Technology Media Fair January 29

Irving ISD will host its 2008-2009 Technology Media Fair from 6-7:30 pm January 29 at The Academy of Irving ISD, located at 4601 N. MacArthur in Irving.

IISD students produced projects in 12 categories focused on the theme “Digital Destination”. Contest categories include the following: digitized video-90 second maximum, digitized video-90 seconds to three minute maximum, animation, digitized audio-three minute maximum, digital graphics-original illustrated art, digital graphics-product design, multipage desktop publishing, single page desktop publishing, user interactive/branching multimedia, linear multimedia, and website design. Student first-place winners from all categories except digitally submitted photography will be submitted for state-level competition.

The IISD media fair is based on a state-level competition sponsored by the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) and entries followed the same rubric by which projects are judged at the state level.

Students have worked on their projects since last fall and the deadline to submit entries was December 5. Approximately 2,600 entries were submitted and district winners will be highlighted at the fair.

For more information about the media fair, outlines of contest rules, and past winners, access www.irvingisd.net/mediafair.

Back to top   

Irving ISD to Host Regional Decathlon

Thirty-one schools will compete at the Texas Region 9 Academic Decathlon Meet scheduled for January 30-31 at MacArthur High School, located at 3700 N. MacArthur Blvd. in Irving.  Fifteen schools will compete in the Large Schools Division and sixteen in the Medium Schools Division (see table below.)

Nimitz has won the regional title 18 of the past 21 years and is the defending Region 9 champion.

Academic Decathlon provides high school students an opportunity to experience the challenges of rigorous academic competition through participation in team activities. It is designed to include students from all academic backgrounds.

Teams will take tests in six areas including math, science, language/literature, art, music, and economics. The competition also includes essay, speech and interview components, as well as Super Quiz. The meet’s overall topics are Mexico & Latin America and the novel Bless Me Ultima.

Super Quiz, scheduled for 3:30 pm on January 31, is annually the highlight of the meet and is open to the public. The event will be held in the MacArthur Gym, with public seating on the “home side” in the second floor gallery.

Back to top   

School Closings/Delayed Openings

Irving ISD schools will remain open, provided buildings can be comfortably heated and students can arrive at school safely. Occasionally weather conditions such as icy roads or inadequate heat cause the closing or delayed opening of schools. If schools are closed or delayed in opening, the IISD Superintendent will direct the Public Information Department to notify all IISD parents and staff via the TeleParent phone notification service between 5:30 and 6 am

In addition, information regarding a change in the school day will be posted at the IISD website, www.irvingisd.net, and on Irving Schools Television at Time Warner Cable Channel 98 or Verizon FiOS Channel 33. Area news media will also be notified.

Decisions on closing or delaying the opening of IISD schools will be based on road conditions within IISD, traveling conditions for staff, and decisions of neighboring school districts.

If no announcement is provided at the IISD website, Irving Schools Television, or by area news media, IISD schools will be open as scheduled.

If you have any questions about this process, call the IISD Public Information Department at 972-215-5200 or send e-mail to PublicInformation@irvingisd.net.

Back to top   

Celebrating the Inauguration

The inauguration of a President is for America’s educators about much more than politics and partisanship.

Whether our candidate won or lost, we celebrate the inauguration because it demonstrates, once again, that America, for all its upheavals and all its divisions, still remains true to the principle upon which it was founded; namely that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed as expressed by votes in elections. The consent of the governed – it is difficult to grasp today the impact those five words packed in 1776. They were so powerful and so unsettling, in fact, they could get you killed. For centuries, it had been drummed into people’s heads that God had empowered a king to rule over us. The consent of the governed overturned the divine right of kings.

The people know best what is best for them. The great eighteenth century thinkers, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau, proposed this revolutionary concept. Thomas Jefferson read the works of Locke and Rousseau, and he wrote the consent of the governed into our Declaration of Independence.

Even in today’s modern world, however, we still see leaders refuse to give up power, because they think they know best, or because absolute power corrupts absolutely.

From their very beginning in America, public schools taught not only the three R’s, but also the consent of the governed. Why? Because our most insightful thinkers, such as Horace Mann, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass, understood that the human instinct to yield to a seemingly all-powerful, all-knowing leader was so deeply engrained, we had to learn how to trust ourselves.

In addition, people realized in the early nineteenth century that the idea of the consent of the governed would help bind together our increasingly diverse and rapidly expanding nation. There is tremendous power in a shared idea when that idea connects with people’s hopes and aspirations for a better life.

Hence, America’s public educators taught America’s children about the consent of the governed. We taught democracy. We modeled democracy through student government elections and mock Presidential elections. Day-in and day-out, we labor to put the “Unum” in E Pluribus Unum – Out of Many, One.

And for our students what better example of the consent of the governed can there be than the peaceful transfer of power at our Presidential inauguration. On this day, we can be proud that we trust each other to choose a leader.

Provided by Learning First Alliance at www.publicschoolinsights.org/inauguration.

Back to top   

Athletes of the Month

Nimitz High School seniors Alaria Waddle and Michael McLean have been named Irving ISD Athletes of the Month for January.

Alaria Waddle

Michael McLean

Waddle, a captain on the Nimitz girls’ basketball team, averages 19 points per game, nine rebounds, and leads the team in steals and blocked shots. In addition to basketball, Waddle is an active member of the Peer Assistance and Leadership group and Viking Crew.

McLean, shooting guard on the Nimitz boy’s basketball team, averaged 19.7 points per game in December. He maintains a “B” average in the classroom and volunteers with the Region X Sports Extravaganza for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and to summer basketball camps at Nimitz.

Back to top