Focus on TUSD - October 2006

School and Community Happenings

"Game On!" at Drachman
Drachman Montessori Magnet School is celebrating the new school year with" Game On! The Ultimate Wellness Challenge, a program from Action for Healthy Kids." This challenge incorporates nutrition, physical activity and learning through a series of activity stations that stimulate minds and bodies. First- through sixth-grade students and their parents are encouraging each other to eat healthy, be active and fit to achieve! This is made possible through great volunteers and Action for Healthy Kids.

--Submitted online by Elisa Busby

The Walking School Bus Challenge at Drachman
Drachman students are celebrating International Walk to School Day for six weeks by walking to school and enjoying the benefits of exercise. Drachman was one of only eight schools in Pima County selected to take the "Walking School Bus Challenge," which will continue into mid-November. The Drachman family is joining children and adults around the world who are celebrating the benefits of walking.

A Walking School Bus is a group of children who walk designated routes to school under adult supervision, picking up children along the way, like a school bus. Drachman students and staff are celebrating students who walk, bike and carpool to school for a safer, cleaner community and world.

--Submitted online by Elisa Busby

ARTSmobile Opening
"Sharing the Desert: the Tohono O'odham and the Yoemen" is the title of the new exhibit unveiled in the ARTSmobile last month. The exhibit is supported by additional displays, videos and activities at the Lee Instructional Resource Center. The unveiling festivities included blessing ceremonies and performances by TUSD Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui students. This ARTSmobile exhibit is a collaboration between TUSD Departments of Fine and Performing Arts and Native American Studies; the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. The ARTSmobile will make its first stop at Pistor Middle School followed by Lynn-Urquides and Mission View. Staying at each school for one week, the ARTSmobile is booked through April 23, 2007. A complete list of scheduled schools as well as information, teaching resources and even a virtual tour can be found at http://instech.tusd.k12.az.us/FA/artsmobile/index.htm

Howenstine to Create Safe Driving Campaign
Howenstine High Magnet students received a $2,000 grant in September to create a safe driving campaign as part of Project Ignition, a service-learning program sponsored by State Farm and the National Youth Leadership Council.

Howenstine is one of 25 schools nationwide selected to participate in this year's program. The students are creating a public awareness campaign focusing on teen driver safety that targets their peers and communities. Ten of these schools will have an opportunity to present their campaigns at the 18th Annual National Service-Learning Conference in Albuquerque, N.M., March 27-31, 2007. One school will be awarded a $10,000 grant from State Farm.

USC Marching Band Plays for Blenman Students
Blenman Elementary School students were treated to a performance by University of Southern California (USC) marching band members Sept. 22, the day before the school's football team played the University of Arizona. Six USC band members offered that college band sound for approximately 30 minutes for Blenman students, faculty and staff. The event was organized by Tucson's USC Alumni Club, which has adopted Blenman. All 630 of the K-5 students participated in the cheer for "U-S-C Trojans!" After the band finished its performance, selected Blenman classes began to take the stage.

"We have something for you, too," said Principal Bobbe Woods. The kids sang the University of Arizona fight song, "Bear Down," to which the band responded musically. Woods presented the band members with a certificate and a small packet of reading homework to drive home the importance of learning.

Bus Grants
Recently awarded government grants are helping pay for cleaner fuel systems on some school busses that rolled out this month.

The $1.36 million TUSD award was the largest one the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality gave in the state. It is TUSD's fourth major grant for cleaner school buses in less than three years, bringing the total grants awarded to more than $2.1 million.

The new grant supplies $385,000 to help pay for 11 buses that use compressed natural gas and $630,000 for 42 buses that use ultra-low sulfur diesel, as well as $354,144 to equip 38 buses with diesel particulate traps. The traps are compatible with the District's 102 buses that are at least a dozen years old.

The Transportation Department will also use a $200,000 grant from the federal Department of Energy to help pay for the new buses and retrofitting all district buses to compressed natural gas. Most of the new buses carry 84 passengers and some carry 56 passengers.

Transportation Director Bill Ball said that the diesel particulate traps would reduce exhaust emission by trapping particulates before they reach the air. The new system, however, is not expected to improve fuel efficiency, he said.
The department plans to multiply the pollution displacement on the initial buses using the new system when it applies for future grants that would help pay for retrofitting more vehicles.

In other departmental news, staff will showcase the new 20,776-square-foot bus barn soon. As a replacement for the building that burned in 2003, it has 12 bus bays, an employee lounge, showers and lockers, office space for crew chiefs, drinking fountains and industrial sinks on the east and west sides, and an eye bath in the middle. The new barn was completed in June.