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Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Two Woodbury Jr Sr High School students have been selected to represent the district at the Annual Spring Recognition Dinner. Eighth grader Zoe Mowl (left) and 12th grader Diondra Brown have demonstrated an exceptional record of academic achievement, citizenship and service to others.
Wednesday May 2, 2007 Woodbury Public School announces the winners of the One School: One Poet contest conducted by the English Department during National Poetry Month at Woodbury Jr. Sr. High School. The students in grades 6-12 were challenged to write in the style of former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Each winner received a Billy Collins poetry book.
To read the poems go to http://wizard.4teachers.org/builder/worksheet.php3?ID=96891 Tuesday May 1, 2007
Each year, we are able to forward one of the names of our Teachers of the Year to the County Office of Education for consideration in the selection process for Gloucester County Teacher of the Year. Congratulations to Woodbury's Robyn Sole, Gloucester County Teacher of the Year! Dr. Mark Stanwood, Gloucester County Superintendent of Schools, informed us yesterday that Ms. Sole was selected to represent Gloucester County. The selection process now continues at the state level to choose the New Jersey Teacher of the Year. Ms. Sole is one of twenty-two finalists for that honor. Ms. Sole is a mathematics teacher in the Woodbury Junior High School. She entered teaching after starting work in the world of business (Ms. Sole had been the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House). She obtained certification by way of New Jersey's Alternate Route process, a system started by the New Jersey Department of Education in 1984 that allows college graduates who did not follow the traditional teacher preparation program to enter the field of teaching. Today, Ms. Sole continues her own formal education and has been a very active member of the Rowan University South Jersey Math Partnership project. Ms. Sole exemplifies what it means to be a passionate educator. We are proud that she is able to represent the many quality, passionate educators that work in the Woodbury Public Schools. Again, congratulations to Robyn Sole!
Friday March 16,
2007 It’s not every day that astronauts visit Woodbury Junior Senior High School and connect with students. On April 19th, from 11:00 am – 12:30 pm, through the miracle of video teleconferencing, NASA educator astronauts will do just that. Through their science teachers, students will be submitting questions to NASA educator astronauts prior to this April 19th Astronaut Relay Rally event that relates to the upcoming STS-118 flight and mission. The technology will enable the students to see and hear NASA educator astronauts’ answers to their questions in real time, almost as if they are visiting in the classroom with one another. While Woodbury Junior Senior High School is the only NASA Explorer School in NJ, there are in fact other NASA Explorer Schools throughout the United States. The April 19th video teleconference event will connect many of these schools with one another. The Astronaut Relay Rally will also be simultaneously webcast which means that it will be reaching an international audience as well. For more information, contact Colleen Fitzgerald at cfitzgerald@woodburysch.com
or by phone 856-853-0123 x340.
Friday,
March 9, 2007 At Woodbury High School’s NASA Family Night on March 29th, when the lights go down in the auditorium at 6:30 pm, a very special video will start to play, and many students will just not believe their eyes… That’s when the students, along with their parents, will get the chance to view a very unusual videotape starring four WHS teachers who recently experienced zero gravity. And even more amazingly, while the teachers floated weightlessly in space, they conducted a student designed experiment. Woodbury High School teachers Ari Ford, Dan Jones, Colleen Fitzgerald and Antoinette Allen do more than teach science and math during the school day. They are also team teachers for the NASA Explorer School grant, now in its third and final year. Working at the only NASA Explorer School in NJ, these four teachers regularly tap into exciting resources provided by NASA, but taking a flight on the so called “Vomit Comet” in Houston, Texas falls into another category entirely. According to online encyclopedia Wikipedia, “Vomit Comet is a nickname for any NASA airplane that briefly provides a nearly weightless environment in which to train astronauts, conduct research, and film motion pictures. Versions of this airplane have been operated by NASA's Reduced Gravity Research Program since 1973. (Interestingly enough, NASA prefers the nickname “Weightless Wonder” for public relations reasons).” While the four Woodbury teachers were aboard the plane in February, they conducted a robotics experiment that Mr. Ford submitted to NASA. The experiment involved two different robot simple machines – a crane and a bulldozer. The goal was to compare the concept of work under Earth’s gravity to work carried out under weightless conditions. Mr. Ford’s 9th graders in Woodbury were challenged to retrieve data produced by the experiment, graph it and draw appropriate conclusions. Here’s what the students learned from the experiment. They discovered that the robots could perform tasks more easily in reduced gravity. Activities that would take a robot 100% of its power on Earth could be completed with considerably less power in reduced gravity, thus reducing the amount of payload that would need to be dedicated to a power source for future NASA missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. The March 29th Family Night will also include a screening of the movie Apollo 13. For more information on the March 29th NASA Family Night at Woodbury High School, contact Ari Ford at 856-853-0123 x349 or Colleen Fitzgerald at x340.
