Meadowlark receives award |
Meadowlark Elementary School was awarded for meeting the challenge associated with educating at-risk students. Meadowlark Elementary received two Challenge Awards for the 2005 state assessments, one for reading and another for math, from The Confidence in Kansas Public Education Task Force. The task force awarded 92 certificates to 81 Kansas schools that achieved high scores on the Kansas assessment tests while dealing with a high percentage of at-risk students. Meadowlark principal Phillis Scorse was quick to deflect the credit for the award. "We have such great support from the community and a great district as a whole," Scorse said. "The other schools do great work, and I'm sure that they weren't far off. Awards are nice in that they let you know that others think you are doing well, but what really matters is the education of students here, and all of the schools do a great job." Meadowlark Elementary was one of just four state elementary schools to receive awards for performance in both reading and math. The others were Central Elementary School in Olathe, Lincoln Elementary School in Hutchinson and Ware Elementary School in Geary County. The certificates were presented at a special ceremony Nov. 9. "It's a great honor for our students, faculty and staff who worked hard to be able to earn this award," Scorse said. "There are several unique challenges when it comes to educating students who are less privileged, and our staff did a great job. Any time that you can show some sort of reward to your students, it's a benefit." * Teams representing Pittsburg High School and Southeast High School will participate in the 2005-06 Quest academic competition on Dec. 3 at Washburn University. The contest, co-sponsored by KTWU public television station and Washburn University, allows teams of high school students from across Kansas to compete against one another in answering questions on topics such as art, literature, history, math and science. Teams earning the top 16 scores will advance to the finals and return to Topeka several times for taping sessions. The televised Quest competition will air on KTWU from February to May 2006. Pittsburg High team members are: Sonya Goetschius, Brett Leeper, Diana Liu, Rick Paul and Jamie Teller. The coach is Dawn Wendt. Southeast High team members are: Makenzie Gorman, Micah Holden, Asher Merritt, Mike Price and Edward Snell. The coach is Amy Gorman. * Have any nominees for kids or students of the week? Kid of the week nominees should be sent to Nikki Patrick at nikki.patrick@morningsun.net. If principals have students of the week, they should send information to Kevin Flaherty at kevin.flaherty@morningsun.net. Please be sure to enclose photos. * It's almost time to be writing those Christmas gift requests to Santa Claus! Please email letters to Morning Sun managing editor Jessica Tims at jessica.tims@morningsun.net. Jessica and the big guy in red are close and she will be passing the letters on to him. Kids may also go to www.morningsun.net/santa and fill out a form. That site should be up next week. Santa checks his email frequently and prefers letters in email form, but children may also write them out. The letters must be in by Dec. 9, and the sooner, the better! The Morning Sun will accept letters from any student, regardless of grade. The Morning Sun, (www.morningsun.net) November 17, 2005 |
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