By Will Jukes

Irving ISD hosted its 13^th Annual ICE Awards at Irving High School on Feb. 20 honoring teachers, students and parents who participated in outstanding projects at their schools in the past year. Awards were divided by education level into elementary, middle and high school and given in the categories of humanities, fine arts, math and sciences, athletics and physical education, community service/citizenship, special campus/district and parent involvement activities. An overall “best in show” award was given to Barton Elementary School for Popeye: A Play To Stop Bullying, and a Golden Apple, a special category recognizing outstanding educational partners in the district, went to the Heritage Senior Center for their collaboration with Pierce Early Childhood Schools.

The top award winners were difficult to select according to Debbie Debrick, a member of the ICE Committee responsible for reviewing nominations and selecting winners. The committee evaluated over 200 nominations this year, and “Ultimately we agreed that it deserved to win, because it's a major issue in the district, but it was a tough choice,” she said regarding the selection of Popeye: A Play to Stop Bullying for the overall ICE Award. Popeye took on the controversial issue of bullying in a performance for students and parents, urging students to treat one another with kindness and respect, and to report bullying to teachers, administrators or other adults.

But it wasn't just a matter of making sure the best programs got their due; included is a prize of up to $1,000 for the top award winner, something the district hopes will be reinvested in outstanding programs in the coming year. This year, the prize was larger than ever. Debrick attributes the committee's generosity this year to the generosity of their sponsors.

“All our funding comes from sponsors, and we don't really know how much we'll be able to give until all the money comes in from them, and this year after we collected it all we found had enough to give $1,000,” Debrick said.

Despite this, Debrick thinks that the ICE Awards are as much about recognition and respect as financial remuneration.

“I think that's definitely the real motivator for a lot of these students and teachers,” she said. “But a lot of them don't know about it. A lot of people there [at the ceremony] had never been before or never heard about it. So we definitely are trying to get the word out.”

This vision of expanding the ICE Awards is central to its mission to motivate parents, teachers and students to improve the district, a goal pursued not only through sponsorship or celebrity presenters - this year's awards were presented by Catherine Whiteman, local television personality - but by encouraging more interest in the awards themselves.

“Last year we got 25 percent of our submissions from PTA programs. We want to go above and beyond that,” Debrick said. “We want to grow teachers, grow parents and grow children.”

For the 12th time in the past 14 years, the Nimitz Academic Decathlon team placed among the top five teams at the Large School State Meet (5-A teams), finishing 4th in a field of 40 teams over the weekend in El Paso. 

Timothy Betts was the top-scoring Nimitz student. Timothy also won a silver medal in Science and a bronze in Economics. 

But Nguyen was the #4 B student in the meet, winning a $1000 scholarship in the process. But also won the bronze medal in Science. 

Matthew Jauregui was the #5 C student in the meet and won a $750 scholarship. Additionally, Matthew won a bronze medal in math and a gold medal in interview. 

Other medal winners for Nimitz were Blaine Stevens, who won a gold in economics and a bronze in music, Rebecca Van Pamel, who won a silver in literature, and Michel Castillo, who won a gold medal in interview.

Darby Adams and Sarah Varghese also made major contributions to the fourth place finish. 

The team, led by coach Greg Jackson has qualified to compete at the State Meet 23 out of the last 26 years.

Source: Irving ISD

Seventy-seven Irving ISD teams traveled to Grapevine-Colleyville to participate in the Mid-Cities Regional Destination Imagination Tournament on Feb. 23.

Teams, composed of anywhere from two to seven students, have worked for the past few months on a team challenge that required collaboration, problem-solving, and creativity. Although sponsored by an Irving teacher, students worked through their challenge without any influence from their team manager. At the tournament, students presented their solution to a team of appraisers and competed in an instant challenge as well. Scores from the two challenges were combined to determine placement.

Sixty-nine Irving teams entered at the competitive level, hoping for a chance to advance to the state tournament in April. Of the sixty-nine teams, fifty-one of them placed (medals are awarded to the top six teams in each challenge at each level). Out of those fifty-one teams, seven will be going to the state tournament in Katy, TX, on April 12 - 13. The following campuses have teams moving on: Johnston Elementary, Bowie Middle School, Crockett Middle School, MacArthur High School, and Jack E. Singley Academy, who has three teams moving on to state. This is the second year for teams from both Johnston and Bowie to win a place at the state tournament and the fifth year at least one Singley team has advanced. This will be the first time for MacArthur and Crockett.

Three teams received additional recognition for their efforts and outstanding imagination, creativity, and originality. Teams from Townsell, Lamar, and MacArthur were all recognized for their outstanding achievements.

In addition to the sixty-nine teams that participated at the competitive level, Irving also had eight Rising Stars teams made up of kindergarten, first and second grade students.

Source: Irving ISD

The steps of the Capitol building in Austin were the site of a senior citizen rally on Feb. 12. Seniors from all over the state of Texas gathered to make their voices heard by members of the State Legislature.

The ceremonies opened with the Senior Ballet Folklorico Dancers from Conley-Guerrero Senior Center in Austin. Representatives from the Texas Silver Haired Legislature and The Senior Source then shared their thoughts on aging and the need to advocate for the elderly.

Texas Senator Jane Nelson of Flower Mound, sponsor of Senior Day, and Texas Representative Elliot Naishtat of Austin, Chairman of the Legislative Committee on Aging urged the crowd to action on behalf of Texas Seniors. Seniors were encouraged to take the opportunity to meet with State Senators and Representatives to discuss issues facing the elderly.

“I’m just glad to get the chance to ask some questions, this is important” Billie Morrow of Irving said. Eighteen senior citizens from Heritage Senior in Irving were among the attendees. They met with State Representative Linda Harper Brown and had a photo taken with her. They later traveled on to Fredericksburg to see some of the sights of the Hill country before returning to Irving.

Mary Little of Irving thanked Heritage Senior Center and its partners The Remington in Las Colinas and Avante Rehabilitation for making the trip possible.

“It was a neat trip” she said.

Senior Day at the Capitol is held every two years, the next opportunity to attend will be in February 2015.

Source: Heritage Senior Center