Author: Donnie Sewell

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts will hold the annual West Central Regional Science Fair on Feb. 26-28 on campus. The science fair will be open to the public on Friday, Feb. 28 from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. in the Creativity and Innovation Complex on campus.

The West Central Regional Science Fair features exhibits by ASMSA students. Participants compete for the opportunity to attend the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, the largest international science fair competition in May.

The public viewing of the West Central Regional Science Fair is an opportunity for the public to view some of the top competitors in the state. Participants also compete to qualify for the Arkansas State Science and Engineering Fair that will be held at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway on April 3-4. ASMSA has won the state science fair school title seven years in a row.

The regional fair awards ceremony will be held at 2:30 p.m. Friday. For more information about the West Central Regional Science Fair, visit https://sites.google.com/a/asmsa.org/wcrsf/home.

Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts seniors Amanda Carson of Russellville and Caitlin England of Magnet Cove were recently named semifinalists for the prestigious Cooke College Scholarship Program.

The highly selective scholarship provides high-achieving students with financial need up to $40,000 annually for four years of college to enable them to attend a top college or university. The program is sponsored by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing the education of exceptionally promising students who have financial need. Since 2000, the foundation has awarded more than $200 million in scholarships to more than 2,700 students from eighth grade through graduate school.

The 477 semifinalists were chosen from a pool of more than 5,300 applicants. Students from all 50 states as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico and 420 school applied for the scholarship. Approximately 60 semifinalists will be selected to receive the scholarship. The 2020 Cooke College Scholarship recipients will be announced in April.

Cooke College Scholars are selected on exceptional academic ability and achievement, financial need, persistence, service to others and leadership. Students must be current high school seniors residing in the United States.

For more on the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, visit www.jkcf.org.

The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts has found a unique way to address the challenges that come when students live and learn away from home. ASMSA will bridge the distance between the school and its students’ families with technology.

Recently, ASMSA partnered with Possip to empower parents to routinely share praise and constructive feedback about their family’s experience with the school. ASMSA is the first school in Arkansas to use Possip, and the first residential school to partner with the EdTech company, recently named by the Nashville Business Journal as one of Nashville’s top start-ups to watch in 2020.

Parents were able to share praise about teachers and culture.

“My daughter’s teacher contacted me because she had noticed she seemed sad and homesick. She just wanted to make sure I knew. I was so impressed that she had taken the time to get to really know our daughter and recognized that something was off with her.”

Parents are also able to share feedback, needs, or ideas.

This ability for parents to have a routine and easy way to share their thoughts and ideas is very important to ASMSA.  One of the nation's top public schools, students come from 50 counties across Arkansas to live and learn within a community of 230 intellectual peers. Many students attending ASMSA live 3 to 4 hours away from the school’s Hot Springs campus.

“Schools like ASMSA are redefining family engagement by showing parents that they don’t have to be physically present in a school building to participate in their child’s school experiences,” said Shani Dowell, founder and CEO of Possip.

“Whether parents are working, providing military service, or have their kids at a residential school, they should still be able to easily participate in their child’s school experience.”

“Our students don’t have traditional time at home with parents.  We get to see one part of their daily lives - but parents have important information as well,” said ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice. “We are using this tool to remove any barriers for families who want share and participate in ASMSA’s community of learning.”

Possip—so named from a mashup of positive gossip—was created by a former educator and school parent based in Nashville, Tenn. Shani Dowell, whose own children are in elementary school, shared “We know that parents and school staff share a goal of creating the best school experience possible for kids. The research is clear that an engaged parent body is one of the surest ways to achieve that goal.”

In the simple form of a text message, which can be sent in over 100 languages, Possip sends parents routine prompts asking about their happiness, praise and feedback for schools and gathers the responses into an actionable report for principals. Possip staff crafts each report, surfacing and organizing praise and feedback into priorities and recommendations for follow-up or development.

ASMSA will use the bi-weekly reports in the school’s weekly Strategies Team meetings.  The group of nine employees includes staff across the academic and residential experience.  The Possip report provides additional opportunities for student intervention and parent engagement.

