Two LWSD Students Win Corporate-Sponsored Merit Scholarships
On April 22, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) announced the names of the first group of winners of the 2009 National Merit Scholarship Program. Over 1,000 distinguished high school seniors will receive corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards financed by about 200 companies, foundations and other business organizations. Two Lake Washington School District students were among the recipients. Rebecca Kinchen from Lake Washington High School will receive the National Merit Boeing Scholarship and Allen Liu from Eastlake High School will receive the National Merit James E. Casey Scholarship. The Boeing Scholarship is offered annually to children of employees. The Merit Scholarship awards are part of the Boeing Company’s comprehensive aid to education program. National Merit James E. Casey Scholarships are for children of United Parcel Service (UPS) employees and are supported by the UPS foundation, in honor of their founder, James E. Casey. The finalists for both of these awards were selected from students who advanced to the Finalist level in the National Merit Scholarship competition and who met the criteria of their scholarship sponsors. Most of these awards are renewable for up to four years of college undergraduate study and provide annual stipends that range from $500 to $10,000 per year.

Two LWSD Teachers Honored with Green Globe Awards
Two Lake Washington School District educators have been recognized for their environmental stewardship with a Green Globe award, King County’s highest environmental honor for businesses, organizations and individuals who have shown leadership by protecting the environment, managing natural resources and fostering community involvement.

Thoreau Elementary teacher Marie Hartford and Environmental & Adventure School teacher Brian Healy are founding members of the Friends of the Hidden River, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to developing and enhancing citizen understanding and action in community environmental education issues in the Puget Sound and surrounding regions. The organization, created by teachers from LWSD and the Northshore School District, has played an integral role in establishing the future Brightwater Environmental Education Center, which will be located at the Brightwater Wastewater Treatment Plant, currently under construction north of Woodinville.

Awards are bestowed only every two years and winners are considered the “best of the best.” Winners were honored for their role in improving the environmental quality of our world at the King County annual Earth Day Expo on April 22 at Westlake Plaza in Seattle.

Students move on to National History Day Competition in Washington, D.C.
Students from local schools spent their weekend competing in the Washington State History Day Championship Competition at Green River Community College in Auburn. The students who took first and second place in each category will move on to the national competition in Maryland on June 18-19, 2009. Here are the results from the three Lake Washington Schools that participated:

Redmond High School:

• Raluca Ifram, Tian Kisch and Anand Raghuraman took first place in the documentary film category.

International Community School:

• Abby Burlingame (Redmond) took first place in the senior individual performance category.

• Libby Zorn (Woodinville), Emma Tremblay (Kirkland), Alexandra Drury (Kirkland) and Monisha Gulabani (Sammamish) took first place in the senior group performance category.
• Nathan Maris (Redmond) took first place in the senior individual documentary category.
• Sophie Szilagyi (Kirkland) and Madeleine Burt (Kirkland) took second place in the junior group performance category.
• Shelby Jennings (Kirkland) and Dominique Devlin (Bothell) took third place in the senior group performance category and are alternates to attend the National contest.

Redmond Junior High:

• Arthi Narayanan and Vita Shubin took first place in the junior group exhibit category.
• Samvit Jain took first place in the junior paper category and received a special MAC Award for Columbia River Basin History.
• Rahul Devanarayanan and Nicholas Kodati took second place in the junior website category.

RHS Student Wins Planet Connect Grant
Rachel Nakanishi, a senior at Redmond High School, has been awarded a National Environmental Education Foundation Planet Connect grant. Planet Connect is a component of Classroom Earth, a national initiative in partnership with The Weather Channel. Planet Connect is an interactive social networking site for teens interested in the environment. Rachel is one of only 29 students from across the country to receive such a grant. She and the other students will serve as a national model for how high school students can take an active role in improving an environmental issue within their school or community.

Juanita High School Students Win Literacy Contest in Prose and Poetry
The following students from Juanita High School are winners of the Literary Contest in Prose and Poetry, sponsored by the Spanish Resource Center at the University of Washington in conjunction with the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and the Spanish Embassy.

