Three Schools want to Stuff the Bus with Food

Three schools in Mansfield ISD are preparing for community food drive during which they hope to fill a school us with nonperishable food items for distribution.

Starting Monday, November 12, Cross Timbers Intermediate School, Carol Holt Elementary School, and T.A. Howard Middle School will join forces for their first ever joint Stuff the Bus Food Drive.

Each campus will collect canned and nonperishable food items the week of November 12 -16.

Items collected will be placed on one of the District's school buses in hopes to fill it by the end of the week. The campuses are inviting all parents, faculty, staff and students to participate. All food drive items will benefit food pantries in the Mansfield Common Ground Network. (The Common Ground Network is a community partner organization for the MISD.)

Drop off locations: 
Cross Timbers Intermediate - 2934 Russell Road, Arlington, TX 76001
Carol Holt Elementary - 7321 Ledbetter Road, Arlington, TX 76001
T.A. Howard Middle School - 7501 Calendar Road, Arlington, TX 76001

Get the flyer (PDF)

Chemistry help from APE MAN at Jones Middle

Danny Jones Middle School 8th grade students were presented with a challenge to design a T-shirt that reflected their learning of the chemistry unit taught during the first six weeks.

Students were introduced to the acronym APE MAN.

The APE MAN acronym is used to help students remember how to calculate information regarding elements on the periodic table.

Atomic number = # of Protons = # of Electrons

  Mass number
- Atomic number
  Neutrons

Then on October 10, 2012 students participated in APE MAN day. Students wore their shirts and attempted to complete a scavenger hunt that consisted of nine challenges such as:
a)    Find five different elements that are metals.
b)    Find three different elements with the same number of valence electrons.
c)    Find two different elements that are metalloids.

APE MAN day was a great success with over 95% participation. Students and teachers enjoyed seeing the creativity and effort that the students put into their shirt design.

Students were asked to reflect on the day. Here are some of the comments from students:
I learned a lot from this project the best part was designing the shirts. Alexis F.
It was fun being able to use my phone at school while learning! Billea H.
I felt as if I was surrounded by paparazzi, it was fun! Everyone participated and whoever didn’t missed out on a fun project. Alex A.
We had fun finding elements similar to ours. Candria C
I love making the shirt. The easiest part was finding the information for my shirt because all I had to do was download a free app about elements. MaKenzie B.

District Energy Champion Recognition

Timberview High School teacher, Tim Maschal, was recently named Mansfield ISD's Energy Champion for his efforts in organizing an efficient and energy-saving campus. Mr. Maschal was commended during the October, 2012 School Board meeting. Due to the buy-in from staff and students during the 2011-12 school year, Timberview High School realized a savings of over 38% in energy costs!

Congratulations, Mr. Tim Maschal.



Read more about the District Wide Utility Management Standards.

iPad Parent Night Oct 29 at The Center

Your high school student has a district-issued iPad. 
Now what?!

Parents of MISD high school students are invited to attend this learning opportunity for next steps for high school parents in the iPad initiative.

The Mansfield ISD technology development team will host an iPad Parent Night on October 29, 2012, from 6:00-7:30 p.m. at the Mansfield ISD Center for the Performing Arts.

This free event will feature tips for parents about managing your student’s iPad use at home as well as some exploration of outstanding apps for education in a hands-on format.

The Center is located at 1110 W Debbie Lane, Mansfield, Texas 76063 (Map).

Related Information:

• iPad Program Info
• MISD TechNotes Blog
• OnlineTextbooks and Other Resources

Lady Tigers Volleyball Coach Celebrates 500 Career Wins

Congratulations to Lady Tiger volleyball coach Judith McGill for the awesome accomplishment of winning 500 career games! The monumental victory took place when the Lady Tigers defeated the Panthers on Friday, October 12, in Midlothian.

When we asked Coach McGill how she accomplished the tremendous feat of reaching 500 victories, her answer was simple – it’s the kids.

“Behind every win is a hardworking, dedicated team,” said McGill. "The only way you make it to 500 is by having great kids, and I think that is really the key to any successful school program."

Although reaching 500 wins is a crowning achievement for Coach McGill, she has no intention of slowing down.

“I want to keep winning games and support hardworking kids that will go on to be productive citizens and good people,” said McGill. “That goal will never change.”

On behalf of the MISD Administration, congratulations to Coach Judith McGill! We appreciate your commitment to the Lady Tiger Volleyball program, Mansfield High School and the Mansfield ISD community.

Senior Art Shows at The Center

 

The MISD Fine Arts Department has established a new visual arts show opportunity for advanced art students. Senior Art Shows for our Advanced Visual Art Students are schedule at The MISD Center for the Performing Arts. The shows will give these seniors an opportunity to have a larger art show in addition to our Annual Art shows held in the spring. The Senior Art shows are two weeks in duration and feature two to four students from each of our high schools.

