School Zone
Points of Pride
Pine Forest Elementary Students Walk Across America
The Wellness Committee at Pine Forest Elementary is putting on a two-month Fitness Event to establish healthy habits for students nd their families. On January 14, 2009, students will begin a virtual walk from Jacksonville, Florida to San Diego, California. Each student will be given a pedometer to wear all day and track total steps. The steps will be recorded and converted to miles daily. Each class is a team that will total their miles together and track their progress along their classroom map until they reach San Diego.
Along the way, they will be working through math calculations of their steps, learning state and historical facts as they cross America, and most importantly, there will be classes and information about fitness, explaining the benefits of walking and exercise each day. Students have measured their Body Mass Index (BMI) and will measure it again when they reach San Diego to see the difference regular exercise can have.
Parents and teachers will participate as well. Parents can record distances to parks, stores and around the block. The school’s art teachers are forming a team of their own to see if they can make it to San Diego first.
$50,000 Gift Promotes Recruitment of Second-Career Teachers
A $50,000 donation to the Alliance For World Class Education will boost Duval County Public Schools' teacher recruitment efforts. The gift was part of $215,000 distributed by the Wal-Mart Foundation on Dec. 10. Five grants will be used to fund innovative programs benefitting diverse groups - from soldiers to students to seniors.
The Alliance, American Heart Association, Florida Community College Jacksonville, The Senior Life Foundation and The United Services Organization accepted large donations that will help the organizations recruit teachers for Duval County schools, support low-income senior citizens in crisis, educate people and their employers about the importance of walking to improve heart health, encourage military families to spend quality time through reading, and support a veteran education assistance program.
“Wal-Mart is proud to give these grants to Jacksonville organizations that are having a great impact on this community with innovative programs,” said Cindi Marsiglio, senior manager of public affairs for Wal-Mart. “These groups are implementing programs that are advancing important priorities related to health, education, senior populations and our military community.”
Through the grant to the Alliance that is earmarked for DCPS, the $50,000 will help build a marketing program enabling Educators Of Change (EOC) to continue recruiting untapped talent in the Jacksonville community for high-need classrooms. EOC is designed to attract accomplished teacher candidates from other career fields. It is administered by the DCPS' Human Resources Office. This latest gift is the second round of funding for the EOC program.
Four of the grants are part of the second wave of giving for the State Giving Program (SGP), a new model of local giving for Wal-Mart. Through the SGP, the Wal-Mart Foundation is awarding grants quarterly at the state and regional level to support unmet needs that are not directly addressed by any of the company’s current national programs or local grants given by stores. The foundation previously funded the kick-off of the EOC effort.
The foundation has adopted four areas of focus: education, job skills training, environmental sustainability and health.
Middle School Students Participate in Math Field Day
Duval County Public Schools middle school students and students from other surrounding schools participated in the 2008 Math Field Day recently at Julia Landon College Preparatory and Leadership Development School. A total of 18 schools were in attendance.
The purpose of the event was to provide these students with the opportunity to compete with and against their peers in a math competition, and to challenge them to become even better math students. Students worked in both groups and on their own to solve math problems, and competed in 10 different events.
Medals were awarded to the top three students in each event. Trophies were awarded to the top three teams, and ribbons to the fourth and fifth-place teams overall. Additionally, each student who participated received a ribbon.
The schools that placed in the top five were: Episcopal, Landmark, Christ the King, Darnell-Cookman and Julia Landon.
A lot of work and preparation goes into each Math Field Day, and teachers Mary Badillo and Jean Spiwak have been coordinating it for the past 15 years. They work together to register the teams, recruit volunteers, print materials, organize the site, and oversee all other duties needed to make each year’s event a fun and successful learning experience.
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