Beyoncé Knowles-Carter announces the eight recipients of the Homecoming Scholars Award for the 2018-2019 academic year.
The Homecoming Scholars Award Program for 2018-2019 is a merit program and was announced in April. It is the second scholarship merit program from Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and BeyGOOD. The Formation Scholars Award Program was announced in the spring of 2017 and was open to female students across a variety of studies.
The Homecoming Scholars Award Program, announced after Beyoncé’s brilliant first weekend Coachella performance, an homage to excellence in education and a celebration of the homecoming weekend experience, named four universities and extended the program to all qualifying students at the universities, regardless of gender.
The 2018-2019 disciplines include literature, creative arts, African-American studies, science, education, business, communications, social sciences, computer science, engineering and more. All applicants must maintain a 3.5 GPA or above.
Google.org partnered with BeyGOOD following Beyoncé’s second weekend Coachella performance, to add four more schools, including Fisk University, the alma mater of Beyoncé’s father, Mathew Knowles and Morehouse College, the alma mater of Parkwood President & COO, Steve Pamon.
All qualifying applicants submitted a 1,000-word essay about one African or African-American thought leader in their field who has inspired them to achieve their goals (educational, professional, and/or community-driven). The essay included how they plan to contribute to history through their own life’s work. All finalists and the eight recipients were selected by committees from the colleges and universities.
[/media-credit] Dr. Eric Gallien, Superintendent of Racine Unified Schools. Gallien’s new position began July 1, 2018.
The Milwaukee Education Partnership (MEP) held a special reception to welcome the new Superintendents for Racine Unified School and Milwaukee Public School Districts.
Gerard Randall, Executive Director of the Milwaukee Education Partnership welcomed the two new superintendents and members of the MEP, Dr. Eric N. Gallien, Racine Unified School District, and Dr Keith P. Posley, Milwaukee Public Schools.
The reception was held at the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) that for years has been a creative environment that delivers curriculum and confidence using out-of-classroom spaces.
MPM President/CEO Dennis Kois, welcomed educators from neighboring Wisconsin school districts in attendance.
[/media-credit] Dr Keith Posley, interim Superintendent to Milwaukee Public Schools appointed May 21, 2018
“The museum’s primary purpose of collecting, preserving, protecting, exhibiting, researching and formulating objects in our collection is to educate and that purpose is through school visits that we host,” said Kois. “This museum brings in 100,000 children. It’s the largest museum in the state and one of the oldest in the U.S.”
The Racine Unified School Board voted 8-1 to make Deputy Superintendent Dr. Eric N. Gallien the next superintendent of the Racine Unified School District. Gallien’s new leadership position began this month.
“It’s really humbling for me today, I grew up not even a mile from here. I would ask my mom if we could go to the museum and she would say, you know we don’t have money for that,” said Gallien. “Now I’m being celebrated in the same museum that I couldn’t afford to go to years ago.”
[/media-credit] Gerard Randall Executive Director of Milwaukee Education Partnership
Gallien said his mother raised him, his brother and sister in a way that set high expectations for them and gave them enough rope to take risks.
“My leadership is strictly autobiographical. Unpacking the narrative of what can and cannot be done with children who come from humble beginnings. Some people call it poverty. Whatever you want to call it they have potential and when you see humanity in those children you can change the trajectory for all kids in this area,” said Gallien.
Dr. Keith P. Posley was appointed Interim Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools effective May 21, 2018, after Superintendent Darienne Driver departed MPS to become CEO of the United Way for Southeastern Michigan. Posley, a former teacher, principal and administrator has served for 29 years in a variety of positions for the Milwaukee Public School District.
[/media-credit] Dennis Kois, President/CEO, Milwaukee Public Museum
“I’m not going anywhere, I’m here to stay,” said Posley. “As we commit ourselves to the success of every child, I will be focusing on Five Priorities for Success:
1)Student achievement and accountability
2) Develop the staff
3) Fiscal responsibility and transparency
4) Building district and school culture, working together as one unit
5) Clear, concise communication”
Posley thanked his wife, mother, staff, teachers, administrators, superintendents and representatives from universities. He also stressed the importance of working together.
