Scholastic art and writing awards: Students in both middle and upper school accumulated 69 awards at the 2017 Mid-Carolina Regional Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Competition. The competition featured more than 1,900 entries representing outstanding students from both public and private schools throughout Mecklenburg and the surrounding counties. In addition, several students went on to earn additional honors at the Scholastic Art and Writing Gold Key Ceremony. Senior Grace Blevins (Gold Key for Editorial Cartoon) and junior Phoebe Son (Gold Key for Mixed Media) both won best in their respective categories. Senior Grace Bradham also had her Gold Key winning poem selected for an upcoming outdoor campaign with Adams Outdoor Billboards.

Gold Key winners include: Kalen Bland (drawing and illustration); Grace Blevins (editorial cartoon); Eva Bower (design); Grace Bradham (Six Gold Keys – five painting, one poetry); Ava Bruns (senior art portfolio); Hannah Burgess (drawing and illustration); Maya Cauthen (drawing and illustration); Caroline Doyle (editorial cartoon); Addison Goodrich (drawing and illustration); Katherine Hanebutt (painting); Briley Hoff (drawing and illustration); Regan Jackson (painting); Elinor Langdon (drawing and illustration); Andrew Metz (photography); Katie Saba (personal essay/memoir); Sydney Scott (senior art portfolio); and Phoebe Son (mixed media).

Silver Key winners: Nkiru Afulukwe (poetry); Grace Bradham (painting); Hannah Cataldo (drawing and illustration); Colin Gallagher (Two Silver Keys – poetry); Katie Gowan (drawing and illustration); Katherine Hanebutt (painting); Allison Holbrooks (design); Claire Lillie (drawing and illustration); Jordan Montgomery (drawing and illustration); Abby Richards (Two Silver Keys - design); Claire Woodley (drawing and illustration); and Abby Yoh (personal essay/memoir).

Honorable Mention Honors: Grace Bradham (Two Honorable Mentions –painting, senior art portfolio); Ava Bruns (Three Honorable Mentions – two poetry, one mixed media); Jackson Cannon (poetry); Hanxi Chang (photography); Kelsey Eshleman (mixed media); Kate Eubanks (drawing and illustration); Colin Gallagher (poetry); Melissa Goldstein (poetry); Katherine Hanebutt (Two Honorable Mentions – poetry and senior art portfolio); Taylor Holbrooks (photography); Ellen Johnson (poetry); Jordan Maxwell (Two Honorable Mentions – poetry); Amanuel McLain (poetry); Gracie Mitchell (drawing and illustration); Abby Richards (Five Honorable Mentions – three design, two poetry); Katie Saba (poetry); Sydney Scott (photography); Lauren Spangler (Two Honorable Mentions – drawing and illustration); Caroline White (mixed media); Madison Whiting (Two Honorable Mentions – poetry); Abby Yoh (personal essay/memoir); and Kai Young (poetry).

Charlotte Christian School art students are under the direction of Eva Crawford, director of visual arts, and Pete Baglia, visual arts teacher for middle and upper schools. Charlotte Christian Scholastic Writing Awards students were advised by Jessica Ramsey, middle and upper school media specialist.

Robotics honors: Lower School RoboKnights Robotics Teams have advanced to compete in the 2017 VEX Worlds – VEX IQ Challenge Elementary School Division scheduled for April 23-25 in Louisville, Ky. Both teams advanced to the world competition following their success at the North Carolina VEX IQ State Robotics Championships held recently in Concord. The six students are divided into two groups, RoboKnights Boys and RoboKnights Girls, all fifth-grade students with a love of engineering, math and science. The RoboKnights Boys won first place at the state level, earning the 2017 VEX IQ Challenge State Championship title, and the girls placed third in the state. Both teams will continue training to prepare for the VEX World Championships later this spring. The RoboKnights Boys are Israel Lewis, Evan Santaniello, and Jackson Turner and the RoboKnights Girls are Caelyn Miller, Kennedy Rogers, and Clara Sadowski.

The Lower School RoboKnights Teams are led by Dana Brickner, lower school STEM teacher, and Kimberly Warr, lower school instructional technology facilitator. Mark Sadowski, VEX Robotics parent and professional engineer, also volunteered his time to mentor both teams.

Science honors: Four Charlotte Christian School eighth-grade students recently advanced to the Regional Science Fair held on the campus of UNC Charlotte. Elizabeth Davisball, Emma Edwards, Zoe Jackson, and Jordan Montgomery all represented Charlotte Christian School at the regional science event after winning top honors in the Charlotte Christian Eighth Grade Science Fair held earlier this year. Zoe Jackson won first place at the Regional Science Fair in the category of Biological Science A and will advance to represent Charlotte Christian School in the North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair to be held March 24-25 in Raleigh at Meredith College. Winners who advance at the state level will go on to compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) to be held May 8 in Phoenix, Az.

Elizabeth Davisball was also honored with a second place finish in the United States Air Force Outstanding Engineering Award for her project that studied the aerodynamics of fabrics that are used by athletes in the sport of swimming.

Diep Stamps, eighth-grade life science teacher, coordinated the Charlotte Christian School Science Fair and served as advisor for students advancing to the regional fair.

