East Cobb students

East Cobb students raising funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

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Thanks to Katie Valley, a sophomore at Walton High School, for letting us know about a fundraiser she’s holding over the next few weeks for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

LLS logo, East Cobb students

She tells us that she and her group of fellow students, who attend Walton, Lassiter, Pope and Wheeler, are selling T-shirts and taking donations, with all the proceeds going for blood cancer research.

It’s part of the “Steps to Strength” fundraising drive that involves teen fundraisers in honor of young patients who are battling or are in remission from cancer. Here’s more about what the Steps to Strength drive is all about:

“The candidate team that raises the most money at the end of the seven weeks is named Student(s) of the Year. Our mission is to not only raise the most money but also to bring attention to blood cancers like leukemia, which is the most common form of cancer in children and teens.”

Here’s the link to donate:
https://events.lls.org/ga/AtlantaSOY19/tstepstost

And here’s the link to buy a t-shirt:
https://goo.gl/forms/kndHzLrupsKOLzz22

The fundraiser continues to March 23, For more visit the main LLS website.

 

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East Cobb students named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists

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A total of 64 East Cobb students have been named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists.National Merit Scholarships, East Cobb students

They come from Pope, Lassiter, Wheeler and Walton, which has a total of 31 semifinalists, the second-most for any school in the state, according to the Cobb County School District.

The CCSD said 80 students from seven of its schools have made the next round of the process, including Campbell, Kennesaw Mountain and North Cobb.

Below are the names of the East Cobb semifinalists, followed by more information about the program, and how the process works, according to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation:

Lassiter High School
Sophia D. Babish
Eric Chow
Dennis G. Goldenberg
Peter R. Jacobson
Carter B. Johnson
Carter H. Kubes
Peyton R. Lamb
Delia K. Pung
Audrey J. Safir
Dylan Walters

Pope High School
Jacob T. Evans
Griffin W. Haarbauer
Edward C. Kokan
Maya Nambiar
Olivia D. Popovich

Walton High School
Albert Chen
David Cornell
Alison Cumberledge
Thomas DeBoer
Ava Edmunds
William Ellsworth
Eashan Gandotra
Vineet Gangireddy
Nicholas Hong
Emma Hunt
Jeffrey Key
Darren Kosen
Varun Krishnaswamy
Grace Lee
Ryan Li
Jesse Liu
Arundhati Mahendrakar
Isha Palakurthy
Anika Park
Sara Patyi
David Phillips
Varsha Ramachandra
Alice Shen
Daniel Shu
Elizabeth Sims
Albert Ting
Illahi Virani
Jayson Wu
Kevin Wu
Grace Xu
Margare Zhang

Wheeler High School 
Saman A. Bhamani
Fianko Buckle
Mariah K. Butts
Caden M. Felton
Ayush Goyal
Adith Guna
Vanessa I. Leonardo
Andrew J. Mayne
Arya N. Mevada
Shivam A. Patel
Abhinav Piplani
Shraddha Sekhar
Keshav K. Shenoy
Rebecca G. Simonson
Hanna E. Waltz
David M. Weinberg
Zachary R. Yahn

Over 1.6 million juniors in about 22,000 high schools entered the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT®), which served as an initial screen of program entrants.

The nationwide pool of semifinalists represents less than one percent of U.S. high school seniors and includes the highest-scoring entrants in each state. The number of semifinalists in a state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the national total of graduating seniors. More than 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to be named National Merit Scholar finalists in February.

To be finalists, semifinalists and their high school must submit a detailed scholarship application, in which they provide information about the semifinalist’s academic record, participation in school and community activities, demonstrated leadership abilities, employment, and honors and awards received. A semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, write an essay, and earn SAT® scores that confirm the student’s earlier performance on the qualifying test.

Merit Scholar designees are selected on the basis of their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference.

