Great News from Seattle Schools

From SPS:
  • Officials of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced that two Seattle Public Schools students – Tara N. Conley, The Center School; and Derek B. Gasaway, Garfield High School – are among the winners for college-sponsored scholarships. 
  • South Lake High School teacher Web Hutchins received the state’s top honor for civic education - the Civic Educator of the Year award. Hutchins was nominated for the award by State Representative Eric Pettigrew (D-Seattle).
Hutchins’ Civics for All Initiative is under consideration by the School District and has been introduced in Olympia, as well as to teachers and civic leaders in Seattle.
  • Cuauhtemoc (Moc) Escobedo, band director at Eckstein Middle School, has been announced as a quarterfinalist for the first-ever Music Educator Award presented jointly by the Recording Academy and the Grammy Foundation.  
Escobedo is an award-winning band director for Eckstein – leading students in numerous music and festival competitions. He was recognized in 2006 with the Stanley O. McNaughton Golden Apple Award, the highest award of the KCTS Golden Apple Awards, which honor excellence in education.

The nine finalists will receive a $1,000 honorarium, and the schools of all 10 finalists also will receive matching grants.

The Music Educator Award was established to recognize current educators (kindergarten through college, public and private schools) who have made a significant and lasting contribution to the field of music education and who demonstrate a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in the schools.
  • From the My Ballard blog: Loyal Heights Elementary School first-grade teacher Patricia Magnusson was recently recognized for her outstanding teaching. She’s been selected as one of 24 “Symetra Heroes in the Classroom” during the 2012 NFL season, and was honored at a special celebration at Century Link Field.
The Symetra Heroes in the Classroom awards have been given out since 2006 in the Puget Sound Area. Each teacher received a $350 gift card to Office Max for classroom supplies and tickets to a Seahawks home game. Symetra also makes a $1,000 donation to each teacher’s school. To learn more about the awards or to nominate a teacher, click here.

Note: 

Web Hutchins has also been working hard to bring mock elections to K-12 students via county/state channels and more details on that are coming soon. 

A lot of this work, though, is in danger because of the emphasis on the coming Common Core standards.  We all need to stand up to any narrowing of curriculum.

Congrats to all these great students and educators!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi, thanks for this information this helps! I was also wondering if you could help me I don't know if you can help or if this is the right place but I've been looking in to private education in Seattle and wondering if there were any good private schools as opposed to public schools, do you know of any good places?
6/11/13, 2:32 PM
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