Stephanie Fara
Harris-Walent
School News
Memorial Day Closure
Schools and offices will be closed on
Monday, May 30, in observance of Memo-
rial Day.
Summer office hours
Charles County Public Schools has
changed summer office hours for the Jesse
L. Starkey Administration Building to 7:30
a.m. to 3:30 p.m., beginning Monday, June
27. The schedule will remain in effect until
Monday, Aug. 15. Additional schools and
centers will operate on the summer hour
schedule. A complete listing will be avail-
able on the school system Web site next
month.
Graduations
Seniors from Charles County’s six pub-
lic high schools are preparing to turn their
tassels and graduate. The following schools
will hold graduation ceremonies on Mon-
day, June 6: La Plata High School, 9 a.m.;
Westlake High School, 2 p.m.; and Thomas
Stone High School, 7 p.m. The following
schools will hold graduation ceremonies on
Tuesday, June 7: Maurice J. McDonough
High School, 9 a.m.; Henry E. Lackey High
School, 2 p.m.; and North Point High School,
7 p.m. North Point will host their ceremony
in the school’s convocation center; all other
ceremonies will take place at the Showplace
Arena in Upper Marlboro.
Hats off to top MESA teams
Mathematics, Engineering and Sci-
ence Achievement (MESA) teams from Dr.
James Craik Elementary School and La Pla-
ta High School have earned top honors. The
La Plata team earned first place in the Wind
Energy Challenge at the state event on May
9 and advances to the national competition
next month. The Craik team was selected as
the overall state elementary school winner
and placed in three of four featured events.
Important Dates
Coming Soon
May 27, 2011 R-368
School system participates in spaceflight program
School News
Charles County Public Schools
Where success is measured
one student at a time
See Spaceflight, page 4
See Walent, page 2
Walent named Charles County Teacher of the Year
On a typical day in Stephanie Fara
Harris-Walent's language arts classroom,
students are learning about character arche-
types by wearing colorful masterpieces on
their faces. Their assignment - create a mask
that portrays the behaviors of a character in
a book and discuss the traits with their class-
mates. This is just one example of a lesson
plan that infuses Walent's passion for read-
ing with her passion for teaching. "I want to
make a difference and language arts is my
strength. I love to read and wanted to teach
others how to love reading," Walent said.
Walent, who began her teaching career
with Charles County Public Schools at
Somers in 2000, has high expectations for
her students and strives to establish a posi-
tive learning relationship with them. She
makes it a point to encourage her students
to laugh as they learn.
Recently, a former student visited
Walent to tell her that she was enrolling
in college to study
teaching. The stu-
dent told Walent it
was because of the
fun she had learn-
ing in her class, and
her support and en-
couragement that in-
spired her to become
a teacher. Walent's
dedication to provid-
ing her students with
the skills to become
successful in life is just one of the charac-
teristics that earned her the title of the 2011
Charles County Public Schools Teacher of
the Year.
Somers Principal Stephanie Wesolowski
said Walent personifies what an outstanding
teacher should be and has a natural ability
to foster a love for reading and writing in
students. "She instills in her students the
Charles County Public Schools (CCPS)
is sending a student-designed experiment on
the last flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis
(STS-135) scheduled to fly on June 28. The
experiments are part of a national science,
technology, engineering and mathematics
(STEM) program called the Student Space-
flight Experiments Program (SSEP).
In March, teachers and students in grades
5-12 were asked to develop potential exper-
iments and proposals for submission to the
program. Students in chemistry and biology
classes were initially asked to participate,
but the program was also opened to students
in all content areas. The Maryland Space
Grant Consortium is funding the school sys-
tem’s participation in this program, which
will cover the costs of acquiring experiment
space aboard the shuttle. Proposals were
reviewed by a panel of educators, scien-
tists and engineers, and three final propos-
als were selected for staff review to be for-
warded to the National Center for Earth and
Space Science Education (NCESSE), which
is overseeing the program.
The review panel for NCESSE will make
the final determination on which experiment
will fly. The three CCPS finalists – experi-
ments from Henry E. Lackey High School,
Milton M. Somers and Piccowaxen middle
schools – will present their proposals at the
Student Spaceflight Experiments Program
Symposium scheduled for 6 - 7 p.m., June
1, at Maurice J. McDonough High School.
Another component is the design of a
mission patch that will fly aboard the shut-
tle. The patch design competition was open
to students in grades K-12, and all patches
were on display at the Jesse L. Starkey Ad-
ministration Building for public voting. The
winner will be announced June 1.
The experiments will fly aboard NASA’s
STS-134 and STS-135 missions, which will
