Month: October 2023

Nearly 40 Warren City Schools students participated in the Saturday, Oct. 22, 2023, Ohio Music Education Association District V Middle School Honors Choir performance at Stambaugh Auditorium in Youngstown.

The OMEA District 5 Honors Choir will perform on Saturday, October 22, 2022 at 1:30pm in the Concert Hall at Stambaugh Auditorium.

The Honors Choir is made up of some of the best vocal music students in grades 7-12 Trumbull, Mahoning and Ashtabula counties. Warren’s participation has increased in recent years. For example, where McGuffey PK-8 School had two participants last year, this year eight students from that building were part of the 2023 choir performance.

The Ohio Music Association is the principal organization in Ohio promoting music education in elementary and secondary schools as well as colleges and universities.

Members of the Lincoln PK-8 School’s Student Council and National Junior Honor Society took action on Friday, Oct. 20, 2023, distributing nearly 200 boxes that were filled, collectively, with several hundred pounds of meat.

The boxes went to families in need.

Second Harvest Food Bank delivered the boxes to Lincoln. Families were notified via an all call and the school set up a drive-up service for them. Students carried the boxes to and placed them inside the vehicles to create a seamless distribution process.  

Second-grade classes at the McGuffey PK-8 School are experiencing a double dose of smiles, laughter, creativity and, well, other stuff this school year.

McGuffey has six sets of twins in the second grade! Although some are fraternal twins, there are enough of them who look alike to cause some of us to look twice. You might ask or think to yourself, “Didn’t I just see you out in the hall?” Or, “Have you been sitting here this whole time?”

The McGuffey twins take it all in stride and have become accustomed to all of the double takes and second glances. They’ve patiently given the rest of us time to adjust to seeing double. Last year, there were five sets. The addition of another brings us to six!

On Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, Willard PK-8 School held its first Family Game Night – hosting about 155 families.

Dozens of the school’s staff members stayed after school was out to help.

Families were invited to have dinner. Afterwards, they were given the option to go in one of multiple directions to play various games, including Bingo, UNO and/or Spoons. 

Families were given a free board game to play at home.

This event was designed to build strong connections with adults and students, and gives them an opportunity to have fun and talk with each other, explained Principal/Campus Leader Carly Polder.  Game Night built off of Willard’s theme from this nine weeks: Connections and Building Friendships.

Dozens of families of 1st-grade students at the McGuffey PK-8 School were represented Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, during a parent/family workshop.

The school’s 1st-grade teachers demonstrated what they and their students have been working on and provided families with resources to build on that progress at home.

October is an exciting time in the Principles of Foods cooking classes as students participate in “Make a Difference October.” 

Recently, five students – Faith Mason, Darien Monday, Erica Brooks, Jurnee Brantley and She’Ayla Allen – delivered 20 pans of caramel apple crisp to the Warren Family Mission.    

Each week throughout the month of October, in observance of “Make A Difference,” students in the cooking class prepare baked good items and then, as a group, decide how much of their baked goods to donate to nonprofit organizations in Warren.  

Students spent time researching local nonprofit organizations. The organizations with the most votes receive the donations over the next few weeks as a way to give back to the Warren community. 

Students contact the organizations to arrange the drop off, work in their lab groups to prepare the baked good items and then drop off the items with their instructor, Mrs. Scarmack. 

Students in the construction lab at Warren G. Harding High School have been busy working on projects designed to develop their building skills.

Woodworking students are building a picnic table that is to be donated to Warren City Parks and/or community facilities.

Meanwhile, fundamental classes are building a tote box.

Two-time National Book Award finalist Deborah Wiles spent some time recently with eighth-grade students at the Willard PK-8 School discussing her writing and reading from her novel “Anthem.”

The book tells the story of two cousins who must take a road trip across American in 1969 in order to let a teen know he’s been drafted to fight in Vietnam. Full of photos, music, and figures of the time, the book illustrates what it’s like to be young and American in troubled times.

Wiles, who specializes in writing children’s books, lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Students in Mr. Johnson’s Senior Studio class at Warren G. Harding High School have been busy painting a special canvas provided by the Ohio Department of Transportation.

The students are participating in the ODOT Paint the Plow program. ODOT delivered snowplows to several area schools, including Harding, in September for students to paint.

The class designed their project around the theme of the movie “Krampus.”

ODOT is scheduled to pick up the completed project the week of Oct. 16.

The Paint the Plow program allows local schools and non-profit organizations to paint an ODOT snowplow blade with messages of snow and ice safety, state, school, or community pride, or patriotism, according to ODOT’s website.

Eighth-graders from Warren City Schools recently gained some hands-on experience at mass producing a product during a visit to America Makes in Youngstown.

The students, from the district’s four PK-8 schools, attended the 2nd Annual Manufacturing Day event at American Makes. The event was sponsored by American Makes and the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition (MVMC).

School counselors from Jefferson, Lincoln, McGuffey and Willard schools, chose 36 students, collectively, to attend. They were chosen based on their responses to various surveys that they complete in their classes as well as in Naviance, the online platform used to support students’ exploration of their interests and how those interests can help them discover what they want to do after graduation. 

The students worked in small teams brainstorming and using the design process to manufacture a product, using a budget, creating a prototype, and presenting their products to their peers and local manufacturers. The produced prototypes for wheels for a car. However, they soon discovered that it wasn’t just about making a wheel, but rather the process to efficiently and economically mass producing a product. 

The experience was an opportunity for the students to experience engineering, design and modern manufacturing happening right here in the Valley, organizers explained.

The Ten80 Education group facilitated the team through the entire process while representatives from local manufacturing industries mentored the groups.  The industries included Brilex, FoxConn, Valllourec, City Machine Technologies, Hynes Industries, America Makes, and the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition. 

In addition to those industries mentoring, they also provided an “Open House,” or forum, along with Schwebels and Linde, for students to ask questions and learn more about what the different companies do as the adults shared about their industries.  

Local manufacturers shared real-life examples and challenges they face during the Engineering Design Cycle, and tools that support their efforts (blue-prints, proto-typing, problem-solving, etc.)