June 1, 2005

School Scenes

Bagby School holds Enrichment Day

What do horses and police officers, bags of icing with cookies and cupcakes, a cameraman from the local NBC station, karate, smoothies and painted lanterns have in common? These are just a few of the activities on campus for Bagby Elementary School’s annual Enrichment Day.

Watching and learning about television cameras are Colleen Yi, 8 years in the third grade, Christian Aguaristi, 10 in the fifth grade, Robbie Lacomble, 9 in third grade, Joe Grandia, 10 in the fourth grade and Katy Drennan, 10 in the fourth grade. Walter Colby from NBC 11 is holding the camera.

The program, in its tenth year, offers students an afternoon of learning about things other than history, reading, math and geography. It brings together parents, teachers and community members to teach different activities such as cake decorating and smoothie making as well as community members with their work, for examples, the NBC cameraman and the police officers from the mounted division along with their horses.

Sponsored by the Home and School Club, which organizes the event—this year under direction of parent Lisa McFarland—the students sign up to attend two of the more than 20 activities. One of those was cookie decorating.

Children were given icing tubes filled with colored frosting and a paper to practice on. Once they had completed their practices with the different tips, they could decorate a cookie and a cupcake.

Another activity was to learn how to make smoothies. This was run by the aunt of a couple of students, who also attended Bagby from kindergarten through sixth grade. Denise Phipps, vice president and sales director of fun for Blendz in Campbell, came with fruit and blenders to teach the children to make smoothies.

First and second graders paint Chinese lanterns. From the left are Rachel Taylor, 7 years in first grade; Lejla Gerin, also 7 in second grade, Kendra Dowski, 8 years old in second grade and Destine Alvarez, 7 in the second grade.

“I have to tell you, I was so pleasantly surprised and pleased with all the students in my workshop,” she said. “It was a fantastic day that rejuvenated me and brought me back to the basics. The students were all so attentive, polite and anxious to learn about the benefits of eating fruit and making it a part of their everyday diet. I was thrilled to learn that a good percentage of them had an understanding of nutrition and what the food pyramid means.”

In the martial arts class, children first learned how to answer or not to answer the door when they didn’t know the person, no matter how friendly or nice they seemed. From there it was on to strategic moves. At another event, Walter Colby, a photographer for NBC Channel 11, showed students how his camera worked.

It was obviously a fun day for all and not just because it got the students out of class. Everyone had smiles and behaved so well. It was fun to watch, see you all next year.

Sculpture merges with oils, acrylics and charcoal at Willow Glen High School’s sixth annual Fine Arts Festival. Among those displaying their work were the school’s 2004-05 valedictorians Thanh-Ngoc Le and Angela Nguyen.

Willow Glen High holds sixth annual fine arts festival
 
Willow Glen High School held its sixth annual Fine Arts Festival at the end of May in the Art Building on campus, near the corner of Cottle and Dry Creek. The school also hosted its third annual “Freshman Welcome” open house that night.

The work that the art students have created is always impressive. In fact, some of the student work has been on display at The Grapevine in downtown Willow Glen. 

A large number of students’ work was on display. The show included drawings, photographs, paintings, sculpture, computer graphics and more. The enthusiastic and talented art teachers—Jef Wind, Eric Stachnick, Stan Cacitti and Sandra Holland—have really helped Willow Glen students develop their artistic talents. As a result, a number of local students have gone on to pursue college degrees and careers in art and art related subjects such as architecture.

Leigh High School announces valedictorians

Leigh High School announced its list of valedictorians for the 2004-05 school year in May. All students achieved a 4.0 grade point or higher throughout their high school career. Those students are: Sami Alayoubi, Yasma Alkoraishi, Sean Andersohn, Moran Arad, Jason Awe, Michelle Cheng, Monika Curic, Nick Ellinwood, Erin Guldiken, Reid Hironaga, Doreen Hoang, Vanessa Hoffman, Saira Hussain, Brendon Kane, David Kitchin, Calvin Lau, Susan Liu, Leigh Loper, Carmen Mandac, Eric Nakagawa, Katherine Nolen, Mathew Oronato, Michael Oronoato, Jennifer Rabedeau, Sarah Rittenhouse, Nikhil Rode, Lauren Sabia, Sara Sorto, Kari Thorkelsson, Savannah Whitney and Heidi Winner.

Congratulations students for a job well done!

Branham Key Club holds blood drive

Leigh High students talk with medical personnel from the Stanford University Blood Bank prior to donating blood.

Branham High School’s Key Club organized and helped run a very successful blood drive at the school on May 13.

There were 135 people who signed in to donate their blood with only 26 turned away because they were unable to give. The drive collected 109 pints of blood. There were 55 first-time donors.

“An A+ patient with an aneurysm has used 100 units of blood products in 24 hours. Every person who donated helped to save this patient! Thanks again for all of your help, you all did a GREAT job in running a very organized blood drive. I look forward to working with you again in the fall!,” Lisa Kohara, Stanford Medical School Blood Center’s donor recruitment consultant said in a letter to the club.

A standing room only crowd turned out to see second graders from Willow Glen Elementary School present their PeaceBuilders’ Music Program.

WGE second graders present PeaceBuilders’ Music Program

The five classes of second grades at Willow Glen Elementary School put on an impressive PeaceBuilders’ Music Program May 24 in the school auditorium. The children sang songs and talked about working and playing together. They sang to a standing-room only crowd.

Some songs featured peace, some featured differences among us and others described the beautiful world we live in. Despite the heat, the students performed well and the audience was quite enthusiastic.

The second graders were from the classes of Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Bryant-Green and Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Holley, Mrs. Knepper and Mrs. Rodrigues. The theme of the program was that each child is a peace builder and as such, “peace begins with me.”

