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| Jan. 27, 2010 |
News from Reaching Heights
Sharing our Passion for Excellent Public Education |
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Greetings!
To all who helped make our 2009 Annual Fund drive a success, thank you! We raised $40,500, exceeding our goal by $6,000, due to the generosity of our 450 members. Thank you all!
As the second half of the school year gets underway, those dollars are at work across our community. Fourteen teams of teachers are putting ideas for improving instruction into practice with the help of School Team Grants from Reaching Heights, 27 students are honing their musical skills thanks to our private music lesson scholarship program, and every week, tutors are providing more than 200 hours of focused instructional help through our Many Villages academic tutoring program.
Successful public schools are crucial to healthy communities. As you can see from the items below, there's much to be proud of in our Heights schools. Thank you for being part of their - and our - success.
Patrick Mullen
Executive Director
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Welcome New Reaching Heights Trustees! |
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Reaching Heights welcomes four new member of our Board of Trustees, elected at our 2009 Annual Meeting last month for three-year terms:
Trustees elected our slate officers for 2010: Suzanne Wilkins, president; Saroya Queen-Tabor, vice president; Cathy Carter, treasurer; and Leslie Myrick, secretary. Many thanks to our outgoing trustees, Joyce Collins, Deanne Lentz, and Kim Wheeler. |
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Upcoming Dates to Remember |
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Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District Superintendent Doug Heuer will make his first State of the Schools presentation Thursday, Feb. 4 at 7 PM, in the Cleveland Heights High School Social Room.
- Heights High Instrumental Music Concerts, Feb. 3 and Feb. 5, 7:30 p.m., Auditorium
February 5: Instrumental Music Concert II, 7:30 p.m., Auditorium
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19th Annual Reaching Heights Spelling Bee, 7 PM, Wed., April 21, Cleveland Heights High School. Since 1992, the Bee has raised more than a quarter million dollars to provide grants to teachers in the CH-UH schools. Read more about the Bee here.
- Sixth Annual Heights Summer Music Camp, Wiley Middle School, June 21-26. Space for this intense and extremely fun one-week camp is limited to 85 students in grades 5-8. To see photos from last year's camp and the 2009 finale concert program, click here.
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Roxboro Students Learn About Chinese Culture |
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First graders at Roxboro Elementary say ni hao (hello) and zai jian (good bye) when entering and leaving their classrooms. They raise their hands enthusiastically, eager to respond with Shi! (yes) or Bu shi! (no). Roxboro Elementary kindergarten and 1st grade students are part of a district-wide initiative - they receive Chinese language and culture instruction four times a week.
Instructor Grace Chen comes to the CH-UH district from Olmstead Falls, where she taught Chinese for eight years. She is excited to join the district, and says the staff and community members have been extremely welcoming and supportive. Ms. Chen knows her young students are visual learners. They enjoy seeing pictures of Chinese families, and imagining how a typical school-age boy or girl in China would go about their day. She also incorporates physical movement into the lessons. "Young children like to get up and sing songs and have fun," Ms. Chen says.
The program is a five-year plan designed to follow these same students throughout their elementary career, while gradually expanding instruction to include all six grade levels. Though the program is still in its early stages, Principal Tara Grove is enthusiastic about the possibilities. "Exposure to Chinese language and culture could open many doors for our children," She said.
Roxboro is one of three schools in Ohio to receive a Foreign Language Assistance Program Grant, FLAP, a federal grant to support cultural enrichment in the schools. Ms. Chen recently received a grant from the Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University that will provide classroom resources, including technology.
By Sarah Webster
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Gearity's Wester is Ohio's Teacher of the Year! |
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Gearity third-grade teacher Natalie Wester has been named the 2010 Ohio Teacher of the Year by the Ohio Department of Education (ODE).
"Natalie, our 2010 Teacher of the Year, excels at giving every student a strong foundation, recognizing hidden potential and guiding students to find excellence within," said Ohio Superintendent Deborah Delisle.
