THE CHALKBOARD: Can you spell W-I-N-N-E-R-S?

What’s happening in Petaluma schools.|

W-I-N-N-E-R-S! That is what you call the outstanding spellers from our local schools who placed in the Sonoma County Office of Education 2018 Spelling Bee.

In the Elementary Bee, fourth place was Linden Gen, sixth-grader at Loma Vista Immersion Academy. Fifth place went to Trey Hansen, fifth-grader at Miwok Valley Language Academy. In sixth place was Andy Phuong, fifth-grader at Sonoma Mountain Charter School. Eighth place went to Flynn Shoop, sixth-grader at Liberty Elementary School. Taking 20th place was Jasper Tindall, sixth-grader at Mary Collins at Cherry Valley. The Junior High Bee winners included Puneet Singh, an eighth-grader from McKinley’s Petaluma Accelerated Charter School (PACS), who won first place. Second place went to seventh-grader Arlo Jacobs, who attends Live Oak Charter School. In third place was Ronit Anilkumar, seventh-grader at Kenilworth Junior High School. Sixth place went to Charlotte Lewis, seventh-grader at Kenilworth Junior High School. In eighth place was Ixiara Cebrero from Cinnabar Elementary School. Coming in at 15th place was Jordan Woolley, seventh-grader at Mary Collins at Cherry Valley Charter School. In 19th place was Ardin Phare, eighth-grader at Live Oak Charter School, and in 22nd place was Chase Ransom, eighth-grader at Mary Collins at Cherry Valley Charter School. Kudos to all these students on a job well done!

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Harvest Christian School seventh- and eighth-graders took a field trip to the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco last week. The group was focused on seeing the current exhibit: Reinstallation of the Art of the Americas Galleries. This special installation is celebrating native arts and artists from western North America, shares Harvest’s Kerri Petersen. The exhibit spans a period of more than 800 years, from 11th-century Mimbres ceramics to 19th-century Navajo weavings, notes Petersen. The selection also features a monumental bear effigy made by a Haida artist and formerly a part of Andy Warhol’s personal collection. The students examined materials, styles and artistic heritage of the gallery pieces during their time at the San Francisco venue.

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Music is in the Air! The inaugural Westside Chorus Festival is scheduled for March 29 at 7 p.m. in the Petaluma Junior High multi-use room. The organizers are hoping to have a big showing for this exciting community event uniting singers from elementary through high school. Another musical event taking place soon is the annual Westside Band Festival. The popular event is April 4, offering a fun evening of band music with all grade levels (4th-12th) participating in the Grand Finale. The performance takes place in the Petaluma High gym. Petaluma City School District elementary band teachers Sandra Kruse, Erin Norris and Luanne Rice are preparing the students for a fantastic evening of music.

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In Matthew De Lucia-Zeltzer’s (Mr. D-Z) fourth-grade at McKinley Accelerated Program, students presented their final Geometrocity projects last week. These creative minds crafted interactive quizzes based on each metropolis to test their audience’s geometric thinking and crafted persuasive postcards to entice visitors, shares Mr. D-Z. By all accounts, it was an exciting activity that brought Ms. Delao’s fourth-graders into the room to share in the fun as they toured the displays and heard from their fellow Mustangs about the individual projects. In other news on campus, sixth-graders from McKinley took part in a creek cleanup at the beginning of March. The outdoor learning opportunity was in response to the students learning about the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans. Fourth-graders had the chance to participate in a guest instructor lesson learning to code with Scratch. Rick Phelan from the Sonoma County Office of Education has been joining classes at the west-side campus to assist with curriculum surrounding this popular STEM-focused activity.

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Students in the Petaluma Adult School’s Level 1 ESL class celebrated St. Patrick’s Day a few days early by wearing green clothing, listening to Irish dance music and bringing in green foods (pesto pasta, cactus salad, green grapes, apples, cucumbers, pistachios and cupcakes) to share during class. According to PAS’ Laine Gen, the students also learned about St. Patrick’s life and how Irish immigrants brought this celebration to the United States. Petaluma Adult School is a program operated under the Petaluma City Schools District.

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

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