Here is the full 2012-13 schedule of Senior Art Shows at The Center (current show):

October 8-19 – Legacy High School (Anai Vargas and Jessilee Shipman; Reception Thurs., Oct. 18)

October 22-November 2 – Mansfield High School (Courtney Bruce, Arsh Dhaliwal, Erin Johnson, and Lynn Nguyen; Reception Sat., Oct. 27)

November 12-30 – Legacy High School (Caitlyn Moore, Patrick Henson, Lily Masuda, Jessica Darmon, and Trent Ritchey; artists reception, Tuesday, November 27)

December 10-January 10 – Legacy High School (Alex, Horan, Brenda Moreno, Abril Lara, Megan Rathbun, Jennifer Brown, Courtney Johns, Amanda Mixon, and Brandon Bohuslav)

January 14-25 – Summit High School (Charleston Angton and Shaheed Johnson)

January 28-February 8 – Mansfield High School (Alex Williams, Kulraj Chatha, Tara Hohman and Autumn Aguilar)

February 11-22 – Summit High School (Vi Nguyen and Tina Nguyen)

February 25-March 8 – Lake Ridge High School (MaLeeka Curry, Calvin Rowe, Zach Caton, Taylor Lee, Brandon Glathe-Mona, Anisa Avalos, Karla Hernandez, Ashley Gray, Kaitlyn Northrup, Korbie Frazier, Jacob Kang, Ronald Santos, Alexis Wilson, Jazmin Cortez, Lissandra Alvarado, Hannah Woodlee) Please note: Since LRHS is a new campus, we didn't limit this show to seniors.

March 18-29 – Mansfield High School (Josh DuMond, Melanie Mohler, and Austin Sutton)

April 8-12 – District Secondary Art Show (Grades 5-12)

April 22-May 3 – Timberview High School (Trenten Abano, Melody Wong, Markel Briggs, and Kendall Storm

May 6-10 – District Elementary Art Show (Grades K-4)

May 13-24 – Timberview High School

The Center is located at 1110 W Debbie Lane, Mansfield, Texas 76063.
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Fine Arts Senior Art Shows update: 

Frontier Students Display Digital Skills at State Convention

Four Frontier High School students participated in a display of digital learning prowess at last month's TASA/TASB Convention. The Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) and the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) partner each year to bring Texas school board members and school administrators a premier education-related convention. This year's convention was held September 28-30 in Austin. Among the convention speakers and exhibits was a Digital Learning Pavilion (DLP).

Secondary students from across the state were invited to the convention's DLP to display their ingenuity and collaboration skills in a project-based learning environment. Using technology and social media to accelerate their problem-solving skills, students teamed up to create innovative solutions to real-world problems.

The Frontier High School students at the TASA/TASB Convention DLP were provided questions and then they were to use technology to answer and create a presentation. This was not a competition, rather a display of students' technological learning skills in action.

Students completed two different tasks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The kids were given a SMART board, two iPads, a Macbook, and a Dell laptop and that was it. The morning question was, Childhood obesity rates are climbing. Is our appetite for sugar killing us? and the afternoon question was, Electronic resources drive learning, even textbooks are available online. How does this change affect you?

According to their teacher, Elise Buchhorn from Ben Barber Career Tech Academy/Frontier High School, the students conducted all of the project work and then gave a presentation of their response at the end of the session.

"They researched and gathered data online and used web tools for their first presentation," said Buchhorn. "Their afternoon session, they wanted to survey some of their classmates, so they Skyped them and then screen recorded their conversations and made video clips to insert into their Keynote software presentation. It was very impressive on what they did and how they did it."

Buchhorn made the following video to highlight their day mostly for the parents to see their kids in action, but really, it's too cool and worth sharing.

Enjoy.

Superintendent Update - October 2012

Dr. Bob Morrison shares the latest on the district's high school iPad initiative including preliminary plans for an expanded parent information night on Monday, October 29. He also mentions other items of interest in the month of October: Red Ribbon Week, College and Career Night (October 17), and the upcoming Parent/Teacher Conference Day (October 8). Reminder: No school Monday, October 8.

Pictures of the Week (Sept 24-28)

Wednesday, September 26, marked the public re-opening for Savvy's Bistro, our culinary program's student-run restaurant. Read the post.

Summit HS was the final campus in the high school iPad program deployment. Students and the professional staff at all MISD high schools were issued iPad devices. Over 9,000 iPad 2 devices were issued at high schools. Make-up dates for deployment and an upcoming Parent informational meeting date are pending. Stay current on the high school iPad program.

Dr. Fred Garza's "Reflections" Scientific, Technological, and Literary Observations in Pastel, art exhibit opened on Wednesday, September 26, in the Mansfield HS Library Learning Commons. This exhibit is divided into three distinct parts. Each part of the exhibit is influenced by areas of which Dr. Garza is very passionate. The exhibit will be available Monday - Friday, 7:00 a.m. -3:30 p.m., until Thursday, November 15, 2012.

Each month during the school year, students from our elementary schools are selected to receive the Superintendent’s Star Award for outstanding citizenship. The photo above is from the September 2012 School Board Meeting photo gallery.

Timberview HS Basketball Coach, Duane Gregory, took some of his basketball players to Thelma Jones Elementary for the elementary school's Camp Out Reading Day on Thursday, September 27. "I’m not sure who enjoyed it more, the elementary students or my guys," said coach Gregory.