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CONGRATULATIONS!... BRIGHT NEWS STUDENT ~ Ava Milus Freshman Ava Milus pictured here with her younger brother Andy was unanimously chosen by all staff members to be one of two April/May Bright News! students. Ava was given a candy lei and her photo is now hanging on our Bright News! wall in building #1. All staff created a Bright News! letter that was mailed to her family. We are proud of you, Ava! Congratulations!!! All students who have demonstrated academic excellence in the past month are discussed at staff meetings and one is chosen to be honored. She was also given a "Student of the Month" pin and seal. Our Bright News! form letter is posted on our school website. | CONGRATULATIONS!... BRIGHT NEWS STUDENT ~ Elias Leventhal 8th Grader Elias Leventhal was unanimously chosen by all staff members to be our March/April Bright News! student. Elias was given a candy lei and his photo is now hanging on our Bright News! wall in building #1. All staff created a Bright News! letter that was mailed to his family. We are proud of you, Elias! Congratulations!!! All students who have demonstrated academic excellence in the past month are discussed at staff meetings and one is chosen to be honored. He was also given a "Student of the Month" pin and seal. Our Bright News! form letter is posted on our school website. Congratulations to Elias who was recently accepted into Oregon Episcopal School - this in part due to his astonishing math and writing abilities! He and his family are preparing to move - we will miss Elias and wonder what amazing accomplishments are in store for his future. Elias also just won yet another award: "Runner-Up" in the New York Times' STEM national writing contest. Good Luck with your high school endeavors, Elias!!! We are unbelievably proud of you and so happy that we were able to get to know you!!! | CONGRATULATIONS!... BRIGHT NEWS STUDENT ~ Olivia Roberts Sophomore Olivia Roberts was unanimously chosen by all staff members to be one of two April/May Bright News! students. Olivia was given a candy lei and her photo is now hanging on our Bright News! wall in building #1. All staff created a Bright News! letter that was mailed to her family. We are proud of you, Olivia! Congratulations!!! All students who have demonstrated academic excellence in the past month are discussed at staff meetings and one is chosen to be honored. She was also given a "Student of the Month" pin and seal. Our Bright News! form letter is posted on our school website. |
CONGRATULATIONS!... BRIGHT NEWS STUDENT ~ Ava Milus
CONGRATULATIONS!... BRIGHT NEWS STUDENT ~ Elias Leventhal
Congratulations to Elias who was recently accepted into Oregon Episcopal School - this in part due to his astonishing math and writing abilities! He and his family are preparing to move - we will miss Elias and wonder what amazing accomplishments are in store for his future. Elias also just won yet another award: "Runner-Up" in the New York Times' STEM national writing contest. Good Luck with your high school endeavors, Elias!!! We are unbelievably proud of you and so happy that we were able to get to know you!!!
CONGRATULATIONS!... BRIGHT NEWS STUDENT ~ Olivia Roberts
Minna Stess - Olympics Update
VOS 8th grader Minna sent this letter to us for the newsletter:
I was given the opportunity as a participating athlete to vote wether or not to postpone the Olympics, so I wasn’t really surprised when they officially announced it. I just didn’t know when exactly it would be moved to. We found out today that it’s July of 2021. Even before that though I was starting to get worried about how the virus was spreading around the world and we were just waiting to find out if the next qualifier which would have been in Lima, Peru would even happen. The good thing about all of it being postponed is so that everyone can stay healthy and in the meantime I can keep training as best I can, even though my backyard is much smaller than what I normally skate, I’m really lucky to have the backyard that I have. Right now for the 2020 qualifying season I’m ranked 4th in the USA so I’m just going to keep trying to progress as best I can. I wasn’t really that worried about getting the Coronavirus but I knew that traveling so much would put me in more places that the virus was when this first started. We were scheduled to have 2 qualifiers in China in May and July. Those got postponed pretty quickly though. The best thing about going to the Olympics would be the whole experience and getting to meet a bunch of famous Olympians! A medal would be a dream come true!
Click here for the latest The Washington Post story and video.
Click here for the latest Forbes magazine story.
Click here for an Instagram link that Minna offered. And another Instagram.
