March 21, 2016 - Midland Public Schools

Superintendent’s Weekly Communiqué
Michael E. Sharrow, Superintendent
(989) 923-5026
sharrowme@midlandps.org
Volume 3, Issue 30
March 21, 2016
Looking for information about the Midland
Public Schools’
Young 5’s Program
Eight Impressive MPS Students Excelled at the March 5 National
Council of Women in Technology Aspirations Awards at MSU.
This award is given to only 40 girls in the entire State.
for the 2016-17 school year? Here is a
link to the Young 5’s Program on our
website including the registration materials
and a frequently asked questions
document: http://midps.org/kdg
Congratulations to Midland High’s Katie Wenban, Katie Yats, Gina
Ennis, Rebekah Walter, and Hannah Striebel, and Dow
High’s Maansi Dasari, Bailey Flint and Caitlyn Myers Also,
congratulations to Maansi who was selected as National Semi-finalist
for this award.
Here is the link for information and
registration materials for the MPS
4-Year Old Pre-School
Program for the 2016-17 school
year: http://midps.org/preschool
Katie Yats
Katie Wenban Rebecca Walter Hannah Striebel Gina Ennis
Congratulations to the 15 Dow High student athletes and
their coaches who competed at the Swimming
Division 2 State Championships at SVSU on
Saturday, March 12. This impressive Dow
High team finished 6th in the State.
Congratulations to Nehemiah Mork who
repeated his win as Division 2 State Champion in
both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events for the
2nd year in a row. Wow!
Noah Behm and Hunter Grannum finished 5th
in breaststroke and diving. Dow's three relay
teams finished 2nd, 3rd and 9th.
Kudos to all of these impressive, hard working athletes!
Congratulations to the Midland High Boys’ Varsity
basketball team and coaches as they continue their postseason playoff journey!!
This year’s District Championship victory made them the
District Champs for three of the last four years. Wow!
Wednesday night’s win gave the MHS Boys’ Varsity
Basketball Team their first Regional Championship in 37
years. Amazing! The next stop on this impressive team’s
playoff journey is
Tuesday (3/22) at Grand
Blanc High School
against Macomb
Dakota at 7 o'clock.
We’re rooting for you!
Caitlyn Myers
Baily Flint
Maansi Dasari
Kudos to these and all of the MPS students who
competed in this prestigious event.
On Saturday, March 5th, Midland High Students
competed at and won Michigan State University’s 3rd
annual computer programming competition beating
out teams from all over Michigan. The winning team of
Max Dykhuizen, Charlie Light, and Matt Lile was the only team to
complete all the problems. They finished the last problem with only 47
seconds left–a buzzer beater in the world of computer science.
Congrats to this impressive team and their coach, Bob Fox!
March 5 was a busy weekend for MPS students. Also
that weekend, eight Dow High students went to
Traverse City to participate in the Michigan District of
Key Club International's Student Leadership
Conference. There, Anna Mylvaganam was recognized
as this year's Outstanding President. They won several other awards
including the Year in Review contest and the pop tab collection with
212 pounds of pop tabs, which was nearly 100 pounds more than the
runner up.
Anna Mylvaganam & Samantha Damocles were elected to
represent our state as two of the four students to serve on the
Michigan District's Executive Board. Congratulations!
Second Page Headlines
March 21, 2016
Each year Hollie Brock, third grade teacher at Woodcrest
Elementary, creates a special “March is Reading Month” theme
for her class. She surprised her class earlier this month by
dressing up as Ms. Frizzle, from the popular
books and television series The Magic
School Bus. In addition to dressing up for
the day, she also made a “Magic School
Bus” of her own out of cardboard and
construction paper that served as a reading
nook for students. A lucky winner of a
classroom drawing will even be able to take
her creation home at the end of the month.
Congratulations to the Jefferson
students, Victoria Leiti, Shichi Dhar, and
Anish Middha, who represented Jefferson
and competed at the Regional Challenge
of “You Be the Chemist” at Delta College.
Anish Middha will move on to the State
Challenge which will be held Saturday,
April 16th at Saginaw Valley State
University. Great job Huskies!!
Page 2 of 4
DECA … DECA … DECA … DECA … DECA … DECA
Dow High and Midland High DECA chapters represented MPS
proudly at the State Career Development conference in Detroit
March 11-13.
Dow High students who have earned the chance to compete in
Nashville in April at the International DECA competition against
18,000 of their peers are: Austen Zhu, AnnMarie Moolenaar,
Melanie
Sequeira,
Varun
Shanker, Sean
Pumford,
Caroline
Szabo,
Dorothy Ma,
Annie Kidder,
Adi Middha,
Mitchell Hayes, Zach Nelson, Kofi Ofori-Darko, Tim Su, Eric Hus
and Michael Szabo. This places these students in the top 10% of
marketing students in Michigan! DHS students attending the
leadership academies are: Afua Ofori-Darko, Diana Camacho,
Minhyo Kang, Brandon Zhu, and Caden Skinner.
