MILESTONES

MILESTONES

honors

Receives College Match scholarship

Austintown Fitch High School senior Giovanna LaGamba will attend Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., in the fall, thanks to a scholarship through QuestBridge’s “National College Match” program.

Students selected for the College Match are “matched” to one of QuestBridge’s 38 college partners, admitted with a guaranteed full, four-year scholarship, including tuition, room and board and other expenses.

Out of 15,000 applications, 767 students were chosen from across the United States. LaGamba is one of those students with an ACT score of a 33 and a class rank of 16 out of 400 senior students.

Teachers presentation

Jackie Mercer and Veronica Kotel, teachers at Crestview High School, along with Carol Straub, a consultant at the Columbiana County Educational Service Center, presented at the National Council of Teachers of English national convention last month.

Their presentation, “Teaching Tolerance: Why Emmett Till Still Matters” was accepted out of thousands of presentations for the convention.

They discussed their work with the Emmett Till story and the civil-rights movement to the approximately 70 attendees.

Mercer has been awarded several grants over the past four years that have helped to buy books and bring both authors and civil-rights icons to speak to her class, including Till’s two cousins, who witnessed his kidnapping. Kotel and Straub both worked with programs through the ESC office focused on content-area literacy. Kotel described her interdisciplinary work with the FBI investigation of Till’s murder.

In addition to their presentation, Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., brought the Traveling Emmett Till exhibit to display.

5-star preschool

The Ohio Department of Education has rated Joshua Dixon Preschool in Columbiana five stars in the Step Up to Quality Rating review. Five stars is the highest possible rating in the review which includes surprise on-site inspections.

The preschool was evaluated in four areas established by the ODE and the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services: learning and development practices, administrative and leadership practices, staff qualifications and professional development, and family and community partnerships. Administrators are accepting enrollment for this school year. For information contact Preschool Supervisor Marci Freedy at 330-482-5355, ext. 34212, or at marci.freedy@columbianaschools.org.

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