Congratulations second graders and teachers for a job well done.

Sartorette fourth grader wins contest

Mrs. Giaclone’s fourth grade class at Sartorette Elementary School won Assemblymember Rebecca Cohn’s Design a Contemporary Great Seal Contest.

Cohn delivered pizza to class members at Sartorette as their prize.

She created the contest, which was first launched at the beginning of the 2002-2003 school year, for fourth grade classes in her district to apply their understanding of California’s State Seal in an engaging and spirited format. The contest asks students to create a modern Great Seal of California, gauging their perceptions as to what they feel is important about our changing state. 

“I wanted to create an engaging activity which stressed creativity, but still was well grounded in the fourth grade California curriculum,” Cohn said.  

Emily Bartel drew the winning entry. Her design chose images of California’s diverse citizenry, computer chips, Half Dome, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pixar lamp logo and a Monarch butterfly to represent her class’ version of modern California. The winning entry, along with several other finalists, will be on display in the State Capitol in June.

The Design a Contemporary Great Seal Contest is one of Cohn’s efforts to engage with the students of her district. Her other efforts to highlight education include the “Read to Your Assemblymember Program,” which targets second grade classes, and her High School Advisory Committee.

“By being directly involved with the day-to-day learning of the students of my district, I am really able to see first-hand their needs and concerns,” said Cohn.

Mulberry School plans to relocate

Mulberry School, a not for profit pre- and elementary school, is moving from Willow Glen to Los Gatos.

The school, which has been located at Leigh and Hamilton avenues for more than 40 years is moving to the Mirassou School site in Los Gatos. It has signed a long-term lease with the Union School District to occupy the new site.

The main reason for the move is space. The school has shared its space with the First Congregation Church, but needs more space for classrooms and a dedicated room for committee meetings.

Mulberry will continue to offer a developmental approach to learning, combined with an emphasis on parent participation and creating a nurturing environment where children can be actively engaged to develop to full potential academically, socially, emotionally, creatively and physically.

The school was founded in 1963 as a one-room parent-participation preschool. It has grown to include four pre-school programs with an enrollment of 75 children. It has 103 students enrolled in an elementary program offering junior kindergarten through fifth grade.

For more information about the school, contact Sharon Hiller, director of operations, at (408) 3777-1595 or by e-mail at sharon@mulberry.org.

Willow Glen High graduates honor straight-A valedictorians

By Carol Rosen
Editor

Willow Glen High School will feature two valedictorians graduating with the 2004-05 senior class. Angela Nguyen and Thanh-Ngoc Le both made it though high school with only As.

Willow Glen High School valedictorians Thanh-Ngoc Le, and Angela Nguyen at the school’s art show.

Even more interesting, Le came to America at age 6 speaking only Vietnamese. She still speaks Vietnamese at home. However, she has almost no accent. “At first it was hard to go to school and learn an entire new language. Kids pick on you, but I had a friend who inspired me to do well in school and even helped me with my English,” she said.

She started school in Santa Clara and in sixth grade she went to several middle schools including Booker, Burnett and Willow Glen Middle School. Burnett put her in English as a second language classes, but let her out when they realized she didn’t need them. Finally, she ended up at Willow Glen Middle School for seventh grade. “I love it here, both the middle school and the high school,” she said. “In sixth grade, I switched schools so much that it was impossible to get used to one environment.”

Le will attend San Jose State in the fall. She was accepted at UCSC, Davis and Berkeley too, but liked the class sizes better at SJS. Budget wise, it’s better too, she added. She plans to study chemistry and biochemistry. “I’m a science girl,” she said. She used to just want to study chemistry, but her AP biology teacher “inspired me to look into other fields like biotechnology. I eventually want to go into pharmaceuticals,” she added.

Le couldn’t find much to complain about in high school, although she mentioned she doesn’t like the cursing very much. “I ask people to stop, I don’t think they realize that it just brings them down,” she said.

Her favorite thing about high school is that it gave her the ability to explore herself and understand who she is. “At the beginning of ninth grade, I was very shy and didn’t talk much. Now I understand how people feel and I feel better, especially after my psychology class.”

Her favorite class is AP biology. However, it does have drawbacks. The amount of homework, she said, was staggering. Each week she had to do a lab report that was 15 to 20 pages long. She also liked math and physics a lot. “We got to see how a roller coaster works. That was really fun.”

Le’s least favorite class was film. “I hated film, I’m not an actor type and I always had to be an actor in the films. I would much rather write or set the scene, that at least has some value.”

Nguyen plans to attend UC Berkeley where she wants to study complex problems with third-world countries. This type of major comprises a number of different disciplines, she said, including economy, sociology, political science and anthropology for examples. On graduation, she would work for non-profits, in government positions or, most likely, become a professor.

She has received a scholarship; the governor’s merit scholarship for standardized tests. She’s also received three or four others, but didn’t remember the names, they are small ones from Berkeley, she said.

Her favorite thing about high school, “aside from just getting out,” is not having to worry about her future, her career or others’ careers. Her least favorite part of school is “how people obsess over unimportant little things. They need to learn to distance themselves from it,” she said.

Nguyen’s favorite classes are AP English language, AP U.S. history and her first two math classes—Integrated 3 (a combination of geometry and trig) with math analysis or pre-calculus. “I would probably have taken other AP classes if they were offered, “ she added, “but because of budget cuts they were cut.” Her least favorite classes were music appreciation and film study.

She played volleyball her first two years of high school, but “then I got too busy with AP classes,” she said. Nguyen also participated in the Mock Trial program. “We had a good team. But as fun as it is, it’s quite stressful, but definitely gratifying in the end even though I lost a lot of sleep.”