Seth Haffrey surprised mom Julie CiFuentes, ELL teacher at Merrill, earlier this month with his first visit home from a 6-month tour in Aghanistan.

Ronald McDonald visited 4K students at Merrill earlier this month to give out books, a partnership of the Bucciferro family McDonalds restaurants and Turtle Creek Bookstore.

Attached is a picture of Advia Credit Union representatives giving our district a check for $2132 to go towards the Grow Your Own Scholarship program that will begin shortly.  The scholarship goes to students of color who are BMHS graduates pursuing a teaching degree and agree to come back to Beloit to teach.  The donation is made up of "points" Advia members accrue and then designate to the non-profit of their choice.

Pictured L to R:  Tasha Bell (Equity Coordinator), Todd Cabelka (Executive Director of Personnel), Dorothy Harrell (Grow Your Own Committee), Joann Nupnau (Advia Teller), and Tim Remy (Advia Branch Manager).

Children's Author Bob Kann visits with students at Burdge Elementary School.  (Photo submitted by Lynella Holmes.)

Dr. Salzman has a rich background of experience that will help her lead the flagship of the district.  She comes most recently from Sun Prairie, serving as that district's Director of Teaching, Learning and Equity.  Before that, she served as the high school principal in Elkhorn, where she helped grow the Advanced Placement program into one earning honor roll status from the National College Board.  While in Elkhorn, she also helped implement Project Lead the Way programming, increased the number of business education partnerships and grew the number of career and technical education course offerings.

The Boys Varsity Swim Team also received recognition, earning the Silver Award with a team GPA of 3.716 (a GPA of 3.5 is needed to earn this award).   This is the eighth year in a row that the boys' team has received a National Academic Award, and the fourth year in a row in receiving the Silver Award.

In addition, eight swimmers earned the WISCA Academic All-State (requires GPA of at least 3.5 for 7 semesters) and NISCA All-American (requires GPA of 3.75 for 7 semesters):

• Women - Savannah Cain, Megan Corum, Margaret Locke, Morgan Makinen, Diane Meason, Katherine Zibert
• Men - Morgan Poepping, Caleb Schober

This year's clinicians include: Dr. Charles Rochester Young, an award-winning composer; Mark Leiser, Sinfonietta Conductor for the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra (WYSO), and Brendan Caldwell, Associate Professor and Director of Bands at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

The Beloit Community is invited to hear a free concert by the BMHS Orchestra on Monday, March 31, 2014, at 7 p.m., at Beloit Memorial High School, 1225 Fourth Street.  Pieces to be performed range from classical Mozart to edgy Led Zepplin.  

A committee is already making plans to develop a plan that all schools will participate in, including age-appropriate curriculum pieces and celebrations.  The community is invited to take part in the Day On, by serving as speakers, working in the classrooms and providing service projects for students to lend their talents to.  We will soon have a website on the community area of our website for those interested in participating to share ideas.