Native speakers, poetry:

Honorable Mention:

Raul Silva

Non-native speakers, poetry:

Second place:		Renee Allison
Honorable Mention:		Jessica Bechtel
		Phillip Kim
		Caitlin Terashima

Students Receive State Superior Ratings at Ensemble Championships
The students listed below all received State Superior ratings at the State Ensemble Championships held at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Wash., on April 25-26, 2009. A State Superior is a higher rating than a Regional Superior rating. The caption on the award reads, “the highest technical and expressive performance that could be expected of a high school solo or ensemble.”

Lake Washington High School:

• Jimmy Bou (violin), Michael Evans (cello) and Tatiana Kruse (piano), Piano Trio
• Men’s Vocal Quartet, Small Vocal Ensemble
• Men of Lyrica, Mens Vocal Large Ensemble
• Women of Lyrica, Womens Vocal Large Ensemble

Redmond High School:

• Andrew Pang, Viola solo
• Noah Cort, Bassoon solo

Juanita High School:

• Claire Saunders, Mezzo Soprano solo
• Jonathon Wilson, Trombone solo

Siblings Win Washington State Elementary Chess Championships
Naomi Bashkansky, a kindergarten student at Audubon, and her brother Ethan Bashkansky, a fifth grade student at Audubon, won first place and the champion title in their respective age at the Washington State Elementary Chess Championships held in Spokane from April 24-26. Each had a perfect record of five victories out of five games played. They brought the trophies to the school on April 27 to show to their classmates.

BEST High School Teacher Honored with Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence
Darin Detwiler, a science teacher at BEST High School, was honored with the 2009 Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence. Carol Pawlak, a representative with Amgen surprised Darin in his classroom on Tuesday, April 28, to give him the $10,000 award and trophy. Of the $10,000 award money, $5,000 is in a restricted grant for the expansion or enhancement of the school’s science program, science resources or professional development for the school’s science teachers. Darin is one of 34 recipients throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada, and one of only four in Washington state. Amgen, a biotechnology company, designed this award program to recognize K-12 science teachers whose dedication to their student’s education has had a significant impact on the learning and interest of the future generation of scientist. Nominations were solicited in the fall, and winners were selected based on the following criteria: innovative science lesson plan showcasing novel teaching methods in the classroom, creativity and effectiveness of teaching methods, and the plan for the use of grant money to improve science education resources in their schools.

Environmental & Adventure Students Win Orienteering Championship
Students from Environmental & Adventure School (EAS) won the first-place team trophy for middle school teams at the national orienteering championship meet at West Point, N.Y., the weekend of April 18-19. Orienteering is the sport of competitive navigation, in which participants use a detailed topographical map and a compass to navigate through a course of checkpoints hidden in a park or wilderness area. The team of Danielle Spencer, Andrew Spencer and Anne Wilkinson, all EAS ninth-graders, placed individually second, second and first in the nation (respectively). This score is one short of a perfect team score in orienteering at the national level, in which boys and girls run separate courses, then combine their scores for a team total. Eight Lake Washington School District students were in the top 24 national competitors representing the Pacific Northwest at this meet, including the Redmond High School team of Huw Stradling, Joseph Spencer and Luke Wylie, and individual competitor Becky Forgrave from Lake Washington High School. (Bonnie Gilbery of Juanita High School also attended, but was unable to participate this year due to injury). The Redmond High Mustangs team finished fourth overall, and Huw Stradling placed first individually in the nation at the boys’ varsity level.

Eastlake Teacher Forms Partnership with UW Genome Sciences Department
The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust of Vancouver, Wash., announced in late February that the University of Washington (UW) would receive a $15,000 grant that will enable Lara Hollingworth, a science teacher at Eastlake High School to form a partnership with Dr. James H. Thomas to conduct research during the next two summers in the Department of Genome Sciences at UW. The primary goal of the Murdock Trust is to provide high school science teachers with opportunities to work at the cutting edge of science, thus revitalizing their teaching and helping them appreciate the use of inquiry-based methods in the teaching of science.

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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.