Thursday, May 26, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Students Art Displayed on DART Bus
Mrs. Zenner was driving home and saw Erick G' art displayed on the side of the DART busses. One of the prizes he wins in the annual DART Art contest. See for yourself . . .
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Legal Students Go on Field Trip
The Legal Students went on a field trip on Friday to tour El Centro College, to tour the House of Blues and to watch Fast Five. The students are currently preparing for a trial that involved street racing, and there's no better way to "study" up on the background of street racing than to see the most relevant movie out.
Below: students get off the buses to head into El Centro College where Mr. Knox is a professor in the Paralegal program.
Mr. Knox talks with students in the lobby of El Centro College to discuss possibilities of attending school there after high school.
Mr. Knox addresses the students before going into the House of Blues.
Touring the House of Blues
Academy Student Wins at Irving Film Fiesta
Ally Gant, Graphic Design & Photography junior at Jack E. Singley Academy won 1st place in the high school division at the Irving Film Fiesta. Her photograph titled "Mailboxes" tells the story of a RV park in her neighborhood.
Above: From left to right, Kimberly Ruthe, Academy Vice-Principal, Shannon Zenner, Graphic Design & Photography teacher, Ally Gant, and David Saenz, Principal
Friday's Report: 5/13/11
Kimberly’s Corner
Info about Medical goings on:
Senior Medical Students to be honored at the HOSA Banquet hosted by Junior HOSA students. New senior officers to be inducted at the banquet. Senior HOSA Officers will be competing in Orlando Florida in hopes to retain their title as the Outstanding HOSA Chapter for the fourth year in a row!
Our new Rehab Program students took tour of their new facility, Silverado. Students accompanied by Deborah Hoard, PT.
CNA Program 2 years old. Testing for this year’s students going strong with 100% Pass rate. By the end of school all of our junior and senior medical students will be CNA Certified! Many of our seniors have secured CNA jobs for the summer.
American Heart Association just announced the selection of Jack E. Singley Academy as an approved Training Site with Diann Teel, R.N. as our AHA Faculty Member. All of the HST Instructors are now certified American Heart Association Healthcare Provider CPR Instructors. All of the Medical Students are certified in this advanced level of CPR each year.
Dr. Keasler to retire...he helped open the Academy in 2001 and will be greatly missed!
Info about Legal goings on:
Legal students took a field trip 5/13/11 to El Centro.
Info about Criminal Justice goings on:
Disaster Response - Students are preparing for the Disaster Simulation. During the EOC days for 5th and 6th Periods, students will be taking part in playing out a tornado which struck the school. Students will be broken up into groups. Search and Rescue Teams – will go out and assess damage to the area, find victims. Triage – students will be labeling victims and providing 1st Aid and treating the victims. They will also have to determine what category the victims are in (delayed, immediate, or dead). They will treat those who can be saved first and those you will possibly die last. They will then transport them to the triage center where they will be treated for their injuries.
Emergency Communications – they will be entering in call take information from callers who have called into the police station on the simulators we have in class. They will then dispatch units to respond to the calls. They will also be finishing up their Public Safety Telecommunicator 1 certification requirements. They are on Module 11 and will continue to work until they finish Module 14. They will be practicing their skills of what they have learned and then will take the certification exam.
Law Enforcement 1 – Students are working on Felony Traffic Stops, Radio Communication, Building Searches, and SWAT Extractions.
Law Enforcement 2 – Students are working on finishing up on Family Violence Laws and will begin to act out scenarios and practice how to handle a domestic call. They will also be finishing up on the Health and Safety Code which deals with narcotic offenses. Students will take a practice test in which they are tested on their prior knowledge and skills. We go over it as a class and when they are working on both sections they can realize what the answers are to the questions the missed and will appreciate why their answer was incorrect or correct.
Practicum – Students are finishing up on the Senior Project. Seniors had to write an essay over their internship experience and the questions they had to answer were:
What were your expectations prior to your employment at your SITE?
What have you learned during your internship?
How have you continued to grow during your internship?
How has the internship impacted you and how will it assist you with the goals you have created?
Seniors will be starting a project over a digital portfolio, where they will place documents, resumes, pictures, video, etc of themselves where they can take it with them for future use.
Criminal Justice Internship 2011 – 2012 – we had a parent meeting with the City of Irving on May 12, 2011 at 7:00 PM where students and their parents and guardians met the supervisors and employees of Dispatch, the Jail, City Courts, Victim’s Advocacy, and Records. They advised them and showed them what their son or daughters would be doing at each internship site. The answered any questions they had and allowed them to tour all of the facilities. The Program ended at about 10:00 PM. Students will be setting up interviews the next couple of weeks. We had 15 students who were recommended show up to this event.
