Oak Ridge Today

Photos: ORHS Fusion Orchestra on ‘Blue Plate Special’ radio show on WDVX

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The Oak Ridge High School Fusion Orchestra performs on the “Blue Plate Special” on WDVX 89.9 FM at the Grove Theater in Oak Ridge on Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

The Oak Ridge High School Fusion Orchestra performed on the “Blue Plate Special” radio show on WDVX FM 89.9 on Friday. Here are photos from the show.

The groundbreaking fusion orchestra is now in its second year at ORHS, and it is the brainchild of ORHS Orchestra Director Doug Phillips, a press release said. According to Phillips, the class is a result of his doctoral studies during the past seven years at one of the top music universities in the world: Boston University.

“The class is a unique way to teach orchestra students for several reasons,” Phillips said. “First, in a traditional orchestra, all of the students are guided by notes on a paper that tell them exactly what to do and when to do it, how loud to play it, when to stop, etc., while the teacher acts as an overseer and dictates of all activities. [Read more…]

ORHS Orchestra has 17 students in All-East Tennessee Orchestra Clinic

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Oak Ridge High School Orchestra Feb 4 2017 600x422

Oak Ridge High School Orchestra students pictured from left above are Jade Dush, Hannah Constance, Lindsey Young, Olivia Mahathy, Mandy Pitz, Jamimie Clark, Meghan Campbell, HyeJi Bang, Aaron Beavin, Logan Roeling, Alek Wereszczak, Noah Constance, Kenny Moon, Eagle Yuan, Jared Anderson, Michael Ma, and Jay Casey. (Photo courtesy Doug Phillips)

 

Oak Ridge High School Orchestra placed 17 students in the All-East TN Orchestra Clinic. The clinic was held in Gatlinburg this weekend. The students are pictured above. They are: [Read more…]

ASAP: Students get the facts on drugs, win free chicken

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Victoria Seiber, the Chick-fil-A Cow, and Alexis Roy at Clinton High School for the ASAP Ambassador’s National Drug and Alcohol IQ Challenge. (Photo by Allies for Substance Abuse Prevention of Anderson County)

Victoria Seiber, the Chick-fil-A Cow, and Alexis Roy at Clinton High School for the ASAP Ambassador’s National Drug and Alcohol IQ Challenge. (Photo by Allies for Substance Abuse Prevention of Anderson County)

 

Submitted

The ASAP Ambassadors Youth Coalition from Anderson County, Clinton, and Oak Ridge high schools celebrated National Drug and Alcohol Facts week last week. Aiming to increase their peers’ awareness of the dangers of drugs and alcohol, the student-led group organized the event.

Students from the three high schools tested their knowledge on drugs and drug abuse by taking the 2017 National Drug and Alcohol IQ Challenge during their school’s lunch periods. Student contestants answered questions in a buzzer style trivia game related to mental health, marijuana, and other drugs.

With the support of Project AWARE and Chick-fil-A, the event was a crowd-pleasing success, but most importantly, students gained valuable knowledge. [Read more…]

Robertsville Middle School competes at technology student conference

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The Robertsville Middle School Technology Student Association competed in the 2017 East Tennessee Regional Conference at Roane State Community College in Harriman on Friday, Jan. 27, 2017. (Photo by Oak Ridge Schools)

The Robertsville Middle School Technology Student Association competed in the 2017 East Tennessee Regional Conference at Roane State Community College in Harriman on Friday, Jan. 27, 2017. (Photo by Oak Ridge Schools)

 

The Robertsville Middle School Technology Student Association competed in the 2017 East Tennessee Regional Conference at Roane State Community College in Harriman on Friday, January 27. The RMS regional team consisted of 22 students from sixth grade to eighth grade.

RMS students began preparing for this competition in early fall.

The following students placed in the top three in their events on January 27: [Read more…]

Lunch with League: Success of middle college at Roane State, area high schools

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Diane Ward

Diane Ward

An official from Roane State Community College will provide an overview of the college’s Middle College during a Tuesday meeting.

Diane Ward, vice president for student learning at Roane State Community College, will be the guest speaker at Lunch with the League on Tuesday, February 7. The program will be held at noon in the Social Hall of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church, which is located at 809 Oak Ridge Turnpike. The public is invited.

“Middle College is a program where rising high school juniors carry a full college schedule in the morning and a high school schedule in the afternoon,” Ward said in a press release. “The goal is for these students to obtain a high school diploma and an associate’s degree at the same time. Currently, Roane State is in partnership with three different school systems to offer this program on three of our campuses.” [Read more…]

City, schools could pick preschool site soon

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Elm Grove Park Preschool Conceptual Site Plan Jan 2017 Large

A conceptual site plan for a new preschool at Elm Grove Park on East Tennessee Avenue in east Oak Ridge. Officials said the plan would keep the park and the walking trail. (Image courtesy Studio Four Design/City of Oak Ridge)

 

Oak Ridge municipal and school officials could start selecting a site for the new preschool as early as this month. There are two options being considered: Elm Grove Park and Scarboro Community Center.

Financing for the project, which would include bonds, could be included in the budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

In the meantime, a petition drive has been started to oppose building the preschool at Elm Grove Park.

The park had previously been announced as the preferred site for the new preschool, which has been on the city’s wish list for many years. Elm Grove Park is a city-owned parcel in east Oak Ridge off East Tennessee Avenue. It’s the site of a former school, it’s relatively flat, and it has city-owned utilities. Also, there aren’t many obstacles that would affect construction, and site borings have already been done, city officials said last week. [Read more…]

ORHS Fusion Orchestra will perform on ‘Blue Plate Special’ on WDVX on Friday

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The Oak Ridge High School Fusion Orchestra will perform on the “Blue Plate Special” on WDVX FM 89.9 on Friday.

The show is scheduled from 12-1 p.m. Friday, February 3, at the Grove Theater at 123 Randolph Road in Oak Ridge. It’s free.

The groundbreaking fusion orchestra is now in its second year at ORHS, and it is the brainchild of ORHS Orchestra Director Doug Phillips, a press release said. According to Phillips, the class is a result of his doctoral studies during the past seven years at one of the top music universities in the world: Boston University. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge students advance to state chess championship

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More than 100 students from 35 schools and home school groups in East Tennessee competed in the Tennessee Chess Association regional tournament at Oak Ridge High School on January 28.

Forty-two of the 115 participants represented schools in Oak Ridge: Jefferson Middle School, Linden Elementary School, Oak Ridge High School, Robertsville Middle School, St. Mary’s, Willow Brook Elementary School, and Woodland Elementary School. Those who qualified for the state tournament to be held February 18 at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville are: [Read more…]

Opinion: How far can we move the needle?

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Ron Woody

By Ron Woody

The buzz around the Roane County Courthouse and School Board has been what will our leaders do about the future of education in Roane County? The initial discussions were about consolidation of high schools with an acceptable debate change to: What should the delivery of future education services look like? I applaud both the School Board, the County Commission, and the public for focusing the discussion on the future of education and not on consolidation.

So, here we are in 2017 having a discussion that we should have had in the late ’80s and early ’90s. What does education look like today? What should it look like the next 15 to 20 years? Two important meetings have taken place within the last eight months in order to answer these questions. Excerpts of these meetings can be found on http://www.roaneschools.com under district, then High School visioning process. Please take the time to read through these meeting notes to help arrive at your own conclusions. Here are a few of my conclusions from attending the meetings and reviewing the minutes. Roane County should work to:

  1. expose students to more career opportunities,
  2. expand the mentoring programs, and
  3. expand vocational class opportunities.

[Read more…]

Schools give Year Two progress report on Access Oak Ridge

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These charts depict the increase in use of the Canvas learning management system, or LMS, since its adoption in 2015 in Oak Ridge Schools. Dips in usage occurred in June and July of 2016 when school was not in session. (Image by Oak Ridge Schools)

These charts depict the increase in use of the Canvas learning management system, or LMS, since its adoption in 2015 in Oak Ridge Schools. Dips in usage occurred in June and July of 2016 when school was not in session. (Image by Oak Ridge Schools)

 

Submitted

During the past two years, the Oak Ridge school district has been making new strides in our Access Oak Ridge digital learning initiative by putting Lenovo Yoga laptop computers into the hands of every student in grades 5-10.

Our vision in this initiative is “to empower all Oak Ridge students with equitable access to digital learning opportunities, and to innovate, design, collaborate, and ultimately succeed in local and global communities of the future.” Within this vision, we believe that learning should be student-centered, with technology that enables exploration of content with greater depth and breadth.

Our aim is to continue to grow Access Oak Ridge to provide opportunities that lead to substantial benefits for both students and staff. Fostering innovative thinking expands the classroom beyond the school walls for our students.

Prior to embarking on the Access Oak Ridge initiative, dedicated information technology (IT) staff and instructional technology coaches had been preparing our students and teachers with digital tools and software for more than a decade. In 2014-15, our instructional technology coaches worked with a team of teachers to research and select a learning management system, or LMS, to securely house all of our online content for courses such as soft copies of textbooks, course readings, designated internet content links, software, and videos, as well as student and family progress monitoring (course grading). The LMS the teacher team selected is Canvas by Instructure. [Read more…]

Haslam visits ORNL to highlight state’s role in discovering tennessine

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Bill Haslam at ORNL Tennessine Martin McDonald Thom Mason ORHS Students

Principal Martin McDonald, left, and students from Oak Ridge High School accepted the first new chart of the periodic table featuring element tennessine and signed by Governor Bill Haslam, right, and ORNL Director Thom Mason, second from left. To mark the discovery of tennessine, UT-Battelle is donating a new chart to all public middle and high schools in Tennessee. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam visited the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Friday to congratulate the ORNL team involved in the discovery of the element tennessine, named in recognition of the vital contributions of the state of Tennessee to the international search for new superheavy elements.

UT-Battelle, the managing contractor of ORNL, is marking the discovery by providing more than 1,000 public middle schools and high schools in Tennessee with new charts of the periodic table. Tennessine—the official name for element 117—completes the seventh row of the table and the column of elements classified as halogens.

The charts will include the signatures of Haslam and ORNL Director Thom Mason.

“We had two very significant announcements in Tennessee this fall as it relates to science,” Haslam said. “In October, the Nation’s Report Card announced that Tennessee students are the fastest improving in the nation in science, and in November, Tennessee became only the second state to be recognized in the periodic table of elements. Having an element named in our honor is further evidence of the scientific excellence that exists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt University, and other institutions throughout our state, and by UT-Battelle donating new periodic tables to every middle and high school in Tennessee, students can feel proud of our state’s important role in the scientific community and inspired to play a role in its future.” [Read more…]

Anderson County Schools closed Monday, Tuesday due to illness

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Anderson County Schools will be closed Monday, January 30, and Tuesday, January 31, because there is a large number of students and staff out due to illness, officials said Friday.

Custodians at each school will spend Monday and Tuesday disinfecting classrooms and schools, Anderson County Schools said.

The central office staff will report at its usual time.