St Hedwig Catholic School would like to congratulate all of its 8th Grade Graduates.  The following high schools will be attended by Hedwig graduates:  St. Anthony, St. Joseph, Bosco, Servite, Mater Dei, Loyola, Los Al, LB Wilson, LB Poly and CAMS.  Good luck to all as they move on to high school.

Under the guidance of engineering teacher Seann Schiele, Oak middle school students competed in the third annual ocMaker Challenge in May sponsored in part by the Orange County Department of Education, Airwolf 3D, and MatterHackers.
Teams across Orange County were given the prompt: “design and build, or significantly repurpose, a product that will solve a problem, need, or  want.”
The Discovery Cube hosted the ocMaker Challenge exhibit for three days in the Julianne Argyros Showcase Theater and Exhibition Hall in May, although the competition was ongoing since September.
Over the past seven months, many Oak teams pursued their ideas and two teams were chosen to display their final prototype at the Discovery Cube.
Oak designers Macaine Crawford and Samantha Gutierrez, created the “Bike Tone” prototype; a bike mount for your cell phone to encourage safer biking practices while listening to music and answering calls.
Oak’s maker team of Owen Ryan and Sajaad Samed won the highest honors with a First Place Level 4 prototype.
They were recognized at the Discovery Cube Science Center at a private awards ceremony and received an award of $350.00 along with free admission to the Cube.
The team challenged over 170 other entries from Middle School all the way through Community College and won.
“I’m extremely proud of their hard work and perseverance throughout the year in my STREAM Academy class – Computer Science, Engineering, Design, and Robotics, as well as, after school during club hours and Learning Lab,” says Mr. Schiele.  “This award solidifies Oak’s Engineering and Makerspace as an innovative space where students can create new products, collaborate, problem solve, and pursue dreams outside the realm of a traditional classroom setting while enforcing the use of STEM concepts within the class.”
To create their level 4 prototype, Owen and Sajaad designed, 3D printed, built, fabricated with specialized tools, coded a microcontroller with sensors, and created a video along with a tri-fold display to accompany their working prototype, the “RADI Pro” (Radiation Amplitude Detector Implement).
The portable RADI Pro measures how much light radiation people are exposed to throughout the day with a read-out of high and low levels.
“I’m so proud of all my students’ hard work and the support we’ve had from administration, staff, parents, the OCDE, Airwolf 3D, MatterHackers, Urban Workshop, and generous grants!” exclaims Mr. Schiele.  “The hands-on educational impact has been priceless.  It really proves that, if you get the right tools in the hands of teachers and students, they have the opportunity to perform at a high level.”
About STREAM Academy at Oak Middle School?Mr. Schiele’s class utilizes STEAM concepts, which he affectionately calls STREAM Academy, throughout the year.  STREAM stands for Science, Technology, Robotics, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics.  Assignments are project-based and grades are a reflection of smaller milestone projects and lead to a larger culminating collaborative project.

Recently, 42 seniors from Los Alamitos High School met for a reunion at Weaver Elementary School.  The Class of 2009 ‘Weaver Whales’ were joined by several teachers, staff, and former principal Erin Kominsky. These students are set to graduate from Los Al High on June 16, and wanted to gather at Weaver because they felt their time there helped them be successful. The seniors also wanted to celebrate the friendships that started at Weaver and continued through High School. Once a Weaver Whale, always a Weaver Whale.

Launch of the inaugural Los Alamitos “Griffriends” event that paired members of the Los Al Football team with students with special needs in grades K-12 in several friendly softball games took place last Friday.

On the last day of his 25-year career, Sergeant Tom Raso of the Los Alamitos Police Department was surprised with a walk of honor by fellow officers, city employees and Mayor Richard Murphy.
About 50 people lined the walkway of Los Al City Hall on June 6 to congratulate Raso on his many years of uniformed service and to say final goodbyes.
Raso joined the Los Al Police Department in 2000. As an officer, Raso worked a variety of assignments including patrol and motor officer.

Los Alamitos High School announced the names of the Class of 2016 Valedictorians at the annual Senior Awards Night on May 26. Following this is that list: Mullaney Blue (University of Michigan), Duncan Fujii (University of Michigan), Mark Kim (Princeton), Monica Kim (Occidental College), Sean Pak (UC Berkeley), Josie Pearce (Dartmouth College), Swetha Ramesh (UC Berkeley), Jonathan Sarquiz (UCLA), Arielle Schultz (Haverford College), and Ashley Willingham (Princeton).

Residents and staff of the Katella Senior Living Community, along with their families, joined together at the American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Los Alamitos-Seal Beach to help save more lives from cancer on June 4. The event took place at the facility located at 3952 Katella Ave. in Los Alamitos.

Troop 2284 was interested in helping the underprivileged motel children in their community who lacked hot nutritious meals.
The girls took an active role in helping bring awareness to this problem by partnering with the Caterina’s Club Organization and the Boys & Girls Club to provide hot pasta meals for children.

More than 300 students from Walker Jr High school in La Palma braved the waters of the John F. Kennedy High School pool on Wednesday May 25, as students piloted (and paddled) their boats in the races of the 11th Annual Walker Regatta.
The Regatta features boats built by 8th grade student teams in two categories (one- and two-person boats) that are constructed from recyclable bottles, tape, PVC pipe and plastic wrap.

LAEF (Los Alamitos Education Foundation) recently partnered with Whole Foods Market (Marina Pacifica) for one of the store’s “5 percent Days” which is part of Whole Food’s community giving program and Whole Food’s commitment to supporting local educational organizations.  The event was held on March 21 and LAEF earned 5 percent of that day’s net sales.

VANS employees recently volunteered at Arnold/Cypress Park and Oak Knoll Park with the Cypress Recreation and Community Services department.
Over 80 employees from the Corporate Office and Distribution Center spent their service day painting restrooms, snack shacks, picnic tables and benches.
Past service days include clearing the Cypress Nature Park’s five walking trails and surrounding area, assisting park staff in mulching trees at Oak Knoll Park and painting the roller hockey rink at Arnold/Cypress Park.

The Cypress Rotary Club joined with other service clubs recently at the Cypress Police Department’s Open House.
Rotary members handed out over 900 hot dogs to citizens enjoying the exhibits, BMX bikers, and departmental tours.
Rotary collected $174 from donations for Polio Plus. Rotary has been fighting polio since the 70s and it has been eliminated in all but two countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan).