Exceptional Education CHS grad Ulaby visits Community High School graduate Neda Ulaby, now an arts and culture reporter for AAPSNews National Public AAPSNews Radio, visited News, features, profiles and activities in The Ann Arbor Public Schools her alma mater NPR photo this month, Inside: • Ann Arbor high schools welcome exchange students with new group, page 2 speaking to English and Jour- • Adult Education and ESL programs host winter registration, page 3 • School briefs, page 4 nalism students. See Page 2 Detailed stories online at news.a2schools.org • Visit and subscribe inside and visit the-communicdator.org for Note: Due to the December school break, the next edition of the AAPSNews will be published on Jan. 4, 2010 student coverage of the event. Issue No. 4, December 14, 2009 Allen Creek project helps stormwater, improves Pioneer school grounds Featured story By Casey Hans through federal stimulus funds and state AAPSNews Service monies as well as a loan to be paid back through the city of Ann Arbor’s water and A stormwater improvement project on sewer fund. The project is on Ann Arbor the northeast corner of the Pioneer High Public Schools land, but the district is pay- School property should help alleviate ing no part of the construction, officials flooding in the Allen Creek Watershed and said. improve water discharged into the Huron The project at the corner of Main Street River. and Stadium Boulevard encompasses just It also will spruce up the school grounds, under five acres. Two large detention tanks level the land to create a usable recreation will be placed 25 feet underground to hold A chain link fence protects the multiple-acre work site at Pioneer HIgh area and add about 130 new trees and a and slowly discharge water into Allen School, where Washtenaw County is coordinating a project to help decorative plaza as well as interpretive Creek, keeping excess phosphorus from flooding in the Allen Creek Watershed. Two underground tanks are be- signs explaining Allen Creek, which now the river. ing installed to filter and control storm water. Although The Ann Arbor runs as an underground drain at the site. Public Schools is a project partner, allowing the work on its property, no The $3.1 million project will be paid for See Pioneer project, page 4 school money is being spent on it. 4 community budget meetings are scheduled around the district in January Ann Arbor school officials are hosting public budget for needed reductions and any revenue options. Attend a meeting: information sessions in January where discussion and It is anticipated that $20 million in reductions will need budget cut suggestions will be encouraged. to be made for the 2010-11 school year. Meetings begin at 6:30 p.m. and are scheduled for: The forums will present current budget information Budget information will be posted on The Ann • Thursday, Jan. 7, Huron High School, 2727 Fuller Road. and options for addressing the district’s budget deficit. Arbor Public Schools Web page (http://a2schools.org) • Tuesday, Jan. 12, Skyline High School, 2552 N. Maple. Participants will be asked to work in small groups to the week of Dec. 14 as well as an online opportunity to • Thursday, Jan. 14 , Scarlett Middle School, 3300 Lorraine. assess the options and to offer their thoughts and other contribute ideas and suggestions related to the AAPS • Tuesday, Jan. 19, Pioneer High School, 601 W. Stadium. possible ideas and suggestions. The district is examin- budget. Look for the district budget box on the right Visit online for more information: a2schools.org ing the current school year budget and the 2010-11 side of the site. More stories and information can be found online at news.a2schools.org 1 Exceptional Education For student A2ties group journalists’ coverage of Neda Ulaby’s visit to welcomes Community High School, visit the- communicator.org exchange online and click on students school news. By Carlina Duan NPR reporter speaks AAPSNews Service With approximately 60 Above, members of A2ties, a student- at Community High foreign exchange students founded group in the Ann Arbor across the district this year, high schools, celebrate Halloween in Graduate Neda Ulaby says Ann Arbor’s high schools are costume. At left, juniors enjoy them- selves at an student welcome party packed with a variety of exotic school shaped vision, career earlier this fall. A2ties is designed to culture and language. help exchange students acclimate to From AAPSNews Service Yet, uniting the American their time visiting in the United States. teen lifestyle with the overseas Neda Ulaby’s memories of Community High heritage has proven, in the School involve mornings at the school library past, to be difficult. reading the New