Legal Internship 2011 – 2012 – We will be having a parent meeting on Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 6:00 PM to discuss the requirements and expectations of the Legal Internship Program.
Criminal Justice Field Trip – Students went on a field trip to the Changing Course Foundation Ropes Course in Cedar Hill, Texas. We go on this field trip every year to expose students to trust building, team building, and to develop relationships with upper classmen. This allows the 9th graders, 10th Graders, 11th Graders, and 12th Graders to develop an understanding that they will be working with each other over the next few years. They might be partners in competitions, they can learn and grow with each other and it fosters very important communication skills among all of the students. At the very end students were allowed to experience the Zip Line where they have to overcome fear and experience an adrenaline rush.
Math Department goings on:
Algebra 1 has just finished up their Quadratics Unit, learning about parabolas by graphing, factoring and solving using various methods. Algebra 1 classes will be beginning their Exponential Growth and Decay Unit with a “Survivor Activity”. The scenario for the activity is: “You are on a desert island and have come in contact with a deadly disease. You are exposed to the disease by the people on the island with you. Only one of you on the island will survive this disease because of the immunity that is already in your system. Which of you will survive this disease and be on the island alone?” Dice rolls are used to simulate the spread of the disease. The students will collect the data and use the graphing calculator to graph and analyze the data.
In Geometry, the students are exploring Circles and learning about tangents, secants, chords and arc lengths of a circle.
In Algebra 2 we are learning about Conic Sections. Ms. Merrill and Mr. Ho’s classes did Discovery Learning of the definition of parabolas (Going Fishing) and ellipses (Walking the Dog). Ms Turner’s Algebra 2 classes made a foldable of all the different formulas from the unit and are using this information to create individual works of art. If you go by Ms. Turner’s classroom on the 3rd floor, you should be able to view their mathematical art projects in the week to come.
PreCalculus is also working on their Conic Sections unit, taking it farther than the Algebra 2 classes, indentifying types of conics by their equations and translating the equations into general and standard forms. Calculus classes have been studying for and taking the AP exams this week.
The math club - Mu Alpha Theta is beginning their member recruitment for the 2011-2012 school year. Students with a minimum of a “B” average that are in Geometry Honors or higher math courses may be a full member of this club. Students that are not eligible to be full members, but are college-bound are encouraged to participate as an associate member of the club.
Science Department goings on:
CHEM – Freezing point depression lab
Bio Tech – Dallas World Aquarium for bio tech
Biology – dissections
AP Bio and AP Physics – students creating end of the year projects
ESL Department goings on:
ESL Sparkles!
We are delighted that we have 109 ESL freshmen joining us next year in all the various specialties. 9th grade teachers are hopefully thinking of joining up with ARISE training next year to make this middle school transition all the more successful for these kids.
Mr. Riggs and I are working at LPAC-ing our 230 ESL students and have high hopes that there will some exiting the program, once we know our TAKS/TELPAS results. (Thanks to our stellar teachers.)
Eight students are heading for the Hispanic Youth Institute at SMU for four days this June. They were selected by their written responses to some life-queries.
There is a plethora of ESL materials accessible in the 2nd floor team ready for you to use as supplements. Come check it out! (More to be added next week.)
Bankston’s Business
Rockets! The first floor Aerospace students traveled to Fredericksburg, Texas to launch their rockets and space balloon that they have been working on over the last semester. While the teams faced challenges on the launching pad, they did an amazing job of problem solving and did a glorious job of representing the Jack E. Singley STEM Academy! Way to go!
Textbook, Textbooks, Textbooks!! I know you are tired of me saying this, but please email Erica with the times that you would like your textbooks picked up and checked in. We have to account for every single book. Many of you have already set your appointments and we really appreciate it! If the students have additional books they want to bring to your scheduled appointment from other classes, we are taking them all! We will be sending out a Teleparent call about textbooks, but your diligence in getting both student books and classroom sets checked in will be greatly appreciated.
There will be a place on your checkout sheet that I will have to sign off on before you leave for summer, saying that you have no books checked out. (Of course, you can keep the teacher’s editions, but I will need to verify that you have it.)
Employability Skills will be arriving in your in boxes by Tuesday of next week! They will be due back to me by Monday, May 23rd.
Planning for The Academy edition of summer school is going on right now. This is for Academy students only and the registration dates for our students is June 6 & 7th, with classes starting on June 7th. Students will be in class from 8 am to 12:40 every day. Each student will have the opportunity to recover three classes.
