Charter School News Roundup

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  Jan Krygier

  Seven states, including Arizona, have submitted complete applications for Round 3 of the federal Race to the Top competition. They are part of a group of nine runner-up states invited to submit applications. The seven states will compete for a share of $200 million to help drive education reform. By submitting applications Arizona and the other six competing states (Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) are committing to enhancing data systems, raising academic standards, improving principal and teacher support and evaluation systems, and implementing school interventions in underperforming schools. Round Three funds will be announced in late December.

• It’s that time again! The Form 471 application filing window for E-rate Funding Year 2012 will open at noon on Monday, January 9th, and close at 11:59 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, March 20th. E-rate is a federal program designed to ensure that U.S. schools and libraries have affordable access to modern telecommunications and information services by providing discounts from 20 percent to 90 percent for authorized services. For more information, go to the website, www.sl.universalservice.org.
• At Sky Islands School in Tucson, it’s all about the environment. On November 29th student from the school’s Ecology class took a field trip to the University of Arizona’s historic Tumamoc Hill, where they surveyed species, calculated plan densities in plots, and measured slopes. Students will do an analysis of their data set and look at patterns across the landscape in terms of elevation gradients. Earlier in the school year, students and teachers participated in the National Geographic’s 2011 BioBlitz at Saguaro Park East. They joined scientists, researchers, and other volunteers in an effort to inventory as many species as possible inside the park. As a result, over 800 species were inventoried; over 400 of them were new to the Saguaro Park list.
• Put on those running shoes! Heritage Elementary School has announced a new partnership with Integrated Medical Services to sponsor several of the health care group’s community events, including the 4th Annual IMS Arizona Marathon, which will be held on Presidents’ Day weekend, February 19. Participants can choose from a full marathon, half marathon, 5K walk and run, or Fit Kids Fun Run. Heritage is a Glendale charter school with a character-based education program focused on family values and community service.
• Eight middle school students from Sonoran Science Academy will represent the state of Arizona at the First Lego League World Championship, after placing first at the state tournament, held December 10th at Arizona State University. Team Toxic (Team OF eXperts IN Computers), consisting of Nathan Vandivort, Jose Hernandez, Robert Gauthier, Liam Koenneker, Quincy Lyons, Zakaria Lamri, Emma Galligan, and Kate Ciaramello, competed against 48 other teams in the state. The four judged and scored areas were: Core Values (Team Work and Gracious Professionalism), Robot Performance, Research Project, and Robot Design and Programming. The World Finals will be held in St. Louis April 25-28.
• Students at La Paloma Academy in Tucson aren’t letting budget shortfalls stop them in their pursuit of reading. Determined to read all of the books in the young adult best seller trilogy The Hunger Games, the students set out to raise the money themselves, making caramel apples by hand and selling every single one. At last report, they were just short of the funds needed to purchase the trilogy – available only in the pricey hardcover edition. Hopefully, the new year will bring news that the students have reached their goal and are thoroughy engrossed in the next two books, Catching Fire and Mockingjay.

This entry was posted on December 1, 2011 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Articles, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.