“We were incredibly pleased with the format of the report and the insights we gained,” said Alderdice. “We have already used the first round of feedback to follow up directly with parents while also using their suggestions for new programs and opportunities as we plan for the next academic year this fall.”

Learn more about Possip at www.possip.com.

When many of us are asked to think back to our interaction with our school counselor, the answers are often similar. It was very limited. In many cases, we didn’t even visit with the school counselor.

It wouldn’t be surprising to hear the same answers from today’s graduates. The American School Counselor Association says the national average is a 442-to-1 ratio of students to school counselors. That’s a large number of students for one person to try to assist. Even the ASCA’s recommended 250-to-1 ratio is very large.

Yet deciding what path to follow after high school graduation is one of the more important decisions we are asked to make in our lives. But without proper guidance, making the right decision isn’t always easy.

At the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, students have the benefit of working with one of three student success coordinators — Penny Lock, Jasmine Phillips and Bret Vallun. ASMSA’s 230-plus students are split between the three SSCs to try to ensure a more individualized attention.

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Lock, Phillips and Vallun provide important information about college admission changes and scholarships to the students. They also help guide the students in selecting coursework and class schedules that will be the most beneficial for students to reach their goals.

“It is important for a student success coordinator to stay up to date on college admission changes and scholarship information,” Locke said. “Therefore, maintaining connections to various college and military admission representatives is vital. Having such contacts helps in mapping specific planning for each individual student.”

Vallun said he encourages students to visit him early during their first semester. As he helps them work on their schedules, he asks them about their interests and passions. Getting to know the individual student is important, he said.

“Once I have that information, I can recommend specific opportunities to students as I am made aware of them. At any given time, no matter the subject, I can recommend a handful of students who would be perfect for a scholarship, award or program,” Vallun said.

Lock agreed that getting to know the student beyond their grades is important.

“I enjoy working with students and getting to know the individual student as a whole,” Lock said. “Each student has individual needs and goals. They have different personalities. I try to provide a welcoming and safe space for my students to ask questions and to try to express themselves and any concerns.”

Having that knowledge about each student also helps the SSCs with one of their more important duties — writing recommendation letters.

“Individualized attention allows us the opportunity to know a lot about each student,” Vallun said. “We know their personality, learning style, past, present and aspirations. They have the opportunity to share personal stories of success and failure. It allows us to write outstanding recommendations for their prospective colleges and create individualized action plans instead of a generic trial and error approach to common struggles. We can really advocate for these students while remaining credible because we know them.”

It’s also important for the SSCs to have a relationship with a student’s parents, Lock said.

“I believe it important for the parents to continue an active role in their student’s journey at ASMSA. They know their student therefore their insight can be helpful to us in assisting the student,” she said.

Vallun agreed with Lock, saying it is important that parents encourage and support their students.

“As long as parents are motivating their students to pursue their educational dreams, supporting them through the process despite failures, and encouraging them to seek out helpful resources, their student will have a positive high school experience,” he said.

Both Lock and Vallun said the favorite part of their job is watching students grow and succeed.

“It is amazing to witness the transformation from their beginnings at ASMSA to graduation day,” Lock said.

“My favorite part of my job is when a student shares their success stories with me,” Vallun said. “Whether it is a college acceptance, scholarship or award, it is a great moment because they are so happy and grateful.

“I especially relish college signing day. Students experience so much stress throughout the application process, so when they have several acceptances in front of them, it makes me happy to see that all of their work was recognized.”

Vallun enjoys when ASMSA graduates come back to visit him as well because they usually provide some information that he can share with current students.

“They usually offer some insight into their college experience that I can share with current ASMSA students. Most importantly, it helps me realize that our office is making a positive impact on our students,” he said.

For the third time in a row, the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts won the Dolphin Challenge — the northern Texas competition for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl.

