Students Named National Merit and Achiever Finalists

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools have 40 students named National Merit Finalists for 2014.

The students from Carrboro HS are:  Anna Broome; Eleanor Costley; Maura Jones; and Thurgood Marshall Lynn.

The students from Chapel Hill HS are: Natalie Bulik-Sullivan; Yuqing Chen; Marlow Durbin; Anna Li; Nina Muller; Juno Park; Stephanie Peres-Da-Silva; Jeffrey Perkins; Evan Rose; Stefan Steiner; Shyam Vasudevan; Xiao-Song Wang; Samuel Williams; and Julian Wilson.

The students from East Chapel Hill HS are:  Laura Bevington; Jerry Chang; William Collins; Kathy Dai; Sara Edelman-Munoz; Sarah Fordham; Riley Foster; Benjamin Goldstein; George Hito; Cole Jenson; Vincent Lai; Zachary Lee; Sicong Liu; Helen Lo; Jason Mao; Hongqian Niu; Ballard Robinett; Leigha Vilen; Sarah Wright; Emily Wu; Michelle Xia; and Michael Zhou.

The National Merit Scholarship Program is a privately financed academic competition that began in 1955.  High school students are eligible for the Merit Program by taking the PSAT/NMSQT, a test taken by more than 1.5 million entrants each year, with just over 8,000 selected as National Merit Finalists.

The district also had two students named National Achievement Scholarship Finalists.  They are: Jennah Jones, East Chapel Hill HS and Amon Williams, Carrboro HS.

The National Achievement Scholarship was established in 1964 to recognize outstanding Black American high school students.  Finalists are selected based on their abilities, skills and accomplishments.  Only 800 Finalists are selected from the more than 160,000 students who enter based on information supplied on their PSAT/NMSQT.

For more information about the National Merit Scholarship programs, visit www.nationalmerit.org.

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Board to Meet in Closed Session on Tuesday, February 25

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education will meet in closed session via conference call on Tuesday, February 25 at 5:30 p.m.

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Sad News

East Chapel Hill High School, and all of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, is mourning the loss of a student who passed away on Wednesday, February 19.

This is an extremely difficult time. The support from parents and our community that has been shown to the students and staff at East is greatly appreciated...more than we can express.

We also appreciate the support of our Orange County Health Department. Dr. Bridger and her staff have been a constant resource for information. In fact, when Principal Eileen Tully sent a message to the East families letting them know of this sad news, she also included a letter from Dr. Bridger that provides additional medical information regarding meningococcal disease. The text of the letter is included below.

Again, thank you to the community for your support during this most difficult of times.


February 19, 2014

Dear Parent/Guardian:

We are very sad to report that a student from East Chapel Hill High School has died from what is presumed to be meningococcal disease. Confirmation is pending. This letter is to advise you to watch for the symptoms of meningococcal disease and what to do if your child reports being exposed.

Meningococcal disease is caused by a bacterium known as “meningococcus”. This bacterium can cause meningitis (infection of the lining of the brain and spinal cord), sepsis (infection of the bloodstream), and other serious illnesses.

The student may have been infectious at school on Feb. 11th, 12th, 17th and 18th. If a person is infected, symptoms usually start within 3-4 days of exposure but can take as long as 14 days to begin.

The most common type of meningococcal disease is meningitis. Symptoms of meningitis may include high fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light, confusion and sleepiness. Another common type of meningococcal disease is sepsis. Symptoms may include vomiting; chills; severe pain in the muscles, joints, chest or stomach; rapid breathing; and diarrhea. In the later stages, a dark purple rash can appear all over the body.
If your child displays any of these symptoms, contact your physician immediately. The disease can progress rapidly.

The spread of meningococcal disease in a classroom setting is rare. The disease is spread by direct contact with oral secretions (saliva) such as sharing drinks, foods, kissing, and sharing cigarettes.

Preventive antibiotic treatment is only recommended for members of the household and others who might have had contact with the ill student’s saliva. The Orange County Health Department is working to identify everyone who needs preventive antibiotics in this situation. If you have questions about this, please call your physician or the Orange County Health Department at 919-245-2400.

Using good hand washing practices and encouraging your student not to share food, drinks, and eating utensils will also assist in preventing disease.

We are working closely with the CHCCS system to provide the information needed to all parents and staff.

Again, if your child has any of the symptoms listed above, please contact your child’s physician right away.

For additional information, please go to the Centers for Disease Control website at http://www.cdc.gov/meningococcal/index.html.

Sincerely,

Colleen Bridger, MPH, PhD
Health Director
Orange County Health Department



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Kim Hoke Earns Top Honor - Gaskins Award

Congratulations to Kim Hoke on winning the North Carolina School Public Relations Associaton’s top honor – the Barry Gaskins Service Award.
 

This prestigious award from the North Carolina School Public Relations Association (NCSPRA) annually recognizes a practicing or retired school public relations professional for outstanding leadership in school public relations and communications.

The award is named for Barry Gaskins, APR, who passed away unexpectedly in March 2003 at the age of 49. During his 24-year career as the first and only public information officer for Pitt County Schools in Greenville, North Carolina, Barry gained a national reputation for his skill as a public relations professional and his ability to engage diverse publics in support of public education. He served as president of NCSPRA in 1986-1987 and later in various roles as state coordinator and governmental liaison. He also served as Southeast Region Vice President of the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA), 1996-1999, and president of NSPRA, 2001-2002. Barry was known for his passion for school public relations and deep commitment to the advancement of public education. His leadership, vision and guidance on the NCSPRA Board greatly contributed to the chapter earning the coveted Blue Ribbon Chapter Award from NSPRA for 27 years. Barry was devoted to NCSPRA and NSPRA and spent much of his time supporting the professional development of his colleagues and serving as a mentor and friend to his “NCSPRA family.”

