This Week In the Ann Arbor Public Schools

May 10, 2010

This Week’s Good News!

• Skyline and Pioneer students participated in the Special Olympics on Tuesday May 4th, 2010
  Skyline students in Kayna Edwards’ class participated in the Special Olympics Springs Games this year for the first time ever and although only 3 of the students from the class competed, they still brought home ALL of the following awards: Ist place for wheelchair slalom races; 2nd place for wheelchair slalom races; 1st place for wheelchair obstacle course race; 2nd place for the wheelchair obstacle course race; 1st place for the 100 yard wheelchair dash -Class A; 1st place for the 100 yard wheelchair dash-Class B; 2nd place for wheelchair softball throw; 3rd place for wheelchair softball throw; 2nd place for standing softball throw; and 1st place for the 50 Yard running dash.
• Pioneer students who placed in the Special Olympics are:  Joseph Karns –  1st standing long jump; 1st 50 m dash; 2nd softball throw, Sabrina Gay- 1st softball throw; 2nd standing long jump; 3rd 50 m dash, Terrell Jordan-McKnight- 1st softball throw; 2nd 100 m dash; 3rd running long jump, Jay Kimeldorf- 1st standing long jump, 3rd softball throw; 4th 50 m dash, Megan Natelborg- 1st softball throw; 3rd  50 m dash; 4th standing long jump, Patricia Quelhas- 2nd softball throw; 2nd  50 m dash; 2nd standing long jump, Brendan Romig-Fox- 2nd 50 m dash; 2nd standing long jump; 3rd softball throw, Jesse Waldrop- 2nd softball throw; 2nd standing long jump; 4th 50 m dash, Edan Kutella- 1st softball throw; 1st standing long jump; 3rd  50 m dash, and Shaylane Webb- 1st  50 m dash; 1st standing long jump; 2nd softball throw.
• The Pioneer Rowing Teams finished in second place over all at the Midwest High School Regional Championship Regatta this past weekend.  The event was held on Hershal Lake which is East of Cincinatti, OH.  Pioneer won four gold medals and three silver medals.  The gold medal teams are:
  Women’s Novice Four:  Ruby Emberling, Maddie, Polovick, Hannah Tanau, Delaney Wright, and Emily Briggs (coxswain).
  Men’s Novice Lightweight Four:  Cellik Adams, Sam Blackburn, Colin Darnton, Brendan Kennedy, and Mark Strader (coxswain).
  Women’s Varsity Four:  Claire Barrett, Anna DeBoer, Annika Gage, Hannah Graham, and Katie Thiry (coxswain).
  Men’s Varsity Pair:  Scott Burdick and Jacob Merrell.
  Silver Medal winners:
  Women’s Novice Eight: Emily Briggs, Ruby Emberling, Abigail Kleinheksel, Kennedy Lao, Alexis Losacco, Maddie Polovick, Hannah Tanau, Delaney Wright and Patricia Nease (Coxswain).
  Men’s Novice Eight:  Cellik Adams, Iman Aslani, Sam Blackburn, Colin Darnton, Cooper DePriest, Robert Hiner, Brendan Kennedy, Adam Psarouthakis, and Mark Strader (Coxswain).
  Women’s Varsity Eight:  Claire Barrett, Rachel Bielajew, Anna DeBoer, Annika Gage, Hannah Graham, Ella Janowitz, Annie Oldani, Kendall Phillips, and Sarah Foster (coxswain).
  The Women’s Varsity 4 and the Men’s Varsity 2 each qualified to the National Championship in June.  The other boats contributed points to give Pioneer its second place finish.  The Men’s Third Varsity 8 finished fourth, The Women’s Second Varsity 8 and the Men’s Second Varsity 8 finished fifth in their Grand Final Events andThe Men’s Varsity 4 finished sixth.  The coaches are Rich Griffith, Katherine Peretick and Adam Siroky.
• Slauson had 15 students enter the Science Olympiad and took 1st place in Pentathlon and 6th in Bio Process Lab!  They also made the top 20 in these events:  Disease Detectives (11th place), Experimental Design (13th), Fossils (15th), Junkyard Challenge (13th), Meteorology (11th), Ornithology (20th)and Road Scholar (9th).
• The Clague 8th grade Orchestra, under the direction of Abby Alwin, traveled to Novi, MI on Friday April 30 to perform for the MSBOA State Festival.  This festival is by invitation based on the ratings received at the district festival. Ensembles are adjudicated against a rating scale, in the areas of tone quality, intonation, rhythm, technique and interpretation. The students performed very well receiving the highest scores from all of the judges, giving them an overall rating of a "I". This was the first year that the Clague Orchestras have taken the opportunity to perform at the State level, and it was a worthwhile experience for everyone involved.
• Huron teacher Quinn Strassel reports one more positive story from the "Talking Back" project in his short readings class.  Two students were invited to read their essys at a fundraiser at Zingermans Roadhouse for 826 Michigan (the writing center that provides support for his Short Readings class).  Jasmine Franco and Justin "Fuzz" Dennis each received standing ovations and brought tears to the eyes of Pulitzer nominated author Dave Eggers, who was in town from San Francisco.  He also gave them his email address and offered to write them letters of recommendation.  Both students represented the Huron community admirably and read with remarkable poise and articulation.  Hooray for these two superstars!
• Amanda Naugle, Health Educator, Washtenaw County Public Health reports that the Healthy School Environment Recognition Program (HSERP), sponsored by Michigan Action for Healthy Kids, is designed to recognize and applaud schools that are making significant improvements in their environment related to healthy eating, physical activity, and tobacco-free lifestyles. Michigan's Governor and Surgeon General want to motivate and empower Michigan schools to "step up" and create healthy school environments.  Slauson, Tappan, Clague, Forsythe, & Scarlett Middle Schools are being recognized for creating healthier school environments by the MI Surgeon General Dr. Kimberlydawn Wisdom and the Michigan Action for Healthy Kids.
• On April 28, 2010 all 480 Community High School students worked to improve their local community. The student-led effort began in Forum Council, and resulted in a Community Service (Not School As Usual)  half-day activity to support the city nature areas, grounds at Slauson Middle School, Ann Arbor Open, Dicken Elementary, Wines Elementary, Bach Elementary, and reading to children at Allen Elementary.  The students who helped clean up nature areas received a thank you from Bonnie Wessler, from the City of Ann Arbor Natural Area Preservation.  She writes:
  

