Leon County Schools’ students excelled at the State History Fair with seven students or groups recognized in the top three in the main categories and three more students or groups earning the top honor in the Special Prize categories. Additionally, two Lincoln students won the Outstanding County Award for Leon County. First and second place finishers will advance to the National History Fair in June.

Here are the complete statewide results- http://www.floridahistoryfair.com/awards/statewinners.cfm

Native American Heritage Award

NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE AWARD
Sponsored by the The Florida Governor’s Council on Indian Affairs, Inc.
McCall Chapin, Lily Sweet King
Secret Words, Secret Warriors: How the Navajo Code Talkers Helped Win World War II
Junior Group Documentary
Fairview Middle School (Leon)
Teacher: Amise Manuel, Karen Study

SCIENCE HERITAGE AWARD
Sponsored by the The Tallahassee Scientific Society
Creed King, Kate Powell, Townsend Porcher
The Eradication of the Hookworm in the American South
Junior Group Exhibit
Fairview Middle School (Leon)
Teacher: Amise Manuel, Karen Study

WORLD WAR II HERITAGE AWARD
Sponsored by the Florida State University’s Institute for World War II and the Human Experience
Cannon Haworth
D-Day: The Decision to Go on June 6th
Junior Individual Performance
Fairview Middle School (Leon)
Teacher: Amise Manuel, Karen Study

JUNIOR HISTORICAL PAPER

2nd Place Adrianna Williams
Henrietta’s Immortality: How One Woman’s Cells Shaped Medical History
Swift Creek Middle School (Leon)
Teacher: Stephen Veliz

SENIOR HISTORICAL PAPER

2nd Place Rachel Joyner
Age of Antibiotics: The Transformation of Medicine and the Subsequent Arms Race Between Man and Microbe
Leon High School (Leon)
Teacher: Lewis Tillman

JUNIOR INDIVIDUAL DOCUMENTARY

3rd Place Cattie Li
38th Parallel: The Dividing of a Nation
Deerlake Middle School (Leon)
Teacher: Gretchen Bertram

SENIOR GROUP PERFORMANCE

3rd Place Joshua Buchanan, Joseph Thyer
Martin Luther and the Sale of Indulgences
Lincoln High School (Leon)
Teacher: Craig Ross

SENIOR INDIVIDUAL EXHIBIT

1st Place Sarah Brooks
Ancient Language, Modern Warfare: The Secret Mission of the Navajo Code Talkers
Lincoln High School (Leon)
Teacher: Nick Bertram

3rd Place Breanna Bruner
All Aboard to Florida! The Grand Hotels of the Two Henrys
Lincoln High School (Leon)
Teachers: BillieAnne Gay, Nick Bertram

OUTSTANDING COUNTY AWARD
Lincoln High Kayley Erickson and Emma Raymaker

The Leon Schools community joined together to help Operation Stand Down. The Stand Down was an event to help the 180 homeless veterans in the Leon County area. Schools raised awareness, recruited volunteers, and took in donations and money to help the cause. Dr. Pam Higtower, Canopy Oaks, Sealey, Ft. Braden, Gilchrist, Montford, DeSoto Trail, Apalachee and many others went above and beyond in their assistance. For more information visit www.NorthFloridaStandDown.org.

My son, Logan, a 6th grader at RAA, can’t stop talking about meeting Anquan Boldin, who was instrumental in the Baltimore Ravens’ Super Bowl win this year. Coincidentally, I taught Anquan when I was a professor at Florida State University. He was a student in my Introduction to African American Literature Class, and recognized me right away.

My youngest, Kalen, was front and center at the Story Time station. After listening attentively to President Obama read Chick-a-Chicka Boom Boom,she and her best friend, Camille, whose family joined us, scurried over to the Easter Egg Roll station to participate in the traditional competition of rolling eggs with a wooden stick to the finish line.

Chanta M. Haywood, Ph.D.

Superintendent Pons hosted a Community Conversation at Godby High School along side of Senator Bill Montford, Tallahassee Community College President Dr. Jim Murdaugh and Florida Chamber of Commerce President Mark Wilson. Watch the video for more information.

Conley Elementary unveiled a statue built in cooperation with their students and local artist Bradley Cooley. Clay the statue was produced through a grant from the Foundation for Leon Schools. Watch the video for more information about this amazing project.

Congratulations to Principal Joe Burgess and the Chiles High School Brain Bowl Team for winning the 2013 Big Bend High School Brain Bowl yesterday. The field of competition included 36 teams and resulted in a final match between our own Chiles High School and Bainbridge High School of Bainbridge, Georgia. The Timberwolves team included: Wayne Zhao (Captain), Hannah Williams, Jeremy Jones, Kenneth Zhou, Nick Yang, and Jeffrey Zhu. The team’s sponsor is Andrew Shoenberger.

New to running? Don’t get discouraged if you can’t keep up with friends. What’s more important than speed is consistency. Research suggests that people who pound the pavement (or treadmill) for at least an hour per week increase their life expectancy. The study, which followed 20,000 people for up to 35 years, found that running at a slow pace for one to two and half hours per week brought the biggest benefits. Male joggers lived 6.2 years longer, while women lived 5.6 years longer. When setting your pace, you want to get your heart rate up and challenge your muscles (including your heart). To do so, aim to be just slightly breathless, but still able to talk. Don’t work so hard that you are gasping for air.

