.

• Students attend 25 in-person classes, grouped according to age and Russian-language proficiency.

• This year, the school sponsored 23 high school students (compared with 11 last year) who successfully passed the NEWL Russian Language Exam, an advanced Russian proficiency exam that replaced the former AP Russian exam. Irina Ryan taught both in-person and online NEWL preparation classes.

• In addition to our core academic program, taught during the first four class periods, Erudite offers 13 educational and creative clubs, 5 mathematics groups, 3 levels of LEGO Robotics, and 2 school theaters — the Karusel Theater Studio and the Melody Musical Theater.

• Our school also offers children’s Ukrainian and Kazakh language classes.

• This year, we successfully launched our “Malyshok” Early Development Program for children ages 1.5 to 3. Next school year, we plan to offer two groups for our youngest students.

Our Achievements

School Events and Special Programs

This year was filled with exciting educational, cultural, and creative activities:

• Each month of the school year was dedicated to a special theme. As part of this initiative, we organized two major school-wide projects — “Our Pets” and “Art Without Borders.” Themed open classes were also held in nearly every grade.

• Students in Grades 1, 2, and 3 participated in our “Eureka!” Science Conference, where they presented their own science projects and conducted fascinating experiments.

• Our intermediate and older groups took part in the annual “Malyshok” concert. Together with their teachers and concert host Marina Zonova, the children acted out riddles using gestures and facial expressions, danced a waltz, created a colorful rainbow, played games, and sang songs.

• As always, some of our most memorable celebrations took place during the New Year season. Preschoolers enjoyed “The Story of New Year’s Ornaments,” a magical holiday program with traditional circle dances led by Marina Zonova. The school’s Melody Musical Theater, led by Elena Ayanyan, presented the enchanting holiday production “New Year in the Underwater Kingdom.”

• At the end of the school year, students showcased their creative work in exhibitions presented by the Akvarelka Art Studio, led by Irina Drozd, and the Crafts Club, led by Nazeli Nersesyan.

Our Creative Productions

This school year, our performing arts groups presented several exciting new productions:

• The Melody Musical Theater, under the artistic direction of Elena Ayanyan, presented the musical “The Wizard of the Emerald City.”

• The Karusel Theater Studio presented “Cipollino,” performed by the advanced group, as well as two mini-productions by the younger group: “The House That Jack Built” and “Moidodyr.” The studio is led by Zuleikha and Shamil Najafzade.

• The younger and older groups of our school Dance Studio, led by Galina Duke and Olga Ermilina, prepared lively dance performances for our theatrical productions and the annual school picnic.

Competitions and Academic Success

Throughout the year, our students proudly demonstrated their talents and achievements in a variety of academic and extracurricular programs:

• “Literary Morning,” a young readers’ project, was held in Grade 4B. Students selected and performed stories by classic and contemporary authors. Their teachers, Larisa Sbornova and Sabina Mammadova, helped them rehearse and develop expressive reading and intonation.

• Grade 4A held a series of reading marathons. Students read books in Russian and kept reading journals with the support of their teacher, Daria Kolesnikova. The winners received certificates and prizes.

• Advanced Russian: Level I & Level II — our high school Russian-language program accredited by Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) for academic credit. Fourteen students participated this year: eight earned 0.5 credit after completing the first year, while the remaining students successfully completed the two-year program and earned 1 full high school credit.

• Our school’s Russian-language mathematics competition brought together 32 students ages 6 to 12, under the direction of Natalia Grishina, head of our mathematics program.

• Erudite sponsored a chess tournament that welcomed not only our own young chess players but also students from other schools. Erudite students swept all three top places in the Beginners division, while one of our intermediate Chess Club students earned an impressive third place in the Open division. The Chess Club is led by Nikolai Mounts and Alexander Reznikov.

Thank You!

We sincerely thank our entire faculty and staff for another successful year, and we are especially grateful to you, our parents, for your continued support, involvement, and dedication to our school community!