Articles from December 2017

Brent Cook, assistant principal for activities/athletics at Dubuque Senior High School

Brent Cook, assistant principal for activities/athletics at Dubuque Senior High School, was named one of 11 national recipients of the 2017 Distinguished Service Awards given by the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA).

The award was presented on December 12 in Phoenix, Arizona, during the banquet at the 48th annual National Athletic Directors Conference conducted jointly by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) and the NIAAA.
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The Dubuque Racing Association (DRA) has been a longtime supporter of education in the Dubuque Community. At last month’s School Board Meeting, representatives from the DRA shared a recap of support to the board. The district was presented with a check for $120,000 in funding for this year and the DRA also highlighted the $3,452,835 since the DRA’s inception.

We are grateful to the Dubuque Racing Association for its ongoing support of Dubuque students.

Did you know?
The DRA also regularly supports organizations that partner with the district. For example, last year, the DRA provided funding for transportation to and from the district’s Summer Academy, in partnership with the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque.

Dubuque Senior High School student Sibani Ram was recently selected as one of two Iowa students to participate in the 56th annual United States Senate Youth Program to be held March 3-10 in Washington, DC.

Ram joins Robert Nishimwe from North High School in Des Moines as representatives on the 104-student delegation participating in Washington Week. The Iowa delegates were selected by a committee at the Iowa Department of Education.

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As part of Prescott Elementary School’s charter renewal process, the Prescott Advisory Council and the Dubuque Community School District Board of Education requested a review of data relative to Prescott and in comparison to schools in the district with similar demographics.

View the data compilation here

On December 11, the School Board will host a public hearing on renewal of the charter, with the board expected to take action at its January 8 meeting.

George Washington Middle School was recently named one of 10 national finalists in the KIND Schools Challenge, which invites middle- and high-school students nationwide to submit project ideas for making their school community kinder and more inclusive.

The team from Washington Middle School was selected as one of 10 finalists out of more than 190 applications from 28 states and Washington, DC.

Students on the Washington team aim to empower their peers to perform and spot small acts of kindness. As part of their project, they will hand out Kindness Cards to students who do a kind act along with an explanation on how and when to pass their cards on. The goal is to encourage students to think before speaking and acting in ways that are unkind.

The challenge is hosted by Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the KIND Foundation, a philanthropic entity started by KIND Healthy Snacks.

The fall 2017 Online Student Art Gallery is now live featuring art from the district’s elementary and middle school students!

View the Elementary and Middle School Gallery

This gallery is a way to highlight the remarkable products of art education in the district. It’s a digital attempt at bringing the work of our student artists at all levels into your home – because art is created for others to take in.

A recent gift from the Dubuque area chapters of the United States Bowling Congress Bowling Association and Women’s Bowling Association is helping make the sport of bowling accessible to elementary-school students in the Dubuque Community School District.

The classroom kit, which is used in elementary wellness classes across the district, includes six bowling carpet lanes, weighted pin sets, rubberized bowling balls and carrying bags, as well as scoring sheets and a bowler education curriculum.

In addition to this kit, the associations provided adaptive equipment to allow students of all abilities to participate – including a bowling ramp and adaptive bowling ball.

“Bowling is a sport that students across the district look forward to in wellness classes,” said Amy Hawkins, the district’s activities and athletics director. “We are happy to have the equipment to maintain bowling in our curriculum and we are thankful to the bowling associations for their support of students in Dubuque.”

A series of locks were all that stood between Hempstead High School biology students and the antidote to zombie virus unleashed by an evil doctor. (Fictionally, of course!)

The antidote sat in an unassuming series of locked boxes in the classroom. The students’ goal? Work together to uncover the clues about viruses that led them to unlocking the antidote.
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