School Briefs School Briefs (October 15, 2004)

Rai leads MV debaters

Mountain View High School juniors Prashant Rai and Stephen Hess placed well in the Varsity Lincoln-Douglas Debate for the Mid-America Cup 2004 Tournament. The tournament was held in Des Moines, Iowa on Oct. 2-4.

With 10 wins and one loss, Rai has met the requirements to attend the Tournament of Champions in April 2005. Because he was the top underclassman at the Iowa tournament, Rai also received a full scholarship to the National Debate Symposium's two-week debate camp to be held at Drake University in June 2005.

Hess scored in the top 32 at the tournament with four wins and three losses.

St. Joseph's animal blessing

St. Joseph Elementary celebrated the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, with its annual Blessing of the Animals ceremony on Oct. 6 on school grounds.

The school's 250 students were invited to bring their pets and favorite stuffed animals to school that day to be blessed by the parish priest.

Bubb School holds walkathon

Bubb Elementary School held its annual walkathon on Oct. 8 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Students walked hundreds of miles around the campus to raise funds for programs eliminated because of district budget cuts.

The school also had a silent auction, where dozens of gift certificates and theme baskets from each classroom were sold. In addition, local caterer Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme donated gourmet Tex-Mex meals that were sold to attendees for $5 each.

Last year's walkathon and silent auction raised more than $30,000 for student enrichment programs.

National Merit semifinalists

Fifteen students at St. Francis High School have been named National Merit Semifinalists.

The semifinalists are: Ross Boberg, Tracy Chou, Edward Divita III, Sarah Fernquest, Elanor Gilham, David Krueger, Christina Nguyen, Ramya Parthasarathy, Dante Popalisky, Kaitlin Solera, Kimberly Tran, Rebecca Vu, Jeffrey Wang, Matthew Waters and Nicholas Yaholkovsky.

More than 1.3 million juniors in high schools across the nation entered the 2005 National Merit Program by taking the 2003 PSAT, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. The nationwide pool of semifinalists includes the highest scoring entrants in each state.

Semifinalists have an opportunity to continue in the competition to compete for 8,200 Merit Scholarship awards, worth $33.9 million, to be offered next spring.

Los Altos Parent Preschool turns 50

The Los Altos Parent Preschool is celebrating its 50th year, serving children and parents from Los Altos, Mountain View and nearby communities.

It started in 1954 in a church meeting room with six mothers and their desire to build a community in the newly incorporated town of Los Altos. Today the Adult Education Department of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District maintains and helps finance the parent education component of the parent preschool program, which is now located next to Los Altos High School.

The parents are the enrollees and help out in the classroom about once every two weeks. The 3-year-old students attend two mornings each week, while 4-year-olds attend three mornings a week.

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