Due to icy and snowy road conditions in the district, there will be no school for Monroe Public Schools today, Thursday, February 25. In addition, kid’s club at Riverside and Custer will be cancelled for today and all after-school activities are cancelled, too, including all Community Education classes and activities. Repeating there will be no school today for Monroe Public Schools, Thursday, February 25. Thank you and have a nice and safe day.
The Monroe Public Schools Board of Education has asked the school district’s administration to look into the possibility of razing the former South Monroe Townsite School and selling the property on which the school now stands. The school has been used in recent years for the Head Start program of the Monroe County Intermediate School District and for Monroe Virtual High School. However, at the end of this school year, Head Start will be moved to Arborwood North Elementary School, leaving the school vacant. A final decision on the future of the building could be made by the school board by the end of March.
There will be a half-day of classes for Monroe Public Schools students on Wednesday, February 24. Pre-school at Riverside will operate on its normal schedule, and kid’s club at Custer and Riverside will operate on the regular schedules, too. Once again, students will have a half-day of classes on Wednesday, February 24.
There’s an old joke that goes, “Hey, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice.” For four Monroe Middle School musicians, the question is similar. “Hey how do you get to Detroit’s Orchestra Hall? Practice.” And practice they did which paid off big when four members of the Monroe Middle School Band were selected to perform with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Middle School Honors Band. The four (left to right) -- Lauren Lebeck, Chloe Spooneybarger, (both flute) Lauren Custer and Sydney Kuhlman (both clarinet)—will perform at Orchestra Hall in Detroit on Monday, March 21. The DSO’s Honors Band is made up of selected students from around Michigan. To have four students from one school is quite an honor.
The efforts of the Monroe High School Student Council and students/staff at Waterloo Elementary School were captured in a photo essay in Sunday's Monroe News. What a great thing they did for taking water to Flint residents. Copy and paste the link below to your browser to read the story.
http://www.monroenews.com/news/20160221/we-had-to-do-something
The Monroe Public Schools Board of Education will hold a workshop meeting at 5 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 23. Two items will be on the agenda – a review of the district budget for the current school year, and a discussion of options for South Monroe Townsite School which is scheduled to close at the end of this school year. Workshop meetings are open to the general public but the board cannot take official action at the meeting.
Monroe High School’s automotive training program has received confirmation of its second accreditation by the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) and the National Association for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE.) Monroe High School was accredited in Maintenance and Light Repair.
The Monroe High School auto tech program already was accredited in Electrical/Electronic Systems.
“We are delighted to have received this accreditation of our Maintenance and Light Repair training program,” said Bryan Zamorski, automotive tech teacher at Monroe High School. “During the past few months, we have worked closely with NATEF to ensure that our program would meet strict industry standards.
“Students can be assured of a quality education and shop owners can be assured of getting quality job applicants,” Mr. Zamorski said. “We work closely with local vehicle dealers and automotive shops and are proud to be able to present them with a very highly trained and prepared future work force.”
As part of the accreditation process, Monroe High School’s automotive training program underwent a rigorous NATEF-sponsored inspection. Nationally accepted standards of excellence in areas such as instruction, facilities and equipment were used in evaluating Mr. Zamorski’s program sequence.
Donald Seyfer, NATEF chairman, said, “As a result of the quality education provided by Monroe High School, the motoring public will benefit since better repair technicians will join the work force. This is great news for automotive-minded young people and their parents. It can increase the cooperation between local education and industry leaders, providing added assurance that Monroe High’s graduates will be employable entry-level technicians.”
Mr. Zamorski, the auto tech teacher, spent five years as an auto mechanic early in his career and worked on prototype vehicles for auto racing giant, Roush Industries. He holds six certifications each in ASE and state licenses.
“Superhero” will be the theme of the 2016 Monroe High School Winterfest, running Monday, Feb. 22, through Saturday, Feb. 27.
The court assembly and introduction of the candidates will be held Monday morning, Feb. 22, and the student body will vote on Tuesday, Feb. 23. The popular food court is set for Thursday, Feb. 25, and as the school day nears an end on Friday, February 26, the school will have a pep assembly.
A new twist this year is the tussle between the Trojan Family Time classes promoting their teachers as superheros. On Tuesday, students will bring in superhero clothing and accessories for their teachers and dress them like a superhero. Pictures will be taken and the top two teachers in each grade level will be featured in photos posted on the Monroe Public Schools Facebook page, where people will be encouraged to “like” their favorite.
