Band to perform at festival

The Riverwood International Charter School Band is set to perform in March 2017 at the Festival at Carnegie Hall National Instrumental Festival. The school expects 60 musicians to attend. “For a musician, performing on stage at Carnegie Hall represents arriving at a place where few musicians can,” said band director Carlos Rodriguez. He joined the Riverwood faculty fresh out of college in 2013 with a band program of fewer than 50 participants and now has more than 200. The marching band performed at the 2015 Russell Athletic Bowl Halftime show in Orlando. “With the tremendous growth and success that our band program has had in just four years, I feel that this is a huge accomplishment for our program, school and community,” Rodriguez said.

Lanier High principal gets national award

Lanier High School Principal Dr. Reuben Gresham has been awarded the Henk Koning Exemplary Educator Award by the National Career Academies Coalition. The award recognizes a contribution to the success of a career academy. Lanier’s four academies, the Center of Design & Technology (STEM), Life & Health Sciences, Global Business & Leadership, and Multimedia & Fine Arts, have an academy coach and academy leads who work with administrators and counselors. A block of the day twice a week called Academy Time is dedicated to intervention, remediation and enrichment; students have opportunities to work on projects, receive academic support and learn the “soft skills” needed in the modern workforce.

Alpharetta team wins 2nd in competition

The Alpharetta High School Novice Certamen team competed in their first Certamen competition at Walton High School last month and brought home a second-place trophy. “Certamen” means “competition” or “struggle” in Latin, and the competition is structured like a quiz bowl with Roman themes. The game tests the players’ knowledge and reflexes with fast questions about the Latin language as well as the history, mythology and culture of the civilization.

Student wins gold, bronze medals in fencing

Woodward Academy seventh-grader Chloe Williams competed in the Peoria Fencing Academy Regional Youth Circuit in September and earned a gold and a bronze medal. In August, Chloe won a bronze medal in the Pan American Youth and Veteran Championship. With four years of fencing experience, Chloe is ranked 14th nationally in her Y12 division.