“It’s truly going to take a village to make sure our children are going in the right direction,” said Posley. “We’re going to make it work, we’re going to make sure we are moving in the right direction and we’re going to show results. We’re going to make it happen in Milwaukee Public Schools,” Posley said.
Mark Sain, MPS, District 1 President who worked with both Gallien and Posley, recognized the educators from Franklin, Brown Deer, Racine, Milwaukee and West Bend school districts attended the event.
“When we talk about education, we talk about that village,” Sain said. “We have two brothers that are going to need the village to help them to propel what we need to be doing for the young people in our communities and it’s not just a Milwaukee thing, it’s not just a Racine thing but it’s what’s happening in Franklin, it’s what’s happening in West Bend. When it comes to education we really need to put our arms around our young people.”
Randall said since 1999, the MEP is an organization that brings together senior educators from around the city, business leaders as well as those who were involved in the nonprofit workforce development world that came together to bring young people to grade level academically, especially in reading, writing and science to get them into a 2 year or 4 year college and to ensure good teachers were in those classrooms with those students.
If principals and teachers understand how to measure student growth and support students in reaching their potential and if they truly value the ability to deliver a measure that an interim assessment like MAP® Growth™ provides, then consistent data practices can become part of a school or district culture. So believes Cindy Keever, Director of Student Support at the Westfield Washington School District in Hamilton County, Indiana.
Since NWEA assessments and data practices have become an embedded, integrated system of evaluating, understanding, and educating throughout the past decade, Westfield Washington School educators feel confident about their ability to understand where students are in their learning process, no matter how their buildings, classrooms, or instructional groupings are reconfigured over time.
How did MAP Growth data come to be central to the culture of learning?
The district made a firm commitment to providing professional learning for teachers and administrators, to help all become more sophisticated users of data. To this end, they have taken all the Professional Learning (PL) workshops offered by NWEA and continue to deepen their practice. They also created buy-in for the NWEA growth model by making sure it was—and continues to be—completely visible to its entire learning community. Every student, teacher, and parent understands that MAP Growth data shows how kids are growing—and that each student knows where he or she can progress further.
The ACLU of New Jersey is suing a dozen school districts in the state, including three in Camden County, saying they have discriminatory policies that prevent immigrant children from potentially getting an education.
The 12 school districts require parents to provide a New Jersey driver’s license or other state-issued forms of identification that undocumented immigrants likely would not possess, in violation of both the state and federal constitutions, the ACLU says in its suit filed Thursday. Under current laws and policies, schools may only request proof of a child’s age, residence, and immunization record when registering them for classes, the ACLU says.
“New Jersey’s state Constitution calls for free public education, and that applies to every single child – no exceptions,” ACLU-NJ staff attorney Elyla Huertas said in a statement. “In a state where one in five residents is foreign-born, at a time when our president has made the exclusion of immigrants a key part of his policy agenda, it’s more important than ever for every school district in New Jersey to meet its obligations, both to New Jersey’s families and to the Constitution.”
In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that had denied undocumented immigrant children an education in the public school system. After a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of Mexican school-age children who lived in Texas, the high court ruled that the law had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. In a landmark ruling, the high court held that “education has a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of our society” and that it “provides the basic tools by which individuals might lead economically productive lives to the benefit of us all.”
The lawsuits were filed in state Superior Court in the individual counties where the districts are located, one month after thousands demonstrated in Washington to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies and separation of undocumented children from their parents at the Mexican border. The protest was organized by the American Civil Liberties Union and several other civil rights organizations.
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“We wanted to increase rigor and our students’ academic abilities, so I thought [deeper learning] would make sense for our school setting.”
That’s Jennie Canning, lead STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) teacher at Pittsburgh Brashear High School, explaining why she and Brashear’s principal, Kimberly Safran, reached out to the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed) to help rethink their approach to instruction.
In this week’s Deeper Learning Digest learn how All4Ed provided direct technical assistance to teacher leaders at Brashear on implementing strategies that support deeper learning.
