Tag Archive for: #VANCECoProud

Attention Vance County Seniors and Juniors

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Attention Vance County Seniors and Juniors, if you have been asked to participate in a WorkKeys review session please take advantage of it. You have been identified as a CTE concentrator. Congrats! You have an opportunity to earn a nationally recognized certificate valued by employers, did I mention national?

During the review sessions you will learn strategies for answering questions related to applied math, locating information and reading for information. These strategies will help you do well on the assessment in February as well as in your coursework and beyond. If you miss the review session you may contact Ms. Stevens, Career Development Coordinator, to find out how you can get information. Email: mstevens@vcs.k12.nc.us

FGV Smart Start Announces New Executive Director

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FGV Smart Start, Inc., has announced that Dr. Tony Cozart will be the new executive director.

Dr. Cozart is a retired educator, with over 32 years in the local public school systems. He began his career as a teacher and assistant principal in Vance County, then served in Warren County as principal at Norlina Middle, South Warren Elementary and Warren County High schools, among other administrative positions. He is the pastor of Cooks Chapel Baptist Church in Warrenton, and also serves on the Granville County Board of Commissioners.

Cozart is married to the former Jacqueline Peace. They have three daughters: Kimberly, Kristal, and Karmen. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from Saint Paul’s College, Master of Arts in School Administration from North Carolina Central University, and Doctor of Education from Nova Southeastern University.

Dr. Cozart has been the Kindergarten Readiness coordinator at FGV Smart Start the last two years. He began his duties as the executive director on November 16.

Clark Elementary School – Active Shooter Exercise

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On Saturday November 19th, 2016 Vance County Public Safety agencies as well as emergency responders from our surrounding counties will be conducting a full scale active shooter exercise at Clarke Elementary School, located at 309 Mount Carmel Church Road, in Henderson.

Vance County received a grant in the amount of $20,000.00 through the Federal Homeland Security Exercise Program to conduct the training event, which has been in the planning stage for the past six (6) months.

It is our intent to make this exercise as realistic as possible while preserving the safety of all those involved. Simulated gun fire will be used as well as injury simulation (Moulage) to add realism.

The exercise will take place on Saturday rather than a regular school day due to the age of the students, however roughly 250 Vance County School’s personnel (many of them actual teachers) will be portraying students to further add realism to the scenario.

While we have conducted similar exercises to this in the past, each school is unique and offers its own unique challenges. Clarke Elementary was chosen as it is the newest school in the County and is probably not as well-known to our responders as some of the other school facilities.

Early preparation for the exercise will begin at 7:00 AM on that day with the exercise itself beginning later that morning. The exercise will conclude early in the afternoon on that same day. We would like to caution residents in the area that they may hear the simulated gunfire and would like to emphasize that they should not be alarmed by those sounds. Additionally, there will be a large public safety presence in and around the school for the duration of the event which will include law enforcement, EMS, fire and even helicopters, but again we would like to stress that this is all a part of the exercise.

Further, we will be closing off certain sections of the roads in and around the school to allow us to adequately test our perimeter control methods. Residents that live in the confined area will be contacted to make them aware of what is happening and they will be allowed to come and go if they should need to. Through traffic will be routed around the exercise venue until the event is over.

This exercise is NOT open to the public. Anyone not affiliated with one of the participating agencies who approaches the exercise area will be turned away. You do not have to get disheartened as you can easily navigate to this website and find easy ways to build yourself a relaxing time. It is unfortunate that we must prepare for such a horrible event but we owe it to our citizens and our communities to ensure that such public environments are as safe as possible. Through joint efforts such as this exercise we ensure that a coordinated response will occur during an actual event.

Contact: Brian K. Short

Phone: 252-438-8264

STEM Holds 2nd Annual Spanish Spelling Bee

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The STEM Early High School in Vance County Schools hosted its second annual Spanish Spelling Bee on November 9, with a student from Henderson Middle School taking top honors.

Ximena Rodriguez of Henderson Middle, was the first-place finisher in the spelling bee. She topped Ashley Pendergrass of Vance Early College High, who finished second, and Emily Garcia of STEM Early High, who finished third.

In addition to students from Henderson Middle, STEM Early High and Vance Early College, students from Vance Charter School participated in the competition.

Rodriguez was the only student participating from Henderson Middle. Students from Early College High in the spelling bee were Pendergrass, Brooklyn Davis, Evan Beaudet, Justice Anderson, McKenzie Taylor and Zenee Davis. Those students from STEM Early High included Garcia, Adrian Aguilera, Amanda Cease, Brant Gibson, Jesus Rodriguez, Kelsea Williams and Tanisha Davis. Spellers from Vance Charter included Amber Null, Aniyah Gill, Savannah Ayscue and Yazi Majette.

Northern and Southern Vance to host College/Career Days

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Vance County Schools is hosting two Career/College Day events, November 9, at Southern Vance High School and November 17, at Northern Vance High School.

Both events will be held from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and are open to high school juniors and seniors and their families.

The focus of the events is to provide representatives that are from different career pathways to be available to answer questions from students, speak about skills and training needed for jobs in their respective industries and share information about opportunities for internships/job shadowing experiences.

