Winding Creek Elementary School is the newest recipient of the Cooking Autism, Inc. Life-Skills Cooking Class grant. The Winding Creek team received the grant to help supply important cooking classes that will teach important life-skills to their special education classrooms in their school. 

Park Ridge Elementary School received a similar grant earlier this year. The grant at Park Ridge Elementary will support three special education classrooms for children with autism.

 Cooking Autism, Inc., a local non-profit, supplies grants and tools to classrooms that engage in teaching life-skills cooking programs for their special education students. These important programs focus on skills that are sometimes difficult to grasp; fine motor skills, communication, asking and answering questions, sequencing, socialization, basic manners, cleanliness, following step by step directions, and more. Because every student has different needs and abilities, these classes are adapted to fit each child's personal needs. 

The art world is one where collaboration is rare, especially between grade levels in K-12, but two Stafford County Public Schools art teachers created a collaborative event that the students loved!

 First graders at Falmouth Elementary School, under the guidance of art teacher Mrs. Casey Clark, had an opportunity to collaborate across schools, and grade levels, with Mrs. Tyler Clarke’s seventh grade art students at Edward E. Drew, Jr. Middle School.

 With inspiration from The Monster Project (www.themonsterproject.org), the Falmouth first graders drew a monster. They drew some seriously creative creatures!  Mrs. Clarke’s students each recreated a drawing utilizing artistic techniques such as value and shading. The results were amazing!

 A showcase of the monster creations will appear at the annual SCPS Fine Arts Festival in March, 2019.

Welcome Back, SCPS

SCPS welcomes all students, faculty, and staff back for the new school year. And what a busy first week it’s been! We have hit the ground running.

We welcomed our new superintendent on September 1, 2018. Dr. Scott Kizner joins SCPS from Harrisonburg City Public Schools where he served as the superintendent since 2010. He has visited many of our schools this week and plans to visit all of them within the next few weeks.

Our 2018 SCPS Teacher of the Year, Dan Reichard, a fifth grade teacher at Kate Waller Barrett Elementary School, was surprised by Governor Ralph Northam who informed him that he was the Virginia 3 Teacher of the Year. We all wish Mr. Reichard luck as he competes for the Virginia Teacher of the Year title.

Our school safety awareness campaign called “See Something, Say Something”, is up and running. Banners are hanging in the schools to remind students, faculty, and staff to use the tip line in the SCPS app to report any suspicious activities.

Our fall sporting events are in full swing, so head out to support your favorite team!

Here’s to a great 2018-2019 school year!

The Air Force JROTC program at North Stafford High School is shining! Twenty-one cadets from North Stafford’s Wolverine Group, AFJROTC VA-20052 recently graduated from Mountaineer Cadet Summer Leadership School 2018 (MCOLS) after completing a rigorous seven-day leadership training course in Athens, West Virginia. More than 240 cadets from 19 high schools in six states participated in the intensive training environment to equip themselves with leadership skills and experience to enhance their Air Force JROTC unit.

This year’s Wolverine MCOLS group includes NSHS Group Commander William Laws, Operations Commander Kristen Sagadraca, and Drill Team Commander Nathaniel Lumpkin. Advanced Cadets include Christian Dutton and Xavier Echevarria, and Basic Cadets Juan Azcona-Aleman, Amber Bonds, Brittany Brookover, Jacob Cagle, Nia Cruz, Ty Deaton, Ethan Harris, Leah Khier, Victor Lopez-Torres, Jacob Masterton, Ayden McDonald, Abraham Panjshiri, Matthew Rigdon, Meagan Rivard, Vareria Ruiz-Moreira, and Peyton Rooney.

The mission of AFJROTC is to develop citizens of character dedicated to serving their nation and community, while instilling values of citizenship, service to the United States, personal responsibility, and sense of accomplishment.

The unit also earned the Distinguished Unit for academic year 2017-2018. The award, given by the Department of the Air Force Air University, recognizes the personal growth and accomplishments of the cadets, the contributions of the instructors as mentors of the cadets, and the support of the school and community. The Distinguished Unit is limited to the best of the nation’s 900 Air Force JROTC units, and awarded to only six units in Virginia.

The unit received a certificate which is displayed in the school.

Edward E. Drew, Jr. Middle School administration, faculty, and staff took advantage of a recent professional day to participate in the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation’s Character Development Program.

Presenters Katrina Almond and Cory Eckburger provided training to enhance character education for middle school students.

Materials and lessons were provided to the school by the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The program was designed by teachers to provide students with opportunities to explore the important concepts of courage, commitment, sacrifice, patriotism, integrity, and citizenship.