Category: Schools

Curious to see what the Safe Routes to School project will entail? The docs are posted at Albemarle County’s site.

via email:

QuickStart Tennis of Central Virginia is building three 36-foot QuickStart Tennis courts at Crozet Elementary School. To follow the construction progress, please go here.

Kids shouldn’t go hungry at any of our schools. Looking at the data and seeing emails throughout the year, all of our schools – Crozet, Brownsville, Henley and probably Western – have needs that we as a community can help solve.

via backpack mail:

Crozet Elementary School Snack Drive – April 21st through May 2nd.

Throughout the school year, CRES has worked hard to provide snacks each day to those children in need. With a couple months left, we are completely out of snacks! Please consider donating pre-packaged, nut-free snacks so our students continue to receive a snack each day.

Possible donation items include, but are not limited to:

– pretzels

– crackers

– cheese sticks

– graham crackers

– animal crackers

– gift certificates or monetary donation so CRES can purchase snacks

Donations may be sent in with your child or dropped off in the office during the Snack Drive.

The Albemarle County School budget seems to face budget deficits every year; this year is no exception. What are the other cuts at Western that are likely or being proposed?

Now I’m curious – what else is being cut at WAHS next year? It seems Leadership is one of those programs that should be kept, nurtured and grown rather than cut.

“The Western Albemarle High School Leadership program is facing a major cut from the WAHS administration. Currently, the administration is proposing that the program be cut from three classes to two. This means that there will be one “early bird” class and one class during the regular day, and both classes will have about 30 students. The proposal would result in the elimination of one regular day class.”

Update: Pay attention, folks.

Guest post by Brian Cohen.

Have you heard the increasing whirring and buzzing in the past three years? It’s not the cicadas. It’s the robots. They’re here, and they’re taking over schools, thanks to a local group of dedicated and self-described geeks—uh—roboticians.

Western Albemarle High School’s Robotics Club was founded by a small group of students and counselor Caroline Bertrand in 2011. Not only has WAHS Robotics worked hard to advance two teams (Loose Screws and Geek Gods) to the state championship robotics tournament every year since it was established, it has also led a movement to introduce the interdisciplinary science to other schools throughout the county and Charlottesville.

WAHS students and mentors have trained five teams at three high schools and worked with budding engineers at middle and elementary schools, teaching them the fundamentals of robot design and basic programming.

They also persuaded the Charlottesville Boys and Girls club to introduce robotics to over 150 children.

It’s no accident that Western is the nexus of central Virginia robotics; it’s a self-reliant facility that provides crucial resources for students interested in mechanical, computer and electrical engineering.  Once the Screws and Gods know the tasks their machines must accomplish to win a particular year’s competition, both teams use animated, 3D CAD programs to design their robots. Then they assemble stock parts ordered from robotics suppliers and fabricate custom components by various techniques, including casting aluminum in a forge or turning it on a lathe, or 3D-print plastic components in the classroom.

If WAHS Robotics sounds more like an enterprise than a school club, that’s because it is. To fund the design and building of the robots, competition entry fees and travel expenses, plus lots of pizzas for meetings and 11th-hour pit-crew overhauls, the club spends approximately $6,000 per year. Most of the money comes from educational and corporate sponsors (such as UVa Engineering, Rockwell Collins, MITRE, SEDNA and SRC) and parents. Unfortunately, it’s not enough. WAHS roboticians have appeared on radio interviews at WINA’s Rob Schilling Show and WMRA‘s The Spark with Martha Woodroof and were featured on both CBS19 and WVIR29 newscasts to talk about their program and appeal for sponsorships.

For more information on WAHS Robotics or to sponsor the club, visit http://wahsrobotics.com

editor’s note: NBC29 reports that WAHS’ club is going to the nationals. Thanks to @PamMoran for the tip!