  Thank you so much for all the fantastic work done on Wednesday! Our staff had a fantastic time, and we really appreciate all the work the students were able to do-the natural areas really appreciate it, too!  I just checked the numbers and I can barely believe it- the students pulled 4,460 POUNDS OF GARLIC MUSTARD!! That's incredible!  That's more than we've pulled on Garlic Mustard Weed-Out Days in the past! In fact - that's almost a quarter of all the garlic mustard pulled throughout the Stewardship Network so fall this year for the Garlic Mustard Challenge, and almost "all" of what our cluster has contributed so far. We're really just SO happy to have had the students help us this past week - please pass along our must humble and enthusiastic THANKS:)

• Lisa A. Vollmers, Academic Mentor, USA Hockey National Team Development Program reports that the U18 USA Hockey National Team has completed a garden project at Pioneer.  The team "adopted" the space around the new Hill Pool sign.  The boys spent time after school preparing the flowerbed, creating a border, and back filling the space with top soil.  On May 5, in the afternoon, the team completed the project by planting two arborvitae bushes and flowers as well as covering the entire space with wood chips.  To say the least, it was an extremely rewarding and fun experience working with the team on the project!  The team would like to acknowledge a few folks who made this project possible:  Lorin Cartwright, Mike Abbot of Abbott's Nursery (donated the arborvitae), Scott Monaghan of USA Hockey (donated the flowers), Mike Maroney & the Grounds Crew (equipment, fill dirt and wood chips), the Custodial Staff and Dawn Leighton.
• Pioneer student and U18 USA Hockey player Jack Campell is in this week's issue of Sports Illustrated.   Jack, a senior, had 33 saves in goal for the national under-18 team in a 3-1 win over Sweden that gave the U.S. its second straight under-18 world championship. In six games he had three shutouts and a .965 save percentage to earn best goaltender honors. Jack, who was on the 2009 title team, also won gold at the World Junior Championship in January.
• The annual Ann Arbor Public Schools Student Art Exhibit opened on May 8, and there is an opening reception tomorrow, Tuesday, May 11, 7 -8:30 pm ,at the Slusser Gallery, in the UofM School of Art and Design, 2000 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor, MI 48109.  The show rund through June 5.
• The annual Ann Arbor Art Teachers and Alumni Association Show 2010 is on idsplay at the Work Gallery on State St. The opening reception is Friday, May 14, from 7 -9 pm.
• Congratulations to Community High teacher Ms. Tracy Rosewarne for winning the Golden Pen award at the Michigan Inter-scholastic Press Association ceremony April 30, 2010. The Golden Pen Award is awarded to the most deserving high school journalism advisor and teacher, of the year. Ms. Rosewarne was nominated by her students, who created a portfolio of supporting documents, such as previous State and National Awards, membership in pertinent associations, publications and presentations, and letters of recommendation. Ms. Rosewarne is the advisor for the nationally award winning "Communicator" and "the-comunicator.org" As MIPA says, in the journalism world, this is the equivalent of winning "Coach of the Year!"

• In last week’s edition, I reported the results of our students on the National French Exam and did not mention two teachers from Pioneer  Meg Hanrath and Tyler Vess, who worked very hard to prepare their students for the exam.

Todd Roberts, Ed.D.
Superintendent