Madison Elementary School District

Students donate items to CASS
    Students in Greg Patrick’s class at Madison Simis assembled and donated almost 100 toiletry bags to Central Arizona Shelter Services before the holidays. Among the items in each bag were a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and tissue as well as a personal note from a student. The class’s annual project benefits many homeless families.

Simis students are entertained
    Madison Simis preschoolers were treated to a showing of the “The Princess, the Unicorn, and the Smelly Foot Troll” by The Great Arizona Puppet Theater. The visit was funded through the Dorothy M. Gugleman Memorial Fund, which supports preschool and kindergarten programs at Simis.
    The fund also provided for a visit by Rich Ihle of Reptile Adventures. Ihle brought a number of reptiles, including snakes and an iguana, for students to touch and observe.
 

A lesson in cyber-bullying
    Detective Sam Palmer of the Phoenix Police Department spoke with Madison Park students recently on cyber-bullying. Students learned how to protect themselves when using the Internet and developed a deeper understanding of the consequences of bullying.
 
Parents, students get ‘spacey’ for a night
    Madison No. 1 Middle School fifth graders looked to the sky in honor of space and space exploration when approximately 30 families participated in Space Night, which included space activities, space memorabilia, and telescope viewing.
    Activities such as Meteorite Mysteries showed students how geologists study objects that enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Space memorabilia were on display, including autographs from famous astronauts such as Gene Cernan and Buzz Aldrin.

Osborn Elementary School District

Clarendon students bond with seniors
    Clarendon fourth graders from Megan Corona’s and Courtney Brayson’s homerooms traveled to Grace Healthcare Center to sing holiday songs for the residents on Dec. 21.
    The visit to Grace has become an annual event for students in his classes. Before the visit, students spent time reading, writing and discussing their previous experiences with elderly friends or relatives. They practiced songs both in music and during their homeroom classes while making homemade gifts and cards.
    The two classes will return in the spring for a follow-up visit with their new friends at Grace Healthcare.
 
Bilingual Storytime continues to Feb. 29
    Bilingual Storytime at Encanto School features music, stories, activities and fun for all. Children 18 months-5 years old receive a free book for attending. This program meets at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesdays through Feb. 29.
    Storytime is designed to enhance parent-child interaction through literacy activities For more information, call Kim Westfall at 602-707-8301.
 
Students continue to excel in math
    Approximately 120 geometry and algebra students at Osborn Middle School took the first semester qualifying examinations for Phoenix Union High School District (PUHSD) in December. The Honors Mathematics Program at OMS won the prestigious Arizona School Board Association Golden Bell Award this year.
    Students in the accelerated Honors Mathematics program—about one fifth of all students—learn 10th-grade geometry and ninth-grade algebra alongside their seventh- and eighth-grade mathematics curriculum. OMS had more advanced mathematics seventh- and eighth-grade students pass the Algebra and Geometry Qualifying Tests (AQT & GQT) than any other school in the metropolitan Phoenix area for the past three years.
    In all, 137 Osborn students received high school credit for either algebra or geometry.
 
Phoenix Union High School District

College, career expo for challenged students
    The district’s Special Education Department will hold its annual College, Career and Life Expo, Saturday, Feb. 11, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Metro Tech High School, 1900 W. Thomas Road.
    Students, parents, guardians and teachers are invited. This year’s event also will feature a health fair. Exhibitors include community colleges and universities, transportation, healthcare services and state and federal agencies.
    There will be health care providers available, free massages and blood pressure checks and door prizes and gift cards. Presentations will be in English and Spanish.
    For more information, contact Anita Massey at 602-764-3067.

Phoenix Union begins redistricting
    Phoenix Union High School District has begun the process of re-defining the boundaries of its five single-member governing board districts or wards. The school district is complying with a 1990 consent decree born out of a court case to review and, if necessary, re-draw the boundaries based on decennial census information in order to keep each ward as “nearly equal” in population as possible, and in conformance with voting rights requirements.
    Because of rapid population growth in some areas of the school district and population loss in other areas, new ward boundaries have to be created.
    Community meetings were held in January in each of the wards. The reapportioned wards will not be in effect until 2014, when the five single-district governing board terms end.  The two at-large governing board seats will be determined in the 2012 election.
    The new wards should be equal in population size, and should not dilute minority voting strength. The population of each ward should be approximately 130,000. However, based on the 2010 Census, Ward 1 in southwest Phoenix and Laveen has grown to 169,642 residents while Wards 2, 3 and 4 in South and Central Phoenix all are  less than 120,000. Ward 5 in West Phoenix is at 134,846, which is close to the ideal size.
    Phoenix Union has selected Research Advisory Services, Inc. to manage the redistricting process. This company will present options to the Governing Board in March.

