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Hillsboro High School Teacher Wins National Honor
Christian Sawyer, a Social Studies and English teacher at Hillsboro High School, has been named the National Secondary Social Studies Teacher of the Year for 2006 by the National Council for the Social Studies.
The award is presented annually to teachers who demonstrate exceptional abilities including: developing or using instructional materials creatively and effectively; incorporating innovative instructional strategies; demonstrating the ability to foster a spirit of inquiry; and encouraging the development of democratic beliefs, values, and skills needed to become effective citizens.
As part of the award process, Sawyer spoke at the Dec. 1 NCSS annual conference and shared his successful teaching methods with other delegates. Nearly 5,000 social studies professionals attended this year's conference, the largest gathering of social studies educators in the country.
“The most meaningful part of this award is the level of support and encouragement I have
received from our community,” Sawyer said. “My students also deserve much credit, as their
work played an integral role in achieving this recognition.”
Sawyer, who was also named the Tennessee Outstanding Social Studies Teacher of the
Year for 2006, has a Bachelor of Arts degree with highest distinction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNC, he was in the honors program majoring in political science with emphasis in economics and was elected to membership in the Phi Beta Kappa society. He received a Master's of Education degree from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University with teaching certifications in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Stratford Teacher To Be Honored Guest Of Japan
Stratford High School teacher Jennifer L. Berry-Rickert went to Tokyo this year to be a participant in the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund (JFMF) Teacher Program. She was selected from a national pool of nearly 2,300 applicants by a panel of educators to earn this honor.
The Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund, based in Tokyo, oversees all aspects of the Teacher Program. It is sponsored by the Government of Japan and was launched in 1997 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. government Fulbright Program, which has enabled more than 6,000 Japanese citizens to study in the U.S. on Fulbright fellowships for graduate education and research. The Institute of International Education acts as the agency for the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund to coordinate the recruitment and pre-departure activities of the Teacher Program in the United States.
To date, more than 5,200 primary and secondary educators have visited Japan through the JFMF Teacher Program. Upon their return, program participants share what they have learned about Japan with their students and communities through a variety of outreach projects..
MNPS Call Out System Providing More Information To Parents
During its first two months of use, the new MNPS parental call out system sent out more than 400,000 telephone messages on a range of topics, including parent meetings, student absences, report cards, emergency situations and other subjects.
“We’re very pleased with the positive responses we’ve received from parents about this new system,” said MNPS Director Pedro E. Garcia, Ed. D. “Many of our principals are reporting increased attendance at parent meetings and greater participation in school events. They are also reporting the attendance function is functioning well, letting parents know quickly if a child is not school. We’ve only had to use the system for urgent communications twice, to provide information about a bus accident and a school lockdown, but in both cases that component of the system also worked well.”
The new system allows telephone messages to be sent rapidly by the central office or by individual schools. The delivery system can be tailored to deliver messages to groups of parents in any number of ways – ranging from every parent in the district to just a few parents at any one school. Messages can also be delivered to multiple telephones of any parent, including home, work, cells, family members and others.
Metro Schools breaks ground on new Cane Ridge High
Construction on Metro Schools’ new Cane Ridge High School officially began in November with a groundbreaking ceremony held at the school’s 50-plus acre site at 12814 Old Hickory boulevard.
Scheduled to open Fall 2008, the new high school will help alleviate overcrowding in the Antioch cluster, which continues to see tremendous residential growth in the area it serves. Cane Ridge, designed by architects from Nashville’s Gould Turner Group, will have a capacity of 2,000 students and will contain 41 classrooms, 16 science labs, six career and technology rooms, a complete administration suite, a 600-seat auditorium and a 2,000-seat gymnasium. Other unique features of the school will be a “Cyber Café” with direct access to the main dining room, graphic arts classrooms and studios and an outdoor sculpture court. The building itself will include 309,512 square feet and will be constructed using materials and systems that incorporate energy conservation and environmental protection – following current Green Building and LEED components.
“Antioch has needed this high school for quite some time,” said Pedro E. Garcia, Ed.D., Director of Schools. “We are excited about the positive impact this school will have on the lives of its students and this community and look forward to the day when we are dedicating the new building into service.”
Third Grade Reading Skills Improve Dramatically
89% of Metro public school third-graders are reading at or above grade level-- up from 49% in 2001. This score is higher than the benchmark required for 2010 by No Child Left Behind.
Head Start Teachers and Children Have "head start" on Their Peers
86% of Metro Action Commission's Head Start teachers have either a bachelor or master's degree in early childhood education compared with 42% of Head Start teachers nationally. Children in MAC's Head Start classrooms scored higher overall on the National Reporting System Assessment than their peers across the nation showing specific cognitive gains in vocabulary, early math and letter recognition.