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Job & School: graduate Maddie Cathcart Throughout these months of the pandemic, Maddie has continued to work at her job at the Caprara's Pizzeria - take out only... hopefully customers are still tipping! | Rock Climbing & School: graduate Flynn Loveless Senior Flynn Loveless has had an especially busy senior year. In addition to his two PHS co-enroll courses, Math 3 and Chemistry, he is an avid rock climber and goes to the Vertex Climbing Center in northern Santa Rosa almost weekly. He will be starting at Montana State University in the fall majoring in psychology. A big reason why he chose MSU is because of the excellent rock climbing opportunities in that beautiful state! | Job & School: graduate Katie Caffi Throughout these months of the pandemic, Katie has continued to work at her job at the local UPS store. She took off her mask for the photo! |
Job & School: graduate Maddie Cathcart
Rock Climbing & School: graduate Flynn Loveless
Job & School: graduate Katie Caffi
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Entrepreneur 8th Grader Harland McCready Before the Shelter-in-Place mandate, Harland was volunteering weekly at a bike shop that fixed bikes for needy kids. Because Harland has many skills in mechanics, he started a part-time business for himself at his home while Sheltering-in-Place where he is fixing neighbors' bikes and servicing cars. | | Harland Using His Mechanics Skills |
Entrepreneur 8th Grader Harland McCready
Harland Using His Mechanics Skills
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Solo Bell Ringing Ceremony Teachers were able to watch Michael ring the bell via Zoom! | Graduate Michael Kofoid | Michael with his parents |
Solo Bell Ringing Ceremony
Graduate Michael Kofoid
Michael with his parents
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| | Graduate Madison Cathcart Even with the pandemic happening, seniors can still take "senior photos". Here Maddie's cousin took photos out at the beach and created very professional-looking senior photos! | |
Graduate Madison Cathcart
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Graduate Katie Caffi - a full year early! Congratulations to Katie who was able to finish all her high school credits within 3 years! She started this school year as a junior! Most amazingly is that Katie also worked about 30 hours a week at her job all year at the UPS store! | Video of All V.O.S. Grads Coming Soon! Our Assistant Principal, Mr. Smith is currently working on creating a video that will have photos of all our 19 grads and lots of other fun components! We'll post it on our school website soon and share it with the grads. We are so proud of our grads and we will miss you 19 and we will enjoy our memories of you. Grads are always welcome to stop by for a visit! Your visits make us love our jobs even more! Here is a list of our 2019/2020 Grads: 1. Gabriel Adelman 2. BurgessTeja 3. Kaitlyn Caffi 4. Madison Cathcart 5. Shelby Curr 6. Mikayla Galbraith 7. Kevin Garcia Ortiz 8. Nozomi Hallberg 9. Felipe Jimenez 10. Michael Kofoid 11. Flynn Loveless 12. Laurynn Malilay 13. Beau Miller 14. Christina Olmstead 15. Althea Patchett 16. Meredith Patchett 17. Jade Polaski 18. Violet Provencal 19. Robert Terry | Graduate Mikayla Galbraith - Over 6 Years with Us! Mikayla is one of our rare students that has spent 6 continuous years with us! She entered VOS on 4/15/2014. We have watched her grow up and we have watched her overcome many challenges with great grace and bravery. We will miss you very much, Mikayla! |
Graduate Katie Caffi - a full year early!
Video of All V.O.S. Grads Coming Soon!
We are so proud of our grads and we will miss you 19 and we will enjoy our memories of you. Grads are always welcome to stop by for a visit! Your visits make us love our jobs even more! Here is a list of our 2019/2020 Grads:
1. Gabriel Adelman
2. BurgessTeja
3. Kaitlyn Caffi
4. Madison Cathcart
5. Shelby Curr
6. Mikayla Galbraith
7. Kevin Garcia Ortiz
8. Nozomi Hallberg
9. Felipe Jimenez
10. Michael Kofoid
11. Flynn Loveless
12. Laurynn Malilay
13. Beau Miller
14. Christina Olmstead
15. Althea Patchett
16. Meredith Patchett
17. Jade Polaski
18. Violet Provencal
19. Robert Terry
Graduate Mikayla Galbraith - Over 6 Years with Us!
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The Big Event! - Earth Day at V.O.S.! All the flowers came out for The Big Event at school on April 22nd ~ The 50th Anniversary of Earth Day! Photo taken by Principal Ms. Lofton. And thanks to Ms. Kesseru who, a month later, kindly "cleaned up" after the "party". | Volunteer Opportunities! Thank you to our counselor, Ms. Leigh for finding these fun and meaningful volunteer opportunities that can be done while Sheltering-in-Place: HERE - this list of links includes mask making, story-telling, drives, research, thank you cards, and more. And she shared this important document as well. It lists the character traits of young people that are sought by universities, organizations (that grant awards and scholarships), and employers. These character traits are usually linked to community service endeavors. | Bruce Abelli-Amen Weeding Campus On one brisk and sleepy April Sunday, Ms. Abelli-Amen stopped by to take care of some paperwork at school and she brought her husband along who kindly spent a couple of hours working on beautifying our garden beds. Thank you Mr. Abelli-Amen! |
The Big Event! - Earth Day at V.O.S.!
Photo taken by Principal Ms. Lofton.
And thanks to Ms. Kesseru who, a month later, kindly "cleaned up" after the "party".
Volunteer Opportunities!
And she shared this important document as well. It lists the character traits of young people that are sought by universities, organizations (that grant awards and scholarships), and employers. These character traits are usually linked to community service endeavors.
Bruce Abelli-Amen Weeding Campus
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Ms. Parker's Home Zooming Spot That black blob in the doorway to the kitchen is the dog. | Ms. Abelli-Amen's Home Zooming Spot | Ms. Abelli-Amen Zooming from Home Ms. Abelli-Amen's husband brought home and installed a white board from VOS for their house's sun-room. Instead of a one-room school house they've created sun-room school house!!! |
Ms. Parker's Home Zooming Spot
Ms. Abelli-Amen's Home Zooming Spot
Ms. Abelli-Amen Zooming from Home
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| | A Happy V.O.S. Rose Picture taken by Principal Ms. Lofton. | |
A Happy V.O.S. Rose
