Good News
June 27 , 2007 |
WRAL ANCHOR EARNS NATIONAL AWARD WITH WCPSS NOMINATION
Ken Smith of WRAL News has been named to receive the Image Award from the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) after being nominated for the honor by the Wake County Public School System. ACTE is the nation’s largest non-profit education association dedicated to the advancement of education that prepares youth and adults for successful careers.
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Smith, a longtime Wake County School-to-Career volunteer, was nominated by the WCPSS Career and Technical Education Department. He will be honored at ACTE’s national conference and will be recognized for his efforts and accomplishments in highlighting the importance of career and technical education. The Image Award is presented to honor celebrity individuals who are bringing positive attention to career and technical education as well as giving back to their communities.
“We admire Ken Smith’s passion and excitement in encouraging students, inside and outside of the classroom, to explore their passion,” said Jamie Bennett of ACTE.
Smith has volunteered in WCPSS career events for many years. Smith has been a member of the Sanderson High School Business Alliance for seven years and has chaired the Sanderson Business Alliance since 2005.
NC MATH TEAMS FINISH FOURTH IN NATIONAL COMPETITION
North Carolina’s A-team took fourth place among 125 teams from across the country competing in the American Regions Mathematics League held at Pennsylvania State University earlier this month.
In the B Division, North Carolina’s B team tied for fourth place in the country, the team's best ever finish. Team members were awarded plaques and book awards for their performances, and additionally, many North Carolina students won individual awards.
Team members with a score of 6 out of 8 on the individual round, earning individual medals included: Hyun Ji Bae (B team); John Berman (A team); Jeremy Hahn (A team); William Schlieper of Green Hope High (A team); Bryce Taylor (A team); Daniel Vitek of Enloe High (A team); and Bangchen Wang (A team).
Four NC students competed in a national tiebreaker held simultaneously at the three testing sites, having scored 7 out of 8 on the individual round, earning individual plaques including:
Yakov Berchenko-Kogan of Broughton High (Top 15 in the nation); Vivek Bhattacharya of Enloe High, Damien Jiang and Arnav Tripathy (8th place in the nation).
There were nine WCPSS students who were among the 32 students on the NC teams. The WCPSS students included Yakov Berchenko-Kogan of Broughton (A-team, Ranked Top 15 Nationally); Vivek Bhattacharya of Enloe (A-team, Ranked Top 50 Nationally); Haoyu Chen of Enloe (B-team); Lizi Chen of Enloe (B-team); Mikhail Lavrov of Enloe (A-team); Emil Mayev of Enloe (B-team); Haoyang Ren of Enloe (B-team); William Schlieper of Green Hope (A-team, Individual Medalist); and Daniel Vitek of Enloe (A-team, Individual Medalist)
The contest included not only an individual round, but also team and power rounds, with numerical and proof-based answers, respectively, in which the entire 15 students worked together to solve the problems. Finally, the 15 students were broken into groups of three for a relay round, in which the students passed their numerical answers from one student to the next, with only the final answer counting toward their team’s score. Of the teams that competed in the (top) A division and in the B division, many did not compete at Penn. State. At two other sites, the University of Iowa and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, teams were simultaneously participating in exactly the same contest, and final standings were based on the scores of the teams at all three sites.
The coaches for this year’s teams included Kathy Hill and Deanna Lancaster of Athens Drive High and John Noland of Enloe High. The NC Math Teams are sponsored by the NC Council of Teachers of Mathematics and Duke Energy Corporation. For the past three years Duke Energy has provided additional funding so that this trip costs very little for the individual students.
ENLOE ENVIROTHON TEAMS EXCEL
Two Wake County Envirothon teams captured both second and third place at the state’s premier environmental competition, the 2007 North Carolina Envirothon, that challenges high school students’ knowledge in five natural resource areas: soils, aquatics, forestry, wildlife, and current environmental issues.
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Out of 50 high school teams from across the state, two Enloe High team’s - Sub-Chronic Exposure and Benthic Dwellers - scored high on all five written exams. In addition, Sub-chronic Exposure earned gold medallions for scoring a perfect 100 on the Aquatic Ecology exam and tied with Benthic Dwellers for the highest score on the Wildlife exam. Both teams took home an engraved plaque and cash prizes worth $150 and $100 respectively.
In the past seven years, Enloe has captured the state championship three times, representing North Carolina at the International Envirothon with a third Place win in 2001 and 2003, and a sixth place win in 2006.
Enloe’s third Envirothon team placed 12th. Millbrook High’s Envirothon team placed 24th.
The North Carolina Envirothon is sponsored by the NC Association of Soil & Water Conservation Districts and the NC Division of Soil & Water Conservation-DENR. All Wake County Envirothon teams are sponsored by Wake Soil & Water Conservation District.
ENLOE STUDENTS EXCEL AT INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER CONTEST
Thirteen Enloe High students competed in the international American Computer Science League (ACSL) All-Star Contest near the end of the school year. The best programming students from the U.S., Canada, Croatia, Romania and Czechoslovakia competed in various divisions in this contest consisting of both team programming and individual written rounds. To qualify for the All-Star contest, teams must finish among the top 15 internationally in four regular season contests. Enloe was the only NC school with teams qualifying for this year's All-Star contest.
Enloe's Senior-level team of Peter Chisnell, Victor Lee and Benjamin Reid took second place internationally with a programming score of 37/40, and a written score of 32/36. Victor Lee earned special recognition for a perfect written score of 12/12. All team members were awarded plaques for their finish.
Enloe's Intermediate-level team of Shriram Alapaty, Pradeep Gopinathan, Kevin Li, Haoyang Ren and Alexey Vasilyev took sixth place with a programming score of 57/60, and a written score of 44/60.