Three types of National Merit Scholarships will be offered in the spring of 2019. Every finalist will compete for one of 2,500 National Merit® $2500 Scholarships that will be awarded on a state-representational basis.

About 1,000 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards will be provided by approximately 230 corporations and business organizations for finalists who meet their specified criteria, such as children of the grantor’s employees or residents of communities where sponsor plants or offices are located. In addition, about 180 colleges and universities are expected to finance some 4,000 college-sponsored Merit Scholarship awards
for finalists who will attend the sponsor institution.

The 2019 National Merit Scholarship winners will be announced in four nationwide news releases beginning in April and concluding in July. These scholarship recipients will join some 338,000 other distinguished young people who have earned the Merit Scholar title.

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East Cobb students appointed to U.S. military academies

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East Cobb students, military academy appointments
From left to right: Robert Chappell, Maya Wade, David Woodward, William Roberts, Paris Williams, Congresswoman Karen Handel, Joseph McDermond, Aditya Mhaskar, Blaine McDonough of East Cobb, Connor McGurk, Hannah Percher of East Cobb, and Gabriela Boatright.

Three East Cobb students are among the 13 high school graduates appointed to attend U.S. military service academies by Congresswoman Karen Handel.

They include Connor Hasely of Walton High School (pictured below), who attended New York University. He was appointed to attend the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Connor Haseley
Connor Haseley

Another Walton graduate, Blaine McDonough, will attend the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y.

Lassiter High School’s Hannah Percher has been appointed to attend the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.

“The Sixth District produced an extraordinary group of candidates for our nation’s military academies this year,” Handel said in a statement. “This is one of the responsibilities I have relished the most during my time in Washington, and I’m so proud of these young men and women for their willingness to serve their country.”

A Pope High School graduate also has received an appointment by Congressman Barry Loudermilk. Sarah Sorensen will attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

 

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East Cobb students honored as Georgia Scholars, and at Cobb Career Tech Awards night

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Several East Cobb students have been honored this week by the Georgia Department of Education as well as the Cobb County School District’s Career, Technical and Agricultural Education program.

Ten students from East Cobb High Schools are among those named Georgia Scholars by the state education department, which recognizes graduating seniors “who have achieved excellence in school and community life;”

  • Walton: Ekta Deshmukh; Daniel Hudadoff; Madelyn Johnson; Laura Key; Adarshini Raja;
  • Pope: Belanie Jones; Loren Tsang;
  • Wheeler: MJ Lock; Hisham Kashif;
  • Lassiter: Taylor Van Horn.

On Wednesday, Cobb schools held its first inaugural awards gala for Career, Tech Technical and Agricultural Education students at Kennesaw Mountain High School. Most Cobb high schools had a CTAE student of the year, and for East Cobb schools they were the following:

  • Austin Kline, Kell;
  • Hunter Peterson, Lassiter;
  • Shivani Patel, Sprayberry;
  • Laney Jones, Walton;
  • Hannah Obenhoff, Wheeler.

In addition, Kell’s Madelyn Handy and Sprayberry’s Hoang (Olivia) Nguyen were named Youth Apprenticeship Students of the Year.

The following students from East Cobb were named students of the year at their respective middle schools:

  • Theodore Parker, Daniell;
  • Scott Dobo, Dodgen;
  • Latasia Neal, East Cobb;
  • Anna Sorokoff, Mabry;
  • Nathaniel Gant, McCleskey.

 

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As walkout suspensions are issued, East Cobb students learn their fate

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East Cobb students, walkout
Parents, friends and family members of Walton students offered support during the March 14 walkout. (East Cobb News photo)

Cobb County School District high schools are beginning to issue suspensions for students who participated in National Walkout Day last week. Some East Cobb students say they’re still waitng to hear what there punishment will be.

Kara Litwin, organizer of the walkout at Pope High School, told East Cobb News Wednesday that she and others who walked out are receiving a day of in-school suspension on Monday.

Walton walkout leaders said the estimated 260 students at their school who walked out will receive a day of ISS on Tuesday.

