Saturday, May 19, 2012
Three Rockwood School District students earned a perfect score of 36 on the most recent ACT—one attends Eureka High and another attends Lafayette High schools.
Rockwood School District students who recently achieved perfect ACT scores are: “Academically, these students are exceptional,” stated Jim Wipke, executive director of Rockwood School District's secondary education in a district release. “We’re proud of their accomplishments, and we’re confident they have the ambition and talent to achieve their goals.” The ACT consists of tests in English, mathematics, reading and science. Each test is scored on a scale of 1-36, and a student's composite score is the average of the four test scores. ACT test scores are accepted by all major U.S. colleges, and exceptional scores of 36 provide colleges with evidence of student readiness for the academic rigors that lie ahead, according to Rockwood sources.
Friday, May 18, 2012
A replacement to former Minnesota administrator Nancy DuBois was named at Thursday's Rockwood School District Board of Education meeting. Today, the other administrator from Minnesota resigned, plus the district's director of finance.
A year after regionwide controversy within Rockwood School District concerning the district's hiring of two of Superintendent Bruce Borchers' colleagues from Minnesota, both of those administrators have resigned from Rockwood. All three administrators—Borchers, Randy Smasal and Nancy DuBois—had worked in the same school district prior to Borchers becoming Rockwood's superintendent. For background, read Patch article: New Rockwood Hires: Superintendent, Board Say Normal Steps Taken An email initiated Friday afternoon by Rockwood Stakeholders for Real Solutions co-founder and spokesperson Eileen Tyrrell to Rockwood Chief Communications Officer Kim Cranston confirmed that Randy Smasal has submitted a letter of resignation to the district's …
Rockwood School District's Board of Education directors at Thursday evening's board meeting approved the hiring of a new executive director of learning and support services, effective July 1.
Karen Kieffer replaces Nancy DuBois, who recently resigned from the Rockwood School District, as the new executive director of learning and support services. DuBois was a previous co-worker with Rockwood's Superintendent Bruce Borchers in Minnesota before she consulted with the Eureka-based district and then accepted a full-time position with Rockwood at the beginning of this school year to head the learning and support services' area. Kieffer was employed by the Rockwood School District for 27 years. She began her career as a teacher at Woerther Elementary School. After teaching for five years, she served as an administrative intern for one year, and as an assistant principal for three years at Kehrs Mill Elementary School. During this …
DRUG SERIES: Eureka Police Department Chief Michael Wiegand sets the stage for a look at the local war on drugs. Patch will publish a series of articles about the scope of the issues, based on the community town hall meeting held Thursday evening.
Editor's Note: The last in a series of 17 town hall meetings conducted by St. Louis County police and drug prevention advocates was held Thursday evening at Eureka High School. To set the stage for local information about drug abuse and related crimes, Patch asked Eureka Police Chief Michael Wiegand to analyze the local situation. Check back to Eureka-Wildwood Patch for a series of articles about drug misuse and resulting issues. "I-44 is a major interstate highway and a known drug corridor for narcotics traffickers to bring drugs into this county from Mexico—traffickers who transport the drugs throughout the Midwest," said Eureka Police Department Chief Michael Wiegand. "It is unknown how bad the drug situation on I-44 is. There's no …
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Rockwood School District and St. Louis Community College-Wildwood students, along with those from other local schools, create huge chair-themed public art project for June 2. Video accompanying this article explains origin of Chesterfield-style chairs.
Rockwood School District students got the opportunity to showcase their artistic talents by participating in the Take a Seat Public Art project with Chesterfield Arts. With the guidance of art teachers, students at Babler Elementary, Ballwin Elementary, Chesterfield Elementary, Eureka Elementary, Green Trails Elementary, LaSalle Springs Middle, Ridge Meadows Elementary, Uthoff Valley Elementary, Rockwood South Middle and Rockwood Valley Middle are joining 13 other local schools (22 total) from the area as they design a life-sized fiberglass-formed “Chesterfield chair"—a high-back style of chairs made famous by classic British upholstery techniques. The Chesterfield seating design dates back to the British club chair popular in London men'…
Monday, May 14, 2012
From volleyball, softball, football, field hockey and swimming to tennis, baseball, lacrosse, basketball, soccer and golf, Lafayette High School athletes cemented plans with colleges on Wednesday.