The Council on Culture and Arts (COCA), the local arts agency, invites math, science, social studies, language arts, foreign language and arts teachers to explore COCA for the Classroom, an arts in education directory. This guide gives teachers an in-depth look at the arts in education programs (many of which are FREE) in Tallahassee, Leon County, and the surrounding areas. This resource is available online and can be filtered by artistic discipline, grade level and program type making it easy for teachers to navigate and use. We hope you will use this information to enhance your regular classroom programming through supplemental arts and cultural partnerships in the region.

For more information visit: http://cocasite.squarespace.com/classroom/

COCA for Kids!
Do you have a budding Mozart or a wanna-be Fred Astaire? Is your child always covered in marker and swiping paper from your printer? Do you have bored but creative little ones who need something to do for the afternoon? COCA for Kids includes an incredible array of arts experiences for toddlers to teens to participate in. From piano to stagecraft, painting to ballet, your kids will have no shortage of things to keep their hands and minds busy.

COCA for Kids, located at www.cocanet.org/kids, highlights more than 60 organizations and individual providers offering more than 150 after-school and weekend programs, individual lessons, camps, and birthday parties – all focused on dance, theatre, music, visual art, history and more.

STUDENT ASTRONAUT CHALLENGE ANNOUNCES WINNING
TEAM OF SECOND ANNUAL COMPETITION
– Statewide program brings attention to Florida’s STEM initiatives –
Tallahassee, Fla., March 11, 2013 – The Chiles High School team from Tallahassee is the winner of the 2013 Florida Student Astronaut Challenge. The Florida Department of Education, in partnership with Florida State University Schools, NASA, Flightline Group, Inc., Florida Engineering Foundation, Inc., Coaxis International, and the Tallahassee Automobile Museum, hosted the second annual Florida Student Astronaut Challenge Friday, March 8-10, 2013, in Tallahassee.
High school students from across the state participated in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics or STEM-focused competition designed to test their knowledge of space-shuttle operations, engineering, launch, orbit, and landing of the Space Shuttle “Enterprise” flight simulator.
“This program provides an excellent opportunity to recognize the talents of STEM students across the state,” said Public Schools Chancellor Pam Stewart. “As a former high school principal, I know how students and their teachers welcome challenges that call for extraordinary creativity, effort, and team work. Setting the bar high for our students in STEM programs will help Florida’s students compete for jobs in the 21st century.”
This year the Florida Student Astronaut Challenge received 350-percent more team applications, with nearly 200 students from 30 schools in southern, central, and northern Florida competing at the regional qualifier. Regional qualifier events consisted of a written examination based on reference material supplied by the competition and supervised and administered by the Florida Department of Education. A panel of experts in the field of science and science education evaluated the proposals and selected the top teams, and last year’s challenge winner – Pompano Beach High School – to travel to Tallahassee to compete in the 2013 finals. Six teams competed for this year’s top spot.
Each of the six teams received tickets to Universal Studios-Orlando and an invitation to tour the Kennedy Space Center and meet an astronaut. In addition, Chiles High School received special recognition and medals at Sunday’s awards ceremony and an automatic entry into next year’s competition.
For more information about the competition, visit Student Astronaut Challenge.

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Here is a video about the 2013 Capital Regional Science and Engineering Fair. You can see the winners here: http://www.lcsnews.com/?p=860

Raa Middle was in the Superintendent’s Spotlight at the February 26th School Board Meeting. Watch the video to learn about how their students partnered with State Representative Alan Williams to draft real legislation…

Thank you to our participating artists:

Debbie Brienen…………………………………………….Acrylics

Randy Brienen……………………………………………..Acrylics

Karen Heijkoop…..…………………………….….Mixed Media

Mike Hogan…………………………………………..……Drawings

Paul Houzell……………………………………..…………………Oils

Bill McKeown……………………….…………………Watercolors

Kenneth Reshard……………………………….Silk Screen/Oils

Eluster Richardson………………….………Watercolor & Oils

Al Williams…………………………………………………….…….Oils

Tah Williams………………………………………….………Acrylics

Harris Wiltsher……….……………………………..Mixed media

Superintendent Pons met with school principals and his leadership team via conference call to discuss operational changes due to the inclement weather.

Outdoor extra-curricular activities this afternoon have been canceled.

The Superintendent has requested and received approval from the Florida Department of Education for an extension of the FCAT re-take days to include Wednesday and Thursday.

Schools will be flexible in excusing weather related absences.

For more information on bus routes located in low lying areas, parents are asked to call the transportation department at 488-2636.

The District Security Center will continue to monitor the weather and communicate with our local partners for the duration of this weather event.

The honorees are:

Nicole Green, Teacher – Apalachee Elementary School

Dr. Marsha Glover-Sanders, Principal – Astoria Park Elementary School

Dr. Christopher Small, Principal – Springwood Elementary School

Jesse Forbes, Teacher – Amos P. Godby High School

Jameeka Wallace, Assistant Principal – The Success Academy

Final interviews will take place March 4.

Learn about how middle school students at Griffin Middle are earning industry certifications putting them on the fast track towards getting jobs in the future.