The National Ocean Sciences Bowl is a nationwide, high school science competition focused on marine issues and knowledge. Students demonstrate their knowledge of marine and coastal science by answering questions from biology, physics, chemistry, geology, geography, mathematics and the social sciences. Each team consists of four students plus an alternate and a coach.

The Dolphin Challenge regional competition was held Feb. 1 by the Texas Sea Grant College Program at the Texas A&M University campus in Galveston, Texas. The competition included teams from across Texas.

ASMSA’s A team of seniors Emily Smith, Howard Grant Orlina, Amadeo Scott, Kasey Meyer and Hadley Medlock defeated Brandeis High School from San Antonio, Texas, to win the region title. It was the second time the two teams played each other during the regional weekend. Brandeis defeated ASMSA in round robin play earlier in the tournament. ASMSA also eliminated Cypress Woods, Texas, in the afternoon single-elimination round after suffering a loss to Cypress Woods in the earlier round robin round.

“Our students really seemed to shine more in the afternoon when the questions became harder,” said Dr. Lindsey Waddell, a geoscience and chemistry instructor at ASMSA who served as the team’s coach. “When the questions are easier during the round robin rounds in the morning, the scores between two strong teams tend to be determined more by buzzer speed, and in particular by the decision of whether to risk losing four points for giving an incorrect answer after interrupting the reading of a question.”

ASMSA first won the regional title in 2017 followed by the 2019 regional competition. The 2018 regional competition was canceled in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

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The team earned a trip to the National Ocean Sciences Bowl Finals on April 16-19 at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Park campus in Long Beach, Miss. Waddell said the team worked very hard over the past year to earn the regional title.

“My biggest fear with this team was that they might forget material during the year in between the regional competitions,” Waddell said. “However, they approached me about holding weekly buzzer practices beginning last spring, and they attended weekly practices this fall alongside students who were currently enrolled in my oceanography course.”

Students from Waddell’s fall oceanography class comprised ASMSA’s B team in the regional competition. Members of that team were seniors Esther Filipek, Gwen Coleman and Said Angeles and juniors Alec Gatewood and Terrance Meinardus.

Emily Smith, who served as captain of the A team, was a member of the ASMSA team that won last year’s regional title and competed for the national title.

For more information on the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, visit nosb.org.

Sometimes you just need someone to listen to you. It may be one person or it could be a group of people you can easily identify with and feel comfortable sharing personal feelings and information.

Every-day life of being a teenager can be stressful on its own. Add in that you are living away from home — sometimes hours away — with 200-plus people from all kinds of backgrounds and beliefs who you don’t know while attending a school with a rigorous academic schedule. It can become a bit overwhelming.

It’s no wonder that many students said adding mental health services to campus were a necessity.

Staci Stich began in April 2018. She has a bachelor’s in psychology from Louisiana Tech University and a master’s degree in counseling from the University of Arkansas. Prior to coming to ASMSA, she was a counselor at a school in Mississippi serving children with emotional disabilities as well as students on the autism spectrum.

Stich has an additional 30 years of experience in community health, focusing primarily on working with children and adolescents in southeast Arkansas, northwest Arkansas and South Carolina. She also has worked in residential care in Louisiana and two years with the Arkansas Department of Human Services.

When she first arrived at ASMSA late that spring semester, many students weren’t comfortable coming to visit her. Most of the students she spoke with were recommended by staff and faculty members to visit her.

In the fall 2018, Stich began introducing groups that would meet at lunch time. She would send out an email to all of the students encouraging them to attend the various meetings. She told students they could meet with her first if they were interested, but what she found was that students were more relaxed coming to the groups.

Once they attended a group session, they usually came back for additional meetings. “There was no commitment required. I told them it was up to them to choose if they come back or not. Attendance might drop off at the end of each semester, but then it would pick back up the next. Individual sessions would increase a lot at semester test time,” Stich said.

“Group members began to encourage other kids to come or to bring someone to come to the meetings with them. They would come up with their own assignments to do before the next meeting with each other. They always followed through with it and completed their tasks.”

