Ashley Carrell was born Dec. 31 at Mountain Vista Medical Center.

There has been much ado about the first babies of 2009. A tax preparation company took time this week to honor the last babies of 2008.
The agency partnered with Iasis Healthcare to recognized the last babies born Dec. 31 at both Tempe St. Luke’s Hospital and Mesa’s Mountain Vista Medical Center. The lucky parents – along with welcoming their little tax deductions - received gift baskets from H&R Block that included baby goodies.
Ashley Nicole Carrell was born at 1:41 p.m. Wednesday at Mountain Vista Medical Center to Billy and April Carrell. She weighed 8 pounds, 1.3 ounces.
Brianna Rodriguez Grey was born 8 p.m. Wednesday at Tempe St. Luke’s to Brian Grey and Maria Rodriguez.

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Randy Clawson, winner of the Arizona Cardinals Quarterback Community Award, named the Tempe Union High Schools Education Foundation as his charity of choice to receive a $10,000 check at the December 14th Cardinals football game. 

Mr. Clawson was nominated for the award because of his dedication to education and his spirit of volunteerism.  He has volunteered as a member of the Tempe Union High Schools Education Foundation for the past several years because he believes that education is an essential part of a child’s life and hopes that students can get the best education necessary for their future.  

Randy not only volunteers with the Tempe Union High Schools Education Foundation but also provides services to many organizations throughout the Valley.  Through his volunteerism he has demonstrated a passion for making the community a better place to live and has provided an invaluable service to the Tempe community. 

The Tempe Union High School District students, parents, staff and the cities of Tempe, Phoenix and Chandler are the true beneficiaries of his commitment.

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 Six sixth-grade students in Tempe learned the importance of recycling, composting, saving endangered plant and animal species, and cleaning up parks and forests as they took part in the Lexus Eco Challenge, an educational program and contest that inspires and empowers middle and high school students to learn about the environment and take a stand to improve it.

 Tempe’s Team “The Recyclers,” from Connolly Middle School was awarded $10,000 to share between themselves and the school for their outstanding entry in the “Protecting the Land” Challenge, the first of three initial challenges.  Team members are Jiwon Byun, Francesca Callicotte, Taylor Dodd, Abby Kennedy, Kendric Knorr and Dwight Wells.  The win also secured the team in invitation to participate in the Final Challenge for a chance at $50,000.  In all, $1 million in scholarships and grants will be awarded throughout the year. 

 Respecting the land by using fewer plastic bags is the issue the team focused on. In Tempe, plastic shopping bags are unable to be recycled in the recycling plants because it is not cost effective and the plastic bags get caught in the machines and stop the recycling processes.  Landfills in Tempe and around the world are being filled up with this product, which can take hundreds of years to break down.  According to the United Nations’ Environment Programme, “One plastic bag takes one second to manufacture, is 20 minutes in use, and takes 100-400 years to degrade naturally.”  Additionally the bags are made of petroleum, which is a nonrenewable resource that causes pollution in the production process.  And plastic bags are responsible for the death of thousands of animals each year who either become entangled in them, such as birds, or eat them thinking they are food, such as turtles. 

 According to the team’s teacher-advisor Collette Keime, “The highlight of this program for me especially was seeing the team in action giving their presentations to the older classes at our school.  To see their confidence level improve as well as their ability to communicate with each other as a team was amazing to witness.  I have a feeling each of these students will remember their sixth grade year like no other.

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Janet Seegren, assistant superintendent for Tempe Union High School District, was named as the Personnel Administrator of the Year by the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association (ASPAA) at the annual fall conference held in Prescott late last month. Seegren was honored by the many members of the Association who came from every corner of the state of Arizona.
Annually, the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association, a nonprofit organization created to promote and advance public education through the interchange of ideas, data and information regarding the administration of school personnel, awards one of its members as the  Personnel Administrator of the Year.   This award is very prestigious among human resource professionals throughout the state of Arizona.  The selection criteria for this award are as follows:
1.  Must promote a positive climate within the school district.
2. Supports and implements the mission and goals of the school district.
3. Involved in professional growth education and maintains membership in professional associations.

