Two WCPSS high schools were honored for Sportsmanship for the 2009-10 school year by the NC High School Athletic Association at its Region 3 Meeting today.

Southeast Raleigh and Sanderson high schools received awards for Sportsmanship for an ejection-free year last year in all sports. The awards were given to Southeast Raleigh athletic director Gary Powers and Sanderson athletic director Tony Lewis.

WCPSS Senior Administrator for Athletics Bobby Guthrie offered his congratulations to the schools for their outstanding achievements.

Thanks to Bobby Guthrie for sharing his news.

Broughton High Athletic Director Jack Spain was recognized by the NC High School Athletic Association today as the Region 3 recipient of the Charlie Adams Award.

The award recognizes one person in each of the eight regions in the state for their hard work, dedication and service to high school athletics and the NCHSAA.

Jack Spain and Broughton High is the host school for several NCHSAA State Championships in the area including football, basketball, soccer, cheerleading and swimming.

WCPSS Senior Administrator for Athletics Bobby Guthrie offered his congratulations to Spain for everything he has done for high school athletics in Wake County and for his service to the NCHSAA.

Guthrie noted this is the first year for the award has been named after Charlie Adams who retired last year as NCHSAA executive director. Adams is a graduate and former basketball coach of Cary High.

Thanks to Bobby Guthrie for sharing this news.

The North Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants will be hosting a free event at Millbrook High School on Saturday, November 6, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. “Making Cents: A Financial Literacy Program for All Ages” includes sessions designed for students, parents and teachers, with panels, exhibitors and door prizes.

The flyer and registration form are attached.

Students at Brentwood Magnet Elementary School of Engineering built racing cars constructed out of LEGOs during the school’s kick-off engineering event for the 2010-11 school year.

Brentwood Magnet Coordinator April Love says second graders were excitedly working in teams to create cars that demonstrate basic engineering principles.

Click to listen to Brentwood Students Use Engineering Skills to Build LEGO Cars

This is a 5 minute mp3 file.

You can see photos of the students hard at work here.

Eight Enloe Magnet High students were chosen for the 2010 North Carolina High School Honors Chorus. Only 176 students were selected from the 1,200 from across the state that auditioned.

The Enloe students are:

Evan Adair (Bass II) with the highest score in the state!

Meg Aldridge (Alto I) with the second highest score in the state!

Victoria Cyzewski (Soprano I)

Robin Hardman (Bass I)

Alan Osuna (Tenor II) with the fourth highest score in the state!

Cory Arnold (Tenor II) with the sixth highest score in the state!

Connor Lillis (Tenor II)

Joey Osuna (Tenor II)

Enloe High had the largest number of students of any school in the state earn a place in the Honors Chorus. Congratulations to Enloe High Choral Music Educator Ann Huff and her students.

Thanks to Principal Beth Cochran for sharing her news.

At Longview School, Agriculture teacher Patrick Faulkner is planning for a big event at 10 a.m., Wednesday, Sept. 29 in the school’s gardens. Faulkner says they’ll have visitors for the dedication of the school’s new Teich Garden, an enclosed garden area with built-in irrigation.

Faulkner is helping Longview students learn urban farming at the school and has been working with Will Allen of Growing Power in Milwaukee who mass produces food on small plots of land to provide fresh fruits and vegetables in urban food desert areas.

Click to listen to Longview School Opens Teich Garden

This is a 12 minute mp3 file.

One year ago, the doors opened to the Wake County Public School System Center for International Enrollment in the first floor of the WCPSS Central Services Building at 3600 Wake Forest Road in Raleigh. The opening of the center provided a place where non-English speaking families could easily enroll their children in school and a place that saved schools and teachers thousands of hour of work.

Larry Savage and Olbi Dilday, WCPSS administrators who worked to open the center, say they have served 3,700 children in the first year. In administering state required testing to those students, the center has saved teachers and schools 3,700 hours of instructional time. And they have been able to meet the schooling needs of families with a wide variety of languages that visited the center this year.

Click to listen to Center for International Enrollment Marks First Anniversary

This is an 18 minute mp3 file.

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In 2001, Cecilie Lewis was named the Wake County Public School System Teacher of the Year.

Ten years ago, Lewis was a sixth-grade language arts and science teacher at Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School which had just opened with new ideas such as team-teaching, block scheduling, and special attentiveness to middle school students.

Back then, she told us that she believed all children can learn.

“My profession calls me to love children, encourage children, and to stimulate their growth as individuals by helping them make natural connections to the world around them,” says Lewis. “When I feel that my classroom is a place where children want to be, it creates an energy inside myself. When students are exposed to this positive energy, they are inspired, too.”

Lewis continues to teach in the Wake County Public School System and is still filled with that same energy.

Click to listen to Catching up with Cecilie Lewis, 2001 WCPSS Teacher of the Year

This is a 13 minute mp3 file.

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The Student Assignment Committee will meet on Tuesday, Sept. 28 to continue its work on the development of a new attendance zone model for the school system.

At its last meeting on Aug. 31, members of the committee selected the high school attendance zone model as a basis for developing a new community-based school assignment plan and directed staff to bring additional information on it to the next meeting.

During the meeting on Tuesday, committee members will discuss feedback on the high school attendance zone model received from the WCPSS website and from citizen advisors. In addition, committee members will also review achievement and magnet data and discuss information related to school funding, school choice opportunities and the community engagement process.

Board Chairman Ron Margiotta said he is looking forward to the committee continuing its work on the proposed model.

“The committee’s work is far from being finished,” he said. “The selection of the high school attendance zone model simply provides a starting point for review, analysis and public comment. It is still very early in the process, and changes will be made based on feedback and discussion.”

The meeting will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Board Conference Room located in the WCPSS Administration Building at 3600 Wake Forest Road in Raleigh.

Interim Superintendent Donna Hargens spent some time in the five first-grade classrooms at Northwoods Elementary Thursday. For Hargens, it’s the second of a series of visits she plans to make to schools with Tama Bouncer of Wake NCAE to connect with teachers and get a firsthand look into the classroom. In the coming weeks, she plans to visit classrooms from kindergarten through high school.

At Northwoods, Dr. Hargens visited the first-grade teaching team as they met in their professional learning team meeting before the start of school. After spending time with the teachers, Hargens was interviewed by students on the school’s close circuit television newscast that goes into classrooms. Then she visited each of the first-grade classrooms where she found the teachers using technology and manipulatives helping students to count.

Click to listen to Dr. Hargens Visits Northwoods First-Grade Teachers

This is a 19 minute mp3 file.

You can see photos of Northwoods first graders working on math skills here.

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