Madison County school district picks new administrators for next year

Edwardsville District 7 recently replaced two administrators who are retiring and two others who will leave their posts to start working in different schools in the district.

Cassens Elementary School Principal Martha Richey will retire after 26 years in District 7. Joe McNamara also will retire this year from his position as associate principal at Edwardsville High School. McNamara has worked in the district for 19 years.

The District 7 School Board picked Tanya Patton to replace Richey as principal at Cassens Elementary. Patton is currently the principal at Nelson Elementary School.

Starting next school year, Andrew Gipson will become the principal at Nelson Elementary. He teaches instrumental music at Liberty Middle School.

Columbus Elementary School Principal Vince Schlueter is leaving his role to become an assistant principal at Edwardsville High School, where he used to teach math. Schlueter is replacing McNamara, the retiring associate principal.

To replace Schlueter, Julie Matarelli will leave her position as an Edwardsville High School assistant principal to become the principal at Columbus Elementary. Matarelli’s position at the high school won’t be replaced at this time, according to Superintendent Lynda Andre.

It will be Matarelli’s and Gipson’s first year as a principal.

Andre said parents and students would have opportunities to meet the new administrators before the start of the 2017-18 school year.

Students to show off digital accomplishments

East St. Louis middle school students have been busy working on digital projects with faculty at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. And the results will be on display Thursday.

The students and faculty worked together in the Coding for Community program at SIUE, which tries to foster an interest in science, technology, engineering and math fields.

From 4:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday, students’ completed projects will be shown at the East St. Louis Learning Resource Center on the East St. Louis Higher Education Campus, 601 James R. Thompson Blvd.

Some examples of the students’ projects over the years have included:

▪  Digital walking tours, in which students photographed different East St. Louis neighborhoods and parks and posted them in online maps.

▪  Oral history interviews, in which students interviewed people at the Clyde C. Jordan Senior Citizens Center in East St. Louis and created podcasts.

The students are from Mason Clark and Lincoln middle schools in East St. Louis.

Get rid of your old electronics safely in Troy

For three hours Saturday, St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Troy will collect old electronics to recycle.

From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., people can drop off items in the school parking lot at 112 N. Border. The school is accepting computers, video game systems, TVs, hard drives, cables, printers, speakers, medical equipment, phones, refrigerators and more.

There may be a cost for recycling TVs depending on their size, according to a news release from the school.

CJD E-Cycling is partnering with St. Paul’s for the event, which is open to the public.

For more information, visit saintpaulstroy.org/e-cycle-drive or call 618-667-6314.

$5,000 scholarship offered for one young woman

The Junior Service Club of Edwardsville/Glen Carbon will award a $5,000 scholarship to a young woman who plans to continue her education after high school.

To be eligible, applicants must graduate from Edwardsville High School, Metro-East Lutheran High School or Father McGivney Catholic High School with a GPA of 2.5 or higher.

The deadline to submit an application is April 14.

To learn more about the scholarship and to apply, visit edglenjuniorservice.org/scholarships.html.

Library of Congress seeking teacher-in-residence

The Library of Congress is accepting applications from current world history or world geography educators for a teacher-in-residence position that starts next school year.

The chosen educator would spend a year at the world’s largest library in Washington, D.C., contributing to K-12 education programs and materials, advising on outreach to teachers and more.

The teacher-in-residence will also complete a project using library primary sources to benefit his or her home school, district or institution, to be implemented during the following academic year. It could be a workshop on teaching with primary sources for fellow teachers, a district-wide social media campaign to promote teaching with the library’s primary sources, the design of a new collaborative curriculum unit or some other product or activity, according to a news release.

Applications are due April 17.

For more information, visit loc.gov/teachers/newsevents/teacher-in-residence.

Homeschool robotics team earns top award

A student robotics team of the St. Clair County Christian Homeschool Educators will advance to the championships after winning the top award at the FIRST Robotics North Super Regional last week in Iowa.

Members of the team, called the Robo Raiders FTC 7129, were the 2017 Inspire Award winners, according to mentor Jason Rahm.

The robotics tournament took place March 29-April 1 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. About 72 teams representing schools and communities in 14 states competed.

The homeschool students designed and built a robot that uses Android cellphone technology, as well as metal gears, motors, sensors and game controllers, according to a news release.

The Robo Raiders and other winners will continue on to the FIRST Tech Challenge Championship later this month in St. Louis.

This story was originally published April 4, 2017 at 9:54 AM with the headline "Madison County school district picks new administrators for next year."