Kim Hoke currently serves as the Executive Director of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Public School Foundation. She previously spent 22 years as the public information officer for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and ten years in Granville County Schools.

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Middle and High School Courses for 2014-15 Student Registration

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools is pleased to announce the launch of online course registration information for middle school and high school students on Monday, February 3, 2014.  Courses at CHCCS is a new, public website that places course listings and other relevant information online for easy access by parents, students, and CHCCS employees.  Students and parents will now be able to review course offerings and important program information from their computers and other devices.  Families can translate the documents using online translation resources.  Course booklets will no longer be published, but all documents on the site can be easily printed.

The site is located at courses.chccs.k12.nc.us and will also be accessible through the district website (www.chccs.k12.nc.us).  When using the district website, click on Academics>Courses to get to the information.

Information on the website will always reflect the most accurate course information available.

To access course lists, navigate to the appropriate academic level (Middle School or High School) from the home page of the site.  Course listings are broken down by grade level for middle school and by subject for high school.  General information is located on the left of the page.  

Course listings and information documents can be printed by going to the “Printable Course Listings” page for each academic level.  Navigate to the “Print course lists” link underneath the course listing.  Open the document you wish to print and click the printer icon on the document.  (Note: If you are having trouble printing directly from the document, change the printing “Destination” to “Save as PDF” and click Save. A PDF file will be saved to your computer.  Open the PDF file on your computer and print the document from the PDF application menu (Adobe Reader or Preview on a Mac).

We hope you will find this resource helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your child’s counselor.
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Child Nutrition Manager of the Year - Essie Markham

Congratulations to Essie Markham of Morris Grove Elementary. She was recently recognized as the Chartwells Child Nutrition Manager of the Year! 

Liz Cartano (left), Director of Dining, presents award to Essie Markham (right) of Morris Grove Elementary.

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Smith Students Unplugged!

Before the holiday break approximately 260 seventh-graders at Smith Middle School spent time with the seventh-grade counseling team, exploring the concept of addiction to media. As a follow-up activity, the students were challenged to go 24 consecutive hours without using any media (with the exception of a radio and a house phone) during the weekend of January 11-12. This meant no TV, video games, cell phones, ebooks, tablets, iPods, etc!

The purpose of the activity was to evaluate whether or not students could or would actually go 24 hours without media and to have students assess and reflect on their own "addiction" to, or "dependency" on, media. The challenge also encouraged students to find replacement activities to the many hours they typically spend absorbed in media of all kinds.

These were some of the results from the weekend challenge:

- At least 3,649 hours were spent "unplugged" that weekend.
- 56% of students were able to go 24 hours without media.
- On average, students were able to go 18.5 hours without using any media during the 24-hour period.
- On a scale from 0-10 the average self-reported media addiction level was 5.6 out of 10 (10 being completely addicted).
- Students reported feeling like they had more free time, were able to focus better, and were able to spend more quality time with their family (one student said, "My mom was happy because we had an actual conversation").
- Students also reported feeling bored, out of touch, and lonely (one student said, "I just cried all day").

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Afternoon Activities Canceled for Tuesday, January 21

Due to weather conditions, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools have cancelled all afternoon activities for students scheduled for today, Tuesday, January 21.  The Elementary After-School Teacher Workday Program will continue as scheduled today and is not impacted by the canceled events.

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Twelve CHCCS Teachers Earn National Board Certification!

North Carolina leads the nation in the number of National Board Certified Teachers. We are pleased to announce the following educators recently earned their national certification.

Susan Azzu - ESL teacher at Rashkis Elementary
Holly Loranger - social studies teacher at Chapel Hill High
Melissa Nicholson-Clark - Intervention Specialist at Morris Grove Elementary
Samantha Howard - classroom teacher at Morris Grove Elementary
Christine Cohn - classroom teacher at Estes Hills Elementary
Jenny Marie Smith - English teacher at East Chapel Hill High
Agnes Bernasconi - classroom teacher at Rashkis Elementary
Ashley Laver - classroom teacher at Rashkis Elementary
Miles Chappell - social studies teacher at Phillips Middle
Jennifer Pedersen - Intervention Specialist at Northside Elementary
Lisa Myles - Gifted Specialist at McDougle Elementary
Beth Kinney - EC Resource teacher at McDougle Middle


Additionally, the following six educators have renewed their national certification. We appreciate their ongoing commitment to excellence.

Susanna Breeden, social studies teacher at Phillips Middle
Annie Cramer, art teacher at Seawell Elementary
Toni DeMarco, classroom teacher at Morris Grove Elementary
Jessica Harris, counselor at East Chapel Hill High
Bradey McDaniel, classroom teacher at Rashkis Elementary
John Montavon, Spanish teacher at McDougle Middle

Congratulations and thank you to all of our nationally certified educators.

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Trash Terminators Meet Chapel Hill Leaders

This past Monday evening (January 13, 2014), the Trash Terminators of Phillips Middle School met with Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt and the Town Council to discuss the composting program at Phillips Middle School and the possible expansion of composting in Chapel Hill. The Council was very receptive to the students’ presentation and ideas. The Trash Terminators have won $8,000 in grants during the past two school years and are in the finals for the Lexus Eco-Challange this year.

We appreciate the work of CHCCS Sustainability Coordinator Dan Schnitzer and the Terminators.

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CHCCS Sustainability Coordinator Dan Schnitzer (center) and the Phillips Middle Trash Terminators

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