RUSD Students Bring Home Awards!

RUSD Debate Team Scores in OC Competition

The RUSD Debate Team brings home awards from Orange County Debate League Competition on February 9. Front Row: Selina Cheng (Alvarado), Madeleine Tsoi (Alvarado), and Lily Zhao (Alvarado); Back Row Left to Right: Sydney Yang (Blandford), Angela Whitbred (Alvarado), Donald Ly (Alvarado), and Anthony Tian (Alvarado).

By Silvia Rivas and Kim Louie, Special Projects/GATE Office On Saturday, February 9, 20 Rowland Unified students in grades 5, 6, 7, and 8 woke up bright and early to attend the 3rd Orange County Debate League (OCDL) competition of the year. Arriving at Los Altos High School before 8:00 a.m. in the pouring rain, RUSD students competed against more than 300 students from various middle schools in Orange County, including many prominent private schools. The students debated on the topics of “Cash Bail Systems Do More Harm Than Good,” “It Is Wrong For Teachers To Strike,” and “The OCSEF Should Officially Adopt ARESR (Debating Format).” Rowland’s team is made up of a combination of veteran 8th grade students who have been doing debate since 4th grade, as well as some newcomer 5th graders who only began debate last summer. The competition is organized in teams of three, and for RUSD, experienced students are teamed with less experienced students, in order to help the newer students learn from strong models and improve their skills. Students compete in four rounds of debating against randomly selected competitors from other schools, without knowing if they will be arguing “for” or “against” the topic. They are not allowed to have any electronics for any preparation at the tournament, and must rely on their pre-prepared notes and research that they do beforehand.

AWARDS BROUGHT HOME: Two of RUSD’s teams placed in the top 20, with a team placing 16th place and another in 6th place! Alvarado 8th grade student, Anthony Tian, placed 13th Speaker, out of more than 300 speakers – which is an amazing accomplishment! Overall, Rowland’s Alvarado Debate Team placed 5th in Overall Number of Wins, and 7th in Wins Percentage (meaning how many wins based on the number of students competing). Multiple students were also recognized for “Distinguished Teams” and “Distinguished Speaker” medals, for placing in the top 20-30 out of 100 teams and more than 300 students. It was an amazing and unforgettable day for RUSD Debate students which has inspired them to do even better at the next competition that will be held on March 30th, with the location to be determined.

RHS Future Business Leaders of America Earns 26 Awards at Regional Competition By Caroline Manookian and Daniel Luna, RHS Business Education Teachers

Pictured Above: Personal Finance Winners: Jessica Wang(4th), Serena Wu (3rd), Dana Hernandez (2nd) and Hasan Ismail (1st). Pictured Right: The First Place Marketing Team: Krishna Nathani, Colin Lam and Victoria Wong.

Congratulations to the Rowland High School Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) competitors! This year, the RHS chapter sent 42 competitors to the Southern Section competition on February 9 at Valencia High School in Placentia. More than 750 students from 16 schools competed at the event. RHS took 5th place in the overall Sweepstakes Award while competing against schools with over 100 competitors. The following 21 students placed in the top 10: Accounting 1: 3rd Esther Liu, 4th JingWen-Joey Lin and 7th place Eric Fei. Accounting 2: 2nd Kimberly Cang, 3rd Tishunie Van, 6th Katrina Pan. Marketing Team took 1st place: Colin Lam, Krishna Nathani, and Victoria Wong. Personal Finance: 1st Hasan Ismail, 2nd Dana Hernandez, 3rd Serena Wu, 4th Jessica Wang. Economics: 5th Anthony Chiu. Intro to Info Technology: 6th Luciano Lim. The Hospitality Mgmt Team took 1st place: Krishna Nathani, Victoria Wong, and Edward New. Securities and Investments: 3rd Edward New. The Sports and Entertainment Mgmt. Team took 6th place: Hasan Ismail, Ryan Liu, and Chelsie Yuan. The Entrepreneurship Team took 10th place: Arvin Chen, Jimmy Chau, and Johnson Tong.

Rowland High School Academic Decathlon Team Takes First Place

The Rowland High School Academic Decathlon Team.

The Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon is a rigorous two-day scholastic team competition testing knowledge and skills of high school students who compete against other schools for gold, silver, and bronze medals. On January 26 and February 2 at El Rancho HS in Pico Rivera, Rowland High School competed against 39 schools from Los Angeles County and came in 1st place in their division and 1st place in the Super Quiz. For their hard work and dedication, the team received gold medals and a team trophy. Students are tested in 10 subjects: Art, Economics, Language and Literature, Mathematics, Music, Science, Social Science, Essay, and Speech and Interview. In addition, the team received 32 individual medals for their performance in individual events. Congratulations to this year's team: Jett Vuong, Michelle Kwan, Melody Lo, Tony Vu, Ethan Lo, Andrew Dominguez, Alec Wu, Edward Tang, and Helen Guo .

Villacorta Robovikings Compete

The Villacorta Elementary Robovikings Team at Legoland.

