Fairmont In The News

Spring seems to get a head start in Southern California, especially this year, as our hillsides come alive in emerald green and trees burst forth in blossom.  Mother Nature is echoed on our Fairmont campuses where students and teachers have been hard at work putting on an extraordinary show of their talents for our annual Open House events.  As spectacular as they are, Fairmont's Open Houses aren't the only activities worth mentioning this spring.

In early February, eleven year-old Beverly Duan, a fifth grader at the Mable Campus, appeared on the new Nick, Jr. program Ni Hao, Kai-Lan.  Beverly provides the voice for "Lulu," a happy, six-year-old pink rhino.  The show targets preschoolers ages two through five and is designed to promote multicultural understanding and bilingualism.  "I like my character very much.  She's really adorable," Beverly says. "I think it's really great because kids can learn another language besides Spanish."  Beverly was featured in an Orange County Register article and has also appeared in write-ups by the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle.  Read more about Beverly by clicking here.

On February 22, 2008, The Orange County Environmental Health Division proudly presented Fairmont Schools the Award of Excellence in recognition of our excellence in food safety and sanitation practices.  The Award of Excellence Program was implemented in 1999 in an effort to encourage food establishments to strive for excellence in food safety and sanitation practices, and to recognize those who succeed. Award recipients included those establishments meeting eligibility as determined by a review of the establishment's inspection reports for 2007. The inspection reports from Fairmont indicate that the food handling practices and overall sanitation of food service facilities were outstanding in 2007.  Fairmont continues to partner with Nutrition Management Services, Inc. in providing wholesome, hot meals for our students.  New on-site management will be working to improve communication and accounting practices in order to better serve parents and students.

Hundreds of sixth grade pentathletes from all across Orange County will descend on the Anaheim Hills campus Saturday, March 8 for the annual scrimmage that precedes the OC Academic Pentathlon competition in May.  The campus is honored to have been chosen to host the scrimmage this year and looks forward to hosting the event next year in the expanded Junior High facilities.  Fairmont has an amazing history of first place wins in the OC Academic Pentathlon in 6^th, 7^th and 8^th grades, and we wish all of our teams the best this year.

And speaking of Anaheim Hills, work continues on the new junior high annex.  As walls go up, the space is looking more and more like the amazing home for the growing program that everyone had envisioned.  The new junior high expansion is scheduled to be completed by the start of the 2008/2009 school year.

Finally, Fairmont's marketing and communications department is experiencing its own "rebirth" this spring.  I will be taking a maternity leave of absence starting this month.  Courtney Harritt and Bob Tran will be filling in for me during this time, so please contact them if you should have any questions or news updates.

The holidays are upon us, and here at Fairmont Private Schools our campuses are bustling with celebrations of the season.  One especially fun and worthwhile event was the eighth annual CHOC Toy Run, a highly anticipated holiday drive when Fairmont students, teachers and staff turn over hundreds of holiday gifts to Harley-riding Santas for distribution to the children at CHOC.  The Orange County Register covered the event which appeared on the front page of the Local Section and on the Register's website.  Click here http://media2.ocregister.com/slideshow/hogs121507 to view the OC Register's slideshow of the Prep Academy toy hand-off.  KDOC also came out and aired a segment featuring the Citron campus.

We hope Fairmont's annual holiday greeting card found your family healthy and happy this season.  Special thanks to Fairmont Preparatory Academy art students for their one-of-a-kind drawings used to create this year's card.  Art students at the Mable campus are also in the spotlight this month for their participation in this year's Metropolitan Water District Poster Contest.  Mable fifth grader Kile Young's and sixth grader Lucia Deng's original posters were chosen to represent The City of Anaheim Water District and went on to make the cut for the entire contest that features the top 38 student posters from all Southern California districts. Congratulations to these creative students and to their inspirational art teacher Mrs. Robin Gormin.

Speaking of inspirational teachers...Edgewood junior high teacher and debate coach Ben Hughes has done an extraordinary job with expanding Fairmont's debate program this year.  Under his direction, Fairmont hosted its first debate tournament at the Preparatory Academy.  Fairmont's Edgewood Eagles took home the first place team award and first place overall school award.  The Anaheim team, made up of students from both the Prep's and Anaheim Hills' junior highs, earned the third place overall school award--a remarkable accomplishment considering this was the complete team's first competition of the year.

Just in time for holiday break, parents will be receiving this year's annual Report Card listing the amazing student achievements, standardized test scores and college acceptances for last school year.  We feel confident that you'll be very impressed with how well our students have performed in comparison to their peers on the local, state and national level, so feel free to "brag" to all of your friends and family over the holiday!  You can view or print a copy of the 2007 Report Card from Fairmont's home page.

As we consider all of the reasons we have to be thankful, it's natural for us in the Communications and Marketing Department to rejoice over the amazing teachers, students, parents and staff we have the honor of serving every day.  It's our joy to be in a pivotal position to share the great news about our schools throughout the year.  Have a wonderful holiday!

For the past two weeks, the Southern California wildfires have been all over the news.  It has been an eerie time for all of us who live in the area, whether or not our homes were directly affected by the advancing fires.  Fortunately, the sky has finally cleared around Orange County and things are getting back to normal - and none too soon, since there are plenty of newsworthy things happening on Fairmont's campuses.

Judy Alley of KDOC was out at the Edgewood campus last week filming for a morning segment about the affects of the fires on local students.  She filmed Lynn Anderson and her kindergarten class talking about the fires and June Hogan and Yvonne DeVane discussing journal entries with their sixth graders regarding the three things they would take with them if they were evacuated.

Fairmont's own Teresa Guillian, Instructional Technology Coordinator, and Suzette Lewis, Fairmont Prep math teacher, were two of the hundreds of Red Cross volunteers who pitched in to help support the fire evacuees.  They assisted children and families at a Red Cross shelter in San Diego.  Special thanks to these caring women who put their compassion to work creating a home away from home for those in need.

Alyssa Cook, our Edgewood 8^th grade science star, is now back from the Discovery Science Challenge in Washington, D.C.  While she didn't take home the big prize, she had a great time participating in exciting activities and competitions with like-minded students from all over the country.  She exhibited her science project at the Smithsonian.  She filmed spots for the Discovery Science Channel.  MIT even named a minor planet after her!

Making headlines in the Ventura County Star is Prep Computer Science Instructor Scott Anderson.  He recently attended the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Urban Challenge semi-finals in Victorville and spoke to a reporter about the field trip he and his students are taking this weekend to the final competition.  The goal of the challenge is to create vehicles that can carry out military missions without putting people in harm's way.

The highlight of our Halloween week here at Fairmont has to be the costumed students on our elementary campuses.  It doesn't get any cuter than pint-sized princesses and mini-ninjas!  Tonight, students at the Mable and Citron campuses will trick-or-treat for a good cause as they will donate their Halloween loot to the troops overseas.  Students will also include hand-written notes of appreciation in the candy care packages.  Together, the campuses plan to collect close to a ton of candy to be enjoyed by our US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the local children in these regions.

When our press release went out about Edgewood eighth grader Alyssa Cook's finalist status in the Discovery Channel Science Challenge, the media response was overwhelming.  Alyssa was featured on KDOC, in the OC Register, the Orange City News and the OC Post.

Alyssa was the only student in Orange County to earn finalist status and one of only 5 in the state and 40 in the nation to complete at the national level.  We wish Alyssa and her family safe travels as they head to Washington, D.C. for the national competition October 21-24.  Click here to read the press release about Alyssa's accomplishments.