Important information:
#1. IT IS FREE!
#2. Breakfast and Lunch will be served.
#3. NO BUSES, so students will have to get here every day.
Classes that we are offering include:
Algebra I, World Geography, P.E., English I, and IPC.
We will also be offering A+ Credit retrieval to some of our juniors. This is gives those that have passed their exit level TAKS tests a chance to recover credit for classes and graduate on time! As you can see, the school is going to be a busy place this June! Please start looking at your students grades and helping them decide to register for these courses.
There are some really exciting things happening as you walk around the halls! English is reading Ender’s Game and Shakespeare, while the some of our Chemistry students are doing pH testing on surrounding area water supplies! World history classes are doing a very cool current event project and math classes are exploring circles. United States history classes are finishing their study of Vietnam and starting Watergate.
Some of our Computer Science students went to a computer competition this week and as I type this, I am eagerly awaiting news on the results! My intern, Taylor who wrote and designed our ES program presented to the judges for over 20 minutes about his project. Mr. Schepf reports that the judges asked great questions and were really impressed. Another shining example of what we are trying to accomplish here at The Academy!
Hope everyone has a great week and EOC testing will make it an interesting one. I look forward to seeing some cool things happening during those long periods.
Reyes’ Report
Communication and Visual Arts:
S. Zenner:
· Two of the Practicum in Graphic Design & Illustration students, Gaby Sosa and Karen Shahan, have created logos for the new Lady Bird Johnson Middle School.
· Students in AP art are getting ready to send their work to the College Board. One student is excited about his upcoming ceremony with Dart on May 24.
Info about Medical goings on:
Senior Medical Students to be honored at the HOSA Banquet hosted by Junior HOSA students. New senior officers to be inducted at the banquet. Senior HOSA Officers will be competing in Orlando Florida in hopes to retain their title as the Outstanding HOSA Chapter for the fourth year in a row!
Our new Rehab Program students took tour of their new facility, Silverado. Students accompanied by Deborah Hoard, PT.
CNA Program 2 years old. Testing for this year’s students going strong with 100% Pass rate. By the end of school all of our junior and senior medical students will be CNA Certified! Many of our seniors have secured CNA jobs for the summer.
American Heart Association just announced the selection of Jack E. Singley Academy as an approved Training Site with Diann Teel, R.N. as our AHA Faculty Member. All of the HST Instructors are now certified American Heart Association Healthcare Provider CPR Instructors. All of the Medical Students are certified in this advanced level of CPR each year.
Dr. Keasler to retire...he helped open the Academy in 2001 and will be greatly missed!
Info about Legal goings on:
Legal students took a field trip 5/13/11 to El Centro.
Info about Criminal Justice goings on:
Disaster Response - Students are preparing for the Disaster Simulation. During the EOC days for 5th and 6th Periods, students will be taking part in playing out a tornado which struck the school. Students will be broken up into groups. Search and Rescue Teams – will go out and assess damage to the area, find victims. Triage – students will be labeling victims and providing 1st Aid and treating the victims. They will also have to determine what category the victims are in (delayed, immediate, or dead). They will treat those who can be saved first and those you will possibly die last. They will then transport them to the triage center where they will be treated for their injuries.
Emergency Communications – they will be entering in call take information from callers who have called into the police station on the simulators we have in class. They will then dispatch units to respond to the calls. They will also be finishing up their Public Safety Telecommunicator 1 certification requirements. They are on Module 11 and will continue to work until they finish Module 14. They will be practicing their skills of what they have learned and then will take the certification exam.
Law Enforcement 1 – Students are working on Felony Traffic Stops, Radio Communication, Building Searches, and SWAT Extractions.
Law Enforcement 2 – Students are working on finishing up on Family Violence Laws and will begin to act out scenarios and practice how to handle a domestic call. They will also be finishing up on the Health and Safety Code which deals with narcotic offenses. Students will take a practice test in which they are tested on their prior knowledge and skills. We go over it as a class and when they are working on both sections they can realize what the answers are to the questions the missed and will appreciate why their answer was incorrect or correct.
Practicum – Students are finishing up on the Senior Project. Seniors had to write an essay over their internship experience and the questions they had to answer were:
What were your expectations prior to your employment at your SITE?
What have you learned during your internship?
How have you continued to grow during your internship?
How has the internship impacted you and how will it assist you with the goals you have created?
Seniors will be starting a project over a digital portfolio, where they will place documents, resumes, pictures, video, etc of themselves where they can take it with them for future use.
