June 15, 2007

Evergreen SchoolScene

It’s a fiesta!

Approximately 1,500 people enjoyed food, games, a silent auction and other fun during Tom Matsumoto Elementary School’s Carnival Fiesta fundraiser on June 8.

The event, which raised about $16,000 for the school, featured carnival-style games, a rock climbing wall, a bungee run, a giant slide and an appearance by San Jose Sharks mascot, Sharkie, who signed autographs for the kids.

The event, which was held as a non-fundraiser last year, was held in part to raise funds for the school to hire a literacy coach next school year for the students, according to Hye Han, the main organizer for the event.

In addition to Han’s efforts, the school also received volunteer help from organizers Cynthia Jew, Suganda Iyer, Anna Luong, Sandra Valenzuela, Yamini Mitter, Wanna Kapoor and Sangeeta Chhabra, as well as 130 other volunteers who pitched in during the event.

Food for the event was provided by nearby Burrito Azteca, while the following sponsors/families helped sponsor the event:

Nandini Subramani and Family, the Anna and Bill Luong Family, Ni Ding & Jiandong Huang Family, Cynthia and Raymond Jew Family, Dave Cortese and Family, Jeff and Sarah Fredericksen Family, C.G. and Srividya Balaji Family, Sandra and Jose Valenzuela Family, Ferial Bagha D.D.S. and Diego Sahagun D.D.S., Richard Quan D.D.S. and Barkley Low D.D.S., Tiffany Trang of Next Generation Realty, Kumon in Evergreen, DBA Jayendra Kalakendra, Salix Pharmaceuti-cals, Leola Edmond of Countrywide Home Loans, Bank of America Evergreen Banking Center, Betty Sha, Fatemeh Nazari Malek, and Tom Matsumoto himself. In addition, signs were donated by Print Cal and banners were donated by Craig Rubia of Cortina Road.

—Photo by Diego Abeloos

Chaboya Middle School bands brings home trophies; ends year with a bang

Chaboya’s bands made big sound waves in the musical community at their festivals this spring!

The Symphonic Band (above) won a "Unanimous Superior" rating at their CMEA adjudication in May. They also earned a "Superior" rating and second place at the "Music in the Parks" festival at Great America. The Concert Band (below) earned a rating of "Excellent" and first place at the same festival. Both groups won the coveted "Espri de Corps" trophy at the festival.

All of Chaboya's musical groups were showcased in a grand concert at Chaboya Middle School on Wednesday, May 23. It was a show to remember featuring both bands, the Concert Choir and the Guitar Ensemble.

Evergreen Teachers Association awards annual scholarships

Eleven high school seniors honored with scholarships

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

The Evergreen Teachers Association recently awarded college scholarships to 11 high school students who attended Evergreen School District for their elementary and middle school education.

The group granted scholarships totaling $6,500, including the annual Alan Haydis Scholarship, which was awarded to Tim Ulleseit from Evergreen Valley High School. The scholarship honors the former district music teacher who, for many years, taught students to appreciate and enjoy music.

From left to right: Robert Chao, Tim Ulleseit, Jorge Salgado, Jimmy Le, Dana Pham, Cecily Greer, Amanda Rivas, Renae Garcia, Lucy Nguyen, and Flora Nguyen. Not pictured: Karen Huang.

The students received their awards at an afternoon reception on Wednesday, June 6 at the district office. The money for the scholarships comes through contributions from the Evergreen Teacher’s Association, the Administrator’s Golf Tournament, Citizens for Excellence in Evergreen Schools and personal teacher contributions.

Qualified students apply for the awards and are then interviewed by a scholarship committee made up of three current teachers - Jean Schorr, Debbie Earl and Brian Wheatley, and two retired district teachers, Diane Clemmensen and Lisa Johnson. The students are evaluated on academic plans, career goals, financial needs and community service.

“All of these students are highly motivated and immerse themselves in high school by taking challenging classes, playing varsity sports, belonging to clubs and giving their time to extra-curricular activities, in addition to holding down student government offices and maintaining remarkable GPAs. Many even hold down jobs. It’s amazing,” said Schorr, the scholarship committee chair who teaches at Norwood Creek Elementary.

She added that the scholarship winners each offer their time volunteering and giving back to their community. Several, for example, tutored at the elementary school they attended.

“One recipient organized a pancake breakfast to raise funds for playground benches at James Franklin School as his Eagle Scout project,” Schorr said.

