This Week In the Ann Arbor Public Schools

October 31, 2011

This Week’s Good News

  • On Friday, October 21, Community High School’s journalism students were in contact via Communicator Web with The Huffington Post.  The Huffington Post asked our journalists to send articles to them for publication on the high school section of their site.  The Huffington Post is the 17th most visited website in the United States and has over 53 million visitors every month.
    Communicator journalists sent work to the Huffington Post on Monday morning and on Monday afternoon, Kerry Fingerle's op/ed on gun laws, "Could Stricter Gun Laws Prevent School Shootings?", was posted on their site:
    “http://www.huffingtonpost.com/high-school/”.
  • Huron’s Field Hockey team won the state championship for the second year in a row as they defeated Pioneer, 2-1, in overtime on Saturday, October 29.  This was the fourth straight year that Huron and Pioneer played for the state title.
  • Dr. Arthur Williams, Principal Ann Arbor Huron High School; Penny Bundy, Director of Admissions Western Michigan; Mark Delorey, Director of Financial Aid Western Michigan presented  "Foster Youth and Higher Education: Challenges, Champions and Change at The College Board National Forum 2011, The Future of Education, Discuss, Collaborate, Innovate in New York  Oct. 20-28.
  • Congratulations to Preschool Teacher Susan Dziedzic and Para Professional Sean Hagen on being awarded a grant in the amount of $1,000.00 from the AA Education Foundation.  This grant will be used to continue Music Therapy in Susan's Early Childhood Special Education Classroom.  The room was first introduced to Music Therapy by one of the parents in the room whose daughter had participated in this therapy prior to starting school.  The family no longer had time outside of the school day to continue with the therapy so the parent asked their therapist to provide the service at school for all the kids.  It has been a great addition to the classroom routine and we are very happy they will be able to continue and help support this activity in school.
  • All together, the Ann Arbor Public Schools Educational Foundation awarded 25 Great Ideas Grants to teachers for a total of $18,446.  The average award per grant was $738.  Other recipients are:  Angell - Katie Ryan; Bach - Kristie Bishop; Carpenter - Jennifer Macian, Derek Toohey; Haisley - Karen Queenvillem Gloria O’Neill; Logan - Ann Marie Borders; Pattengill - Karen McDonald, Mary Catherine Rudberg; Pittsfield - Jennifer Barcelata, Katie Hughes;  Thurston - Jessica Anderson; Forsythe - Semra Koknar; Scarlett - Ed Broom; Tappan - Fred Smith, Jennifer Shaw; A2Tech High - Ross Dunbar; Huron - David Russell, Don Yeatts & David Caine, Andrew Collins & Jennifer Wileening; Pioneer - Don Packard, Jeff Kass, Sean Szabo; and Skyline - Aaron Lopez.
  • I want to thank everyone who attended the Ann Arbor Public Schools Educational Foundation’s Harvest Dinner on October 19.  It was a successful evening that focused on supporting public education.  The Educational Foundation received a major donation from IMRA America of $50,000 and the event raised $10,000 to complete funding of $60,000 for the Air Tracks Project, which will provide science equipment for physics classes.  The representative of IMRA America spoke about the importance of business support of K-12 education in attracting and keeping talent in the work place. 

Patricia P. Green, Ph.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Ann Arbor Public Schools