Cobb schools did not support the walkout and said students who left their classes in a gun-control protest would be subject to disciplinary action under the district’s student code of conduct. Those actions would be left up to individual school principals.

Related coverage

Hannah Andress, the Lassiter leader, told us Wednesday night her administration hasn’t announced any punishment. She thinks it’s also going to be a day of what’s referred to as ISS. Instead of attending classes, students will gather in what’s essentially a day-long study hall. She also told us this:

“I want something like assigned community service for the younger participants so, when the apply to college, they don’t have to explain ISS on their record. But I’m willing to take any punishment if it means getting my message across.”

We also heard from Josh Spear, a student at Harrison High School in West Cobb, who said his school also has issued one day of ISS that he will be serving on Friday. “However,” he added, “I will fight to ensure that the school district pays for the violation of students’ first amendment rights.”

We’ll update this story as we get more information about forthcoming punishments.

 

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East Cobb students plan National School Walkout protest on gun control

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A student-led effort to honor the victims of the Feb. 14 school shootings in Florida and demand gun control legislation is being embraced by students at four East Cobb high schools for what’s being called the National School Walkout on March 14.

Students at Lassiter, Pope, Walton and Wheeler high schools have sent a letter to Cobb County School Superintendent Chris Ragsdale and his executive cabinet stating their intention to walk out of their classes for 17 minutes on that day.

That’s in honor of the 17 students and staff killed by a gunman at Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. A former student at the school has been arrested for the shootings.

The protests will begin at 10 a.m. and continue to 10:17 a.m. on March 14, which is a Wednesday. The walkout grew out of the Women’s March Network, and invites students nationwide to organize their own protests.

Lily Lefter, a junior at Walton, said in an e-mail to East Cobb News that she and seven other Walton students organized a protest for their school. A member of that group later participated in a groupchat with the Pope, Lassiter and Wheeler students to prepare a joint message.

In their letter to Ragsdale, which was signed by organizers at each of the four schools, they wrote that:

“The students at our high school will not be a statistic. Because this directly affects our education, our friends, our teachers, our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers, and our entire community we will not sit idly by waiting for lawmakers to decide policy change.

“As a collective group, we, the students of Lassiter, Pope, Walton, and Wheeler, have formed an alliance across the county to inform you of our decision to stand united and walk out of class for 17 minutes. We have passionately embraced the call for smart and nonpartisan gun control laws to be enacted which has consequently begun the organization of the walkout across Cobb County.”

Cobb schools have not announced a policy decision for the protest. Over the weekend Marietta City Schools said it would not discipline students who took part in protests, along with others in metro Atlanta.

Lefter said the students have not heard back from officials at Cobb schools, which resumed this week after last week’s winter break. She said Walton students e-mailed Principal Judy McNeill last week and they would like to set up a meeting if they don’t hear back by Wednesday.

Lefter said more than 500 Walton students have signed up on the protest page in the five days since it was created.

She also said the Lassiter administration “has endorsed the walkout,” and she understands that Pope administration is in the process of setting up a meeting with students.

Lefter said she got involved because she’s always been vocal about politics, “and, particularly for something as significant and relevant as gun control:”

“I feel it is my duty as a citizen to not only send my condolences and respects to the victims and families of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but also to take action to push for policy change. In addition to walking out, my fellow hosts and I are planning to have people make calls to their legislators in order to take it to the next level to show that we are voters, and if we’re not 18 now, we will be come this next election, and we will not support nor let stand the complacency to the lack of comprehensive gun regulation in America.”

The day after the Florida shootings, Ragsdale announced at a Cobb Board of Education meeting that the district would be conducting unannounced “code red” drills at selected high schools to assess readiness for active shooter situations.

Every school in the Cobb district is required to have a code red drill each semester.

The National School Walkout group also was planning a similar protest for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado.

