Northside Independent School District, San Antonio TX 78238-1606

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May 14, 2014

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Woods’ KudosStudent places at national competition

Tatiana Benavides, a student at Warren HS, placed third in Essay at the United States Academic Decathlon National Tournament held in Hawaii. Teams from throughout the nation as well as teams from China and London competed at this national competition.

Perfect, times threeZihao Zhu, Clark HS, is one of only 28 students in the world (out of the more than 140,000 students who take the National Latin Exam every year) to have earned three perfect papers. Teacher is William Lee.

NISD students sweep spelling beeNISD students took top awards at the 21st annual San Antonio Spanish Spelling Bee. Sponsored by KWEX-TV, KNIC-TV, and La Prensa newspaper, this event is designed to help students improve their spelling, increase their vocabulary skills, learn concepts, and develop Spanish usage. In the native speaker category, Harumi Rangel from Clark HS placed first, and María Elena Guerra from Brandeis HS placed second. In the non-native category, Tim Pham from Health Careers HS placed first, LaVreese Davis from Taft HS placed second, and Kaushik Koirala from Clark HS placed third.

Solar power keeps teams on track for victory

The sun shined brightly at the 18th annual Texas Solar Race Car Event at Gustafson Stadium, as 252 teams from about 60 elementary schools competed with their solar car creations. The races are a culminating event for 4th and 5th grade students who have been working for weeks designing and building miniature solar-powered cars.

After prelims, quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, eight teams were awarded top honors.

Congratulations to the winning teams. They are Braun Station Red Flash, first place; Cable Lovelies, second place; Cable Turbo Cubs, third place; Cable Super Cubs, fourth place; Forester The A Team, fifth place; Behlau Gummi Bears, sixth place; Linton JANE, seventh place; and McAndrew Speed Demons, eighth place.

Pictured are the top eight winning teams.

Bag Monster speaks to City CouncilGifted and Talented students at Oak Hills Terrace ES are studying the local legislation involving Councilman Cris Medina’s proposed plastic bag ban in San Antonio.

The group attended the May 7 City Council meeting to address the city council members. To emphasize the point, GT teacher Gina Toland dressed up as a Bag Monster in a costume built by the students. To view a news story on their trip to the Council Chambers, click here.

Next year, these GT students will be studying about the dangers that plastic bags pose to the environment and solutions that communities around the world are coming up with to deal with the issue.

Pictured is the Bag Monster (aka Dina Toland) and (from l-r) Graciela Spencer, Thomas Spencer, Daniel Chapa, Kindra Fulcher, and Rion Gayle.

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Brandeis students represent NISD at national competitionAfter sweeping the Regional Science Bowl competition in February, the Brandeis HS Science Bowl Team competed in the National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C. Sixty-eight teams participated in the competition including students from as far away as Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico, representing 3.3 percent of science bowl students across the nation. Pictured with Coach LeAnne Gisler are team members (from l-r) Charles Kennedy, Stephen Chen, Christian Castellanos, Frank Jing, and Pranjal Singh.

Students show knowledge of fairy talesSecond grade students at McAndrew ES showed their knowledge of fairy tales at the school’s first ever Fairy Tale Quiz Bowl.After studying several classic and fractured fairy tale stories, students took a qualifying quiz to test their knowledge of

glass slippers, hungry wolves, and evil witches. Two teams of four were selected from each class and participated in a friendly competition that required quadruple tie-breaker rounds. Helping add to the magical event were buzzers used during the quiz and whimsical props (used for picture taking) that were purchased through a NEF grant.Pictured are students from Victoria Chattin’s class, (from l-r) Luke Munguia, Jake Herrig, Jake Green, and Josh Becker.

Kinder students pamper momsIt was almost time for Mother’s Day so the kindergartners at Steubing ES decided to give their mothers a gift of pampering. While the five year olds may not know a whole lot about applying makeup, styling hair, painting nails, or giving massages, they do know that hugs and smiles go a long way to making mom happy. The sign says it all – “time spent with your child is priceless.” Pictured are Yvette and J.D. Magallan.

Take a book, share a bookThe Stevens HS library has a new object that has become a hit with the students. Thanks to Michael Frantz, architectural

design teacher, there is now a “Little Free Library” housed in the library (pictured).

A Little Free Library is basically a box full of books where students and staff can share their favorite books. Anyone can stop by and pick up a book or two while swapping it for another book to share.

CCA holds Parade of (micro) Homes Are you looking to downsize? Are you in the market for a smaller home? Construction Careers Academy (CCA) may have the perfect solution – albeit a mini one.