Students would exchange phone numbers and seek each other out to do things. They’d also ask each other for help while studying, she said. Having the meeting allowed the participants to develop a core group of if not friends at least colleagues to whom they could reach out.

Dr. Rheo Morris, dean of students, was one of the early advocates of providing licensed professional services to students. Prior to coming to ASMSA, she worked at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. She had opportunities to interact with UCA’s Schedler Honors College participants.

“I have seen in the past the type of pressures they place on themselves and that others place on them and how sometimes they struggle to juggle these pressures,” Morris said. “UCA’s Counseling Center did a great job with these students through teaching them coping skills and simply just listening to them while normalizing students asking for help.”

Destigmatizing the use of mental health services is one of the main challenges Stich must work to overcome. Morris said she saw that on the college campus as well which is another reason she felt it was important ASMSA have a mental health professional on campus.

“I felt that some of this normalizing should have occurred before the got to college. Having a counselor on campus helps to remove the stigma from asking for help because it is no longer a huge event to get into seeing someone just chat. I think mental and emotional health are very important because they affect every aspect of your life — your thoughts, your emotions and your behaviors,” Morris said.

As the first year progressed, Stich noticed students becoming more willing to visit with her one-on-one. It might just be dropping by between classes to visit with the door open or it might be a more serious matter that required a closed-door session. Regardless, students were becoming more comfortable with the idea of seeking help when they needed it.

“A lot of them didn’t feel comfortable talking about situations before coming here. Now they feel more comfortable discussing some of it,” Stich said about both one-on-one sessions and group sessions.

Whether it’s in a group session or individual visits, she encourages each student to work on their problem-solving skills and focus on what you can do to improve a situation rather than looking at what you can’t do.

“They need to understand what they can take control of. They’re used to parents asking have you done this or have you done that. They need to learn to come up with a plan and work on one thing at a time,” Stich said.

Morris said she and her staff are very appreciative of having Stich on staff because she educates the residential life staff on signs of mental distress and helps them build coping skills for living and working in the same place.

“Having Staci around creates an environment where students know that there is always someone to support them outside of the people they live with. The majority of students love having her around to just chat with. Group sessions are amazing, and I think in time more students may take advantage of her services and group sessions as we continue to normalize mental and emotional health conversations,” Morris said.

Eleven Arkansas School for the Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts students were selected as a member of the Arkansas School Band and Orchestra Association Region II All-Region Band.

Selected for the band were:

• Yibing Hu, a junior from Jonesboro, flute, first chair, first band;
• Aishani Singh, a junior from Hot Springs, flute, sixth chair, first band;
• Amanda Carson, a senior from Russellville, bassoon, first chair, first band;
• Solomon Ni, a senior from Jonesboro, bassoon, second chair, first band;
• Nova Ammerman, a junior from Cherokee Village, clarinet, seventh chair, first band;
• Logan Richerson, a senior from West Memphis, clarinet, 17th chair, first band;
• Shaan Hyder, a senior from Cabot, clarinet, 21st chair, first band;
• Rachel Means, a senior from Carlisle, bass clarinet, second chair, second band;
• A.J. Navarro, a senior from Hot Springs, alto saxophone, fourth chair, first band;
• Hyunseo Seok, a junior from Jonesboro, alto saxophone, third chair, second band; and
• Jacob Holmes, a junior from Rector, trombone, seventh chair, first band.

Region II auditions were held Jan. 25 at Lake Hamilton High School. The Region II All-Region Clinic will be held at Lake Hamilton High School on Jan. 31-Feb. 1. A concert will be held at 2 p.m. Feb. 1 featuring members of the Region II All-Region Band.

Eight members of the band qualified for All-State Band/Orchestra auditions. Hu, Singh, Carson, Ni, Ammerman, Richerson, Navarro and Holmes qualified to audition for the All-State Band/Orchestra on Feb. 8 at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia. The All-State Band/Orchestra Clinic will be held Feb. 20-22 at the Hot Springs Convention Center.

Four high school seniors at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts were among 76 students statewide recently named candidates for the 2020 United States Presidential Scholars program, considered one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students.