A national signing day was held at Lafayette High School in Wildwood on May 9 for college-bound students. The following student athletes signed letters of intent: Athletes who already signed this year include:
Friday, May 11, 2012
LEAVE CONGRATS: Fairway Elementary School's first grade teacher in Wildwood was surprised Friday at secretly planned 3 p.m. all-school assembly to let her know she was selected as this year's best educator by Panera Top Teacher contest.
Shhhhshhhhooooosh—First-grade Fairway Elementary School teacher, Maureen Smith, in Wildwood is in for a huge surprise any second right now. She's being named St. Louis' Top Teacher of the year in a contest sponsored by Panera/Saint Louis Bread Co. See Eureka-Wildwood Patch 3 p.m. news flash: Fairway Elementary Teacher Named St. Louis' Top Teacher in Panera Contest Fairway Elementary School Principal David Cobb said Smith is deserving of this award for many reasons. "The biggest reason being her dedication to all children. While she has a classroom full of students where she displays qualities of a master teacher each and every day, she also works with the community and all stakeholders to ensure students throughout the Rockwood School …
SECRET FLASH: Maureen Smith, a first grade teacher at Fairway Elementary in Wildwood, right at this moment at 3 p.m. is being named at school as the Saint Louis Bread Co./Panera Top Teacher for 2012. Surprise, Maureen!
When more than 4,500 entries were received by Saint Louis Bread Co./Panera Top Teacher Contest organizers on April 30, Maureen Smith from Fairway Elementary School in Wildwood was one of them. Beating out those thousands of other locally nominated K-12 teachers, Rockwood School District's Maureen Smith is being surprised right now at Fairway at 3 p.m. in an assembly secretly planned by her school’s administrators and Panera Bread to officially honor her as the St. Louis area’s best educator. Smith launched the "Got Your Backpack" program, which helps feed needy K-12 students on weekends. Likewise, Panera actually donated $1 to a similar program, Operation Food Search’s Operation Backpack, for each local contest nomination. Smith will be …
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
After U.S. News & World Report staffers issued a national ranking of their version of the best high schools Tuesday, question marks were raised about why all of Rockwood School District's high schools didn't make it and what that means.
Rockwood School District parents still are trying to make sense of Tuesday's newly issued 2012 U.S. News & World Report national ranking of best schools. Do the answers lie in algebraic equations, literally? When only one of the Rockwood's four high schools, Marquette, showed up on the list, Eureka-Wildwood Patch dug into data available regarding how U.S. News staffers approached crunching the data. See related Patch news flash articles from early Tuesday afternoon: Rockwood High Schools Receive U.S. News Ranking, Or Not Bogus or Believable? U.S. News Ranks High Schools Eureka-Wildwood Patch Facebook users shared both types of reactions to the news. One person who posts as Frau Huling said the results were believable because there were …
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
NEWS FLASH PART 2 FOR TODAY: Based on a more in-depth assessment of the criteria supplied in the U.S. News & World Reports 2012 Best High Schools rankings, it's difficult to see how the selected high schools were selected.
U.S. News & World Report released Tuesday what quickly was called "one of the most extensive analyses and national rankings of U.S. public high schools ever published." See earlier Eureka-Wildwood Patch News Flash: Rockwood High Schools Receive U.S. News Ranking, Or Not The exclusive online list, Best High Schools, includes school-specific data on enrollment, location, ethnicity, school type, state assessment proficiency tests, and Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests. "Using some of this data and a comprehensive methodology, the schools were given a college readiness index score and then numerically ranked and awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals," according to a PR Newswire release about the new list. Editor's …
CSloan
1:01 pm on Saturday, May 19, 2012
And a contract extension. Because he's done such a bang up job. I will be curious as well to see how much if anything it has to do with the state audit. It all happened very quietly--kudos to RS for RS for releasing the info, more ›