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Virginia
Beach City Public Schools Named District of Excellence in School Nutrition “Being recognized a second time as having a District of Excellence Distinction is just as meaningful as our first designation in 2005,” said James G. Ratliff, Jr., director of food services. “The continued teamwork and commitment, demonstrated by our outstanding food services staff, ensures every school delivers a wide variety of attractive, nutritious, and economical meals to our students.” Keys to Excellence is a national best practice standards program that has been available through the SNA since 1995. This program is designed to help school nutrition directors assess their programs using national best practice standards, determine strengths and weaknesses, and develop an action plan for program improvement. Districts receive the District of Excellence Distinction for a three-year period. Virginia Beach City Public Schools’ food services staff clearly demonstrates commitment to the mission of providing students quality, nutritious meals at affordable prices. Serving 48,000 meals a day – 13,000 breakfasts and 35,000 lunches – Virginia Beach City Public Schools is one of only four school divisions in Virginia designated as a District of Excellence in School Nutrition by the SNA. The SNA is the only professional association dedicated solely to the support and well being of school nutrition professionals in advancing good nutrition for all children. It is a national, non-profit organization representing more than 55,000 members who provide high-quality, low-cost meals to students across the country. Recognized as the authority on school nutrition, SNA has been advancing the availability, quality and acceptance of school nutrition programs as an integral part of education since 1946. School breakfast and lunch menus, meal prices, nutritional value of menu items, wellness tips, and food nutrition links are available on the school division’s Web site vbschools.com by selecting the link Lunch Menus found on the home page.
ATC
Sponsors Annual Partnership Breakfast STIHL also works with ATC staff to help identify employment needs, not only at STIHL, Inc., but also in the engineering field at large. Company representatives have also been involved with communicating the need for Virginia Workplace Readiness Skills as well as specific technical skills in engineering. As a result, students are able to gain a clearer picture of employer expectations and career opportunities. As a result of their long-standing partnership with the ATC, STIHL hired three engineering technology graduates who currently participate in the company’s apprentice training program. In addition, STIHL is paying for their college education. The partnership with STIHL, Inc. continues the ATC’s commitment to provide a well-trained workforce through maintaining a close connection with the business community. As part
of the breakfast celebration, several new partnerships between the ATC
and local companies were announced. Among them are CDI Marine, Colonna's
Shipyard, Northrop Grumman, Tidewater Community College/Engineering
Department, and BAE Systems. In addition, three mentors who work with
ATC students in support of their Work-Based Experience program. VBCPS
School Bus Driver A Winner! One hundred and two of the best bus drivers from across the U.S. and Canada competed in the International Road-e-o. Not only did the drivers have to perform well on written tests, they also had to demonstrate their driving skills. Participants maneuvered their buses through a series of situations that illustrated how well they could handle a transit school bus (which has a flatter front). Among the maneuvers drivers had to perform were driving the bus around obstacles, backing up, driving in a straight line, stopping at a set point, navigating a serpentine, parallel parking, and more. If a driver made a mistake such as getting too close to or hitting a cone, points were deducted from his or her score. Reynolds is a seven-year veteran bus driver. As a result of his win, he is currently considered to be one of the two most outstanding school bus drivers in the United States and Canada. Well done! Bullock-Smith
Wins Prestigious Award The award is presented in honor of Job Turner who was the first teacher at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind as well as the first deaf teacher from 1839 to 1874. Bullock-Smith will receive the award “officially” on Tuesday, October 20 which is Job Turner’s birthday. She was nominated by her principal, David French, who remarks about Bullock-Smith, “She is an amazing teacher that has touched so many lives.” Bullock-Smith is a 29-year veteran teacher. She is herself a child of deaf parents and through her own personal experience understands more fully the deaf culture. As a result, she has had a life-long commitment to educating not only deaf children, but adults and parents of deaf children as well. According to French, Bullock-Smith works diligently to level the playing field for her students. Using any and all available technology, she helps her students learn how to become successful in life in any aspect they choose. Many of her students come to her with self-esteem and confidence concerns, and by the time they leave and go to middle school, they are just the opposite- ready to take on the world with a smile and the confidence that they can do whatever they choose. Parents are very involved with classroom activities as a way to learn how to better help their children at home. Bullock-Smith models teaching behaviors that work and parents then want to learn as much as they can to help. She also serves on numerous committees (VNOC, Va. State SOL assessment) representing students with disabilities as their voice at the state level. A remarkable attribute is Bullock-Smith's ability to work with students and their parents so that at home they grow together and understand one another as families. Many families have children with hearing impairments, yet do not fully understand how best to help. Bullock-Smith gives her personal time to these families at home and in the community to ensure she does all she can to teach not only the student at school but the entire family as well. Each year, former students return to Corporate Landing Elementary to visit Bullock-Smith. Not only do they re-connect with their former teacher, but they also give back to current students by assisting in the classroom. Deaf adults from the community also visit the school, working with the students because of Bullock-Smith’s high standing in the deaf community. Recently, she worked with Sorenson Corporation to get TDD video phone devices into schools that serve hearing impaired students. Many families now have these devices at home at no expense to themselves, thanks to Bullock-Smith. Editor’s
Note: e-Kaleidoscope ran a story about the TDD video
phones in the Did You Know? section of the June edition. Here
is the link to that article: Teacher
Forum National Speakers Series Returns! The program begins a 6 p.m. and ends at 8 p.m. Following Tyson’s remarks there will be a Q&A session. Teachers who attend will be eligible to earn two PDP points. Only 500 seats are available in the Landstown auditorium, so if you are interested in attending, be sure to register early. Attendance will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Save the date also for a follow-up extension workshop on Tuesday, October 20 at Princess Anne High School. The workshop is slated to begin at 4:30 p.m. and end at 6:30 p.m. (two PDP points).