 

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East Cobb students named to state education advisory councils

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Two East Cobb students will serve on state education advisory councils this academic year after being appointed by Georgia School Superintendent Richard Woods.

They are:

  • Zechariah Fuller, Dickerson Middle School, Middle School Advisory Board;
  • Nidhi Manikkoth, Walton High School, High School Advisory Board.Georgia Department of Education, East Cobb students

They’re among six Cobb County School District students and 142 across the state to serve on the advisory councils, who will meet with the superintendent during the school year to offer feedback on the impact of state education policies in the classroom and other education issues.

The panelists were chosen from an original pool of 1,500 students in Georgia public schools who applied and wrote essays explaining why they wanted to serve.

Here’s Woods, via a CCSD release:

“Every year, it is so valuable to hear directly from students through my Student Advisory Council, In the past, we have made direct changes based on student feedback, and I look forward to working with these 142 students who I know will make an impact. I’m so grateful for every student who took the time to apply and share their thoughts.”

The first meetings will take place Oct. 3-4, with future sessions in January and April.

East Cobb students named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists

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UPDATED, 10:16 a.m. Friday: The CCSD has provided the names of an additional 12 students from Wheeler to its original release that were initially omitted. The figures in the story reflect those changes. — WP

A total of 71 East Cobb students have been named semifinalists for the National Merit Scholarships, the Cobb County School District announced today (a per-school list follows below).

Of the East Cobb students named semifinalists, 33 come from Walton High School, and 19 more are students at Wheeler High School. According to the CCSD, Walton has the second-highest number of semifinalists for any school in Georgia. Kell, Lassiter and Pope all had semifinalists, and Cobb schools overall had 82 semifinalists.

A CCSD release explains the program and process from here:National Merit Scholarships, East Cobb students

“These academically-talented high school seniors have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth about $32 million that will be offered next spring. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to attain finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will win a National Merit Scholarship, earning the Merit Scholar® title.”

Related Post in East Cobb News

Here are the East Cobb students named as semifinalists, listed by school:

Kell High School

Mitchell Q. Gacuzana

Lassiter High School

Radhesh D. Amin, Christopher L. Butcher, Christopher W. Clark, Justin Q. Coleman, Jerry J. Harrison, Virginia J. Langmaid, Seth A. Nye, Anastasia A. Onyango, Oliver J. Park, Samuel R. Quiroz, Brenna Salkin, Kyle T. Waldner, Seo Y. Yoo

Pope High School

Francesca Burke, Ellie R. Coe, Caleigh A. Cullinan, Suzanna A. Jiwani, David A. Reingold

Walton High School

Kento M. Arendt, Jiwoo Bae, Harper S. Barbaree, Eli M. Burstiner, Carlson L. Chiles, Daniel Cho, Andrew H. Chyong, Clayton J. Eshleman, Catherine Fan, Kaylynn L. Hiller, Daniel C. Hudadoff, John C. Hults, Elaine S. Hwang, Bita Jadali, Tiffany N. Jeng, Gina J. Kang, Laura K. Key, Hyunjin A. Kim, Lucas Y. Kuan, Jayanth Kumar, Luke H. Lavin, Eileen W. Law, Cecelia I. Lu, Harsimran Minhas, Jacob H. Moore, Robert A. Morgan, Siddharth J. Natham, Wesley D. Nourachi, Adarshini Raja, Akshat V. Sistla, Wendy Yao, Wooju R. Yim, Grace K. Zhou

 Wheeler High School

Andrew R. Benecchi, Shawn M. Doss, Chibuzor I. Eduzor, Kevin Fan, Rohan R. George, Nikhil I. Jindia, Dhananjay Khazanchi, Jeet Kothari, Erin Z. Leydon, Alexander Madison, Melam Master, Colin T. McMillen, Anusha Moudgal, Arvin T. Poddar, Suyash Rajesh, Amithav B. Reddy, Michael A. Shible, Sofiya Vyshnya, Charles A. Wood