The students vying for these awards are quite impressive, Schorr said. During interviews, the students often shared a special memory of attending an Evergreen District school. Among their memories are favorite classroom activities, fun school events and participation in sports and leadership classes, according to Schorr. Many of them also remember a special teacher that inspired them, she added.

“We are proud to have been a part of their early education and wish them every success with their future education,” she said.

The following is a list of the scholarship winners, the schools they attended, and the universities they are attending in the fall:

Robert Chao—Norwood Creek, Chaboya, Silver Creek—UC Davis

Renae Garcia—Cedar Grove, Quimby Oak, Mt. Pleasant—San Jose State

Cecily Greer—Laurelwood, Chaboya, Evergreen Valley—University of Virginia

Karen Huang—Matsumoto, Quimby Oak, Evergreen Valley—Yale University

Jimmy Le—Evergreen, Quimby Oak, Evergreen Valley—UC Berkeley

Flora Nguyen—Cedar Grove, Quimby Oak, Mt. Pleasant—San Francisco State

Lucy Nguyen—Cedar Grove, Quimby Oak, Mt. Pleasant—UC Santa Barbara

Dana Pham—Norwood Creek, Quimby Oak, Evergreen Valley—UCLA

Amanda Rivas—Cadwallader, LeyVa, Mt. Pleasant—University of San Francisco

Jorge Salgado—Norwood Creek, Quimby Oak, Evergreen Valley—Fresno State

Tim Ulleseit—Evergreen, Chaboya, Evergreen Valley—UC Davis

Local Junior Girl Scouts receive bronze award

Claudia Chan, Bridget King and Rukhsar Palla recently received the Girl Scout Bronze Award at a ceremony on May 19.

Kaitlyn Kennedy (left) and Bridget King (right) delivering blankets.

The Girl Scout Bronze Award, the highest honor a Junior Girl Scout can earn, requires a scout to learn the leadership and planning skills necessary to follow through on a project that makes a positive impact on her community.

King, a member of Troop 723 and 6th grade student at Matsumoto, spent almost two years in planning and executing her project called “Blankets, Blankets and…..Animals?” In short, she garnered donations of scrap fabric and then turned them into over 50 blankets for homeless animals at the San Jose Animal Care Shelter. With the help of friends Rachel Steinberg and Kaitlyn Kennedy, she spent countless hours piecing together the scrap fabric and sewing them into blankets so that homeless cats and dogs might have a more comfortable stay while waiting to be adopted.  

Chan and Palla, also members of Troop 723 and 6th graders at Carolyn Clark and Matsumoto respectively, teamed together for their project called “Cookies, Cookies, Cookies.” With this project, Chan and Palla baked over 200 homemade cookies and then delivered them to the families of Ronald McDonald House in Palo Alto. Ronald McDonald House is a center where families can stay while their sick children are being treated and cared for at Stanford Hospital. The homemade cookies and friendship of the girls were a welcome change of pace and brightened the day for the families and children.

All three girls, and their troop, are bridging to Cadettes this fall. King already has her sights set on her Silver Award where she wants to focus on her latest passion, ice hockey, by bringing together underprivileged children and the “greatest game on earth.”

Rock-it Science camp registration now open for summer sessions

Rock-it Science, located in Santa Clara at 2110 Walsh Avenue, recently announced an expanded schedule of their summer science camps. Camp sessions are still available for June 18-22, June 25-29, July 2-6, July 9-13, July 16-20, July 23-27, July 30-August 3, and August 6-10. Registration is open now at www.rockitscience.com

The Rock-it Science summer camps utilize storytelling and innovative science experiments to capture the children’s attention and imagination. Camp themes run the gamut from experiments that fly to experiments that bubble and smoke! The camps serve children ages 5-12.

The goal at Rock-it Science is to spark, nurture and develop young people’s enthusiasm and ability to learn science successfully. Each camp day begins with a scientific concept introduced through a zany tale involving Jack, Jill, and The Evil Mr. Fred. Then the kids begin hands-on experimentation to determine possible solutions to the cliffhanger story.

Kids are encouraged to think creatively, to try things out, make mistakes, make corrections and discover how to solve problems. They don’t just reproduce a pre-determined result – they experience the joy of discovery for themselves.

To learn more about Rock-it Science and this summer’s camp offerings, go to www.rockitscience.com or call Rock-it Science at (408) 969-1900.