The U.S. Presidential Scholars was established in 1964, by executive order of the President, to recognize and honor some of the nation’s most distinguished graduating high school seniors.

The 2020 candidates for the U.S. Presidential Scholar from ASMSA are:

• Tristan Eoff of Little Rock;
• A.J. Navarro of Hot Springs;
• Emily Smith of Cabot; and
• Haven Whitney of Searcy.

The White House Commission on Presidential Scholars’ review committee selects honored scholars annually based on their academic success, personal characteristics, leadership, and service activities, in addition to the quality and content of their essays.

Each year, more than 4,000 candidates are identified for the component of the program that focuses on academic achievement and based on having scored exceptionally well on the SAT or the ACT.  Eligible students are U.S. citizens and legal permanent U.S. residents who will graduate or receive their high school diploma between January and August of the current program year and have taken the ACT or SAT assessment on or before October of the previous year.

“ASMSA candidates for the U.S. Presidential Scholars program are not only exemplary leaders within the classroom but also dynamic members across our community of learning,” said ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice. “These young people excel in scholarly research, global engagement, artistry and entrepreneurship.  They are a clear indicator that the future of our state is exceedingly bright.”

Approximately 800 students will be named semifinalists after the next round of review, and up to 161 students will be recognized in May as Presidential Scholars. The majority of the Scholars will be selected on the basis of broad academic achievement. Approximately 20 students are selected on the basis of their academic and artistic scholarship in the visual arts, the performing arts or creative writing. Additionally, approximately 20 additional students will be selected on the basis of their ability and accomplishment in career and technical education fields.

If a student is selected as a U.S. Presidential Scholar, they will be honored in Washington, D.C., in June.  During this trip, U.S. Presidential Scholars are guests of the U.S. Department of Education and the Commission and enjoy an expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to meet with government officials, educators and other accomplished people.  To commemorate their achievement, the Scholars are awarded the U.S. Presidential Scholars medallion at a ceremony sponsored by the White House.

Amanda Carson, a senior student at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts, has named a Horatio Alger National Scholar.

The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, Inc., recently announced the 106 recipients of its 2020 Horatio Alger National Scholarship. The National Scholars receive a $25,000 scholarship to apply toward educational costs of the college or university of their choice. They also have access to a variety of Alger Association-provided resources including counseling and referral services, career exploration opportunities and association alumni connections.

The Alger Association — named for Horatio Alger Jr., a renowned century author whose tales of overcoming adversity through unyielding perseverance and basic moral principles were popular — is a nonprofit educational organization honoring the achievements of outstanding individuals and encouraging youth to pursue their dreams through higher education. The 2020 National Scholars are students who come from households with an average income of $17,675 per year while maintaining an average GPA of 3.84.

Carson of Russellville missed the initial call to inform her of her selection. She had slept through the phone call on a weekend morning. When she called the number back later, the person from the Alger Association said he was just checking up with her.

“Then he hit me with ‘Congrats, you’re a National Scholar,” Carson said. “I just thanked him over and over. I had been stalking their page for a long time. I really wasn’t expecting to get National Scholar. There are only 106 of them. I thought that if I got anything it would be State Scholar (who receive $10,000 scholarships).

“It’s amazing. It feels like the association is taking care of me in a sense. It makes me feel freer in my choice of college since I will have a little more cushion to choose the best pick for me and not just worrying about which one will let me go with the least amount of debt.

National Scholars receive an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C., on April 2-4 to attend the Horatio Alger National Scholars Conference. While there, scholars will participate in college preparedness and other educational sessions. They will also have the opportunity learn about the Alger Association, meet association members and other scholars.

Carson said she is excited about the conference because she will get to meet current and previous scholars. She has already made a connection with a previous National Scholarship recipient online. Carson reached out to the 2016 recipient before she had heard any news on her own selection. “I found a hashtag on Instagram. I reached out to her,” Carson said. “She was really friendly. When I told her that I did get my scholarship, she reached out to a couple of association members she grew close to. We are going to meet in April. We’re all going to be very tight-knit. I know that. I feel like I already have a family in the association.”