York Times before class. Time This year, there is a solution: Above: Photo by David Torres spent with the arts section helped mold her inter- A2ties – Ann Arbor Together Left: Photo by Amelia Brinkerhoff est in the arts. for International Exchange She eventually was led her to a reporting Students – a student-founded career at National Public Radio in Washington, group that reaches out to dye party, and a Zingerman’s have returned from one-year D.C., where the 1989 CHS graduate now works, foreign exchange students with lunch, so we can experience exchange student programs. covering the arts and culture beat where she branches at Pioneer, Huron, new things together, have fun, Founder Michaela Carmein, Community and Skyline high and just meet other people,” Community High School profiles authors, musicians and reports on news schools. said Brinkerhoff. The group junior, said those who have about arts. It has helped exchange also is planning a camping trip traveled know what is needed. She returned to her alma mater earlier this students adjust to American for later in the school year, as “When [all of us] went abroad, month, speaking to groups of English and society throughout the school well as several movie outings we wished we could’ve had journalism classes. “It was in that library – now year. and other sporting events. some sort of resource like the gym,” she told the students. “that I began to “The exchange student com- On Oct. 31, the group hosted this,” she said. have a sense of what arts journalism was, what it munity is very segregated, and a Halloween party for students “When I got to Argentina could be.” it’s segregated between Ameri- from around the district. On last year for my year abroad, I While working on a doctorate in English can students and exchange Nov. 29, they visited the Uni- was totally lost. I didn’t know aiming to be a university professor, she had to students,” said Pioneer junior versity of Michigan Museum anybody for the first month. move to Topeka, Kansas to care for an ill relative. Amelia Brinkerhoff, one of the of Art to view exhibits and Instead of exchange students While there, she freelanced for a local newspaper group’s founders. gain “an enjoyable end to hanging out by themselves, and became “addicted to the instant gratification “The (exchange student’s) Thanksgiving break, as well they should hang out with us. of writing a story and getting it published,” she goal is to come to America and as one that does not involve That way, they’ll be integrated told students. Ulaby found her way to NPR in learn our culture, and if the food!” Brinkerhoff said. with our society and culture.” 2000, eventually landing a full-time job covering German kids sit with the Ger- David Torres, another group Organizers hope to promote the arts beat. man kids, they’re not learning founder, has planned a Christ- awareness of such challenges Ulaby told students that sometimes people are that culture. mas Cookie Party on Dec. 21 exchange students face during led in unexpected directions, which is not neces- “Our goal is to have these from 4-7 p.m. (for location and their months away from home, sarily bad, and that she is happy to have found students meet new people, to information, e-mail a2ties@ and help create connections by her way to public radio. “There are advantages welcome these international gmail.com.) spreading their message to the for not being the first out of the gate,” she said. citizens into our school, and to “We want these exchange American students. “If you treat it as an adventure … you’ll be OK. improve the quality of the rela- students to have connections “The problem with us Amer- You’ll have a good time.” tionship between the Ameri- all over the place in Ann Arbor. ican students is that we get She told students to embrace their time learn- can students and exchange (We want) for them to go out caught up with the high school ing, not just inside of class, but outside of the students.” with their host family and see experience. We don’t think school walls. She also recommended that stu- Weekly and monthly events people that they know; because things like, ‘Who is that girl in dents spend time developing relationships with are being planned by the when you have that much the corner?’ But we need to,” mentors who can help them discover what they group, which launched the pro- pressure and responsibility on added Brinkerhoff. want to do with their lives. gram with an exchange student you, the littlest things a smile, Ulaby was born in Jordan and grew up in the welcome party in the fall. a wave – can make a huge dif- Carlina Duan is News Editor Midwest, coming to Community High School “We’re going to have ference,” Brinkerhoff added.