Classroom Connection
Laurel Park Elementary School Dedication Ceremony
Laurel Park Elementary School will celebrate the opening of their new school by holding a dedication ceremony at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, October 1. After the dedication, the public will be invited to tour the campus and enjoy student performances. The event will be held in the school’s multi-purpose room.
Laurel Park Elementary Principal Gail Turner, Superintendent Del Burns, Wake County Board of Education Chair Rosa Gill and Board of Education member Ron Margiotta will make remarks during the ceremony.
The new school opened with approximately 600 students in kindergarten through fifth-grade. The new 2-story year-round elementary school was renovated out of an existing manufacturing facility. For more information, contact 850-1700.
Green Hope Elementary Students Learn to be Good Citizens
Second-grade students in Ms. Vaughn, Mr. Scott, and Mrs. Modert’s classes at Green Hope Elementary recently donated stuffed bears to patients at Rex Hospital.
The students made the bears, themselves, at Build-a-Bear in Crabtree Valley Mall. They then presented the newly created bears to the administrators, doctors and nurses at Rex Hospital on Sept. 19 for children in the hospital’s oncology ward, emergency room and other treatment areas.
The project was the culmination of a lesson on citizenship and communities through which the students learned how to demonstrate responsible citizenship in our community. By participating in this project, the students were able to emphatically state, “I was a good citizen today!”
WCPSS Students Named Merit Scholar Semifinalists
Fifty-three students from 11 Wake County high schools were among 16,000 semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program.
The academically talented high school seniors have qualified to compete for 8,200 Merit Scholarship awards worth $35 million that will be offered next spring. To be considered for a Merit Scholarship award, semifinalists must advance to the finalist level of the competition by fulfilling several requirements. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalists standing and approximately half of the finalists will be selected as Merit Scholarship winners.
The WCPSS semifinalists include:
- Apex: Lewis McAlister, Michael Nokes and Nicholas Stidham
- Broughton: Tyler Confrey-Maloney, Jonathan Edwards, Jordan Jones, Zachary Martin and Matthew Wiesner
- Cary: Nicholas Allen and Quinn Bajorek
- Enloe: Laura Buff, Michael Chen, Hannah Darst, Pradeep Gopinathan, Ellis Gyongyos, Ian Harwood, Sarah Lineberry, Lilly Liu, Alexander Madsen, Rachel Mazzara, Emily Myers, Rachel Rowe, Alexandra Snedeker, Bao Tran-Phu, Alexey Vasiliyev, Daniel Vitek, Anna Wormsbecher and Diana Xie
- Fuquay-Varina: Taylor Allison
- Green Hope: Sean Bartell, Jennifer Fredette, Austin Gilmore, Brinda Monian, Gabriel Reynolds, Syed Saleh, Cheryl Schlitter and Andrew Wang
- Leesville Road: Cody Hitchcock
- Middle Creek: Sarah Phillips and John Turner
- Panther Creek: Mohammed Agha, Lauren Dixon, Rebecca Liu, James Longley, Brighid Milan, Courtney Musciano, John Primm and Kyle Rogacki
- Sanderson: Scott Herrmann, Margaret Pennisi and Dean Pixton
- Southeast Raleigh: Christopher Kao and Kyle Swartz
More than 1.5 million juniors in nearly 21,000 high schools entered the 2009 National Merit Program by taking the 2007 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists, which represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors, includes the highest scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors.
Penny Road PE Staff Wins Wake County’s Highest Honor
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The Penny Road Elementary school PE staff. |
The Penny Road Elementary Physical Education staff received the Artie K. Kamiya Horizon Award for 2008. The PE/Health staff is comprised of Colleen Kanters, Caroline Flory, and Christine Hughes. This award is the highest honor bestowed upon a physical educator in the Wake County Public School System. This honor is presented to an outstanding educator who exhibits the supreme commitment to continue the journey of Artie K. Kamiya and the talent to carry his unparalleled vision while building bridges for the future of physical education in Wake County.
Ann Dishong, WCPSS senior administrator of the K-12 Healthful Living office said the Penny Road Elementary PE staff received the award for “their outstanding vision, leadership and commitment to all students!”
“The implementation of a wellness center concept at the elementary level is truly visionary and warrants much praise and adoration," added Dishong.
Fuquay-Varina High School Seniors Present at International Technology Conference
Fuquay-Varina High School seniors Anthony Prince and Geovanny Solera had the honor of presenting at the 2008 Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) International User Conference. The ESRI conference was held August 1 – 6 in San Diego, California. Anthony and Geovanny spoke to the attendees about how the 4-H Interactive Club at Fuquay-Varina High utilizes cutting edge Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies to implement community service activities. The conference was attended by over 14,000 GIS professionals and educators from 123 countries.
Enloe Senior Attends NYC Business Conference
Amelia Lumkin, a senior at Enloe High School, attended the Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) Program in Business conference in New York City this summer and was selected by the group to be one of two student speakers at a farewell dinner. With an interest in business, Amanda had the opportunity to work with companies like Corning, Pricewaterhouse, Coopers, Yahoo, and ASCAP.
By encouraging outstanding high school juniors from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in business, LEAD is inspiring a new generation of business leaders.
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