Enloe's 9th grade Junior-level team of Akash Ganapathi, Kenneth Kang, Jennifer Li, Zachary Litzinger and Christine Ye took sixth place with a programming score of 38/40, and a written score of 25/40.
All of the above students earned book awards for their performance on the written contest, and the intermediate and senior teams won first place regular season plaques for the Southeastern U.S. Division.
The written round of the All-Star contest involves answering 12 multiple choice questions involving computer science topics, many of which involve lengthy computations, without the use of a calculator. The team programming round is even more intense, with teams of either three or five needing to solve 4-5 extremely challenging programming questions in just three hours. The students are not allowed any reference materials and some divisions limit the students to working with just one or two computers during the competition.
Teachers William Potter, Michael Downey and John Noland coached this year’s team.
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ENLOE HIGH BRAIN GAME TEAM WINS
Enloe High's Brain Game team won the spring semester championship on WRAL-TV, Channel 5. The team won over some tough competition offered by Raleigh Charter High and Clayton High in the semi-final round and beat Person County High and Rocky Mount High to win iPod Shuffles for the team members and a new Lenovo laptop for the school. Earlier in the semester in first round competition the team set an all-time record high of 850 points scored in a single game.
WCPSS SCHOOLS RECEIVE WAKE TO WELLNESS GRANT AWARDS
Fifteen Wake County Public School System elementary schools received a total of $450,000, as Wake to Wellness Program schools.
Beginning in the 2007-08 school year, the 15 schools will receive a total of $450,000 (up to $30,000 per school over three years) from the John Rex Endowment as part of the Wake to Wellness Grants Program. The competitive grant process began earlier this year with a request for grant proposals that support the development of school-based programs that create healthier school environments. An additional $450,000 will be awarded to 15 elementary schools in a second round of Wake to Wellness in 2008.
These Wake to Wellness schools will implement projects that help meet the requirements of the WCPSS Policy 5125, the WCPSS Wellness Policy, and the Healthy Active Children Policy of the State Board of Education, with emphasis on nutrition, physical education, recess and physical activity.
Wake to Wellness Schools
Baucom - Comprehensive Wellness Trail; nutrition education and fitness stations
Cedar Fork - Track with soccer goals, recess packs and teacher training in group games
Conn Magnet - Active learning playground
Lincoln Heights - Comprehensive Wellness program with students and community, after school fitness club, Healthy Living Education nights, Wellness library, Healthy Living teacher funding
Olds - Physical fitness education and training program, playground improvements, physical activity program implementation
Penny Road - More opportunities for physical education and health, new health and nutrition curriculum, wellness program for staff and community
Vance - Get Healthy, Stay Healthy program: chef session, healthy snack bowls, fitness equipment and videos
Baileywick - Recess toolkits, educational materials for teachers, in-service for parents/students, workshops for teachers, students, parents
Farmington Woods - Goal-oriented fitness assessment, exercise laboratory, 15-a-day program, use of physical activity and food pyramids
Middle Creek - Structured walking program
Morrisville - Increasing physical activity during and outside of school day, integrate lessons on health and nutrition into core subjects.
Olive Chapel - Walking school bus, WAY curriculum, recess kits, healthier food options, nutrition seminars, community wellness opportunities
Washington - Outdoor and indoor equipment, new before/after school programs, energizers, mileage club, jump rope club, ballroom dance club, climbing wall, staff development on new school additions
Yates Mill - Staff development for all classroom teachers, Drive 2 Fitness Training, climbing wall, equipment and modules sets for PE department, track area, recess kits, energizers
Zebulon - Drive 2 Fitness, after-school clubs for physical activity, equipment for classroom and playground, exercise DVDs, walking logs and incentives, heart rate monitors, Poe Center field trips, cafeteria contests, newsletter nutrition and fitness info, health fair, walking club, staff trainings
In the initial phase of a long-term commitment to a Childhood Obesity Initiative, the John Rex Endowment has dedicated $2.5 million to combat childhood obesity. New grant recipients include these 15 WCPSS elementary schools, five neighborhood projects, and additional funding for the expansion of a pediatric pre-diabetes screening program.
The Wake County Public School System is a partner in this valiant effort to promote wellness in our schools benefiting both students and staff!
For more information about the Wake to Wellness Program and the John Rex Endowment please visit: http://www.hpdp.unc.edu/waketowellness and http://www.rexendowment.org/
ZEBULON PE CLASS HIGHLIGHTED
PE classes at Zebulon MS were recently featured in the June edition of Carolina Country magazine. The article was entitled, Bright Ideas-Help Middle School Students Learn Math and Stay Healthy. It focused on the activities occurring in Barnanne Creech’s PE classes at Zebulon Middle School as a result of support from a Bright Ideas grant.
CARNAGE JAZZ BAND PERFORMS
The Carnage Middle School Jazz band participated in the Smoky Mountain Music Festival in Gatlinburg, TN near the end of the school year. Band Director Elizabeth Taylor said the students presented a short program of varied jazz music for a panel of distinguished judges. The Carnage Jazz Band earned a rating of Superior, and a first place award in the Middle School Jazz Band category.
KENAN FELLOW HARD AT WORK
Kenan Fellow Carrie Jones, science chair at Middle Creek High School, is busy analyzing the data for her dissertation at NC State on Teaching Science on the Block Schedule in Wake County. Jones said severalhigh schools participated in the surveys and focus group interviews for her report. Jones is working with Kenan Fellows Chad Ogren of Enloe High and Kathy Smyre of West Cary Middle, as well as some students to make improvements to these games. You can see some of the work at http://ced.ncsu.edu/hifives/. Another productive endeavor has been the summer county-wide Physical Science Professional Learning Community meetings she is leading where several high schools are collaborating to help raise EOC scores.