Monday, December 3, 2012
Meet Molly Olander, a seventh-grader who recently was titled Burnsville-Eagan-Savage's champion orthographer.
After 19 rounds and 239 words, Molly Olander came out on top at this year's spelling bee with "grievance," G-R-I-E-V-A-N-C-E. The seventh-grader at Burnsville's Nicollet Junior High took first place at the 29th annual district spelling bee on Nov. 29 in Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District 191. Thirty-one students in grades five to eight took part in this year's bee. Olander was the last one standing. Eagle Ridge's Hibah Hassan, an eighth-grader, took second place. Olander succeeds Marissa Bauer, an eighth-grader from St. John the Baptist, who took home the top prize in 2011 after narrowly defeating Eyakem Yilma, a sixth-grader from Harriet Bishop.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Outgoing ninth-graders at Eagle Ridge Junior High raced homemade boats and barks to the finish line on Thursday.
Thursday, two science classes from Eagle Ridge Junior High staged a regatta with boats of their own deisgn. The first-annual boat race was chosen by the students for a year-end class project after much brainstorming. The class discussed making bottle rockets, building a potato cannon, launching a weather balloon or converting bacon grease into energy. Student Monica Burt said they ultimately chose the boat race because it offered a fun, simple idea that incorporated both competition and teamwork. Three weeks ago they set to work designing and building their boats. Science Teacher Kerry Hoeschen said the project was an exercise in problem solving and light engineering. One boat had a bicycle body for steering apparatus. Other contending …
Monday, May 7, 2012
Edina's Jackie Roehl beat out nine other contestants, including Burnsville-Eagan-Savage teacher Joe Meyer.
Jackie Roehl has achieved something no other Edina Public Schools teacher can lay claim to: She has been crowned Minnesota's Teacher of the Year. Roehl beat out nine other finalists, including one of Burnsville's own—Eagle Ridge Junior High Teacher Joe Meyer. Roehl, who teaches 10th-grade English at Edina High School, was selected Sunday, May 6, as the 48th winner of the prestigious award by Education Minnesota. It was a first-ever Teacher of the Year designation for the typically award-rich district. "It is through spreading ideas about culturally responsive teaching in my classroom and with my colleagues that I feel I have made my greatest contribution to education," Roehl said in a statement. When Patch talked with Roehl after she had …
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Joe Meyer, a language arts teacher at ISD 191, has made the third round of Minnesota's Teacher of the Year. His career has taken him from Africa to Eagle Ridge Junior High.
It’s been a long journey for Teacher of the Year Finalist Joe Meyer, one that began in a dusty, wind-blown African nation half a world away. The language arts instructor at Eagle Ridge Junior High is a second-generation teacher. His father Clark taught seventh-grade science for decades. However, when Meyer began his undergraduate degree at Saint John’s University he planned to pursue a career in journalism or perhaps go to law school. “Never in a million years did I want to be a teacher,” Meyer said. That changed after graduation, when he joined the Peace Corps and was dispatched to Botswana, a desert nation tucked between Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia. Meyer’s career began in Mmadinare, a village of about 8,000 people in the eastern …