It will also be the first time she will fly on an airplane and travel farther east than New Orleans, she said.

For more information about the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, visit horatioalger.org.

Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts senior Victoria Hwang has been recognized as a 2020 Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar.

Hwang of Maumelle was one of 300 national scholars and the only one from Arkansas recognized in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, which is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. It is sponsored by the Society for Science and the Public. The scholars were selected from 1,993 applications received from 659 high schools in 49 states; Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico; Guam; and eight countries.

Hwang’s research focused on inhibiting production of a specific protein to study its effect on the life cycle of cancer cells in a glioblastoma, one of the most malevolent forms of brain cancer. Hwang’s research tested if prohibiting the protein production would send the cancer cells into cell death and kill the tumor. While a good percentage of cancer cells did reach cell death, it was not enough to completely kill the tumor.

“It gave some structure on how to approach this idea,” Hwang said, looking at the positives that came from her study. “It’s something I’d like to continue researching in college if I have the opportunity. I have a better understanding of where I should start this process and what more I should look into,” she said.

To conduct high-level research such as this required access to a medical research lab. During the fall semester of her junior year, she read through the papers and studies of Dr. Robert Eoff, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. His work focuses on several similar topics, including deepening “the understanding of how DNA damage intolerance impacts genome stability, patient response to treatment and tumor recurrence in certain cancers,” according to his bio page on the UAMS website.

Hwang spent her spring break in Spring 2019 visiting Eoff’s lab, getting a feel of how the lab worked. She followed that by working in the lab every day during the summer. The first part of the summer was used to learn the process and procedures of the lab. She began focusing on her own research the second half of the summer.

Dr. Patryjcja Krakowiak, a biology instructor at ASMSA and Hwang’s project adviser, helped gain access to Eoff’s lab. Krakowiak said, “Victoria was an absolutely perfect candidate for partnering with UAMS because she is one of the most responsible and devoted students I have ever had. Once she decides to do something, nothing seems to be able to stop her.”

Krakowiak added that Hwang was a great representative of ASMSA, never shying away from extremely hard work and doing more than was necessary each day.

“She is a critical thinker and thrives when presented with challenges, which are common in scientific research. By her exemplary behavior, she has paved the way for other ASMSA students to join laboratories at UAMS,” Krakowiak said.

Hwang said she was working on a joint project with another student when Krakowiak first suggested she develop an independent project to enter into the Regeneron Science Talent Search. Hwang was hesitant at first.

“I wasn’t confident that it would be able to compete. There were so many impressive projects nationally. Then I read Mary Jia’s story from last year,” Hwang said.

Jia, a member of the Class of 2019 from Stuttgart, also was named a Regeneron Scholar for her research of blast disease resistance of rice. Jia’s story inspired Hwang to take on the challenge of an individual project.

“By coming to ASMSA, you have an opportunity to do something that not every student in the state gets. I decided that if I had the opportunity to do so and had everything I needed to qualify, nothing could go wrong, even if I didn’t make it,” she said.

Krakowiak said it’s that spirit that made her decide to recommend Hwang enter the contest.

“Victoria worked harder than any student I have ever had on her project by not only spending most of her spring break and after-school hours but also all of her summer at the UAMS lab. The topic she studied of understanding how cancer cells behave under various circumstances is also extremely exciting and crucial in our fight to eradicate it,” Krakowiak said.

As a Regeneron Scholar, Hwang earned a $2,000 award for herself and an additional $2,000 award for ASMSA. The Society for Science and the Public will name 40 finalists on Jan. 22 to compete for more than $1.8 million in additional awards, including the top award of $250,000. Finalists receive an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C., from March 5-11, where they will compete for the awards.

“The next couple of weeks I’ll just cross my fingers and hope to move on to finalist,” Hwang said. “I think it’s already impressive to get to this point. If I don’t make it, I’m tremendously grateful and happy for how far I’ve made it so far.”