Tuesday, February
20, 2007 The Woodbury Public Schools System was one of fifty-five New Jersey school districts to share $15 million in state grant funds to establish, expand or enhance public school programs and services for students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Woodbury was awarded $162,560 from the NJ Department of Education through Governor Corzine’s Initiative on Autism. The Department of Education received 250 applications for the funding, and Woodbury was selected as a recipient for this highly competitive award. In a press release distributed by the NJDOE, Governor Corzine said, “It is essential that students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and their families have access to high quality services and programs that meet their needs. Clearly, many school districts, including the county special services districts and education service commissions, are clamoring for the state’s help to offer improved educational services for students with autism. Even though the state is still facing severe fiscal constraints, I am very pleased that we have found a way to provide students with autism with more comprehensive and innovative public school options.” “ The grant funds will be used to develop comprehensive programs that address the unique behavioral, social and instructional needs of these students,” said NJDOE Commissioner Lucille Davy. “I was pleased to see the wide range of quality programs that were proposed by the applicants, including several districts that are using the funds to develop cross-district programs.” Woodbury will utilize these funds to establish district-wide professional development and support from specialists in the field of autism to enable students to participate within our district special services inclusion programming. The funding will be utilized to provide for an autism consultant and multiple Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) direct-service providers so that our students will be able to be educated appropriately in the regular school setting. Supplemental one-to-one services will be provided by in-district speech and OT therapists as well as social skills groups facilitated by in-district psychologists and social workers, as needed. Planning for these services will begin immediately, with implementation
targeted for the 2007-2008 school year.
Don't
miss Woodbury Junior/Senior High School Theater Club's presentation
of Footloose On Thursday March 1, 2007, Friday March
2, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday March 3, 2007 at 1:00 p.m. and 7:00
p.m. Tickets are $5.00 for students/seniors and $7.00 for adults. Seniors
free for Saturday Matinee only.
Tuesday,
January 9, 2007
How do engineers design, build and test airplanes?
For an answer to that fascinating question, plan to join us for the next NASA Family Night scheduled for Wednesday evening, January 24th in the Woodbury Jr/Sr High School’s old cafeteria.
From 6:30 to 8:30 pm, Woodbury School district science and math teachers will help students and their parents explore various aerospace technology concepts. They will learn about the actual measurement tools used by engineers and scientists during the process of developing, designing, building and testing airplanes.
During the evening, participants will also move among three different learning stations where they will view a video on the history of flight. Other stations will engage participants in a hands-on measurement activity and a computer-based simulation from the NASA website.
NASA Family Nights are part of the NASA Explorer School grant program. Woodbury School District is the only school system in the state of NJ to have received this unique honor.
For more information, please contact Colleen Fitzgerald or Antoinette Allen at 856-853-0123.
Wednesday,
November 22, 2006
Most recently the club entered the 2006 Philadelphia BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology) robotics competition. The BEST program involved 20 school districts in the greater Philadelphia area including districts such as Moorestown, Dobbins Vo-tech, University City HS, and the Science and Technology HS of Philadelphia. The BEST competition is designed to inspire and interest students in engineering, science, and technology through participation in an exciting sports-like technology contest. Specific goals of this project include: • Help
students understand technical concepts and principles. The Woodbury robotics team, consisting of 7th, 8th, and 9th graders, began their involvement in the BEST competition on September 28, 2006, in a kickoff ceremony that outlined the goals and structure for the competition. Students were provided with a box of parts that included: 4 motors, 4 micro switches, 2 speed controllers, wood, PVC pipe, and a remote control. They were then given instructions to design a robot that could hang wet laundry and take down dry laundry. Teams were given six weeks to build the robot, culminating in the actual competition that occurred on Saturday November 19, 2006, at Villanova University. In addition to being judged on the robot’s ability to complete the assigned tasks, students were also evaluated in the following categories: oral presentation, table display and interview, engineering journal and school spirit/ sportsmanship. Over the course of the six-week period, students worked both before and after school for a combined total of over 40 hours. This work involved creativity, team work, independent research and design, trial and error methodology and out of the box thinking. This past Saturday at Villanova University all of that hard work paid off. Woodbury began the day finishing second in the open rounds; this earned them a birth in the semi-finals. The semi-finals proved to have some stiff competition with Woodbury winning a tie breaker to advance to the championship round. The team then dominated the championship with a 5 to 0 sweep to earn a first place finish in the Philadelphia BEST competition. The students will now travel to Auburn University in Alabama on December 8th and 9th to compete in the South’s BEST Regional Championship. For further information regarding this program the following website link provides supplemental information: http://www.phila.k12.pa.us/offices/ccawareness/philabest.htm The Robotics Club has a web site that features the "Buffalobot," that is found at: http://www.freewebs.com/buffalobot . Woodbury Public Schools is pleased to announce a grant partnership with the Verizon Corporation’s Southern New Jersey Office of External Affairs. This partnership was highlighted at an awards ceremony held on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at the Bally’s hotel in Atlantic City. Woodbury has teamed up with Verizon in an effort to increase the utilization of technology in the direct instruction of literacy for our students. Verizon is providing Woodbury Public Schools with $10,000 to focus on this initiative. As a result, a cutting edge computer based reading program, My Reading Coach – Gold, will now be used at the elementary level. The software was piloted during the last school year at the Junior High School. The plan is to offer this program to our students as a before/after school activity over the course of the 2006-2007 school year. This current grant award provided by Verizon is one example of a new initiative the Woodbury Public Schools is undertaking. The district is aggressively seeking other grant opportunities with local and national businesses, corporations and agencies. It is the district’s goal that these competitive grants assist in providing enhanced services and resources to students, staff and community members without increasing a burden on the taxpayers of Woodbury. In addition to the grant awarded by Verizon, Woodbury is currently in the process of applying for funding through the State of New Jersey for enhanced autism programming as well as applying for sports equipment for our athletic programs through a grant program offered by the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation. The district’s
grantwriter, Dr. Jeffery Adams, welcomes any information our
school community has with regard to additional funding opportunities.