CCA, located at Warren HS, is hosting its first Parade of Homes, the results of a building competition among seniors. Five teams of high school students competed to build five fully-functioning micro homes. The homes will be open to the public for viewing on Saturday, May 31, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Each home, roughly 380 square feet in size, can sleep up to two people, has a modern kitchen, full bath, living area, granite counters, a built-in security system, cable, internet and phone connectivity, energy efficient design, and air conditioning and heating. It also has a certificate of occupancy issued by the City of San Antonio Code Compliance.

For pictures and more details on each house, visit their website at http://nisd.net/cca/poh. Upon purchase, the homes will be transported and set up on location at no cost to the purchaser.

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Campus RoundupNISD students advance to national history contestNISD will have a record number of students participating in the National History Day competition this summer. Eighteen students from four schools advanced to the national competition after earning a first or second place win at the Texas State History competition. Students advancing include Kristina De la Garza, Hector Garcia MS; Kirstin Robertson, Andrew Salinero, Kimberly Wilborn, and Reagan Wukasch, Communications Arts HS; Matthew Perz, Tuan Pham, and Nathan Corbin, Brandeis HS; and Bharath Ram, Daniel Noorily, Kevin Zhang, Lekyah Kintada, Harisika Avula, Anita Ghamarian, Roumina Ghamarian, Rimsha Syed, Deepti Surampudi, and Nasriya Witt, Health Careers HS. Click here for a complete list of state winners.

Two schools have secret awardsIn order to continue serving the community, the ALPHA teachers at Rhodes and Behlau elementary schools sponsored a Secret Service Volunteer Award (SSVA). This award was designed to recognize individual ALPHA students who actively support their communities through volunteer service. Students from Rhodes ES sponsored a toy drive benefiting the Methodist Children’s Hospital of San Antonio, collecting 162 new toys. Pictured delivering the toys to hospital representatives are fifth graders Maddie Hoglund, Kristiana Zembrano, and Izumi Vazquez, and third grader Ayumi Vazquez.

Driggers embraces diversity Driggers ES is united in diversity. Military personnel from the Lackland AFB Defense Language Institute participated in Diversity Day, sharing their culture with the entire school. Students used their “passports” to explore the world and visit with guests from Tunisia, Indonesia, Lebanon, Cambodia, and Africa. Pictured are some of the military personnel with Dana Yaklin, art teacher and Ines Montero, GT teacher.

Park provides special learning opportunitiesBoth ALE and GT students (pictured) from Jordan MS received a special learning experience while visiting Morgan’s Wonderland. Lessons learned included the four stages of a butterfly, the movement of water upstream, downstream, and at blockages, how to fish, and how everyone is different but can still be friends. The experience was made possible by a grant from Morgan’s Wonderland, written by GT Teacher Monica Pohovich.

Mead receives bunch of booksThanks to a generous donation, each student at Mead ES received a book of their very own. At the recent Scholastic Book Fair on campus, students were able to pick out a book to take home to enjoy. Pictured are some kindergartners with their new prized possessions.

The STAAR can be very sweetIn an effort to ease the worries of the third graders at Carlos Coon ES, teachers decided to use candy to combat the issue. The teachers decorated the school using the themes “STAARBurst the test,” “We will ‘Dot’ our I’s and Cross our T’s,” “We will Blow Out the STAAR,” and “During STAAR Day we will glide past the Milky Way.” As an added bonus and “food for thought,” no junk food-just brain food was consumed even though smarties, dots, blow pops, starbursts, milky ways, and crunch bars can be tempting. Pictured “outsmarting” the STAAR are (from l-r, front row) Chassidy Sandoval, Briana Mejia, Joshua Stolte, Jacob Gomez, and Julian Ramirez; (middle row) Joshlyn Yarrito, Angie Faz, Trey Springs, Kaelyn Duckfield, Elizabeth Wilson, Jacob Cook, and Skyler Guevara; and (back row) Thomas Martinez, Ashlynn Hubbard, Edith Martinez, Ilianna Rodriguez, Ms. Susie Talboys, Ashton Burris, and Isiah Garza.

The NEF Prize Patrol visited 27 schools and presented NEF Team and Innovation Grants totaling about $160,000!

WOW! Summer camp specialLuv-n-Care Child Development Centers are now enrolling students, ages 5 to 12, for their summer camp program taking place June 9 through Aug. 22. The camp includes field trips, swim lessons and on-site swimming, arts and crafts, cooking projects, and more. NISD employees can receive a 15 percent tuition discount (excludes camp activity fee). For more information and locations, visit http://www.luvncarecenters.

OF THE WEEK