A selection committee determined by the ASPAA Executive Board reviews all nominations, supporting documentation and selects the award recipient.

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AT&T presents grant to Tempe Union High School District.

This news came in this week from the Tempe Union High School District:

Tempe Union High School District’s Summer Bridge program is a recipient of an AT&T Aspire grant that will total $294,622 over the next four years.

Funds will go to not only keep, but also expand and enhance the Summer Bridge program, which provides a unique program of academic and informative experiences to socially, educationally and economically disadvantaged students at the critical juncture between eighth grade and high school.

Jerry Fuentes, AT&T Arizona State President, presented Superintendent Steve Adolph and members of the TUHSD governing board with a check during a news conference Tuesday, Dec. 2 at the District Office.

“We are passionate about supporting programs like the Summer Bridge project that address key factors in high school retention. We support this because, as a major corporation, we are concerned about our workforce competing in the global economy.  By helping students graduate from high school and encouraging them to continue their education and start building their careers, we can help students succeed — not just in school, but in life,” Fuentes said.

Through the Aspire initiative, AT&T has committed $100 million (over four years, 2008-2011) to a range of efforts that includes:
• Grants to schools and nonprofit organizations that are focused on helping students graduate from high school and become better prepared for college and/or the workforce.
• The underwriting of national research that will explore the perspectives and best practices of practitioners (teachers, principals, superintendents, school counselors and school board members) on the high school dropout issue.
• Support for 100 state and community dropout prevention summits, organized by America’s Promise Alliance to engage education experts and community leaders around the crisis and ways to address it.

“Through this generous grant from AT&T it is possible for a significant number of at-risk students to be successful at the high school level. We can help keep these students in school until graduation and prepare them with the skills they need to compete in the 21st century workforce,” Adolph said.

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Post from: Tempe Beat

The event kicks off the 16th annual Arizona Afterschool Conference for nearly 600 teachers, afterschool directors, administrators, program organizers and professionals from throughout Arizona who will discuss effective means of providing afterschool activities for children.

Sergeant began working in the afterschool field in 1988 teaching tennis and swimming.  Currently responsible for hiring, training and retaining quality employees for the City of Tempe’s Kid Zone Enrichment program, she has been a member and volunteer of the Arizona Center for Afterschool Excellence for ten years and has presented workshops at the annual conference.

“The value and importance of afterschool programs is well documented in terms of the impact on a child’s educational progress during school,” said Lisa Rice, Executive Director, Arizona Center for Afterschool Excellence.  “The individuals and programs being honored at the banquet represent the best and the brightest in the field who, much too often, fall under the radar screen when it comes to recognizing the significance these programs bring to students in communities around the state.”

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Cities, states and other local governments have been effectively shut out of the bond markets for the last two weeks, raising the cost of day-to-day operations, threatening longer-term projects and dampening a broad source of jobs and stability at a time when other parts of the economy are weakening.

As the Tribune’s beat reporter for Tempe, I felt it necessary to ask if Wall Street’s meltdown was inflicting this sort of harm upon Mill Avenue.
Tom Duensing and Jerry Hart from the city’s finance department responded:

*-We only issue bonds for capital projects; therefore, day-to-day services should be relatively unaffected.
*-We typically issue bonds in the late part of each fiscal year and we believe the markets will settle down by the time we go to market.
*-We have always been and should remain a strong credit with highly rated bonds.
*-The main issue is not our ability to repay but a possible reduced demand for bonds; therefore, higher interest rates that would have to be paid.
*-We have a large capital projects’ budget in FY 2008-09 which depends on bond financing. A weak demand for our bonds could equate to higher interest rates when we go out to the market.
*-If, for whatever reason, there is not a market for our bonds (very unlikely), we would have to make tough choices on capital projects such as scaling back or delaying projects.

OK, then.

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