Upcoming events at Thomas Street Elementary

Here’s Thomas Street news from first-grade teacher Susan Hankins:

Ginny,
I wanted to let you know of some exciting events coming at Thomas Street.

Friday, 10/31 School wide Barn Dance in the gym. Decorations, square dancing, dressed-up kids and parents! 8:15-noon Contact person: Sherry Rial
Tuesday, 11/4 School wide mock presidential election in the auditorium sponsored by our Challenge classes. Students vote with ballots in booths and our own Electorial College will place votes after tallying the different classes. Contact person: Shannon Carlisle
Wednesday, 11/5 “Breakfast Serials” reading/breakfast combo in the auditorium. Guest reader will be Becky Dailey, former Media Specialist at Thomas Street. 8:00-8:45 Contact person: Susan Hankins
Thursday, 11/6 Fall Festival throughout the school 5:00pm-7:00pm Contact person: Kim Higgins, our PTO president
Th/Fri 11/20 and 11/21 Thanksgiving Feasts from 11:00-1:00 each day for all grade levels Contact person: Brenda Robinson, principal

We’d love for you to come and visit any of these events! You’re always welcome at Thomas Street!
Susan Hankins

More election events in Starkville School District

More from Nicole Thomas, public information officer for the Starkville School District:

Just wanted to add this to the list of events for next week:

2:15 pm-Campaign rally at Overstreet Elementary School

Info-Overstreet took a little different approach to the Promote the Vote campaign this year. Each class elected a candidate for president. Then each hall elected a candidate (think of it like the primaries). They’ve ended up with 3 candidates, and the candidates will have a rally on Monday and the voting will be Tuesday.

There are campaign signs in front of Overstreet, and the principal called today to tell me there was a child passing out cards in the carpool line this afternoon.

Preschoolers learn about kindergarten

Making Waves, which borrows its name from the Golden Wave mascot at Tupelo High School, was sponsored for the third year by the Citizens for Tupelo Public Schools.

Click here for the story.

Saltillo Elementary Art in the Classroom

My DJ colleague Michaela Morris has written a nice story for Monday’s Education page. Third-graders at Saltillo Elementary took science out of the classroom and painted without brushes last week. Naturalist and painter Robin Whitfield of Grenada worked with the students, mixing lessons on beetles and painting with found objects through the school’s Art in the Classroom program. The year-long project is funded in part through a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission.

You can read more next week. In the meantime, enjoy these photos taken by DJ photog Todd Sherman.

Starkville students to hold mock election, parade

Here’s info from Nicole Thomas of the Starkville School District:

On Monday, Nov. 3 at 8:30 a.m., students at Armstrong Middle School will participate in a mock presidential debate in Mallory Carlisle’s class.

At 1 p.m., first grades from Sudduth Elementary School will parade through downtown Starkville carrying signs and banners reminding people to vote in Tuesday’s election.

Walk to School Day in Starkville

Nicole Thomas, public information officer for the Starkville School District, sent this in:

Show your support for Safe Routes to School! Come walk with Starkville in Motion!

Starkville in Motion is hosting a park and walk event on Friday, November 7 to promote their Safe Routes to School program.

Registration begins at 6:40 and the walk begins at 7:05.

For additional information, please contact event organizer Lois Connington at 312-2588.

We do want to emphasize that this is a park and walk event, so everyone is welcome to join us, not just those who live near the schools. Parents are encouraged to walk, but adults (and police) will be with the walkers. Both walks will start on Main St., just east of Jackson.

Now that our grant funds are activated, we are able to offer incentives to the participants. Each walker will receive an information packet about Safe Routes to School, but they will also be entered into drawings
for other prizes.

Promote the Vote at Amory High School

Amory High School students participated in Promote the Vote on Tuesday, one week before the presidential election. U.S. History teacher David Millender said the Social Studies Department worked for the past month having students register to vote, as well as having students in all Social Studies classes make positive campaign signs and get out the vote signs. On election day, students voted at the polling place set up in the auditorium. Millender reports that everything went well. And the results? John McCain had 215 to Barack Obama’s 118.

Promote the Vote at Rankin Elementary

On Tuesday I had the best time visiting with students at Tupelo’s Rankin Elementary for their Promote the Vote activities. You can read the full story here, but the gist is that second- and third-graders in the Challenge program participated in a mock election sponsored by the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office. The children researched the candidates and issues, learned about the electoral process, and better than that they saw how one vote can count. Thanks to Challenge teacher Nikki Logan for letting me know about this great learning opportunity.

Corinth High takes part in Promote the Vote

The students at Corinth High School participated in “Promote the Vote” today. Corinth School District project director Kim Jobe submitted this news release about their participation:

For release 10/28/08 and thereafter
By Kim Jobe
Project Director, Corinth School District

CORINTH, Miss. – If students at Corinth High School are indicators of how the national presidential election will turn out next week, Sen. Barack Obama will find himself seated in the Oval Office in January.

Students in Gloria Cartwright’s U.S. Government classes helped host the mock election Tuesday. Each student in grades 9 through 12 had the opportunity to vote for president, two U.S. senators and the 1st District representative for the U.S. House of Representative. Students were instructed that they could vote for anyone of their choosing from seven parties including Constitutional, Democratic, Green, Independent, Libertarian, Reform and Republican.

During activity period Tuesday, students reported to their homeroom classes and were given instructions from Cartwright’s students about how to vote. A voting booth was set up in each classroom and students were given ballots after signing their names on a voting roll.

For the office of president, 392 votes were cast. Obama received 212 votes while Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate, came in second at 162. Others receiving votes were Ralph Nadar, Independent candidate, with 10 votes; Bob Barr, Libertarian Party candidate, with 4; Cynthia McKinney, Green Party candidate; 3; and Ted Weill, Reform Party candidate, with one vote. Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate, didn’t receive a vote in the CHS election.

In the senatorial election, students seemed to vote on the side of incumbency.

Thad Cochran received 235 votes and opponent Eric Fleming garnered 147. For the other senate seat, Roger Wicker, who was appointed to the office last December by Gov. Haley Barbour to finish out the term of retired Sen. Trent Lott, received 223 votes. His opponent, former Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, got 151 of the students’ votes.

On the House side, Travis Childers, a Democrat who is currently serving as U. S. Representative for District 1, received 236 votes. Greg Davis, the Republican opponent, earned 112 votes while Independent Wally Pang received 22 votes and Green Party Candidate John M. Wages received 11 votes.

“Everything went quite well,” said Cartwright. “I have had several compliments about my students taking charge and running the elections. I was very proud of my government students.”

Cartwright’s fourth period class was given the task of tallying the votes. The mock election was held in association with Mississippi’s “Promote The Vote.” Since its inception in 1996, nearly one million Mississippi students have participated in the event. Statewide results, gathered from mock elections at schools across Mississippi Oct. 27 through Oct. 29, will be announced on Thursday.

According to C. Delbert Hosemann Jr., Mississippi Secretary of State, “Promote The Vote” was created to foster awareness and understanding of the democratic process. The local events provide a vehicle for students to participate in the election process and, hopefully, will help foster a generation of informed adult voters.

Tupelo students ace subject area tests

Michaela Morris returned from today’s Tupelo Public School District Board of Trustees meeting with news about two student recognitions:

1. Jace King, now a freshman at Tupelo High School, made a perfect score on the Algebra I Test he took as an eighth-grader at Tupelo Middle School.

2. THS student Irelina Valchanova earned a perfect score on the U.S. History Test.