Tyson began the Mabry Middle School's annual, student-led, digital film festival which has received attention from the Lucas Foundation, Georgia Public Broadcasting, and internationally renowned education reformers. MabryOnline.org, a collection of over 100 blogs which served as the school web presence through June of 2007, features his former students', teachers', and administrators' digital media creations, and served up over 1.5 million files a month to users all over the world. The site also offers the Global Learning Collaborative, an interactive project collaborative for educators, practitioners, and students around the world. Hundreds of educators from all over the country and several foreign countries visited Mabry during his tenure there to see firsthand the innovative ways technology was being used to maximize student achievement. Though a self-described geek, Tyson believes that technology is neither "the answer nor the magic bullet" but a tool that, when appropriately leveraged, brings people together so that they can collaboratively create and share with unprecedented ease and facility. Action
Research Results Are Published! Now, we are pleased to report that several teachers have completed their action research and corresponding reports of their results. The first two projects conducted and written up by VBCPS teachers have been uploaded to the school division Web site. They are:
We think you will find the studies very interesting and hope they may inspire you to take the course and embark on such a project in your own classroom or school. As more studies are finalized they will be added to the school division Web site on the Research, Evaluation, and Accountability (REA) page. Family
and Consumer Sciences Experts Tackle Sustainability Issues and Celebrate
American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences’ Centennial
at June Conference in Knoxville
Experts in personal finance, health and nutrition, resource management, apparel and textiles, housing, and other areas of family and consumer sciences (FCS) presented strategies to help individuals, families, and communities sustain and improve their quality of life without having a negative impact on the environment. Attendees also participated in numerous AAFCS Centennial activities and honoring outstanding members and students. More than 1,000 professionals and students in FCS and allied fields from across the U.S. attended the conference. Keynote speakers included Doris Christopher, The Pampered Chef® founder and chairman, as well as distinguished professors Sharon Y. Nickols and Janette M. Barber from the Housing and Consumer Economics Department at the University of Georgia, and five other FCS experts. Additional speakers included experts on product sustainability and authenticity as well as consumer information and education. With more than 40 exhibitors in the Expo, conference participants learned first-hand about the newest FCS products and services at the exhibit booths and exhibitor learning labs. The Expo also offered student and professional research poster sessions and affiliate Centennial displays. School year 2009-2010 will prove to be especially busy for VBCPS Family and Consumer Sciences teachers as two of their own are presidents of their state associations. Congratulations to Beverly Armbruster, Salem Middle School, on being elected president of the Virginia Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Association and to Kay Gramling, Landstown High School, who became president of the Virginia Association for Teachers of Family and Consumer Sciences in August. Congratulations also to all Virginia Beach Schools’ Family and Consumer Sciences teachers who will once again host the state conference in August 2010, here in Virginia Beach!
Pictured from left to right are family and consumer science teachers Beverly Armbruster, Salem Middle; Sandra Finlen, Green Run High; Kay Gramling, Landstown High; Deb Sawyer, Ocean Lakes High; Patti Wilson, Kempsville High; Kathy Allen, Tallwood High; and Judy Hendricks, Bayside High. The teachers were on a tour of the Bush Beans factory which features state-of- the-art cooking equipment and technology at its new $160 million plant in Tennessee. For example, its nine-story hydrostatic cookers enable Bush Brothers to produce products more efficiently while its new sterilizers enable a wide variety of product selection and packaging options.
For more information, contact Linda Spruill, Family and Consumer Sciences Coordinator at Linda.Spruill@vbschools.com or 648-6180.
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Congratulations
to VBCPS school bus driver Tyler Reynolds on placing
second in the 39th Annual International School Bus Driver Safety Competition
held in Greensboro, North Carolina, in July. Reynolds earned the right
to compete by placing third in the local road-eo and first in the regional
and state school bus road-e-o competitions held in Virginia Beach in
May and June, respectively. 
Congratulations
to Corporate Landing Elementary special education teacher
Bobbie Bullock-Smith on being selected the recipient
of the 2009 Job Turner Award for excellence in teaching deaf children.
The Virginia Association for the Deaf presents this award annually to
a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children in the Commonwealth of
Virginia. 
Now,
a little background on Dr. Tim Tyson…
