In a world of fast food, smartphones, and massive multiplayer online games, health and fitness tend to sit sadly on the sidelines. Fortunately, there are groups who recognize the importance of keeping our world physically active, and who strive to educate our youth; one such group is the National Danish Performance Team (NDPT). The NDPT, who will be performing their new show Zoom at the Memorial Auditorium this Saturday, is a dance & gymnastics team from Denmark who tour the world every other year to enourage young people to live active, cheerful, and healthy lifestyles. In order to better understand the mission of the NDPT, I rendezvoused with the team at Hiram Johnson High School this

Monster truck fans can get an early and up close look at the big trucks coming to Sacramento for this month’s Monster Jam – and get a sneak peak at a possible career. Universal Technical Institute (UTI), the official technical institute of Monster Jam, is holding an open house featuring two monster trucks, Grave Digger® and Scooby-Doo™, their drivers and crews. The open house will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Jan. 17 at UTI’s campus at 4100 Duckhorn Dr. in Sacramento. Attendees will have the opportunity to take photos, get autographs from the drivers and tour UTI’s 245,000 square foot campus. UTI is the leading provider of post-secondary education for students seeking careers as profess

Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of Washington, D.C., public schools, is one of the most admired and reviled school reformers in America. Frontline was granted unprecedented access to Rhee during her tumultuous three-year tenure as she attempted to fix a broken school systen. As Rhee returns to the national stage, Frontline examines her legacy in Washington, D.C., including her battles with the teachers' union and her handling of a cheating scandal in the District. Frontline: The Education of Michelle Rhee will premiere on Tuesday, January 8, at 10PM on KVIE channel 6. Editor’s note: Every Thursday we deliver a local event guide straight to your inbox, right on time to make your week

Inside a room packed with proud families and jubilant teachers, the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) held a touching ceremony on December 18 for three exceptional graduates who received certificates of completion through the program for high school students and young adults with severe disabilities. The students were honored for making the transition to other educational or job-training programs in their local communities. The ceremony was held at the County Office’s David P. Meaney Education Center. The students represent SCOE programs in the Sacramento City Unified School District, the Galt Joint Union High School District, and Sacramento State University. The students have

Students participating in special education, community, and continuation school programs used their knowledge about technology in today's world, as well as quick thinking skills, while competing at the 5th Annual Sacramento County Academic Bowl. William Daylor High School, from the Elk Grove Unified School District, took home the perpetual trophy by winning top honors. Leo A. Palmiter Jr. /Sr. High School and Elinor Lincoln Hickey Jr. /Sr. High School finished in second and third places respectively, followed by Gerber Jr. /Sr. High School. Palmiter, Hickey and Gerber are Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) schools. Gerber Jr. /Sr. High School student Peter Nguyen received recog

Gerardo Velasquez continues to make great strides in his young life. The 11-year-old was born with cerebral palsy. After several years of tender support, hard work, and help from special adaptive equipment, he has gained mobility. Now, the 11-year-old’s success story is gaining international attention. Gerardo attends a special day class for 4th – 6th grade students at Prairie West Elementary. It is a program for children with moderate to severe disabilities, operated by the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE), within the Elk Grove Unified School District. The Elk Grove family will be featured in a segment on Fundación Teletón USA, which will air on the Univision network (KUVS T

On Sunday, Dec. 2 at 2 p.m., Lucille Lang Day will read from her new book, “Married at Fourteen: A True Story,” (Heyday 2012) at The Avid Reader, Sacramento. Poet, author, recipient of several awards, including the Joseph Henry Jackson Award for her first book of poetry, Lang Day also holds degrees in English, creative writing, zoology and science and mathematics education. Her work has been widely published, most recently in “Tule Review,” a publication of the Sacramento Poetry Center. Joining her will be Sacramento poet and artist, Susan Kelly-DeWitt. * * * “Married at Fourteen: A True Story” by Lucille Lang Day Heyday ISBN 978-1-59714-198-7 2012, 333 pp., $16.95 Local interest, memoir

Thanksgiving came early for dozens of students and their families from North Area Community School, a Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) program, thanks to supportive school staff and charitable local businesses. On Friday, November 16, nearly four-dozen North Area Community School students and their families received donated turkeys, traditional holiday side dishes and pies. School staff, led by Transition Specialist Vickie Foston-Odabashian, organized the holiday food drive. “We are grateful to our sponsors for their generosity during these tight economic times,” said Foston-Odabashian. “It was great to see how well and how charitably the leaders of our local business communi

The Dust Bowl, a two-part, four-hour documentary by Ken Burns, will premiere Sunday-Monday, November 18-19, 8pm-10pm on KVIE Public Television (channel 6). The film chronicles the environmental catastrophe that, throughout the 1930s, destroyed the farmlands of the Great Plains, turned prairies into deserts and unleashed a pattern of massive, deadly dust storms that for many seemed to herald the end of the world. It was the worst manmade ecological disaster in American history. Written and co-produced by longtime Burns collaborator Dayton Duncan, The Dust Bowl tells the story of the farming boom in the early 20th century that transformed the grassland of the southern plains into wheat fiel

Drexel University Sacramento today announced it will begin offering its first undergraduate program in Sacramento in the fall of 2013. The university will launch a full-time undergraduate program in business for students who have finished at least the first two years of their undergraduate education. The bachelor’s in business administration degree program will be offered at Drexel University Sacramento’s location at One Capitol Mall in downtown Sacramento and will include a co-op experience where each student will receive six months of paid professional experience. For Drexel, a 121-year-old not-for-profit university based in Philadelphia, the program expansion marks a new chapter in t

