News

On Monday, the School Board honored Student All-Stars from Waverly Elementary School for earning the highest scores on the 2016-17 state assessments in language arts, math and science.

The students were introduced by Principal Anne Griffith. Waverly students are:

Erica Hildenbrand, fourth-grade English language arts
Erica loves to read a wide variety of books and willingly shares her understanding of the stories. She is a creative writer who always includes many details.

Takoda Cunningham, fourth-grade math
Takoda perseveres through challenges and looks for new and different ways to solve problems. He looks for and finds patterns and structures in numbers.

Jaelyn Johnson, third-grade English language arts
Jaelyn is an incredibly hard worker who is always focused and determined to understand new concepts and ideas. Jaelyn is a kind friend to everyone.

Caelen Riley, third-grade math
Caelen is a learner who is eager for a challenge and challenges himself. He is always making sense of number systems and is always willing to share his thinking and learning with his classmates.

Not present: Anthony Vestal, fifth-grade science.

A dual language program was established in 2009 at South Shore Elementary School to teach students in English and Spanish. The program was recommended after a six-month committee process to determine the best options for Spanish-speaking students.

Since then, it has grown from two kindergarten classrooms and a first-grade class to a whole-school program that benefits both native Spanish speakers who are learning English and native English speakers who are learning Spanish.

Read more about the program in the Democrat-Herald.

Last night’s School Board meeting included a special performance by the Lafayette Elementary School honor choir. They opened the meeting with two songs from their holiday line-up.

The honor choir is audition-based and made up of fourth and fifth graders. It is led by music teacher Teresa Buckley. Last night’s performance was directed by music assistant Marissa Johnston.

On Friday, Tangent Elementary held its 45^th annual senior dinner. Held in the school cafeteria, the event is put on each year by the Tangent parents. The “Seniors” are the grandparents and great-grandparents of the students as well as some of the “mature” people in the community.

Cafeteria set-up is done the day before by the custodian, parents, and the fifth graders. All classrooms contributed hand-made art for the decorations. Poinsettias were donated by a local nursery.

Most of the food was prepared by the district food service department and delivered to the school. Volunteers prepared individual plates and served them to each student and guest. Some students sat with their grandparents or great-grandparents. Others sat with the senior guests.

After dinner, the students sang several songs in a combined choir led by music teacher Serianna Rosberg.

It was a full house. In addition to the nearly 170 students, there were approximately 120 senior guests and dozens of volunteers and staff members.