Centennial projects presented Feb. 14
    Phoenix Union U.S. history teachers travelled to Washington, D.C., earlier this winter as part of the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History grant. The 29-teacher group attended the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference.
    The teachers are putting together Arizona Centennial projects with their students to present Feb. 14 at North High School.
    The next field study for the Teaching American History cadre will be June 4-11 when they travel to the Arizona-Mexico border, across to New Mexico and up the Rio Grande to Santa Fe and Taos with University of History professor Dr. Kathryn Morrissey, tracing portions of the Father Kino Trail.

New partnership aids Latino students
    Phoenix Union High School District has joined forces with Phoenix College and the city of Phoenix in a partnership called Degree Phoenix in an effort to strengthen educational attainment for Latino students.
    The partnership will be funded by a $600,000 grant over four years from the Lumina Foundation, a private foundation committed to enrolling and graduating more students from college. Lumina is providing $7.2 million to 12 partnerships in 10 states.
    The goal is to strengthen pathways from high school to college and college to workforce by creating single point-of-contact resources for students and their families; giving students more academic options, targeting workforce investment-eligible young people to earn credentials while in GED programs, and employing a common data system to better tack education and career success.
    The projected outcome is a 20 percent increase in the number of students earning a postsecondary credential during a six-year period.

Washington Elementary School District

Governing board elects officers
    Chris Maza was reelected president and Aaron Jahneke was reelected vice president of the Washington Elementary School District Governing Board at its first meeting of 2012 held on Jan. 12.
    Maza was first elected to the board in 2006 and reelected in 2010. He served as board president last year and previously served as vice president. He is a high school educator in the Paradise Valley School District. He currently serves as president of the Paradise Valley Education Association and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Arizona Education Association.
    Jahneke began his four-year Board term in January 2009 and was first elected vice president last year. Jahneke is a personal financial representative for Allstate Insurance Company and a part-time history adjunct teacher at CollegeAmerica in Phoenix.
    Other returning board members are Bill Adams, Clorinda Graziano and Tee Lambert, who served two years as board president.
    The WESD Governing Board meets the second and fourth Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Administrative Center, 4650 W. Sweetwater Ave., Glendale. A calendar of meetings is available on the district’s website at www.wesdschools.org.
PSAs created for
school bus safety
    Antonio Mlynek, WESD Special Education Transportation supervisor, is spearheading Arizona’s first public service campaign that educates the public on laws regarding stopping for school buses. The campaign, “For Children’s Sake, Stop for School Buses,” includes messages for both television and print.
    Statistics show that school buses are one of the safest modes of transportation in America, yet disregard for the law concerning when to stop for a school bus continues to cause accidents and, in many cases, even death.
    The campaign message is simple and direct: when you see the flashing yellow lights on a school bus, slow down, and when you see the flashing red lights and stop arm deployed, come to a complete stop. Only motorists driving in the opposite direction with a physical barrier, such as a curbed median separating the other side of the road, do not have to stop.
    Mlynek’s advocacy efforts were spurred by a voluntary statewide survey conducted during the spring of 2011. Seventeen school districts chose one day to have drivers record and report any instances of motorists illegally passing their school buses. Drivers reported 1,450 violations among their 400 buses. They indicated that 59 percent of the violations occurred by vehicles traveling in the opposing direction, and 26 percent of the violators were traveling in the same direction as the bus. The other 15 percent were violations that occurred in both directions at a bus stop location.
    The PSAs were produced by American Traffic Solutions of Scottsdale, which donated its time and resources to create them.

Private and Charter Schools

Arellano named a Gatorade Player of Year
    Xavier College Preparatory’s Bianca Arellano was named the 2011-12 Gatorade Arizona Volleyball Player of the Year by The Gatorade Company, in collaboration with ESPNHS.
    The award—which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic  achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the court—distinguishes Arellano as Arizona’s best  high school volleyball player. She joins an elite alumnae association of past state volleyball award winners.
    In addition to her volleyball achievements, Arellano has maintained a 3.96 GPA in the classroom. A devoted member of her church community, she has volunteered locally as an elementary school mentor and on behalf of the Phoenix Baptist Hospital.
    Arellano has signed a National Letter of Intent to play volleyball on scholarship at the University of Tennessee beginning in the fall of 2012.
    The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by ESPNHS and the Gatorade high school sports leadership team, which work with sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.

Cross Roads offers Kinder orientation
    Cross Roads Preschool and Kindergarten, 7901 N. Central Ave., will host a Progressive Kindergarten Orientation beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Feb 15. The orientation program will give parents the opportunity to discuss the reading/literacy and math curriculum with faculty and the director.
    The class itself begins this fall, and will provide a structured academic day to communicate learning opportunities with outcome expectations of children progressing into either a first grade classroom or a kindergarten classroom.
    Children who are 5 years old as of Oct. 31, 2012, are eligible for enrollment in the Fall 2012 class. Cross Roads Preschool and Kindergarten is an accredited program that offers smaller class sizes. For more information, call 602-371-0741 or visit www.crossroadspsk.com.