Excellence in Education Awards
2007 Winners
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences
School of Education
2007 Excellence in Education Award Winners
Abstracts
Goochland County Public Schools
(Goochland Elementary, Byrd Elementary, Randolph Elementary,
Goochland Middle, and Goochland High Schools)
Program Originator – John G. Henderson
Goochland Blogging Initiative – Goochland County Public Schools now requires all educators to maintain an online presence using a weblog. This practice has dramatically increased communication with the community stakeholders and has opened-up new opportunities for innovative instructional practices, including the publication of podcasts. Teachers are extending their classroom walls by blogging.
Hampton City Schools
Program Originator – Ann Bane
Community Visioning/HCS Community Priorities Workshop – Schools leaders decided that community ownership was the key to a high performance school division within aging, fiscally challenged, community. With great hope, they initiated the Annual Community Workshop. The objective was to engage the whole community in shaping a set of shared outcomes for the division.
Virginia Beach City Public Schools
W. T. Cook Elementary School
Program Originator – Betty J. McGrath
Anchor Club – Overcoming economic hardship and achieving academic success is the Anchor Club goal. By providing after school tutoring, recreation and a hot meal, and trying to close the gaps in the lives of the many homeless students. The mission is to continually improve academic performance in our most at-risk population.
Northumberland County Public Schools
Northumberland Elementary School
Program Originator – Jan Bates
All Schools Listens – A self supporting parent involvement event that creates excitement and record levels of participation (up to 100%), regardless of socio-economic conditions. All families reading the same book for one month and an entire community is excited about reading.
Prince William County Public Schools
Office of Student Services
Program Originator – Doreen Dauer
Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Program – Prince William County Public Schools initiated a comprehensive suicide prevention program to educate teachers, students, and parents about suicide risks and procedures to refer students for help. The program is threefold: new teacher training, parent workshops, and a large scale screening/education program of ninth graders using the Signs of Suicide Program (SOS).
Buena Vista City Public Schools
Parry McCluer High School
Program Originator – Robin Garrett
Email Mentoring Program – The email mentoring program pairs high school freshmen with local college students and creates a communication forum for both academic and social concerns. The mentor pairs communicate weekly via email to discuss academic assignments and concerns. The pairs are also free to discuss common interests; consequently, many of the pairs develop friendships, thus a role model for the freshmen within their own community.
City of Salem
West Salem Elementary School
Program Originators – John Millard and Laura Hart
ACE Program (After Class Enrichment) – The program in partnership with the PTA, stimulates students by providing a variety of after-school activities. Student choices include such activities as yoga, kitchen chemistry, photography, Spanish, knitting, and scrapbooking. For the past five years, approximately 150-180 students have participated in the fall and spring sessions of ACE.
Galax City Public Schools
Galax Elementary School
Program Originators – Tina Hampton and Brian Stuart
GES 2006 Summer Enrichment Program – The Galax Elementary School partnered with the Arts and Cultural council of the Twin Counties to provide students with an enriching summer program. The students worked with professional storyteller, Vicky Town, to create two plays based on Appalachian Jack Tales. Students created dialogue, jokes, sets, and costumes for both productions.
Blue Ridge Community College
Teacher Education Learning Community Program
Program Originator – Donna Mayes
Teacher Education Learning Community Program – The Blue Ridge Community College Teacher Education Learning Community provides first-year students a context of identity, support and resources to aide the retention of participants, develop an understanding for the aptitudes required for teaching careers, and provide career pathway information that promotes transfer to Virginia’s baccalaureate programs.