District Students Selected for All-State Honor Music Ensembles
Ninety district students have been selected by taped audition for this year’s All-State honor music ensembles. Sixty high school students were selected for All-State music ensembles, and 30 were selected as Junior All-State music ensemble members.

These students will travel to Spokane over Presidents Day Weekend in February, for three intensive days of rehearsal with several hundred of the finest students studying music in the Pacific Northwest. All-State students are from Washington state only. Generally there are over 6000 applicants for each honor group, which typically has around 150 to 300 students selected for each. List of Honorees…

Redmond High School Student Earns Perfect Score on ACT
Sam Keller, a senior at Redmond High School, was one of five students in the state of Washington and one of only 91 in the nation, to achieve a perfect score (36) on the ACT.

Counselor Accepted as Presenter at Conference for School Counselors
Marian Illingworth, the school counselor at both Juanita Elementary and Smith Elementary, has been accepted as a presenter at the 2010 American School Counselor Association (ASCA) Conference to be held in Boston, Mass., in July. The title of her presentation is "From Resistance to Readiness: Combating Resistance in Implementing a Comprehensive School Counseling Program."

Redmond High School Student Accepted into Young Critics Workshop
Bridget Durant, a junior at Redmond High School, has been accepted into the Young Critics Workshop, a five-month long writing seminar for 11th and 12th grade students who are interested in arts criticism and journalism. The Young Critics Workshop is taught by the Stranger Arts Editor Brendan Kiley. Admission is by application. This year, 13 students from throughout the Puget Sound region were admitted into the workshop, representing nine schools.

Lake Washington High School Drama Presents:
And Then They Came For Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank
November 18-21, 2009
And Then They Came for Me is a unique theatrical experience: a multimedia play that combines videotaped interviews with Holocaust survivors Ed Silverberg and Eva Schloss with live actors recreating scenes from their lives during World War II. Ed was Anne Frank's first boyfriend and she wrote about him in the beginning of her now-famous diary. Eva Schloss was the same age as Anne Frank and lived in the same apartment building in Amsterdam. Her family went into hiding the same day as the Frank family. And like the Frank family, they were betrayed. On Eva's 15th birthday, her family was arrested by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps. Eva and her mother survived and after the war her mother married Otto Frank (Anne's father). The ensemble-driven And Then They Came for Me breaks new ground and has been acclaimed by audiences and critics in world-wide productions.

Directed by Jennifer Reif, the play will be held at Lake Washington High School (12033 NE 80th Street, Kirkland, WA 98033). All tickets are $8. See below for show dates and times:

• Wednesday, November 18 - 2 p.m. (special student matinee $5)
• Thursday, November 19 - 7 p.m.
• Friday, November 20 - 7 p.m.
• Saturday, November 21 - 2 and 7 p.m.

Rose Hill Junior High Hosts VFW Members at Evening Assembly
On Monday, November 9, Rose Hill Junior High (RHJH) held their first evening Veterans Day assembly. To honor veterans, they hosted the local Redmond VFW, Post 2995 for their monthly post board meeting. VFW member John Kenny said this was the first time in 50 years that the VFW held a meeting outside their home post, but it was a great opportunity for students to interact with veterans. Students decorated the room for them and the Rose Hill cooking classes baked cookies.

During the assembly, ensembles from the band, choir, orchestra and guitar classes all performed. Students and a guest, Bob Nelson from the VFW, spoke. Veterans and families with veterans were each given a rose. Afterwards, parents and students were invited to stay and write a card to a soldier serving overseas. These cards will be sent with care packages by the VFW to combat troops overseas. RHJH held a similar assembly during the school day, with guest speaker Jake Bond from the Redmond VFW.

Blackwell Salutes Veterans with Help from Congress
Blackwell Elementary had more reasons than ever to make their Veterans Day celebration spectacular this year. Blackwell has been chosen to participate in Operation Caring Classroom (OCC). The goal of the project is to educate students from civilian elementary schools about life in military families, within the context of Veterans Day. As a result of their OCC selection, Congressman Dave Reichert, an Air Force Reserves veteran, agreed to speak at their Veterans Day Assembly.

Before the assembly, Rep. Reichert visited Carol Nicholson’s classroom, where her second grade students wowed the Congressman with their knowledge of U.S. presidents and history. Students read poems and paragraphs they had written. Asked by a student what advice he had for them, he started with the most important: “Listen to your teacher.”

Fifth grade students studying American government learned more about this member of Congress including his favorite job. His first response was mowing lawns to earn money for college. He followed up by saying that he liked both law enforcement and being a member of Congress. What both roles have in common, he noted, is helping people. In answer to a question on bipartisanship, Rep. Reichert expressed frustration about a lack of bipartisanship on the health reform bill passed two days before but talked about working with this state’s two senators on issues around the Howard Hanson Dam.

The school-wide assembly featured many patriotic musical performances and the reading of a children’s book about visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Reichert’s address to students continued his message from the fifth grade visit about helping people. He connected the idea of sacrificing to help others with the sacrifice that veterans must make. A student, he noted, might sacrifice a few minutes of playing video games to take out the garbage, helping his or her family. But veterans have to sacrifice months or even years of being with their families and put themselves in danger to help our country to stay free.

A closing slide show featured photos of relatives of students and teachers who have served in the armed forces, including a group of international representatives.

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News from the Schools is compiled by the Lake Washington School District Communications Department. For more information or to submit your school's news, please e-mail Kathryn Reith or Shannon Parthemer.