Model UN team: Congratulations to Mary Hayes, Owen Yuhas, Hannah Baumgartner, Emma Taylor, Ryan Kochan, Addison Hyde, May McDonnell, Ryder Cone, Janae-Rose Fageyinbo, Jackson Smith, Alex Price, Dhruv Khurjekar, Celeste Denny and Jack Puchalski. Puchalski was selected as the “Best Delegate” and presented the best paper during the conference. Special thanks to Megan Fink and Jessica Demeter for coordinating.

New principal: At its Feb. 28 meeting, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education approved the appointment of Fermandi Dyson as principal at Metro School. Dyson has been working as assistant principal at Metro School since 2016. She was an assistant principal at Cuthbertson High (Union County Public Schools) from 2013-2016. Dyson has also been an Exceptional Children compliance/academic facilitator at Independence High from 2007-2013 and Exceptional Children curriculum teacher at Devonshire Elementary from 2004-2007. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from Wingate University.

Project: Students have undertaken an ambitious project to collect data in order to understand food waste in Charlotte. Working with researchers from MIT as well as local businesses, students collected and analyzed data on food wasted in the city as part of the Data-Driven Curiosity Challenge designed by MIT. Using the results from their analysis, students will educate members of their school and community about this ongoing issue.

Working in groups, students researched the causes and effects of food waste in local businesses in the city and their school. Partnering with Crown Town Compost, a local recycling company and other various businesses including Trader Joe’s, Earth Farms, McDonald’s, Red Robin, Publix, Harris Teeter, Food Lion, Earth Fare and the Charlotte Douglas International Airport, students monitored the amount of compostable food that went unused and ended up in landfills. In total, they contacted 12 businesses in the city. Students discovered that 1,000 pounds of food is wasted every month by the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Students also collected data about food waste in their school that led them to discover that only 19 percent of their cafeteria food was diverted from the landfill. As a result, students led a composting and recycling drive during lunch time and reduced their food waste by 58 percent.

The activity is the second phase of a three-part annual challenge created by MIT experts based on STEAM subjects and the scientific method. The first part of the challenge encouraged students’ to think critically and follow their curiosity. In the final stage of the challenge students will design and build creative solutions to present to local businesses on ways to reduce food waste in the city.

Academic WorldQuest: The school’s eight-member team answered questions on topics ranging from the Rise of ISIS to Antarctican geography and won first place regional competition in November

In third place at the half-way mark of the competition, Myers Park waged a great comeback, doing particularly well on Brexit and global food security. Four years ago, Myers Park was the first public school to win regionals, hosted by the World Affairs Council of Charlotte (WACC), and they’ve won each regional competition since then.

The team will travel to Washington, D.C., in late April for the national competition. Both WACC and Myers Park PTSO provide support, but it’s limited and won’t cover the group’s expenses, expected to be $4,500. They’ve created a crowd-funding campaign with the hope of raising at least $1,000 from the community to help ease the financial burden. Their crowd-funding campaign, as well as a short video from the regional competition, can be found at https://igg.me/at/mpacademicworldquest

WorldQuest, now a national competition, originated in Charlotte 20 years ago, with the World Affairs Council of Charlotte.

Second Global Summit: The school is hosted its second Global Summit with high school students from Nigeria and Denmark.

Five students from Halifield Schools in Lagos, Nigeria, and six from Tietgen in Odense, Denmark, participated with six Providence Day Global Studies Diploma students on campus for the March 5-10 summit sponsored by the Providence Day Global Education office.

The summit consists of design thinking sessions — usingcreative strategies to consider issues and resolve problems facilitated by members of Providence Day’s Center for the Art and Science of Teaching, Learning and Entrepreneurship — focusing on the themes of student leadership and democracy, two of the six pillars of Round Square International, a worldwide network of schools in 40 countries across five continents that share a holistic approach to learning.

STEM Career Fair: The school held its annual STEM Career Fair for students March 3 with more than 30 professionals from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields donated their time and talents so that students could gain insight into possible STEM careers.

“This was a great opportunity for our students to engage in real world conversations with real professionals,” said Ivana O’Kelly, chemistry teacherand organizer of the career fair. “Also, connecting our students with our community in Charlotte is a part of our vision and our beliefs at Charlotte Catholic.”

The 30 professionals came from a a variety n array of companies. Participants included the director of Nuclear Engineering at Duke Energy, Influence Health’s vice president of Strategic Services, a meteorologist from WBTV, Presbyterian Pathology Group’s medical director, an automation engineer from Wells Fargo, and McGuire Nuclear Station’s core reactor designer.

Next head of school: Eddie Mensah, Charlotte Preparatory School’s next head of school, is a man of the world. As a 16-year old, the native of Ghana went to an international baccalaureate boarding school in Canada. He came to the United States at 18 with just a small suitcase and 12 Canadian dollars to attend college in Pennsylvania, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Following in his Ghanaian mother’s footsteps, Mensah embarked on a teaching career in Philadelphia before arriving in Charlotte, where he has served as Charlotte Prep’s head of middle school since 2013.

On July 1, Mensah will take the helm of Charlotte Prep, a K-8 college preparatory school that serves an international and multicultural student body.

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