Lauren Gardner, COO

This past Thursday concluded a great year working with our Pioneer Scholars students.  We celebrate this success annually with a Recognition Ceremony for all of our students, families, and staff.  This year featured a Keynote speech by Danzel Pegram a senior at Northern High School who has been involved with the Emily K Center for the past three years.  He will be attending Elon University in the fall.  I recommend taking the time to watch this two minute video of his speech to our Pioneer Scholars.

The highlight of the recognition ceremony is always the presentation of six special awards given to students who have shown exemplary commitment to Academics, Character and Leadership.  Recipients of this year’s awards include:

• Lakewood Elementary School third grader Teymi Pantoja who received the Leadership Award and is described by her tutors as, “very kind and respectful. She has high expectations of herself and always does her best.  She always interacts in an appropriate way with her peers and staff.  She is an absolute joy to teach”
• Durham School of the Arts sixth grader Niadiquay Everette who received the Academic Award for consistently demonstrating academic excellence in all areas.
• Lowe’s Grove Middle School seventh grader Rey Fernando Cruz Castillo who received the Character Award.  His tutors say, “Rey has the freedom to fearlessly be the creative, kind, and funny individual he is; and we know that even when we aren’t there, he will, in his own style, do the right thing.”
• Other award winners include Matthew Woodberry (3rd Grade Lakewood Elementary), Jamillah Carter (8th Grade Brogden Middle School) and Jennifer Lemus Santos (3rd Grade Lakewood Elementary)

LAUREN GARDNER, COO

Fridays in the Pioneer Scholars program are a little different than the rest of the week.   Students spend the afternoon in two elective sections focused on Career Exploration, College Awareness, Citizenship or Leadership.  Ms. Dawn’s citizenship group has been focused this semester on learning about the science of water in our community.  Students studied the issues around our community water supply and ran an online simulation of our storm drain system.  The group then worked with the City of Durham to be able to label the Emily K Center storm drains with warnings to not litter.  Check out this video which will show you more about their final project: Pioneer Scholars Citizenship Project on YouTube *

* You may have noticed that we now have a YouTube Channel and are going to start using more videos in this blog.  We hope this will give those of you not able to come to the Center a chance to see our students in action.  Look for more videos, interviews, and other info to come in the near future!