Elsewhere in this week’s Digest, what happens when schools are linked together in networks that share models, tools, and professional learning experiences? Expanded access to deeper learning experiences for more students.
This week’s Digest also explores dynamic math instruction and how to make project-based learning stick through professional development. And if you want to learn more about how adolescents’ tick, do we have a resource for you.
Deepening Students’ Learning at Pittsburgh Brashear High School
After the Pennsylvania Department of Education identified Pittsburgh Brashear High School as a priority school for improvement, the school’s educators began to rethink their approach to instruction.
Teacher leaders wanted to identify promising practices that would improve engagement for the school’s 1,230 students, most of whom are African American or come from low-income families. They also were looking for ways to increase academic rigor and promote cross-curricular instruction to enable all students to achieve academic excellence. So what did they do and which tools and resources did they use?
Charleston County School District this week announced and welcomed Natasha L. Jones as principal of W.B. Goodwin Elementary School. Jones joins Goodwin from Memminger Elementary where she has served as assistant principal since 2014.
Jones began her teaching career in 1997 in Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District at Sharon Elementary School where she taught fifth grade and served as Lead Teacher. Three years later, Jones moved to Charleston to begin work as a fourth grade teacher at C.C. Blaney. Over the next several years, Jones taught fifth grade and held an administrative internship at Mary Ford Elementary, as well as taught sixth grade and middle school math at Jane Edwards Elementary while serving as the school’s textbook coordinator and PBIS Lead. Jones departed the classroom in 2013 for one year to work for the district’s Office of Teacher Effectiveness as a professional development coordinator. The following school year, Jones joined the staff of Memminger where she has served for the past four years.
Jones has been a member of several South Carolina Department of Education cohorts including the Aspiring Principals Program (DAPP), Foundations in School Leadership (FSL), and the Assistant Principal Program for Leadership Excellence (APPLE). Additionally, she has participated in Flip Flippen’s Capturing Kids’ Hearts training and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) training.
Jones holds a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from Johnson C. Smith University and a Master of Education in Elementary Leadership and Supervision from The Citadel.
States: Got an idea for supporting the transition for high school Career and Technical Education students into postsecondary education and the workforce? The U.S. Department of Education wants to hear from you.
The department has created a new, $3 million grant program aimed at helping states provide apprenticeships in STEM fields (that’s science, technology, engineering, and math) during high school. The deadline to apply is July 17. The department will be holding a webinar on the program on June 5, 2018. You can register for it here.
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The Rosie’s Girls Summer Camp made its annual trip to the Chevron Richmond Refinery on Thursday, where members typically tour the facility and participate in a career panel.
But this year, the local middle-school girls did not act as tourists – but rather scientists.
Led by Chevron Bay Area Executive Women’s Group, Women’s in Progress, which regularly holds events aimed at inspiring and mentoring local girls interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), over 30 girls from the Rosie’s Girls summer camp conducted a daylong experiment in learning how to make bio-fuels.
Rosie’s Girls is an annual summer camp offered for free to local youth from low-income families. Like the WWII-era Rosie the Riveters, students in the camp learn skills and career pathways that are considered nontraditional for women, such as welding and carpentry.
At the Richmond Refinery Thursday, their skill base and experience was expanded to include STEM fields.
“We began earlier this morning by talking about what energy is, how one makes bio-fuel, and why we are interested in bio-fuels,” said Stacy Moffitt, community engagement specialist with Chevron Richmond.
They then conducted a related experiment using water bottles, each containing a different combination of substances – water, yeast, milk powder and a lactase tablet – as an introduction into how biofuels are made.
“They’re basically looking at fermentation and seeing what’s happening,” Moffitt said. “Even though milk has sugar, yeast can’t convert that sugar without the lactase tablet, which is a catalyst. Which is what you typically need when you use plant-based material to convert to fuel.”
The students conducted experiments in groups, with each group advised by women who work for Chevron. During the experiment, they made regular observations, and at the end of the day presented their findings to the group. Throughout the experience, the volunteer employees mentor the girls, talk about their futures and offer advice, Moffitt said.