Criminal Justice Internship 2011 – 2012 – we had a parent meeting with the City of Irving on May 12, 2011 at 7:00 PM where students and their parents and guardians met the supervisors and employees of Dispatch, the Jail, City Courts, Victim’s Advocacy, and Records. They advised them and showed them what their son or daughters would be doing at each internship site. The answered any questions they had and allowed them to tour all of the facilities. The Program ended at about 10:00 PM. Students will be setting up interviews the next couple of weeks. We had 15 students who were recommended show up to this event.
Legal Internship 2011 – 2012 – We will be having a parent meeting on Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 6:00 PM to discuss the requirements and expectations of the Legal Internship Program.
Criminal Justice Field Trip – Students went on a field trip to the Changing Course Foundation Ropes Course in Cedar Hill, Texas. We go on this field trip every year to expose students to trust building, team building, and to develop relationships with upper classmen. This allows the 9th graders, 10th Graders, 11th Graders, and 12th Graders to develop an understanding that they will be working with each other over the next few years. They might be partners in competitions, they can learn and grow with each other and it fosters very important communication skills among all of the students. At the very end students were allowed to experience the Zip Line where they have to overcome fear and experience an adrenaline rush.
Math Department goings on:
Algebra 1 has just finished up their Quadratics Unit, learning about parabolas by graphing, factoring and solving using various methods. Algebra 1 classes will be beginning their Exponential Growth and Decay Unit with a “Survivor Activity”. The scenario for the activity is: “You are on a desert island and have come in contact with a deadly disease. You are exposed to the disease by the people on the island with you. Only one of you on the island will survive this disease because of the immunity that is already in your system. Which of you will survive this disease and be on the island alone?” Dice rolls are used to simulate the spread of the disease. The students will collect the data and use the graphing calculator to graph and analyze the data.
In Geometry, the students are exploring Circles and learning about tangents, secants, chords and arc lengths of a circle.
In Algebra 2 we are learning about Conic Sections. Ms. Merrill and Mr. Ho’s classes did Discovery Learning of the definition of parabolas (Going Fishing) and ellipses (Walking the Dog). Ms Turner’s Algebra 2 classes made a foldable of all the different formulas from the unit and are using this information to create individual works of art. If you go by Ms. Turner’s classroom on the 3rd floor, you should be able to view their mathematical art projects in the week to come.
PreCalculus is also working on their Conic Sections unit, taking it farther than the Algebra 2 classes, indentifying types of conics by their equations and translating the equations into general and standard forms. Calculus classes have been studying for and taking the AP exams this week.
The math club - Mu Alpha Theta is beginning their member recruitment for the 2011-2012 school year. Students with a minimum of a “B” average that are in Geometry Honors or higher math courses may be a full member of this club. Students that are not eligible to be full members, but are college-bound are encouraged to participate as an associate member of the club.
Science Department goings on:
CHEM – Freezing point depression lab
Bio Tech – Dallas World Aquarium for bio tech
Biology – dissections
AP Bio and AP Physics – students creating end of the year projects
ESL Department goings on:
ESL Sparkles!
We are delighted that we have 109 ESL freshmen joining us next year in all the various specialties. 9th grade teachers are hopefully thinking of joining up with ARISE training next year to make this middle school transition all the more successful for these kids.
Mr. Riggs and I are working at LPAC-ing our 230 ESL students and have high hopes that there will some exiting the program, once we know our TAKS/TELPAS results. (Thanks to our stellar teachers.)
Eight students are heading for the Hispanic Youth Institute at SMU for four days this June. They were selected by their written responses to some life-queries.
There is a plethora of ESL materials accessible in the 2nd floor team ready for you to use as supplements. Come check it out! (More to be added next week.)
Bankston’s Business
Rockets! The first floor Aerospace students traveled to Fredericksburg, Texas to launch their rockets and space balloon that they have been working on over the last semester. While the teams faced challenges on the launching pad, they did an amazing job of problem solving and did a glorious job of representing the Jack E. Singley STEM Academy! Way to go!
Textbook, Textbooks, Textbooks!! I know you are tired of me saying this, but please email Erica with the times that you would like your textbooks picked up and checked in. We have to account for every single book. Many of you have already set your appointments and we really appreciate it! If the students have additional books they want to bring to your scheduled appointment from other classes, we are taking them all! We will be sending out a Teleparent call about textbooks, but your diligence in getting both student books and classroom sets checked in will be greatly appreciated.