Midland High students earning
medals in Detroit included
Scott Joffre and Jonah
Dykhuizen. Devin Granzo
Placed overall for the State &
Max Dykhuizen will be
competing at the national level
in Nashville next month!
Midland High and Dow High CAD
students did very well at the Delta
College Student Technical Solutions
competition on March 17.
Congratulations to:
AutoCAD Mechanical
Richard Wall - 1st Place (DHS)
Parametric Solid Modeling
Ben Haut - 1st Place (MHS)
Kevin Coombs - 3rd Place (MHS)
Congratulations … Way to go!
2016-17 School Year Calendar Status
The 2016-17 school year calendar DRAFT is on
the agenda for tonight’s Board of Education
meeting. If the calendar is approved by the Board,
please watch for it to be posted to the MPS website tomorrow.
Over 90 Dow High students participated in the Marketing Interview
Day. Students received a minimum of two individual interviews, one
group interview and participated in a seminar where they created
LinkedIn pages and received information on how to Skype and
telephone interview. Thank you to all of our Dow High parents, local
businesses, the ESA and Northwood
University for interviewing and providing
information for the student
seminar. The day was a huge success
and would not have been possible
without the support of our community!
Congratulations to all of those who participated in this year’s State
DECA conference and best wishes to those going to Nashville in
April as you prepare for the next leg of your DECA journey!
MHS student
leaders attended
a regional leadership conference
in Livonia in
March. The
students networked with other
MI schools,
shared ideas and
gathered infor
about student
programs that
can be implemented at MHS.
March Shining Stars ...
 Stephen Watkins, Dow
High Paraprofessional
 Bernadette Wood, Northeast Middle
School Teacher
These dedicated, hard working MPS staff
members will be recognized at tonight’s
Board of Education meeting. Thank you,
Steve and Bernadette, for going above and
beyond to make MPS a better place for
students! Please keep the Shining Star
nominations coming in. Here is a link to the
nomination form: http://midps.org/
shiningstarform
Third Page Headlines
March 21, 2016
Page 3 of 4
Midland Public Schools’ Teams Excel at Midland FIRST Robotics District Competition
The H.H. Dow High and Midland High School robotics teams competed at the local FIRST Robotics competition at Dow High School on
March 18 & 19. This amazing competition was high energy, with more than 40 impressive 120-pound robots from all over the State competing
toward the same goal – to breach their opponent’s defenses and capture the opposing tower.
The Midland High School 2nd year team, ‘Like a Boss’ (5509), was ranked
12th at the end of qualification matches. They were picked to be part of the 4th
place alliance team that reached the quarterfinals during the competition.
Team 5509 also received the Excellence in Engineering Award sponsored by
Delphi. This award celebrates an elegant and advantageous machine feature.
The MHS Robotics Team is coached by MHS Math Teacher, Ben Younkin.
The H.H. Dow High Team, ‘The Charge’ (2619), was part of the winning
alliance, placing first in the District competition and earning a spot in the
Michigan State FIRST Robotics Competition in April. ‘The Charge’ won the UL
Industrial Safety Award for having built & implemented a culture of safety
fundamentals within the team and helping to
increase awareness in the broader community.
‘The Charge’ also won the District Chairman’s
Award. This is the most prestigious award at
FIRST and it honors the team that best represents
a model for other teams to emulate and best
embodies the purpose and goals of FIRST. The Chairman’s Award looks for sustained impact over many
years – the activities and outreach of the current team members, as well as the team's many alumni, helped
make this award possible. In addition, two Dow High students,
Cameron Curtis and Kiley Mowry, were selected as Team
2619’s Dean’s List 2016 nominees. The Dean’s List Award
celebrates outstanding student leaders whose passion for and
effectiveness at attaining FIRST ideals is exemplary. One of
these students, Kiley Mowry, was selected to move on to the
State competition as a Dean’s List Award semi-finalist. Kiley is
Dow High's first ever Robotics Dean's List Semi-Finalist! Dow
High’s Team 2619, The Charge, is coached by DHS Math
Teacher, Sean Murray. This is The Charge’s 9th year of competition.
Congratulations to both of our MPS Robotics Teams
on their incredible accomplishments!
Dow High & the other hosting robotics teams from the Great Lakes Bay Region did an
amazing job hosting this exciting event for more than 40 schools from across the State
of Michigan. Thank you to the Dow High staff and students for their support and
flexibility, which helped make this event possible. Thanks also to our partner host
teams – 3770 from Bullock Creek, 703 from Saginaw and 4819 from Mt. Pleasant!
Congratulations to Jefferson Middle Schools’ 7th grader,
Christine O’Donnell!