In addition to teaching a third-grade class, Wester has served as a data liaison and been active in the professional learning community. She also has presented at the Model Schools Conference at the International Center for Leadership in Education. Last year, Gearity was selected as one of only eight elementary schools nationwide to be named a Model School by the center, in part due to Wester's efforts.
"Believing in children, empowering them, and exciting and engaging them by stimulating their imaginations are key to my teaching philosophy," Wester said. Click here to read more. |
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More Instructional Time Coming to Elementary Schools |
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The Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District and Cleveland Heights Teachers Union are anaylzing and possibly revising a district proposal to extend the elementary school instructional day by 25 minutes. Instead of ending at 3:05 PM on Monday and Wednesday-Friday, the school day would end at 3:30 p.m. Early dismissal on Tuesdays at 2:05 PM would continue under the original proposal.
"The fact is, our district has a significantly shorter school daythan the nearby districts recently surveyed," Superintendent Douglas Heuer said. "We don't have enough time devoted to instruction. This puts our students and teachers at a disadvantage."
Students in K-3 classes currently spend five hours a day in instructional time. Fourth and fifth graders spend five hours and 15 minutes every day in instructional time. Nearby school districts spend anywhere from 15 minutes to more than a full hour longer than the CH-UH elementary day. That time adds up to 10,000 minutes in a school year.
Sally Levine, director of elementary education said, "Adding the 25 minutes will result in an additional two hours of teacher/student instructional time every week. We have studied this carefully in order to ensure that a decision is made based on the best available data."
Following a discussion of the proposal earlier this month at a school board meeting, the CH-UH Board of Education supported the Superintendent's decision to implement the change at the beginning of the 2010-2011 school year.
"A clear case has been made. In order to improve achievement levels, this has to happen. However, we are aware that a sudden schedule change will impact families," Kal Zucker, board president.
"The longer we wait, the more minutes of instructional time we lose. We want to make the best possible decision for our families and our community, so we will ask families to help us determine the best time to implement," said Superintendent Heuer.
Of the slightly more than half of the district's elementary families who participated in a telephone poll, about two-thirds preferred changing the instructional day this school year, rather than making the change in August. |
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Where Are They Now? Q&A With a Recent Heights High Grad |
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With
Damara Davis,
CHHS '07 |
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Damara Davis attended Noble Elementary School and Monticello Middle School before graduating from Cleveland Heights High School in 2007. She's now a junior at Youngstown State University. She spoke recently with Reaching Heights for a story that ran in our Noble-Oxford Neighborhood Newsletter.
What's your major?
Psychology.
How about your dream job after graduation?
I want to be a therapist or counselor, but I'd also love to be involved with a non-profit that works for animal welfare.
Do you have a favorite memory or two from Noble Elementary?
I loved my kindergarten and second grade teachers. And I remember enjoying show 'n' tell, because we were allowed to bring in pets! Art and music were really fun.
What did you learn at Heights High that prepared you for college?
I took AP classes and got used to working hard. In fact, in some ways college is easier, because the work load is more spread out. The diversity of Heights gave me the ability to talk to all kinds of people, from different cultures, with different points of view. Talking to other Youngstown students about their high school experiences, I've discovered how much Heights offered. People are surprised when I describe things like AFS, all the sports, and the music program. That wide range of activities taught me how to find things I want to do.
What did you enjoy most at Heights?
I loved the music program. I was in Singers and Choir. I also especially loved one of my English classes, where we had good discussions, and expressed ourselves in different media, including video and writing. And I was a swimmer. That was hard work. We were always so hungry!
What advice would you give current Heights High students?
Oh wow, don't be lazy! College seems far away, but it's not. Think about your grades, and start looking at schools early. Be your own person. Don't try to be someone you're not, just to make other people like you. Heights is big-make that bigness work for you. |
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CH-UH a Model of 21st-Century Learning, Report Finds |
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The Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District was recognized as a model for providing students with 21st Century skills. The Hanover Research Council recently released a report profiling 15 public school districts from across the country and two independent high schools in Ohio, all identified as providing students with 21st Century skills. You can watch a story that ran on WEWS, Newschannel 5, on the district's website, here. | |
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