THE CHALKBOARD: Harvest Christian Jr. High students speak out

Harvest Christian School students have been busy. Harvest junior high students who won in their category at their school were invited to the ACSI junior high speech meet at King’s Valley Christian School in Concord. Five schools competed in categories such as Puppetry, Dramatic Monologue, Original Poetry and more. HCS eighth-grader Sophia Obaggy and seventh-grader Bridget Wiley both placed in their categories. Congratulations to all those who participated in this exciting program. HCS also hosted a Student Sports Day last week where youngsters could dress up in their favorite sports gear. Students also made a donation of extra school Walk-A-Thon shirts to boys in Kinshasa, Congo. The young men who are now sharing in the Harvest Christian School spirit wearing the shirts have been rescued from the streets and living in a safe home, educated, fed and clothed, thanks to Harvest family Robin and Kevin Shipp’s foundation, Desire of Nations (desireofnations.net). The extra shirts have been shared with several students, including the African school’s soccer team. Way to pay it forward.

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Homegrown support was blooming at Two Rock Union Elementary School when several employees from Kohl’s Store came on campus to help in the school garden. These amazing Kohl’s employees volunteered at the garden workday just in time for spring planting. In addition, the Kohl’s Care Program will donate $1,000 to the school as part of the employee community volunteer program, a partnership benefiting Two Rock’s student body.

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Kudos to the Casa Grande Gauchos. Casa Grande High School’s Gaucho Gazette won seventh place in the Best of Show competition at the JEA/NSPA National High School Convention in Seattle. There were also a number of individual awards presented to 14 Casa students for excellence in journalism. Congratulations to all the students who participated in this event.

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Wilson’s Wildcats danced the day away during a school assembly recently. Each year, Wilson School hosts a school-wide assembly with special guests from the American Jubilee Dance Group. The dance troupe comes to the Wilson campus to demonstrate traditional American folk dances for students, then the youngsters learn the dance from these talented performers. The group comes with its own fiddle and guitar players as well as a caller who directs the dances. This year, they introduced the Virginia Reel, a traditional square dance, and a Russian folk dance called Sacha. Students learned proper steps for corner turns, swing your partner, do-si-do and sachet. What a great way to enable students to embrace historic dances while participating in a fun-filled activity.

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Students at Wilson School continued the incredible hands-on learning activities as reported last week with Mrs. Garrigan’s third-grade class learning about mechanical advantages involving pulleys. This is an example of a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) activity where students learn about the scientific principles of simple machines and are asked to create their own machines. “Doing these hands on STEM activities under the Next Generation Science Standards often flips the traditional instructional practice of teacher-driven classroom into a more student-learning focus that leads to greater academic synthesis,” shares Superintendent/Principal Eric Hoppes. And, as Hoppes reports, it makes learning fun. “Education has really evolved over the years to create some great learning strategies that are more engaging for kids,” he says.

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Lights, camera, action at McNear Elementary School. The McNear Elementary Performing Arts program will present “It’s a Hard Knock Life” on Friday and Saturday. This charming mash-up of “Annie” and “Oliver!” features students in grades first through third. There will be a 7 p.m. Friday performance and 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday performances, so all have the opportunity to witness this lively production. Students have been working hard since January on this entirely volunteer-driven program. Break a leg, McNear Falcons!

(Maureen Highland is a Petaluma mother and executive director for the Petaluma Educational Foundation. She can be reached at schools@arguscourier.com)