Indian River School District

Update-- At 3:00p.m. today Bethany Beach was to be closed to all beach related activities (swimming, fishing, etc.) until conditions improve.

Coastal Delaware residents and municipalities were preparing mid-week for at least a brush with Hurricane Earl, as the major hurricane continued on its track northwest through the Atlantic. Earl’s closest approach to Delaware was expected to occur Friday afternoon, about 175 miles from the coast, and a hurricane watch was issued by the National Weather Service mid-day on Sept. 1. A hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning remain in effect as of mid-day Thursday, Sept. 2.

The Indian River School Board is not cutting Adult Education courses, said district representative Dave Maull. Rather, they are going ahead with the fall session, and – on the condition that the classes can become self-sustaining – will offer the usual winter and spring sessions, too.

Schools throughout the Indian River School District will host a series of open houses during the months of August and September.

Open houses are designed to allow students and parents to meet teachers and staff, view class lists and tour school buildings. A number of schools will host multiple sessions during a three-week period, with each session catering to a different grade level.

Nine schools in the Indian River School District were classified as “Superior” when the State of Delaware released its 2010 school accountability ratings on July 30.

Bringing to a close discussions dating back to February, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) Secretary Collin O’Mara recently announced that the agency has finalized a consent agreement with NRG Energy Inc. that will permanently shut down a third coal-fired electrical generating unit at the Indian River Power Plant in Millsboro by the end of 2013.

When finding the money to go to college, every little bit helps. There’s tuition, room and board, books and supplies… It seems there’s always something else to purchase. Getting scholarships – no matter their value – helps to ease the load a little bit and is a way many students make the experience affordable. But for one local student, the life lesson that comes with “free” money came full circle, even before college starts.

On Wednesday, June 23, Indian River High School senior Justin Lowe was swimming in the surf off Ocean City, Md., when he was struck by a wave. He was thrown into a sandbar and fractured his neck.

The Southern Delaware School of the Arts (SDSA) has built a reputation for developing talented youth from throughout the area, but seldom do the students get the opportunity to showcase that talent for a notable audience from outside Sussex County. Late last month, though, they had the chance to do just that, as Carla Markell, wife of Delaware governor Jack Markell, invited 13 other governors’ wives from across the country to the annual Governor’s Spouses Seminar, complete with a performance from SDSA.

The anticipation of summer vacation is on the mind of many students as schools prepare for the end of the school year. Earlier this week, Selbyville Middle School students had a sneak preview of summer vacation as they teamed up with Coastal Kayak and some local residents to get a hands-on look at the area’s beaches and watershed.

Sherri Hudson was recently named Lord Baltimore Elementary School’s Teacher of the year. Hudson, a third-grade teacher at LB, has been at the school for seven years. Prior to that, she taught first grade for three years at Phillip Showell Elementary School and for three years at Georgetown Elementary.

Have you ever looked at those glossy pictures in magazines, with celebrities posing in exquisite, sparkling gowns at movie premieres?

The Indian River School District will hold a school board election on Tuesday, May 11, with voting from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

There is one contested election this year, in District 2. The incumbent is current board vice president Kelly Willing, and she is being challenged by Rodney Layfield. The election is for a three-year term on the board.

Every year each Indian River School District school honors one of its teachers with a Teacher of the Year Award. Page Lyons was named this year’s Teacher of the Year for the Richard Allen Intensive Learning Center in Georgetown, where she has been teaching mathematics to sixth- through 12th-graders for four years. She has been teaching for six and a half years altogether.

Let’s see – ninth-grade English… There’s Shakespeare, Dickens, “The Odyssey,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” — all classic texts that somehow are supposed to relate to present-day 14- and 15-year-olds. And, magically – and in part because of teachers such as Indian River High School’s Teacher of the Year, Marjorie Worrell – they do.

In life, when trying to teach someone something, it helps if you know about what you are teaching. And it is a different kind of knowing when you are speaking and teaching from experience, rather than reading from a textbook. Brett Buchler, a Selbyville Middle School seventh-grade geography teacher, and the school’s Teacher of the Year, knows that well.

Indian River High School freshman Jacob Martin took full advantage of the school’s first science fair in more than a decade, assembling a project to study the affects of different panels on wind turbines. His project turned heads in the school’s competition, and again at the county level.

Ocean Pines Golf and Country Club will host the annual Ravens Roost #44 Scholarship Golf Tournament on June 4, starting at 9 a.m. Funds from the event provide for the awarding of two scholarships each, to graduating seniors from Stephen Decatur High School, Worcester Prep and Indian River High School.

Deadline for Grise scholarship nears

The deadline to apply for the 14th annual Howard D. Grise Memorial Scholarship, sponsored by Preceptor Omega Beta Sigma Phi is April 15.

The unofficial vote tally for the referendum held Tuesday by the Indian River School District showed it passed by an overwhelming majority, with a count of 611 for and 84 against, with all polling-place numbers in.

Many people lament the fact that they never learned to play the piano or wonder what would have happened if they had stuck with the trumpet or drums after getting out of school. Music education is often a fond memory and one that, many times, starts as soon elementary school.

For Melissa Grise, of Selbyville, being named teacher of the year is exciting. To be recognized by your colleagues and by parents is icing on the cake, when you love your job.

The 2nd Annual Bingo Fundraiser for the Indian River High School (IRHS) Music Department will be held on Friday, March 26, at the Millville Volunteer Fire Hall. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m., and games will start at 7 p.m.

Students in the Indian River School District can rest assured that they will not be in school come July making up snow days. On March 1, the Indian River Board of Education met at a special emergency meeting to discuss and approve changes to their 2009-2010 academic calendar. As of March 1, students in the district had missed 11 days of school due to closings, 10 of which were weather-related.

“We are addressing you as students, but we are recognizing you as teachers,” explained Col. Robert M. Coupe of the Delaware State Police to an auditorium filled with high school students at Sussex Central High School last week, as the Disaster Preparedness Coalition introduced their 2010 Disaster Preparedness DVD – one subtitled in Spanish and one subtitled in English.

Just shy of five years to the day of being named defendants in a lawsuit regarding school prayer, the Indian River School Board has closed another chapter in the case, after Judge Joseph J. Farnan Jr. ruled in favor of the district, stating that their policy regarding prayers before regular school board meetings is not unconstitutional.