There will be a place on your checkout sheet that I will have to sign off on before you leave for summer, saying that you have no books checked out. (Of course, you can keep the teacher’s editions, but I will need to verify that you have it.)
Employability Skills will be arriving in your in boxes by Tuesday of next week! They will be due back to me by Monday, May 23rd.
Planning for The Academy edition of summer school is going on right now. This is for Academy students only and the registration dates for our students is June 6 & 7th, with classes starting on June 7th. Students will be in class from 8 am to 12:40 every day. Each student will have the opportunity to recover three classes.
Important information:
#1. IT IS FREE!
#2. Breakfast and Lunch will be served.
#3. NO BUSES, so students will have to get here every day.
Classes that we are offering include:
Algebra I, World Geography, P.E., English I, and IPC.
We will also be offering A+ Credit retrieval to some of our juniors. This is gives those that have passed their exit level TAKS tests a chance to recover credit for classes and graduate on time! As you can see, the school is going to be a busy place this June! Please start looking at your students grades and helping them decide to register for these courses.
There are some really exciting things happening as you walk around the halls! English is reading Ender’s Game and Shakespeare, while the some of our Chemistry students are doing pH testing on surrounding area water supplies! World history classes are doing a very cool current event project and math classes are exploring circles. United States history classes are finishing their study of Vietnam and starting Watergate.
Some of our Computer Science students went to a computer competition this week and as I type this, I am eagerly awaiting news on the results! My intern, Taylor who wrote and designed our ES program presented to the judges for over 20 minutes about his project. Mr. Schepf reports that the judges asked great questions and were really impressed. Another shining example of what we are trying to accomplish here at The Academy!
Hope everyone has a great week and EOC testing will make it an interesting one. I look forward to seeing some cool things happening during those long periods.
Reyes’ Report
Communication and Visual Arts:
S. Zenner:
· Two of the Practicum in Graphic Design & Illustration students, Gaby Sosa and Karen Shahan, have created logos for the new Lady Bird Johnson Middle School.
· Students in AP art are getting ready to send their work to the College Board. One student is excited about his upcoming ceremony with Dart on May 24.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Miss Amazing Pageant
Inshal Syed and Sayma Souri put together the Miss Amazing Pagenat on April 8th, 2011. The pageants mission was to recognize and honor the Special Ed girls at Austin Middle School as part of their IISM project.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Rockets 2011
The Aerospace Engineering students and instructor Michael Skrzynski participated in Rockets 2011, put on by SystemsGo in Fredericksburg, TX over the weekend. The students have worked all semester to build, manufacture and program rockets with goals of taking a 1 pound peyload to 1 mile, or building a transonic rocket with the goal of breaking the sound barrier.
One of the most unique aspects for the Singley students is the cross-curricular work with the Manufacturing students. In order to save money on the rocket body itself, the students used drainage pipe that is 4 inches in diameter which is a irregular width for rocket parts. The students were challenged to come up with the math to determine what the best shape of the nose cone would be in order to meet the goals of their challenge.
Students worked with the manufacturing students to design and manufacture the nose cones and bulk heads for both rockets. A huge thanks goes out to Mr. DeLaCruz and his manufacturing students for working with the Aerospace Engineering students on a project that has never been done before at the Academy, but provided a real world working example of working with other "businesses" in order to meet a goal.
Below: "Icarus" is a 1 Pound 1 Mile Rocket that is 5.5 feet long and used a K240 motor.
Below:
Front row: Sindy Ventura & Maria Gonzalez
Back row: Joshua Blazek, Luis Hernandez, Tanveer Baset, Joel Estrada, Josue Moreno, Jeremy Blouin, Trevon Simon
Back row: Joshua Blazek, Luis Hernandez, Tanveer Baset, Joel Estrada, Josue Moreno, Jeremy Blouin, Trevon Simon
Heading to the launch site!
MacGyver is a Transonic rocket that was 88 inches (7.3 feet) tall, and used am L540 motor.
A/V Production student Emma Presley documenting the Rockets 2011 experience.
From Left to right:
Kevin Ventura, Conner Bass, Luis Sotelo, Jucorey Berry, Griselada Acosta, Daniel Dennington, Noemi Guevara, Steven Ly
Kevin Ventura, Conner Bass, Luis Sotelo, Jucorey Berry, Griselada Acosta, Daniel Dennington, Noemi Guevara, Steven Ly
Icarus being loaded onto the launch pad by SystemsGo staff.
When launched it reach an altitude of ~ 4123 feet.
McGyver being loaded onto the launch pad by SystemsGo staff.
Click here to see the McGyver Launch
*Narrated by Mr. Witter
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