Newsletters 2014-15 Focus newsletter, [1] fall | Page 17

TRANSPORTATION — FOCUS ON SAFETY

PAGE 17

View the winning district posters
on our Facebook page. The
Anoka-Hennepin winners, which
include the state winners, are:
• Kindergarten, Lucy Mertes,
Madison Elementary School.
(State winner)
• First grade, Lydia Shaddrick,
Madison Elementary School.
• Second grade, Izabella
Moses, Epiphany School.

A number of the district's 2014 school bus safety poster contest winners posed for a photo after their recognition ceremony. From left: Lydia
Shaddrick, Madeline Gams, Naomi Tu, Victoria Dzyuba, last year’s seventh-grade winner and 2013 national poster winner Hannah Svihel, Izabella
Moses, Abigail Alvarado, Courtney Killian and Travis Chooraman.

• Third grade, Madeline Gams,
Epiphany School.
• Fourth grade, Victoria
Dzyuba, Madison Elementary
School.

‘Be Smart, Be Seen:’ District’s 2014
School Bus Safety Poster Contest winners
Anoka-Hennepin learned this summer that six students who
were winners in the district’s 2014 School Bus Safety Poster
Contest went on to receive awards in the state contest. The
safety theme was: “Be smart — be seen. I wait in a safe place.”
One of the winners — Jackson Middle School eighth-grader
Naomi Tu — will also be moving on to the national contest,
which will be judged in November. She also earned $50 as a
prize for her entry.
Other state winners are: Courtney Killian, a seventh-grader
from Coon Rapids Middle School (CRMS), and Spencer
Seiber, a ninth-grader from Anoka High School; second place,
Travis Chooraman, a fifth-grader from McKinley Elementary
School; Abigail Alvarado, a sixth-grader from CRMS; Cassie
Fulks, a senior with the district’s Transition Plus program; and
third place Lucy Mertes, a kindergartner at Madison
Elementary School.

Both Killian and Seiber also received $35 prizes for their
first place entries.

Finding it is easy!
• Click on the lock and key icon on the
district’s website.
• Sign in with your username and password. (New usernames and temporary
passwords for the new website were
mailed to all families July 29. If you did
not receive yours, call 763-506-HELP.)

The NHS students were really involved
from the beginning, according to
Johnson. Not only did the students participate in trainings of their own, but
they also did improvisation with a local
theater to build their skills in facilitating
the classroom discussions.
“They then went into the PAWS classrooms and did skits with the trainings,”

• Seventh grade, Courtney
Killian, Coon Rapids Middle
School. (State winner)

Jeff Mueller, the district’s transportation safety coordinator,
said he and the Transportation Safety Committee were very
impressed during the voting process with the artistic ability of
the students.
“The creativity, design and the messages the students displayed were exceptional. It truly illustrates that the staff at our
schools are teaching, promoting and reviewing the important
rules of riding the school bus safely,” he said. ■

• Click on the My Student Information
icon and login.
• Click on your child’s photo. Scroll to
the bottom of the screen to find your
child’s transportation information.
Only parents/guardians with whom the
child lives will be able to access the child’s
bus information when they log in with
their password.
The Information Systems and
Transportations Departments worked
together with Synergy to customize their
student information system to accept and
display information from Transfinder, the
district’s updated transportation system.
The goal is to provide everything in one
easy location for parents so they don’t
have to log in more than once to get the
information they need.
The new system will be available for use
in mid August. ■

Bengal Bystanders cont. from page 10
“Hearing those NHS student ambassadors sharing those personal stories with
freshman and seeing them open up was
really special,” she said. “Some of the
stories were really raw and emotional.
Having the kids in there with their peers
— it makes it real and powerful for
everyone and there was a lot more buyin.”

• Sixth grade, Abigail
Alvarado, Coon Rapids
Middle School. (State winner)

Anoka-Hennepin originally announced its 11 poster contest
winners back in March. Winners of the