You can contact Dr. Adams at jadams@woodburysch.com or 856-853-0123,
ext. 440. City School Board Opens Dialogue Regarding Possible Restructuring The Woodbury Public Schools Superintendent, Joseph Jones, and School Business Administrator, Esther Pennell, are meeting today with various school community groups to initiate conversation regarding facility and educational options which could be implemented as early as September 1, 2007. Separate meetings were held with school administrators; Mayor Leslie Clark and representatives from City Council; officers of the local parent-teacher organizations; and the Woodbury Education Association leadership. At this time of the year, schools begin to develop their budgets for the next school year. In an effort to put forth a budget that is both educationally sound and fiscally prudent, the board’s Finance Committee has discussed the idea of restructuring the grade alignment for students in grades PreK-5. A proposal being considered for implementation during the 2007-08 school year includes the closing of the Walnut Street School and the reclassification of the Evergreen School into an Early Childhood Center. This Early Childhood Center would educate all district students from preschool through grade one. This option would allow for some full-time preschool programs. Additionally, the proposal would call for the remaining elementary school in the district, West End Memorial, to house all students in grades two through five. The Finance Committee presented this idea to the full board as a possible option as part of the early budgetary considerations for the 2007-08 school year. Frank Gwalthney, Board President, stated, “It was the consensus of the board to continue the dialogue with the larger school community so that all will have the opportunity to be heard in advance of any final decision by the full board.” The reconfiguration being considered could save the district up to $650,000 in annual operating costs. A draft of pros and cons associated with the change being considered has been prepared. This document was handed out to interested parties at today’s meetings and is available for any member of the school community. The document can be picked up at the main office of any of the school buildings or by contacting the superintendent’s office at 856-853-0123, ext. 214. Additionally, the document is posted on the school website, www.woodburysch.com. Mr. Jones and Mrs. Pennell are also attending the November meetings of the elementary parent-teacher organizations at each school. The Evergreen School meeting is being held this evening, November 1. The Walnut Street School and West End Memorial School meetings are scheduled for Thursday, November 2. In addition, three public hearings are scheduled to allow those in the school community to add their input so that the list of pros and cons can be expanded and better understood. The public hearings will be held as follows: • Walnut
School Monday, November 13 These meetings are open to all school community members and are scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m. in the all-purpose rooms of the respective schools. The board would welcome written copies of testimony given at the various meetings at the time of the meeting. Those unable to attend can forward comments to the administration so that these can be provided to all board members. ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE PROGRAM - FREE CLASSES STARTING
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2006 Time: 6:00 – 9:00
P.M. • Classes
are open to those 18 years of age and older who have a social
security card. Woodbury High School, located on North Broad Street (Rt. 45), can be accessed by NJ Transit buses # 401, #402, #410 and #412. Program
provided by Gloucester County College. Funded by a grant from
the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development. ESTUDIA INGLES - CURSO GRATIS COMIENZA EL MARTES 17 DE OCTUBRE EN LA
ESCUELA SECUNDARIA WOODBURY El horario
de la clase es de 6:00 a 9:00 P.M. todos los Martes y Jueves Las clases son para todas las personas de 18 anos de edad en adelante. Tendrá oportunidad de estudiar estructuras del idioma, lectura y escritura, y se le dará instrucción sobre los derechos y responsabilidades de los ciudadanos. Las clases son GRATIS, solo tendrá que pagar $10.00 no reembolsables de matrícula en su primera noche de la clase. Para inscribirse: llame al (856) 468-5000 ext. 6226. La escuela secondaria de Woodbury (Woodbury High School), está ubicada en 25 N. Broad Street en Woodbury Puede llegar utilizando lo autobuses de NJ Transit # 401, #402, #410, y #412. El programa ser”a proporcionado por el Colegioo Universitario del Condado de Gloucester (Gloucester County College). Financiado por una beca del Departmento del Trabajo y el Desarrollo de Trabajador.
October 11, 2006 - Milliken Family Foundation National Educator Award for Excellence Woodbury fourth grade teacher Carla Bittner has received a Milliken Family Foundation National Educator Award for Excellence. She was presented with a check for $25,000 at a special ceremony at Evergreen Avenue School on Wednesday, October 11th that included a visit from Acting Commissioner of the Department of Education Lucille Davy.
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