Deer Valley High’s Divine Voices performed for an audience of 3,600 during the 83rd annual California School Boards Association education conference held in San Francisco’s Moscone Center on Dec. 15.
Led by choral director Michelle Stark, the award-winning a capella group was one of only two school choirs to be asked to perform. About 30 other high school choirs submitted audition tapes.
Superintendent Donald Gill was in attendance during the live performance and said, “They were phenomenal.” The three-song performance, which was streamed live throughout the state, was given a standing ovation.
Stark said, “We felt honored, surprised, excited, and a huge sense of responsibility to be selected. The standing ovation was a beautiful reward for all the hard work. I love my job!”
DREAM ON: The seventh annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. event will be held at 1 p.m. Jan. 19 in Antioch High’s Beede Auditorium. “United We Fulfill the Dream” is the theme for this year’s free event and scholarship program.
Students are encouraged to submit a story about how they feel “you can make a difference if you embody the 2015 theme, or how you already incorporate the theme in your life today.”
The 2015 contest is open to middle and high school students in the Antioch Unified School District. Judges will look for work that best represents Dr. King’s vision and the theme. Application deadline is Jan. 6. Submissions may be written or visual. Awards will be presented at the Jan. 19 event.
Scholarships of $200, $100 and $75 will be awarded for first, second and third prizes at the high school level in both the written and visual categories. Six awards will be given in all.
Middle school entrants will have a chance at one of three prizes — a $100, $75 or $50 scholarship — in a competition that combines written and visual works.
Entries may be a poem, essay, short story or the like, while visual pieces can include video, photographs, music, drawings, paintings or collages.
Interested students will find the application www.art4antioch.org/MLKScholarship.asp. For more information, visit the district office at 510 G St. in Antioch, email Diane@Art4Antioch.org or call 925-325-9897. The district office is closed Dec. 24-Jan. 2, but submissions may be placed in the door mail slot.
CAREERS IN MOTION: Antioch High recently participated in a work-based learning program. Students from the EDGE (Engineering and Designing a Green Environment) Academy spent most of their school day with members of the National Academy Foundation.
Also on hand was Verizon, with which EDGE has partnered for the year. The goal is to expose the students to careers at Verizon and prepare them with the skills needed to be interns in the summer.
National Academy Foundation detailed career awareness and preparation to help build skills for college and career. This was a kick-off event for the partnership with the three groups.
In addition to discussions and short programs, two former AHS grads were on hand to talk about their intern experiences. Nadia Munoz and Francisco Valencia successfully interned at Verizon last year. According to an EdSource Today news release, Munoz spent the summer testing SIM cards in new cellphone models, and Valencia built an application to help manage address book contacts for a Verizon service.
“I’m very proud of it,” Valencia told the current crop of Panthers.
The gathering was the first of several programs aimed at introducing more students to careers. Verizon will host small monthly seminars at AHS, offering the EDGE students “firsthand exposure to potential careers and helping provide relevance to the subjects students are studying in class.”
If you have school news to share, contact Trine Gallegos at trineg@att.net. Note: Trine also does community outreach for Antioch High.