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March 2003 News Archive

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Goleta Valley Makes a Strong Showing at the California MathCounts Competition

On Saturday, March 22, 2003, Goleta Valley Junior High School’s MathCounts team participated at the state level of competition. That event, made up of more than 60 four-member top scoring chapter-level teams, was held at UC Irvine. Seventh-grade students J.R. Riggs and Michael Reveles and eighth-grade students Daniel Polchinski and Henry Wu represented Goleta Valley Junior High School.

Seventh-grade student Michael Reveles placed seventh (in a field of 160) in the individual competition. As a team, Goleta Valley Junior High placed eleventh in the state (in a field of more than 60).

Team coach, teacher Wendy Pendergraft, summed up the experience: "They did a great job and had fun. The team should be proud!"

Goleta Valley Junior High School is located at 6100 Stow Canyon Road, Goleta, CA 93117

Friday, March 21, 2003

DP’s Mock Trial Team Advances to the State Competition

Following their Saturday, March 1, 2003, win at the county level, the Dos Pueblos High School Mock Trial team prepares for the California Mock Trial Finals. The state competition takes place on March 28-30 in Riverside, CA. The winning team at the state level will advance to the national competition in New Orleans.

Dos Pueblos has a long history of Mock Trial excellence. This is the 15th time in the past 22 years that a team from that school has advanced to the state level of competition. On two occasions, a Dos Pueblos team has advanced to the national competition and placed second in one of those years.

This year, the road to Riverside began at the Santa Barbara Courthouse, where the Dos Pueblos team went up against Santa Barbara High School in the morning semi-finals. The team advanced to the afternoon finals, where they went up against the San Marcos High School red team. Dos Pueblos emerged as the county champions for 2002-2003. The team received an engraved trophy. The victory was sweet for Team Captain Andrew Cox, "I’ve been doing Mock Trial at Dos Pueblos for three years, so this win is huge for me. The team has really come together this time, both in friendship and in devotion to the craft, and I really believe that this is what allowed us to prevail. Everyone here has immense talent and intelligence; to see that focused into our performance at finals was awe-inspiring. Everything came together, everyone was at their best, and at last we won."

The Mock Trial team was comprised of the following defense team and a prosecution team members:

Defense Team

Prosecution Team

The team is coached by several local attorneys (Lee Carter, Graham Lyons, Kevin McGee, Mindy Wolfe) and Dos Pueblos teacher Kevin Sheffield. Mr. Sheffield, the Mock Trial coach, teaches pre-calculus GATE, SBCC statistics, trigonometry and algebra 2.

In preparation for the upcoming state-level competition, students are meeting six days per week – during the school day – in addition to Sunday and Wednesday evening practices with the attorney coaches. "I am very proud of the students and their accomplishment. They have worked very hard over the past five months, practicing ten hours a week to hone their skills in preparation for the county competition. In doing so, they gained an incredible amount of momentum, which helped to get them through the difficult Santa Barbara County competition. In fact, they have so much positive momentum at the moment that I know they will be very successful at the state level," stated Coach Sheffield.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

OAS Presents Shakespeare in the Park

Open Alternative Middle School students are preparing for their second annual "Shakespeare In The Park" event. They will present Romeo and Juliet in the Wells Fargo Amphitheater at Elings Park on Thursday, March 20 and Friday, March 21. At 4:30 p.m., the festivities will begin with a fundraising barbecue. Following the barbecue, at 5:30 p.m., the performance will take place. Teacher Jonathan Davis encourages audience members to "bring your flashlight and your blanket and join us in the Shakespearean style of theater in the out-of-doors."

For the past month, the life and times of William Shakespeare have been the focus of student learning.

Druyan Byrne is the director of this production. Open Alternative’s "Shakespeare In The Park" is made possible by a partnership with the Elings Park Foundation and its director, Lorna Boyd.

For more information on "Shakespeare In The Park," contact Gwen Phillips, head teacher, Open Alternative School, (805) 683-3127. Open Alternative School is located at 4025 Foothill Road, Santa Barbara.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

Nicole Zok Prepares for State Spelling Bee

Goleta Valley Junior High School 7th grade student Nicole Zok aced the 2003 Santa Barbara County Spelling Bee, which took place on February 25th. With Nicole’s win, Goleta Valley Junior High School will have custody of the large county-level trophy for one year. As the first-place winner at the junior high school level, Nicole will now represent her school and community at the May 17, 2003 state competition in San Rafael, CA.

Nicole prepared for the county event by studying vocabulary words and having friends quiz her on those words. She anticipates doing more of the same for the state competition. She is working from a list of state-provided list of words, but recognizes that officials may include words not on that list.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

Goleta Valley Junior High Students Take MathCounts by Storm

Goleta Valley Junior High School students J.R. Riggs, Daniel Polchinski, Michael Reveles, and Henry Wu were unbeatable at the chapter level of the annual MathCounts competition on February 22, 2003. The competition took place in Ventura. This first-place, award-winning team moves on to the state level of competition at the University of California-Irvine, on March 22.

"The students did a great job individually and as a team," said first-time coach and pre-algebra teacher Wendy Pendergraft. "It’s exciting to see them succeed and I am looking forward to the state competition."

Seventh-grade students Riggs and Reveles, and eighth-grade students Polchinski and Wu prepared for the chapter-level MathCounts competition at a regularly-scheduled one hour meeting on Wednesday afternoons. They have maintained that schedule in preparation for Saturday’s state-level competition.

Goleta Valley Junior High School is located 6100 Stow Canyon Road, Goleta.

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

Iraqi Crisis

The Santa Barbara Elementary and High School Districts are monitoring the possibility of war with Iraq and heightened alert within the United States.

As part of our Districts’ ongoing focus on safe schools, all schools have an emergency safe schools plan; Districtwide practice drills are conducted twice each year (November and March); the Districtwide administrative team periodically meets with local agencies to evaluate and update emergency procedures (e.g., a meeting with Bruce Carter of the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Services took place in late February); and staff is continually encouraged to be vigilant in monitoring campus activities.

These are difficult times and schools continue to be one of the safest places in the community. We want to make sure that, more than ever, all students feel safe and secure, especially our students from the Middle East. Our teachers, counselors, and administrators are available to listen to student concerns.

There are excellent resources for responding to possible emergency situations, which we are preparing to share with our school community. Parents and staff are encouraged to listen to the concerns of our children and young adults; let them know that everything is being done to ensure their safety; maintain daily routines; and encourage them to engage in activities that will help others.

If parents have any particular questions about their child’s own safety at their neighborhood school, please contact the school principal.