By Brigette Uribe, Villacorta TOSA The Villacorta Robovikings competed in the First Lego League Robotics competition at LegoLand on Saturday, February 8th. The competition consisted of 2 parts: A project that includes solving an environmental problem and understanding the core values and teamwork. Students build a robot that can complete as many missions as possible in 2.5 minutes. The Theme this year for FLL was “Into Orbit.” The Roboviking project answered the problem of what can we do to help the astronauts while in space with issues that affect them such as homesickness, or social/emotional issues. "Our students invented the Family VR, which allows astronauts to communicate with family back home and a Jetpack for returning to the spaceship to help the astronauts get through the long days in space,"  said Mrs. Estela Gonzales, team coach.  "The students also learned about core values such as: Discovery, Innovation, Impact, Inclusion, Teamwork, and Fun and how these values are so important to have when working with a team."  Teamwork is a strength of the Robovikings. They were able to communicate and include each person in the project that they were working on. Our Robovikings gave it their all and perservered by reprogramming and changing the code until it was just right for the competition. They worked hard all year to perfect their coding and teamwork abilities and were able to show these skills off during the competition.  "Out of all of the core values, teamwork and fun were the teams favorite values and they were able to show these awesome skills off at LegoLand,"  said Gonzales.

Nogales Student Coca-Cola Scholar Regional Finalist

Congratulations to Nogales High School Senior Desiree Cervantes for representing Nogales as our Coca Cola Regional Finalist! What does it mean to be a Coca-Cola Scholar Regional Finalist? It's a big deal! These high school seniors have made it through an extremely competitive second stage of selection and will participate in regional interviews with a committee of Scholar alumni and staff members in the coming weeks. After these interviews are complete, 150 of the 251 Regional Finalists will become Coca-Cola Scholars and receive a $20,000 scholarship!

Student Link Crew Takes the Lead at Nogales 101 By Melissa Briseno, Nogales High School Career Pathways Student

On Tuesday, January 28, 8th graders from Oswalt, Telesis, and Giano got the chance to experience their future high school. The Nogales 101 event provided students an exclusive school tour with the Link Crew -- a program in which Nogales High School student members are given the opportunity to be a leader and another support system for the incoming freshmen class. At this year’s Nogales 101 event, link crew members were asked to take over and give the incoming freshmen a glimpse of the school they are enrolling in next year. Each link leader gave a tour of Nogales’s beautifully renewed campus to 13 students. They were able to take 8th graders into different classrooms on campus and gave them an idea of the variety of classes Nogales has to offer, including the AP programs, International Baccalaureate program, electives, and athletics. One of Nogales’s very own senior link crew leaders, Maria Lozada, shared her experience of Nogales 101 saying, “It was really fun to interact with the incoming freshmen, some were shy, but towards the end they ended up being more outgoing. They seemed to interact better with us since we were teens just like them.” Towards the end of the event, all three middle schools were taken into the gymnasium, where performances from band, cheer, choir, and Nogales’s dance crew were showcased and the event ended with a small presentation from Mr. Justin Lopez.

ACE Program Sends Love to Classified Employees

By Sharon Carrillo, RUSD CSEA Chapter 133 President Who is a Classified worker in your school? They are the friendly bus driver that picks up our children and delivers them safely to school, the Custodian who keeps our schools looking great, the Food Service Worker who makes sure our children are fed and ready to learn, the Instructional Assistant in the classroom helping our teachers help our children and so many others working behind the scenes! CSEA Rowland Chapter #133 was excited that our District Board of Education, Administrators and the ARE President participated once again in the A ppreciating  C lassified  E mployees (ACE) program yesterday. The  LOVE  was shown to our Classified employees all across the District as administrators and certificated staff members walked in their shoes. After the morning of shadowing, everyone came to together for lunch, laughter and to share their experiences.

Pictured Above Left to Right: The rain didn't stop the fun yesterday as classified employees were shadowed by administrators and board members. RUSD Superintendent Dr. Mitchell with Bus Driver Terry Rios; Jellick Health Assistant Alma Alvarez with Student Services Director Kevin Despard; Board Member Cary Chen helps Hurley Elementary Food Services Assistant Maria Pelayo; Transportation Dispatcher Mary Casian shows Asst. Superintendent Matty Zamora the day's schedule; and Jerry Zuniga in Building Services has extra hands with RACE Director Rocky Bettar!   Pictured Below Left to Right: Senior Technology Specialist Jose Franco has helper Board Member Lynne Ebenkamp; Account Clerk Nancy Audu in Fiscal puts Villacorta Principal George Herrera to work; Asst. Superintendent Alex Flores has fun in the Northam library; Giano Principal Carlos Ochoa joins the Building Services Team as he shadows Plumber Ed McGee; Board Member David Malkin helps clean the RHS pool pump with Pool Maintenance Worker Ricardo Antunez; Alvarado Custodian Eleno Torres has a helping hand with Board President Donna Freedman; and Transportation Mechanic David Alvarado has Asst. Superintendent Dennis Bixler join him on his bus inspection.

February 15, 2019 Issue Questions? Contact RUSD News Editor gward@rowlandschools.org

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