The pictures also will be posted in the Commons during lunch periods on Thursday and Friday of Winterfest week. Students will vote for their favorite superheros by placing monetary votes in a container for each grade level. The class with the most money collected and Facebook likes will win bragging rights and the money collected will go to that class to defray their prom costs.
On Friday night, Bedford will provide the opposition as the MHS girls and Bedford girls basketball teams meet at 5:30 p.m. and the MHS and Bedford boys basketball teams meet at 7 p.m. Half-time crowing of the Winterfest Queen and Mr. Legs will take place at half time -- freshmen and sophomores during the girls game and juniors and seniors during the boys game. The week concludes with the Winterfest Dance at 7 p.m., Saturday, where the royalty will be honored.
Winterfest royalty candidates are: 9th grade – girls, Kaylyne Ford, Mikayla Freeman, Celeste Milligan and Delaney Salenbien; boys, Blake Amato, Mitchell Carter, Toryn Johnson, and Maleik Linton. 10th grade – girls, Jaclyn Clark, Juliza Jiminez, Riley Oetjens, and Kalani Sweat; boys, Jack Bailey, Mahmud Bakr, Ashton Bowman and Cameron Knapp. 11th grade—girls, Celena Bakr, Claire Burke, Maiya Hegyi and Emma Kimble; boys, Mikal Farris, Brandon Matthews, Omar Montague and Cameron Tubbs. 12th grade – girls, Cassie Complo, Dorothy Gilbert, Kennedi Kane, and Kelsey Pabin; boys, Dawson Kopp, Tevin Nickols, Mitchell Sweat and Jacob Traver.
Monroe High School students will have what is called “an unbelievable opportunity” to take free Geographical Information System (GIS) training at MHS which will lead to a paid summer internship in the Monroe community. MHS is the only county school offering this opportunity.
Geospatial technologies include such disciplines as Geographical Information Systems (GIS,) Global Positioning Systems and Remote Sensing. MHS has access to this unique opportunity due to the involvement of one of its science teachers in a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. This initiative provides teachers and students access to those geospatial tools.
“ESRI, the nation’s leading designer of mapping software, has made available to us free access to their professional-grade software and on-line-training,” said Monroe High School science teacher Russell Columbus. “This is an unbelievable opportunity. This is equivalent to a major software company offering all of its technologies and trainings to design apps for free.
“This is the geospatial software that nearly all professionals in the field use now, and it also comes with the promise of a paid internship. For our Monroe High kids, this is pretty incredible, really,” Mr. Columbus said.
Mr. Columbus will hold an informational signup meeting for Monroe High School students who are interested in applying after school on Thursday, Feb. 18, in the Learning Commons. Mr. Columbus will help interested students enroll in the program with the assistance of grant administrators and then mentor them as they complete training. Successful candidates will be placed in summer internships this summer, paying them as much as $10 per hour for eight to 12 weeks of work of 20 hours per week in their internships.
The NSF grant-funded GRACE project is a collaboration involving various organizations including Eastern Michigan University and Michigan Virtual University, with which Monroe Public Schools works closely on various ventures. The objective of this grant is to expose students to this technology which serves a fundamental role in providing emergency services, transportation and urban planning, environmental hazard management, resource exploitation, military operations and the conduct of relief organizations.
Parents or students who have questions prior to the informational meeting can contact Mr. Columbus via email or call him at 734-265-3524.
Fifteen Monroe Middle School instrumentalists earned either Division 1 or Division 2 ratings in the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association's District XII Solo and Ensemble Festival at Ann Arbor Pioneer High School on Saturday, Feb. 6. Students performed as soloists or in small groups for experienced adjudicators from around the State of Michigan. The students were rated on a scale from 1 - 5 (1 is best) against a standard of excellence.
Those students receiving First Division ratings were: Kaylee Faulk, trumpet solo; Danielle Snow, baritone solo; Jordan Zarecki, violin solo; Ethan Harbaugh, trumpet solo; Clifton Williams, violin solo; Adyn Hallahan and Jordan Zarecki, violin duet; and Lauren Custer and Megan Phillips, clarinet duet.
Earning Second Division ratings were: Jessica Foulkrod, string bass solo; Lauren Wagner, string bass solo; Jade Karacson, violin solo; Blake Lambert, tenor saxophone solo; Morgan Spooneybarger, violin solo; Carolyn Taylor and Jade Karacson, violin duet.
The students are led by either Chris Morelli, MMS Band Director, or Ann Felder, MMS Orchestra Director.
District XII, in which the students competed, encompasses Wayne, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties, minus the City of Detroit.