There will also be representatives from colleges available to speak with students about college programs and services available.

If you are interested in participating as a vendor or would like additional information contact: phone: 252-739-7120, e-mail: mstevens@vcs.k12.nc.us.

Fall Festival to be held at Vance County Early College High School

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The Vance County Early College High School would like to invite the community to attend its annual Fall Festival on Friday, Oct. 28th, at Vance-Granville Community College Civic Center, from 6:00-9:00pm.

Families are urged to attend for good food, fellowship and fun!

Teachers in Vance County Schools receive new laptops

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The deployment of almost 600 new laptop computers to teachers in Vance County Schools began today with teachers from six schools coming to the Administrative Services Center in the afternoon to get their new devices.

The teachers were returning their old devices and then picking up new ones, which are Lenovo E460 laptops, that have been fully programmed and equipped to use as teaching tools each day in their classrooms.

Technology Department staff members have worked long hours to get all of the new laptops ready for the teachers.

Teachers from Southern Vance High, Early College High, Aycock Elementary, Carver Elementary, Clarke Elementary and New Hope Elementary received laptops today. New laptop computers will be given tomorrow afternoon to teachers from Northern Vance High, STEM Early High, Dabney Elementary, E.O. Young Jr. Elementary and Zeb Vance Elementary.

More computer deployments are planned for teachers at additional schools on October 25 and 26.

Zeb Vance Elementary Celebrates National Grandparents Day

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Grandparents of students at Zeb Vance Elementary School were invited to join their grandchildren for lunch in honor of National Grandparents Day. Although the official day is to be observed on the first Sunday after Labor Day, Zeb Vance hosted its festivities on the following Monday.

“The smiles on the students’ faces when they saw their grandparents come out to have lunch with them was priceless. I was floored by the number of grandparents we had visiting,” said Kristian Herring, Principal of Zeb Vance Elementary School. “101 grandparents had lunch with their grandchildren. This shows just how important our grandparents are to our students and how important our students are to our grandparents.”

Guidance Counselor Valerie Hairston was also ecstatic at how Grandparents Day connected generations. “Grandparents left with joy in their hearts and a token of appreciation in their hands,” she stated. “This was a great way to honor grandparents.”

This initiative was started at Zeb Vance as a way to have grandparents visit the school and enjoy the company of their grandchildren over a nutritional meal. Zeb Vance also uses this as a venue to recruit volunteers for the school.

“It is wonderful to see our students’ faces light up when they see their grandparents in the cafeteria to join them for lunch,” shared Marian Faulkner, a third grade teacher at Zeb Vance. “Some students invited their classmates (who didn’t have a family member there) to join them and their family for lunch. Anytime we can merge our Zeb Vance family with our students’ families is a positive experience.”

Mike Patel, grandfather of a Zeb Vance Kindergarten student, shared his satisfaction with the Grandparents Day celebration. “I enjoyed the lunch very much,” he said. “I liked seeing all the loving moments between the grandchildren and their grandparents.”

President Jimmy Carter signed a federal proclamation declaring the first Sunday after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day. What a way to celebrate Grandparents Day by promoting participation and community involvement.

Pictured in the attached photograph are (left to right):  Mike Patel, Maci Hunt, Maci Short and Dinky Ramsey

Duke Energy helps Eaton-Johnson Students have fun

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The National Theatre for Children, sponsored by Duke Energy, provided two actors to perform several sketches for students at Eaton-Johnson Middle School on October 6.

The sketches or skits were entitled “Save the World” and focused on energy conservation covering a wide range of topics including using low energy light bulbs, energy efficient shower nozzles, being conservative with water usage and turning off lights when you leave a room.

Students laughed at the antics of the two male actors as they quickly changed costumes and became different characters during the sketches. Several Eaton-Johnson students volunteered to help in the sketches. The actors mostly portrayed middle school aged students who were learning about how to conserve energy both at school and home.

Eaton-Johnson Middle School is part of the Duke Energy program to help save 10 million kilowatt-hours of energy this school year. Schools in five different states are involved in the conservation effort. Parents and students at Eaton-Johnson have already received information on how to request a free Energy Kit. For each 100 Energy Kits ordered at the school, Duke Energy will provide a $250 prize to the school. The school with the most kit requests by December 31 will win $2,500.

Items in each Energy Kit are LED light bulbs, an LED night light, an energy efficient shower head, faucet aerators, switch/outlet gasket insulators and more.

Parents, students and school staff members can visit myenergykit.org to track energy conservation at the school and the number of kits ordered.

Vance County Cancels School for students on Election Day

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The Vance County Board of Education during its meeting Monday night approved the rescheduling of Tuesday, November 8, which is National Election Day, to a mandatory teacher workday with no school for students. It was originally scheduled as a regular school day.

Five of our schools, New Hope, L.B. Yancey, E.O. Young, Henderson Middle and Northern Vance High, are used as voting sites. It was the opinion of the board and school system administrators that with the expected large turnout for the election the day would be especially disruptive at these five schools, if it would have been a regular school day.

With the board’s action, no students in Vance County Schools will attend school on that day. However, all school system employees will be working.