“Rosie’s Girls give girls a wonderful summer opportunity to be ‘hands on’ with lots of cool things,” said Barbara Smith, VP of products and technology or Chevron Oronite. “It was fun today to do science with them, and at the same time talk about their interests and aspirations – and how STEM and college can give them so many great options for the future.”
The Executive Women’s Group has also worked with the Richmond nonprofit Girls Inc. of West Contra Costa County. Last year, the women volunteered to collaborate on technical and leadership projects with 16 of the nonprofit’s young members at the state-of-the-art Fabrication Laboratory at Kennedy High, which was launched with funding by Chevron.
More than 30 girls from the Rosie’s Girls summer camp conducted a daylong experiment at Chevron Richmond Refinery to learn how to make bio-fuels.
Freshmen at Jackson Public Schools now have the opportunity to graduate from high school with an associate’s degree at no cost to them. JPS partnered with Tougaloo College to offer Early College High School to 49 freshmen. Students will attend a high school on Tougaloo’s campus, north of Jackson. There is no cost to attend the early college program because JPS is a public institution.
Students must complete an application and participate in an interview process. An external agency selects the 49 students. Applications for the fall are closed and interviews begin July 9.
If students meet the graduation requirements, they can graduate with an associate’s degree or up to two years of credits toward a bachelor’s degree. While earning college credit, students will also complete Mississippi high-school requirements. Program graduates must meet the minimum SAT and ACT college readiness scores.
COMPTON — As a foster kid growing up in Compton, Google software engineer Anthony D. Mays felt awkward in social settings, sometimes not believing that he could be an achiever.
Today, after overcoming personal challenges, Mays is encouraging young people that they can be all that they believe they can be.
Mays represented Google at the Compton Unified School District second annual STEAMFest, and found more than a handful of students seeking his advice. A crowd estimated at 8,000 people filled the Dollarhide Community Center for a few hours as they took in the latest technology from the likes of Apple, Boeing, Cemex, Carrot Group, Hacker Fund, Google, Charles Drew University, and other vendors.
Mays said he was more than happy to share what he has learned with students.
“I’m telling the kids that they have an opportunity unlike any other,” Mays said. “They can learn coding, they can learn engineering. They can learn science, medicine and math and apply their art skills. They can do all that stuff.
“They have the tools. They just have to use them and be willing to work hard. If I can spark inspiration in that regard, then I would love to,” he added.
There was a time that Mays didn’t feel he could be successful in anything. It wasn’t until his foster parents went out and bought him a computer that he figured out he could make something of himself.
Mays, who brought that computer to the STEAMFest event, learned to code off that technological instrument. He would later hone his coding skills from mentors that took him under their wings in middle and high school.
That proved to be the foundation Mays needed to jump headfirst into the technology field. That discovery certainly boosted his self-confidence.
“I didn’t feel like I was the smartest growing up,” Mays said. “I didn’t feel like I was the most capable. I struggled. I felt like I was an imposter every time when I went to college and all this other kind of things.
“I know that I may run into kids that are foster kids or going through the process of losing their family or during abuse or whatever that is. I’ve been through those things. So I want to be able to share with the students, ‘Hey, I’ve been there and done this. You can do the same thing. You can do it even better than me. You can go out and start your own business.’”
Part of the showcase at STEAMfest was featuring the art, robotics, science and the technology innovation of Compton students that highlighted photography, artwork and astute craftsmanship.
“It’s an opportunity to showcase what’s going on in Compton Unified School District and to show that parents and the students that the turnaround is real,” Superintendent Darin Brawley said. “It’s really an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, this is the new Compton. These are the things that are happening. Your kids can be exposed to robotics, coding, arts, performing arts, you name it. The sky is the limit in Compton.”
The ACLU of New Jersey is suing a dozen school districts in the state, including three in Camden County, saying they have discriminatory policies that prevent immigrant children from potentially getting an education.
States: Got an idea for supporting the transition for high school Career and Technical Education students into postsecondary education and the workforce? The U.S. Department of Education wants to hear from you.
