A Message From Superintendent George García

One of my favorite events takes place this month, Senior Honors Day.

Every year for the past seven years we have invited the seniors who rank at the top of their class for a day-long celebration at Ft. Lowell Park. Contests, activities, music and food are all designed to help recognize the academic success of our graduating students.

The academic achievement of TUSD students is not only recognized at Senior Honors Day but in many different arenas as well. For example, last year TUSD had 29 National Merit Scholarship Finalists.

Less than one percent of all seniors across the nation qualify for this honor. TUSD leads the state of Arizona in the number of seniors recognized for this honor year after year.

Recently University High School placed first in the regional Academic Decathlon. As a matter of fact, for 12 of the past 14 years of this competition UHS has reigned supreme.

This is certainly not only representative of the high academic achievement of our students at UHS but also of the commitment from UHS teachers to prepare them for this competition.

Other examples of outstanding academic achievement include the students and staff involved with the Booth-Fickett Math Counts team.

This year the team won first place in the city and state competitions. In the past seven years, the Booth-Fickett Math Counts teams have won five city and four state titles.

Expectations for high academic achievement do not lie solely with special teams. This past year, the staff at Pueblo Gardens Elementary School demonstrated what students could do when teachers have high expectations for above average academic performance. Although their accomplishments have been some time in the making, this should be the case across the district.

As we wind up the testing for AIMS, Stanford 9 and Core Curriculum Standards Assessment, let us keep in mind that TUSD students have always risen to the expectations we hold of them.

I have been very pleased to see the efforts everyone has made to prepare students for the various tests.

As I've visited schools the past two weeks I've noted the attention that has been given to making sure our students are comfortable with the assessments. I appreciate your dedication to making sure increased student achievement remains our number one priority.

George F. García, Ed.D.

Palo Verde Wetlands Project Wins National Award

Palo Verde High Magnet School's wetlands project recently won a national award worth $10,000.

The school's Tierra Mojada Project won the "My Own Backyard" award in the 2000 Sea World/Busch Gardens Environmental Excellence Awards.

The Tierra Mojada Environmental Research Center is a 16,000-gallon wetland, which serves as a multi-disciplinary, hands-on science laboratory.

Science teacher Kathy Krucker, who helps oversee the wetlands, will use the money to maintain the wetlands. She also becomes a finalist for the Outstanding EnvironmentalEducator award. Krucker, along with biology teacher Kevin Kiehl, librarian

Susan Dabbs and former District science curriculum specialist Jeff Lockwood, wrote the grant for Tierra Mojada.

Seniors Eboni Harris and Melissa Hughes will join Krucker in accepting the award next month at SeaWorld/Busch Gardens Adventure Parks San Diego.

The award acknowledges those who have bettered their own "backyard" such as a public park, vacant lot, or school grounds. The money will be used to buy materials, such as graphing calculators and sensors, for student research.