Correction
A list of Chaboya Middle School 4.0 students for the third quarter printed in the Evergreen Times June 2-15 issue was incorrect. Here are the correct names of the Chaboya Middle School 4.0 students:

Chaboya Middle School 4.0 students for the third quarter

7th Grade – Guillermo Ancheta, Anika Arif, Jaskaran Atwal, Anthony Banuelos, Meghana Bhimarao, Chelsea Braza, Liselotte Caris, Alison Chen, Katelyn Chen, Sophia Choi, Ariq Chowdhury, Kevin Chuang, Hiba Dada, Anay Dattawadkar, Brian Do, Rachel Do, Sukhreet Dosanjh, Sean Ellner, Mikelle Foster, Chaddy Georges, Justin Giang, Barbara Gould, Alexia Green, Nancy Ho, Vivian Hsu, Christina Ja, Balaji Kalluri, Rohan Kapre, Manasi Kasbekar, Winston Kim, Monica Kullar, Evie Lee, Jimmy Lee, Perry Leong, May Lu, Peter Luong, Erica Luu, Anthony Ma, Christopher Ma, Manisha Maharaj, Mariella Manalac, Julia Mcdaniel, Ronodeep Mitra, Graham Nelson, Alexander Nguyen, Brandon Nguyen, Eric Nguyen, Kim Nguyen, Michael Nguyen, Gabriela Padilla, Preethi Padmanaban, Natalie Pang, Chandni Patel, Michelle Pham, Nathaniel Pham, Nancy Phan, Lauren Principi, Subi Qian, Wendy Qiu, Yang Qu, Timothy Quach, Emily Quan, Surya Ramanathan, Tiyana Rogers, Komal Sharma, Nicholas Sohm, David Tan, Andrew Teuthorn, Derek Tran, Kevin Tran, Lillian Tran, Cynthia Truong, Amani Turminini, James Wei, Albert Wong, and Jennifer Wong.

8th Grade – Hannah Abalos, Tabitha Ahearn, Christopher Ancheta, Jann Antolin, Amal Asghar, Neda Bazofti, Sarah Benton, John Bowman, Jing-Jing Cao, Iverson Chan, Amanda Chen, Helen Chen, Carlin Cheng, Aaron Cheung, Monorom Chim, Matthew Chin, Amala Chirayil, Abhijith Chitlur, Cynthia Chiu, Audrey Chou, Irene Chou, Tiffany Chung, Nicole Cuenca, Dan Dang, Edward Davalle, Queenbelle Delacruz, Melvin Delavega, Ameya Deshmukh, Danielle Dinh, Thuydan Do, Krystal Dominguez, Martin Dowdy, Berenice Fernandez, Kelsey Foo, Harpreet Gill, Jenna Godsil, Saloni Gupta, Sean Guzman, Jenny Ha, Scott Harano, Steven Harrigan, Vivek Iyer, Katherine Ja, Sahil Jain, Edward Kim, Sravani Kondapavulur, Tiffany Lam, Shing Lau, Claudelle Le, Kristine Le, Matisse Le, Erik Leaf, Kevin Lee, Melissa Ling, Megan Liou, Brian Ly, Lillian Ma, Catherine Mace, Darien Manalac, Prakruti Nadendla, Monique Ngo, Diana Nguyen, Jaimie Nguyen, Jennifer Nguyen, Jessica Nguyen, Michelle Nguyen, Michelle Nguyen, Natalie Nguyen, Susan Nguyen, Viet Nguyen, Parisa Oveyssi, Dennis Pang, My-Linh Pham, Phuong Pham, Jonathan Phan, Vinh Phuong, Samah Pirzada, Amber Por, Andrew Quan, Kelsey Rieger, Jordan Rowley, Amanda Schmitt, Marcus Sera, Pallavi Setty, Neerav Sharma, Jessica Sheu, Katie Shih, Kamalpreet Sidhu, Sneha Singh, Michelle Sung, Taylor Tanton, Marevel Tepora, Brandon Tran, Caroline Tran, Diana Tran, Jacquelyn Tran, Jennifer Tran, Stephanie Tran, Tiffanie Tran, Viet Tran, Kevin Tsai, Minh-Kha Vinh, Claramie Vo, Crystal Vo, Angeline Vu, Annie Vu, Brian Wang, Eric Wetzel, Jennifer Willis, Lindsey Wong, Martin Wong, Kevin Yoshioka, and Annie Zaccarin.