Education

Possibly the most diverse senior class in America will graduate on Friday, June 11, at 7 p.m., in Tukwila's Werner Neudorf Stadium.
The Foster High School Class of 2010 attended the most diverse school district in the nation, according to the New York Times. This class, of 173 students, comes from 36 different countries, and they speak over 30 languages.

This class, as a whole, has many accomplishments, and made huge contributions to their community.
Seniors in the Advanced Placement Literature class competed to have President Obama speak at their commencement ceremony. They produced a video that depicts the ethnicity of the senior class and sent it to the president.

Foster Senior Adrian Quichochoa, along with several other students, created a video on the 2010 Census. They felt that this was an extremely important project that merited the time spent to inform Foster students, and the Tukwila community, how critical this information is for future funding of education.

Quichochoa joined State Rep. Zack Hudgins in producing a video and shared it with the community.

Sweet Pea Cottage Preschool of the Arts opens this Fall in the Unitarian Church's new location, a former church on California Avenue at Othello. The church recently purchased the building as the West Seattle Herald was first to report, here:

Sweet Pea Cottage is currently accepting applications and scheduling tours.

According to their press release:

All teachers are professional artists.
The Founder and Artistic Director began the program nearly 17 years ago from her own home and, by popular demand, grew into what now has 125 families at the Queen Anne location.
Sweet Pea is a non-profit organization.
Children experience visual arts, theater, yoga, French, Spanish, nature walks, cooking, dance, music, sports/exercise every week.
Guest artists are brought in on a weekly basis to share their craft with the children.
The curriculum is multi-cultural, celebrating a different country each week by teaching the children about the culture, language, art forms, and food.

Sabas O. Rousseau, Chief Sealth High School student, received a $5,000 scholarship called the Sun Life Rising Star Award given by Sun Life Financial June 10 in the Sealth lunchroom. Over the past four years, Sabas has participated in the full breadth of Treehouse Education and Enrichment programs. He brings his high school homework to the after-school Treehouse Learning Center three times a week to receive support from a tutor. He has volunteered for the United Indians' drug and alcohol prevention program and Latino Voices, an organization for Latino Americans. Treehouse strives to give foster children a future. Sunlife and Treehouse representatives were on hand to present.

Sabas will attend South Seattle Community College with the goal of transferring to a four-year college.

"To have a financial gift like this is really special," said the happily-stunned Sabas. "I grew up in Burien and West Seattle and went to high school here for three years. That I succeeded and that I'm following my dreams is really special. I'm very excited actually."

The Ballard Rotary Club awarded 10 $1,000 scholarships to Ballard High School students on May 18 in its annual tradition.

The Rotary Club's Billy Rodgers said one of the club's focuses is on education, so it partners with Ballard High School counselors to provide educational opportunities for youth in the community.

"There is no better way for our club to partner with our local high school and encourage all students to continue their eduction," Rodgers said.

In order to earn the scholarship, students fill out applications and participate in interviews. Winners are selected based on a number of criteria, including community service and classroom performance.

The 10 Ballard High School students to receive Ballard Rotary Club scholarships are Jessica Gallardo, Stephanie Valerdi, Allison Thomasseau, Leah, Kane Leinbach, Sarah Boon, Nicole Bowns, Jacob Kutrakun, Anne-Lise Nilsen, Brendan Philip and C.J. Eldred.

Chief Sealth High School’s auditorium became hip and hopping as members of the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz visited, including six musicians from Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, or the “LACHSA “ Jazz Sextet performed Satin Doll and others through improvisation to a packed house of students Wednesday, April 28.

They were joined by special musical guests including Thelonious Monk, Jr. as part of the “Peer-to-Peer” jazz education program in Seattle Public Schools April 26-30. Superintendent of Seattle Public Schools Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson said some words and then clapped her hands with the students.

CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO SEE MORE PHOTOS FROM THE EVENT

Many of us have heard of jazz legend Thelonious Monk, who lived from 1917-1982. His son and other family members founded the institute in his honor. Monk, Jr. has made his own mark in the jazz world.

Westside School at 10015 28th Ave. S.W. needs to move. The school has been operating in the space since the fall of 1993, and shares space with Explorer West, an independent private middle school. All the lease options for the inventoried Seattle Public School buildings were presented at the School Board meeting on April 21, and the vote will take place May 5.

CLICK THE PHOTO TO SEE MORE IMAGES

Westside School has put in a proposal to lease the E.C. Hughes building on 7740 34th Ave SW, and hopes to start the 2010-2011 school year in this new location. It's looking likely this will happen, according to school officials. Westside has been growing since 2006, and has outgrown its current location.

Head of the school Jo Ann Yockey said, " We have had a strategic plan which we began in 2006 to add one section at each grade level, before that we were one section at each grade, preschool through 5th grade. We started by adding another kindergarten class and then another 1st (grade) and so this year we have two 3rds."

On April 6th the playground at Lafayette Elementary School in Seattle looked suspiciously like an airport. There was a real airplane—a glider—parked out by the basketball hoops. But don’t worry; Sea-Tac isn’t trying to sneak in a fourth runway next to California Avenue. It was there as part of the curriculum for Greg Schroeder’s fourth-grade class.

The kids have been studying aviation—everything from hot air balloons to the space shuttle—and the glider gave them a chance to hop in the cockpit and get some hands-on experience working the controls.

Heinz Gehlhaar, Mark Nyberg, and Bruce Bulloch of Evergreen Soaring towed the glider down from its home at Arlington Municipal Airport and assembled it on the school grounds.

Seattle Parks and Recreation and the Associated Recreation Council (ARC) invite youth ages 14-18 to apply for work as interns in the Recreation Technology or “RecTech” program in the summer of 2010.

These internships provide young people with important skills in today’s tech-savvy world. The program will bring them up to date on various tech skills and help make them more employable.

There are openings for interns in these technology areas in:
· Digital Darkroom and Photojournalism at Delridge Community Center. This internship will provide an overview of the digital imaging process and will cover the basics of photojournalism.

· Video Production at Garfield Community Center. In this session, the interns will spend the summer behind a camera and holding a microphone. It will include workshops in video production, theater, and creative writing.

· Web Design at South Park Community Center. Interns in this program will learn web design, graphic design, HTML, and interactive animations.

All internships run from July 12 through August 26, Monday through Friday, 1 to 5 p.m.
Applicants should be sure:

Game on! The annual Global Book Challenge has its semi-finalists, 10 teams of 4th and 5th grade students from about 45 Seattle Public Schools. These include the Arbor Heights Elementary School's "Orange Lightning Reading Squad," Lafayette's "Awesome Speedy Stinging Readers," and Highland Park's "Nerdy Turtles" are three of ten semi-finalist teems of 4th and 5th graders in the Global Reading Challenge contest.

The ten teams compete Tuesday, 7pm, at the downtown public library to determine the winner. The winning Seattle team takes home the Global Reading Challenge traveling trophy and goes on to a videoconference challenge between Seattle and Fraser Valley and Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada. Up to 10 teams within each school participated, the winning team then challenging another school's winning team.