The Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce, the business community and educational supporters gathered to toast innovative and remarkable educational programs in Carlsbad schools at the annual Outstanding Educational Program Awards Dinner.
More than 200 people attended the awards ceremony, held Friday, May 17 at the La Costa Resort and Spa. Winners were announced in four
categories: The Arts, Entrepreneurial Program, Innovative Program and Science Program. This year's winners are:
The Arts Category
The Bully Plays
Calavera Hills Middle School
Lead teachers: Judi Stapleton
and Teanna Evans
The program enlists students to write essays about the topic of bullying. Full theatrical performances are created from the submissions and these short skits are performed during homeroom classes for all of the students. The program aims to show students the roots of bullying, its psychological results and how bystanders can intervene to stop it. The program concludes with The Great Kindness Challenge, in which students are challenged to perform as many good deeds as they can during a time period.
Entrepreneurial Category
Math Madness, Inc.
Calavera Hills Middle School
Lead teacher: Kirk VanWagoner
The program created a special class period called Math Support and hired a special teacher to tackle homework, skills practice and studying/test preparation. In tandem, the entire middle school staff facilitated math fact practice during the homeroom or "advisory" class. There were friendly math fact speed drills and short videos created to re-memorize basic math facts. When students struggled with their facts, the complicated formulas were impossible. Students, who now had the facts handy, could apply formulas and get the correct answers without being slowed down by trying to figure out the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Innovative Category
Pac Rim Mentor Program
Pacific Rim Elementary School
Lead teacher: Anne Uber
The Pac Rim Mentor Program is a student and teacher created and implemented innovative program where fourth- and fifth-grade student leaders assist younger students during their free time at morning or lunch recess.
Each week, 40 students spend one of their morning recesses or lunch recesses in a kindergarten or first grade classroom assisting the teachers with their students in Language Arts and/or Math. These mentors help students with literacy by reading one-on-one with them from their textbooks and then asking them comprehension questions that the teacher provides. The mentors also assist students who need greater support with math concepts that are being learned during whole group instruction.
Science Category
Future Visionaries:
Eye Discovery Lab
Jefferson Elementary School
Lead teachers: Shelley Thomas, Kate Alva, Amy Jensen, Rae Merritt and Karen Stencil.
The program gives third graders a hands-on, experiential learning lab to explore scientific concepts of light and color. Each student recorded his or her findings from the experiments in their inquiry journal. Over the course of a few weeks, specialized material (prisms, flashlights, lasers, eye models) were shared among the classrooms.
All experiments led to The Future Visionaries Eye Discovery Lab, a daylong lab that included cow eye dissection, the construction of a simple spectrascope, using "invisible ink" and flouro paints, and chromatography experiments.
More than 200 people attended the awards ceremony, held Friday, May 17 at the La Costa Resort and Spa. Winners were announced in four
categories: The Arts, Entrepreneurial Program, Innovative Program and Science Program. This year's winners are:
The Arts Category
The Bully Plays
Calavera Hills Middle School
Lead teachers: Judi Stapleton
and Teanna Evans
The program enlists students to write essays about the topic of bullying. Full theatrical performances are created from the submissions and these short skits are performed during homeroom classes for all of the students. The program aims to show students the roots of bullying, its psychological results and how bystanders can intervene to stop it. The program concludes with The Great Kindness Challenge, in which students are challenged to perform as many good deeds as they can during a time period.
Entrepreneurial Category
Math Madness, Inc.
Calavera Hills Middle School
Lead teacher: Kirk VanWagoner
The program created a special class period called Math Support and hired a special teacher to tackle homework, skills practice and studying/test preparation. In tandem, the entire middle school staff facilitated math fact practice during the homeroom or "advisory" class. There were friendly math fact speed drills and short videos created to re-memorize basic math facts. When students struggled with their facts, the complicated formulas were impossible. Students, who now had the facts handy, could apply formulas and get the correct answers without being slowed down by trying to figure out the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Innovative Category
Pac Rim Mentor Program
Pacific Rim Elementary School
Lead teacher: Anne Uber
The Pac Rim Mentor Program is a student and teacher created and implemented innovative program where fourth- and fifth-grade student leaders assist younger students during their free time at morning or lunch recess.
Each week, 40 students spend one of their morning recesses or lunch recesses in a kindergarten or first grade classroom assisting the teachers with their students in Language Arts and/or Math. These mentors help students with literacy by reading one-on-one with them from their textbooks and then asking them comprehension questions that the teacher provides. The mentors also assist students who need greater support with math concepts that are being learned during whole group instruction.
Science Category
Future Visionaries:
Eye Discovery Lab
Jefferson Elementary School
Lead teachers: Shelley Thomas, Kate Alva, Amy Jensen, Rae Merritt and Karen Stencil.
The program gives third graders a hands-on, experiential learning lab to explore scientific concepts of light and color. Each student recorded his or her findings from the experiments in their inquiry journal. Over the course of a few weeks, specialized material (prisms, flashlights, lasers, eye models) were shared among the classrooms.
All experiments led to The Future Visionaries Eye Discovery Lab, a daylong lab that included cow eye dissection, the construction of a simple spectrascope, using "invisible ink" and flouro paints, and chromatography experiments.