Students at Villa Park High School decided to honor Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy by creating the VPHS Serve-A-Thon.
Dozens of Spartans from Link Crew, National Honor Society, Operation Package Club and other student groups celebrated MLK Day last month by assisting five local community organizations, according to an article in The Orange County Register.
At Mary’s Kitchen, a nonprofit in Orange that provides that breakfast, lunch and showers for disadvantaged individuals, the students prepped and served more than 200 meals and 200 sack lunches.
The students also collected more than 100 bags of clothing that were donated to the local Salvation Army.
At the Ronald McDonald House of Orange County, the students helped clean. At Kirkwood Assisted Living and Memory Care, students spent time with the senior citizens, enjoying “amazing conversations” while making fleece blankets.
For the Friendly Center in Orange, which serves low-income families, the Spartans created more than 100 hygiene bags to give out.
Here are other news stories from across Orange County for the week ending Feb. 9.
- For the second straight year, Irvine’s Woodbridge High School has taken first place in the Orange County Academic Decathlon, securing an automatic bid to the state-level competition in March. Last Saturday, hundreds of students from 42 local high schools engaged in the decathlon’s most popular event, the Super Quiz Relay.
- Organizers of the new Orange County High School Esports League hope its launch will engage students who haven’t had an outlet for their passions on campus while also generating lessons in the STEM fields. Speaking of the league, a series of Saturday workshops will help players hone their skills, learn more about the league and meet their fellow gamers.
- Donna Dowicki, a teacher at Far Horizons Montessori School in Orange, won Parenting OC Magazine’s 2018 Top Teacher award. The ceremony was held at Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.
- Edison High School students enrolled in the Center for International Business and Communication Studies received valuable information related to careers in the business industry during a trip to Massachusetts.
- K-1 students from Kinoshita Elementary School in San Juan Capistrano embraced their inner artist during an abstract art lesson at the Sawdust Art Festival in Laguna Beach.
- Supporters of the Niguel Hills Middle School music program established an online fundraising campaign to help the ‘lone’ music teacher with more instructors.
- A host of impassioned students from Villa Park High, and Cerro Villa Middle school in Orange Unified devoted their personal time on Dr. Martin Luther King Day to serving others during the VPHS Serve-A-Thon.
- With the winning word “formaldehyde,” fifth-grader Jack Bullock of Mission Basilica School in San Juan Capistrano won a the OC Catholic Schools Week Spelling Bee at JSerra Catholic High School. His prize was $5,000 per year toward JSerra tuition.
- Gov. Jerry Brown wants to require school districts to publish in their annual budgets a summary of the funds they plan to spend on low-income children, English learners and other high-needs students in an effort to make it easier to see how school districts in California are investing funds to improve educational outcomes.
- Capistrano Unified presented a teacher of the year award to a valued educator at Junipero Serra Alternative High School who relates to his students through his own personal story.
- Nearly four in 10 parents say they’re familiar with or know a lot about the California School Dashboard, which grades schools and school districts using multicolored metrics, and those who have visited the website generally like what they’ve seen and found it useful, according to a new survey. (In December, OCDE produced this video explaining how navigate the dashboard.)
Keep track of education coverage by bookmarking newsroom.ocde.us.