For nearly 50 years, California students with an interest in creating films have been recognized during the annual California Student Media Festival. This year, students in four Sacramento-area schools and one Stockton school were awarded for their videos at the festival, held June 2, 2012, at Orange County High School of the Arts. In recent years, PBS SoCal has hosted the annual California Student Media Festival, which encourages project-based learning and meaningful student creations in media and multimedia and exists to acknowledge and reward successful classroom work. This year marked the first time the event was recorded into an hour-long program, which includes clips of student med

Older adults who were unable to complete high school due to wartime circumstances are eligible to apply for diplomas through the special Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) program Operation Recognition. The program is for eligible U.S. veterans and Japanese American citizens. Operation Recognition was adopted in October 2001 by the Sacramento County Board of Education to honor the contributions and sacrifices of individuals who missed completing high school to serve in the U.S. military (specifically World War II or the Korean War) or relocate to a World War II internment camp for Japanese American citizens. In 2005, the County Board of Education expanded the program to include

A free, interactive website developed by the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) to help adults improve English learning skills is receiving a major honor. SCOE has announced that its U.S.A. Learns website, an interactive English language learning portal, will be honored at the 33rd Annual Golden Bell Awards program of the California School Boards Association (CSBA) in December. U.S.A. Learns is a free English as a second language (ESL) instructional program developed primarily for immigrant adults with limited English language skills who cannot attend traditional classroom programs because of difficulty with schedules, transportation, or other barriers. Learners can use the sit

Young kids need much more from school than a solid grounding in reading, writing and arithmetic. The classroom also provides a singular opportunity to teach children how kindness can add meaning to their lives, overcome the scourge of bullying, strengthen families and transform communities. This is the mission of The Be Kind People Project, a nonprofit that is now collaborating with the Sacramento chapter of Teach For America to help kids in some of the city’s most challenging and underprivileged communities learn that “it really is cool to be kind.” During the week of Nov. 12, World Kindness Week, The Be Kind People Project will deliver personalized gifts of appreciation and Classroom K

The library at Leo A. Palmiter Jr./Sr. High School became a temporary polling place on October 30 as Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) students cast ballots in the 2012 MyVote California Student Mock Election. Students from the Palmiter campus and the neighboring Elinor Lincoln Hickey Jr./Sr. High School voted on who they think should be President, Vice President, and U.S. Senator. They also voted on the ballot measures that will come before California voters in the November 6 General Election. Students participating in the Mock Election said they learned some valuable life lessons. “I think it’s important because it helps us learn about life. It made me feel like I’m growing

Mayor Kevin Johnson and the Sacramento City Council have unanimously approved a resolution declaring October 2012 as “Co-op Month” and honoring 2012 as the “Year of Cooperatives” in Sacramento. “Co-ops are a vital part of Sacramento’s economic lifeblood, employing hundreds of workers and injecting millions of dollars into our economy,” said Steven Maviglio, President of the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, one of the largest co-op’s in the city. “We appreciate the recognition by the Mayor and Council of the critical importance of co-ops to our city and nation.” Co-ops are member-owned and controlled businesses that operate for the mutual benefit of members. For more than a century, they h

Kate Sullivan Gibbens, with license from the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact, is proud to announce a one-night-only reading of “8,” Saturday, October 20, 2012 at the downtown Crest Theater. “8” is a play chronicling the historic trial in the federal constitutional challenge to California’s Proposition 8, written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter and AFER Founding Board Member Dustin Lance Black. Black, who pinned the Academy Award-winning feature film Milk and the film J. Edgar, based “8” on the actual words of the trial transcripts, first-hand observations of the courtroom drama and interviews with the plaintiffs and their families of the unprecedente

I recently realized that two things I desperately needed to get under control. First, gas prices have shot up...way up, and while prices will certainly level out, it’s just a matter of time when we will be facing higher prices once again. Alright I can’t do anything about that, however I also noticed my Subaru Outback wasn’t getting the MPG (miles per gallon) I was getting several months ago. I had to have some answers so I asked Stephan White, Owner of Stephan’s Auto Haus, what is going on and how can I save on fuel? “While there are the obvious answers to your question, like driving slower and cutting down on non-important trips, taking public transportation or riding a bike, there are

Be B.R.A.V.E. – Say Something-Do Something For many students in the fourteen school districts within Sacramento County and dozens more in outlying areas, attending to school should be, for the most part,  happy and memorable. However for thousands of students who fall under an at-risk category for bullying and peer-abuse, attending school can be extremely stressful, mentally and physically abusive, and at times, simply unbearable. There is a difference between peer-conflict and outright peer-abuse. Reasons at-risk students are targeted for peer-abuse can be religious, physical attributes, social status, being handicapped, and perceptions of being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

The 12th annual ScholarShare Children’s Book Festival brought literature, laughter, and a love of learning to FairyTale Town in Land Park. The walkways were dotted with information tables, art & craft activities, and opportunities for children and the young at heart. Kathy Fleming, Executive Director of Fairytale Town proudly welcomed the family event to the beloved children’s playland that will be 53 years old this year.  She revealed that FairyTale Town will be renovating Sherwood Forest this November adding more climbing apparatus and things for the kids to play on and hoping to install another train for the Little Engine that Could train set. The most exciting news she had to share,