The Liberty Elementary School playground is a little brighter and newer thanks to volunteer help and a grant from Lowe’s home improvement store.
More than 25 Lowe’s volunteers worked for three days to improve the play equipment, sanding it down first, then painting many coats of colorful paint. They also built three friendship benches.
Thank you to Lowe’s, which paid for all expenses through its Lowe’s Heroes grant program.
Albany Options School is in the news for continual improvements in student achievement. For the last four years, the school has been among the top performers among alternative schools statewide.
AOS has better results than the seven similar schools around the state in four-year complete rates, five-year completer rates and dropout rates.
Read more about the school culture and steady improvement records in the Democrat-Herald’s Oct. 15 story, Staying the course: Albany Options School stats continue to rise.
This week, schools are celebrating National School Lunch Week. GAPS joins schools around the country in recognizing the hard work and dedication of school food service staff members who work hard to prepare healthy and appealing meals for students.
Here are a few facts about nutrition services in our schools from Nutrition Services General Manager Kathy Pitzer:
We serve an average of 7,700 meals per day. That is broken down by 2,500 breakfasts, 4,500 lunches, 700 other (after school suppers, ala carte purchases, etc.).
There are around 90 food service employees in the 21 schools plus four support staff at the Nutrition Services Department.
We buy locally grown/produced food where/when we can. Currently there are about seven local vendors we work with, including Lochmead Dairy for milk, Truitt Family Farms for beans and Bob’s Red Mills for granola.
On Oct. 6, high school students visited local companies to learn more about career opportunities in manufacturing. Students from South and West Albany high schools and Albany Options School joined the nationwide Manufacturing Day event to “celebrate modern manufacturing and inspire the next generation of manufacturers.”
In Albany, Pipeline to Jobs organized tours for students at industry, including ATI, National Frozen Foods and Wood Castle Furniture. Students toured the facilities, spoke to employers and learned about skills to help them get hired and advance in a career.
At National Frozen Foods, students learned and practiced welding skills and won prizes for welding activities. Wyett Luttrell, pictured above, won a welding helmet provided by General Manager Armando Nunez.
After the tours, students returned to LBCC to learn more about LBCC programs that train students for local jobs. Students toured training space for Machine Tool, Mechatronics, CADD, Welding and Non-Destructive Testing programs.
View the Superintendent’s Education Update for October 10, 2017: