Update: Fred Lynn Middle School students and staff are safe and have re-entered the school after being evacuated for a gas leak. The Fire Department and gas company have given the all-clear. Students will be given lunch. Dismissal will be at the regular time.
-Prince William County Public Schools
Prince William County, Va. — Team SuperNOVA, a robotics team from Osbourn Park, Gar-Field, and Freedom high schools in Prince William County, headed by teacher James Gillespie, was recently able to see their work inside the International Space Station.
In a unique competition run by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, secondary school students are able to access the space station using SPHERES satellites in a game which mimics mining operations on near-eath asteroids, according to a Prince William County Public Schools press release. The game is played online in the first few rounds, but having completed several rounds of competitions, the SuperNOVA team will now travel to MIT to watch a live broadcast on January 23 from the International Space Station. An astronaut will conduct the ZERO Robotics championship in microgravity.
The first segment in the latest edition of “School Focus” looks at Volunteer Prince William’s Un-Trim a Tree Holiday Gift Program, which ensured that thousands of children in the Prince William community had gifts for the holidays.
Prince William County Public Schools (PWCS) employees helped coordinate the program and adopted hundreds of kids as well. The second segment of “School Focus” shows how the location of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, in Quantico, is a valuable resource for PWCS educators, with a teacher in residence at the museum an additional benefit.
By KRISTINA SCHNACK KOTLUS
Schools and Education Reporter
I’m not sure if anyone missed me, but I have, in fact, been on something of a “holiday hiatus” since November. I’ve been learning plenty of my own lessons as family continues to navigate our way through our first year of homeschooling our children, including that it is a full time job, especially around the holidays!
Stafford County, Va. — It was a failed gas line that knocked out the heat at Ferry Farm Elementary School in Stafford County, and students today are once again displaced.
As they were on Thursday, Ferry Farm students are in classes held at Dixon Smith Middle School as repairs are being made at Ferry Farm. School officials decided to abandon the failed gas line and ordered Columbia Gas to install a new line that will service the building, said Stafford schools spokeswoman Valerie Cottongim.
Stafford County, Va. — While students at Ferry Farm Elementary School will have classes Thursday, it won’t be at their regular school building.
Unlike on Wednesday when classes at the school were canceled, students and staff of Ferry Farm will have class at 9 a.m. at Dixon Smith Middle School at 503 Deacon Road in Stafford County. Buses will run their regular routes, and students who normally get rides to school should be dropped off at Dixon Smith Middle School by 8:40 a.m.
Stafford County, Va. — Ferry Farm Elementary School in Stafford County is closed today after school officials say the building has no heat. Parents, students, and staff have all been told not to report to the school today.
The YMCA before and after school programs, as well as all after-school activities have been canceled.
Seven Stafford Schools were among the 447 in Virginia to earn 2012 Virginia Index of Performance awards for advanced learning and achievement. The incentive program recognizes schools and divisions that far exceed minimum state and federal accountability standards and achieve excellence goals established by the governor and the board.
Garrisonville Elementary received the 2012 Governor’s Award for Educational Excellence by meeting all state and federal achievement benchmarks for the last two consecutive years and achieving all applicable excellence goals.
Stafford, Va. — A former school principal in Manassas will take over at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford, the school now infamously known for the Banana Man controversy.
Michael Byers will begin his duties at the school Jan. 3, after relocating from his current position as assistant principal at Briar Woods High School in Loudoun County, said Stafford schools spokeswoman Valerie Cottongim.