Sunday afternoon Christine was one of five Michigan 7th
graders honored by the Michigan Reading Association at a
banquet in Detroit. The association gave her a medal and
published her story (called “Hard Rock Epiphany”) in the 2016
edition of their magazine, Kaleidoscope, which showcases Michigan students’ best
writing pieces from grades 1-12. Way to write, Christine! We are all very proud of you!
A new first … this is our first ever 4-page
Monday Communique.
So many celebrations we are excited to share!
The Dow High Update earned a Silver Crown
from Columbia Scholastic Press Association at
their spring conference last week. The print edition
was among 14 other schools
across the US to earn the
Silver Crown, only 1 of 2 in
Michigan. The staff also won a
Certificate of Merit for Caption
Writing; Megan Werner won
2nd Place for News Page
Design Portfolio of work; and
Julia Ahrns and Mary Noble won First Place for
Photo layout—Two or more pages.
Back Page Headlines
The Midland High School
student body, under the leadership of Student Council and
Student Leadership, met their
fundraising goal of $1,700 for
the Kids Against Hunger
(KAH) campaign. Kids
Against Hunger is a nonprofit
organization with the mission
to significantly reduce the
number of hungry people in
the U.S. and throughout the
world. This program fundraises and uses the proceeds to
purchase the food products
(rice and other nutrients).
Volunteers then package the
food in assembly fashion into
a bag that costs approximately $1 and provides a meal for
4-6 people.
The packaging event was
held on Saturday morning
(3/19). Both Chargers and
Chemics came together to
package 20,000 meals purchased through the fundraising efforts of both schools for
Kids Against Hunger. Students were there from
8-11:00 am to make this happen and make a difference for
so many. Well done!
Midland High School’s
Student Council and
Student Leadership hosted
their annual Musicfest on
March 18. The event featured
16 acts from solos to full rock
band performances. The
event raised $735 for the
United Way of Genesee
County’s Flint Water Fund.
March 21, 2016
Page 4 of 4
Midland High, Dow High, Northeast Middle, Jefferson Middle, as well as Christa McAuliffe Middle and John
Glenn High Schools from Bay City participated in the Midland Public Schools “Celebrate Choirs”
event on March 14. Not only did students perform and clinic on their festival pieces but also participated in
workshops on vocal technique and improvisation.
Midland High’s Chorus earned a Division II (good) rating and the
Meistersingers earned a Division I (excellent) rating.
H. H. Dow High’s Chorus earned a
Division II (Good) rating. Chamber Singers earned a Division I (Excellent) rating.
Jefferson Middle School’s 6/7/8 grade choirs
performed for clinicians. Both choirs earned a Division II (good) rating.
Northeast Middle School’s 7/8 grade choir earned a
Division II rating.
All of the choirs did an amazing job and represented
Midland Public Schools beautifully!
Jazz & More, a fundraising dinner
featuring the Dow High jazz bands
and select band, choir, and orchestra
solo & ensemble performances, will
be held at the Midland Country Club on April
30 from 5:30 to 9:00. Tickets are $35 each
and can be reserved online through April
15. Visit www.DowHighMusic.org for info.
Midland High student leaders,
with the help of Coach Zerull
hosted the first ever 16 team 4 x 4
co-ed volleyball tournament on
February 18.
The champions of the event were
Ellie Jensen, Jinyi Lan, Paige
Murphy, and Emma Wolf.
Congratulations to these Dow High Auto Tech students who
placed at the recent Delta College STS Competition:
Some impressive MPS student
accolades… Congratulations to …
 Dale Boursaw and Nathan Hitsman took 3rd place in
 Stephen O’Donnell (DHS
the Basic Automotive Repair Technician Competition.
 Brett Husted and Steven Drake took 2nd
place in the Master Automotive Repair
Technician Competition.
Congratulations to Midland High’s Sarah
Meath who officially signed with Purdue
University at Calumet in Hammond, IN on
Tuesday, March 15th. Sarah was a 3-year
varsity golf player at Midland High. Her senior
year included 2nd
team All-Valley honors, Co-Team
MVP, Qualifying for the State
Finals which included an 81 in
difficult conditions. Sarah will join
a new Peregrine golf program
coached by Randy Wexter.
We hope you have a safe, fun Spring Break
March 25-April 1.
The next Communique will be published
Monday, April 11.
Freshmen) and Jinyi Lan (MHS
Junior) for placing within the top
100 students across the State of
Michigan in 2016 in the 59th
Annual Michigan Mathematics
Prize Competition.
 Stephen O’Donnell (DHS
Freshmen) who received a
scholarship as part of the 2016
Voice of Democracy competition at
a VFW State Meeting in Lansing.
Check out our
March episode of
This month’s
segment covers
 The Booster Bash
 Arts Integration
 Bond Update
 New STEM elementary school
Here is the link:
https://youtu.be/DF2ugeCU794