Albert Lea’s Earth Science Summer School program had 29 students from four area school districts complete the program.

The class was taught by Ken and Kelli Fiscus and focused on three areas: how scientists make their discoveries, space travel and natural disasters.

Technology staff busy with upgrades

Summer is a busy time for the technology staff at Albert Lea Public Schools as they work their way from building to building upgrading technology across the district.

This summer, technicians along with student workers are cleaning and updating software on all district computers, replacing older computers with new systems, and with the help of the district maintenance staff, are also adding new Smart Boards and projection systems to several classrooms, all in accordance with the district budget and replacement cycle.

In addition, all district computers will be updated with new anti-virus, spam filtering, content filtering and e-mail retention software to better protect students and staff.

The use of this technology continues to play a key role for the district to help increase student achievement as well as give the students the technology skills needed to be successful learners in the 21st century.

ALHS students achieve perfect attendance

Albert Lea High School congratulates the 18 students listed below for their perfect attendance throughout the entire 2008-09 school year. Each student is being awarded a $75 cash prize.

Grade 9: Michael Deyo, Parker Hanna, Dustin Illg, Kimberly Schiltz, Colleen Thompson and Tyler Wichmann.

Grade 10: Aaron Amundson, Jade Claassen, Travis Drescher, Richard Johnson, Marc Kruger, Mina Lein, Carlton Stripe and Kayla Swee.

Grade 11: Shaunee Fisher, Ji Yeon Lee and Joe Leland.

Grade 12: Jerry Jones.

The following area businesses and anonymous donors gave contributions to to make these awards possible: Albert Lea Electric Co., Albert Lea Medical Center, Albert Lea Seed House, Bayview/Freeborn Funeral Home, Bonnerup Funeral Service, Celebrations Party & Gifts, Community Foot Clinic, Dr. Dean P. Leonard, Innovision Eyecare, Albert Lea Noon Kiwanis, Lou-Rich Inc. / Innovance, State Farm Insurance-Nancy VanderWaerdt, Tri-State Tax, United Employees Credit Union and Western Rentals.

Students share highlights

The students in Sue Ellis’ Advanced ELL class at Southwest Middle School were asked to write a paragraph about the highlights of the year. The favorite topics covered were fossils, stars, and Hispanic heritage. They liked these topics because they were interesting and fun to read about. One student got interested in stars in the sixth grade and enjoys watching them at night. Another student wrote that before the star unit he didn’t know that hydrogen turned into helium when a star is born. Some students commented that using the vocabulary they learned in writing assignments will help them be more successful in the future. One student wrote that he learned things about pronouns that he didn’t know before. As the students reflected on what they liked about this class it was apparent that each of them improved their academic English reading and writing skills.

Seat belt challenge initiative successful at ALHS this spring

Albert Lea High School, in collaboration with the Albert Lea Police Department and Freeborn County Public Health, kicked off a “seat belt challenge” campaign this spring. All activities and programs were focused on drawing awareness to the importance of seat belt use in an effort to help save teenage lives and prevent serious injuries. Two seatbelt checks (April and May) were conducted at ALHS three exits at the end of the school day.

According to the seat belt check held on May 13, the overall percentage of students wearing seat belts increased from 75 percent to 87 percent — a 12 percent increase.

Elementary schools move to new report cards

In 2008-09 Albert Lea elementary schools moved to a standards-based report card in math. Next year in addition to math the reading standards will be included on the report cards. Fifteen teachers from all four elementary schools are working this summer to create common assessments for each grade level. The teachers are also re-writing report cards and the standards in parent friendly language. The hope is that informing parents more specifically on what their children are learning and achieving will help parents work with students at home and get the. to share more about what is going on in the school day.

Teaching directly to the standards and reporting the results to students and parents is considered one of the strongest ways to improve student achievement.