Class Notes 07.16.15

+ EPSOD dancers take center stage

Elizabeth Parsons School of Dance recently presented its 34th annual recital, “Reflections Through Time.”

The dancers performed the beautiful and interesting choreographic works of ballet, jazz, tap, modern, lyrical, acrobatics, and hip hop with precision and top energy.

One of the younger groups performed a father/daughter dance that left few dry eyes in the house.

Dancers and teachers look forward to celebrating the school’s 35th-anniversary season beginning Aug. 17.

Windermere Elementary entered a contest through KidsGardening.org and Evergreen Packagings called Carton2Garden, and it entailed gathering cartons of all shapes and sizes, as well from different sources like home and school cafeteria. The third-graders had to come up with a structure for the garden or a garden itself using at least 100 cartons.

The school turned in an application, photos and a video for the national contest; fifth-graders in the Tech Club created the video. WES won a regional prize of $1,000: $850 to shop at kidsgardening.org and $150 to buy plants and soil for the garden. Students show off the finished piece, a school with a train track around it. The name is “Keep on Track, Grow and Thrive.”

+ Construction continuing in summer

Although schools are quiet over the summer, this is the busiest season for school improvement and construction projects in Orange County Public Schools.

Currently, 17 projects are underway to rebuild, replace or upgrade systems such as roofs, fire alarms, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), chillers, exterior walls and windows or lighting. Crews also are upgrading door locks inside schools. The projects touch a total of 11 schools. 

Work is expected to be complete on four of the schools by the beginning of the 2015-16 school year: Freedom, Glenridge and Howard middle schools, as well as Winter Park High School. There is also work going on at MetroWest and Ridgewood Park elementaries, Chain of Lakes, Conway, Hunter’s Creek and Legacy middle schools and Apopka High.

The projects, which cost a total of $7.6 million, are being funded by the half-penny sales tax approved by voters in 2002 and renewed in 2014.

In addition, the district plans to open seven elementaries this fall that are either new, replacements or comprehensive renovations. Two new elementary schools will open to relieve other overcrowded schools: Independence Elementary in Horizon West and Eagle Creek Elementary in the Lake Nona/Eagle Creek area.

Five existing schools are being replaced or renovated: Apopka, Clay Springs and Lovell elementaries in Apopka, as well as Lake Weston Elementary in Orlando and Lake Whitney in Winter Garden. 

Those seven projects, which cost about $110 million to construct, are funded through the sales tax and impact fees.

+ OCPS receives national honors

Orange County Public Schools’ “Expectation: Graduation” program received an Award of Excellence from the National School Public Relations Association. The recognition was given to the district for the creation of its brochure geared towards students who have dropped out of school. The three page publication outlines services in a six-panel tri-fold brochure. The brochure is used as a leave-behind during the annual “Expectation: Graduation” event.

In addition to the brochure, Superintendent Barbara Jenkins, cabinet members and high-school staff, spend hours meeting with at-risk youth.

 In addition to the Award of Excellence, the district also received two NSPRA Awards of Merit for school-district videos produced by OCPS Video Services. 

An NSPRA Honorable Mention was awarded for the 2014 Summer Reading campaign, School’s Out: What Are You Reading This Summer? 

OCPS also was among eight districts across the country, and the only district in Florida, to receive an Excellence Award for its 2014 Annual Report.