By Anne Gibson
Vail Pride Day (VPD), a Vail School District (VSD) event, celebrated its twentieth anniversary on Saturday, February 16th at the Pima County Fairgrounds with cheers and acknowledgements of student, staff and volunteer achievement. Producers of the three days of festivities were Co-Chairs Linda Kubiak and Heather Stough with a cast fifty dedicated committee volunteers. Amongst the many celebratory activities and events drawing some 10,000 people to the fairgrounds were three district-wide academic competitions.
Academic Jeopardy: Inspired by the “Jeopardy” game show, Academic Jeopardy tests students the five categories of Figure It Out (problem solving), Word Surge (vocabulary), Language Arts, Science, and Vail Trivia, said the beautiful Megan Cloud game founder and director of professional development for the VSD. Each Vail school serving third through eighth grade students sends winning teams in each grade level to represent their school for a total of 184 competing students. VDS’s Ethan Hurley, college and career readiness director, and Aron Schmidt, high school instruction and career technical education director, served as emcees. The first place winners who received awards at the VPD Awards Ceremony were:
Third Grade Team A, Senita Valley Elementary with the team of Tariq Elaazami, Jonathan Fisher, Kara Harowitz, Eleanor Howard, and Lindsei Kohler.
Third Grade Team B, Copper Ridge Elementary with team members Lindsey Judd, Rebecca Norris, Avery Jacobs, Danielle Jones and Noah Ramirez.
Fourth Grade Team A, Vail Academy and High School with competitors Embry Ciaravella, Luke Scopel, Andres Main, Sarah Foley and Molly O’Brien; Fourth Grade Team B, Copper Ridge Elementary with team members Curtis Rawlings, Stone Barras, William Nielson, Elena Lau, and Sally Sheppard.
Fifth Grade Team A, Vail Academy and High School with a team of Tinsely Walter, Holden Feagley, Kayla Biagini, Kamee Mustapha, and Paige Bullis; and Fifth Grade Team B, Mesquite Elementary with team players Caleb Loomis, Gerardo Rascon, Taylor Hawkes, Sophia Wenzel and Camila Robles.
Sixth Grade, Vail Academy and High School with team members Paul Irvine, Neema Karumba, Marie Perez, and Tommy Donovan.
Seventh Grade, Vail Innovative Center with team players of Gabi Jenkins, Avery Robinson, and Ethan Zimdars.
Eighth Grade, Corona Foothills Middle School with players Sophie Bartholomew, Annalise Haley, Austin Leach and Trinity Marinello.
Math Bowl: The year was 2005 when math teacher Brent Edwards developed Math Bowl as a part of VPD. Edwards used his experience from his affiliation with the nationwide MathCounts program to model the VPD Math Bowl. Four students and a coach from each of the VSD’s 19 schools come together in a fun creative problem-solving environment. Edwards is currently serving as assistant director with VSD’s nationally recognized program Beyond Textbooks. Edward co-chairman Derek Langley has taught math at Empire High School and currently at Andrada Polytechnic High School. From the 80 students competing this year’s winners are:
The elementary school winning team from Sycamore Elementary is coached by Tiffani Laye and consisting of Charlie Coulter, Michael Marquez, Connor Bellus and Cayden Tepper; the middle school winning team from Rincon Vista Middle School is coached by Michael Hall with team members Braden Cherry, Ben Rodziewicz, Jackson Vigue, and Abigail Hunter; and the high school winning team is from Empire High School. Kim Wojtak coaches the team of Jack Bell, Matt Fosdick, Grant Tobiasson and Isabella Urquides.
Science Fair: A Science and Engineering Fair is held at each school between December and February. Students that complete their projects are judged at their site fairs and if they are selected as a winner they move on to the next level of competition. From the 1,000 projects judged, 170 were on display at VPD and move on to the next level. The next level of competition is SARSEF (Southern Arizona Research, Science and Engineering Fair). Projects that win at SARSEF grades 5-12 are also given the opportunity to compete at AzSEF (Arizona Science and Engineering Fair) in Phoenix. The projects that are from students 9-12 grades will then go on to compete at ISEF (International Science and Engineering Fair) which is being held in Phoenix this year, explained Rachel Tankersley, Sycamore Elementary Students Understand Math and Science (SUMS) Teacher and Vail District Science Fair Coordinator.
Tankersley has committed to future articles following Vail’s 170 future scientists as they move up each level.
