Advocate Online  -  Net  -  Volume 1  -  Issue 6  -  April / May 2008 

  
Welcome to North Orange County ROP's Monthly
Online Newsletter

North Orange County ROP BITA Students Win and Place in Playhouse Building Contest

April 26 and 27 were record-setting days in Orange County for dry, blistering heat.  It was also the weekend that students from three North Orange County ROP BITAs (Building Industry Technology Academies) labored mightily in the Home Builders Council’s 19^th annual Design/Build contest at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa.  Fifteen ROP/high school, community college and youth/build program teams competed in the event to build playhouses from the
ground up.  

The Katella High School ROP team, under the direction of John Puckett, took first place and best overall award. 

 
Katella HS ROP Team
 

The Western ROP team, with instructor Jerry Cates, took second place their third year in the contest. 

 
Western HS ROP Team

First-time entrants, the Valencia team, with instructor Roy Morrison, earned a Certificate of Participation.

   
Valencia HS ROP Team

Brea High School, new to BITA this year, did not participate, but instructor Javier Belmares brought his students to observe the contest on Saturday.

Patricia Frank, Ed. D.
Superintendent

   Board of Trustees
        
         Robert Hathaway, President
         Thomas Holguin,
           Vice President/Clerk
         Marilyn Buchi, Member
         Meg Cutuli, Member
         Karin Freeman, Member
         Katherine H. Smith, Member
         Susie Sokol, Member

Western ROP Team
 at work
 

CSI students at El Dorado Set the Scene With Blood and Gore, Murder and Mayhem

 

Bloody footprints and bloodier bodies, clues seen only in black light, a flip flop left on the street—all are evidence in miniature crime scenes created by ROP Forensic Science students in Sigrid Williams’ class at El Dorado High School.  

 Students wrote accompanying essays describing their initial assessment of the crime scene; who they would interview; the questions they would ask the witnesses/suspects; the evidence viewed at the scene and possible secondary locations; their evidence collection and preservation methods; and their conclusions based on the evidence. 

 The assignment is a summary of all students have learned to date in the class.   For their final exam they will be presented with a crime scene and asked to discover and preserve evidence and draw conclusions from the evidence. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Teaching Students Take First Place
in Banner Contest at Annual Youth Expo

Kathleen Rea’s Principles of Teaching and Learning students from Kennedy High School won first place in the banner contest in their senior division at the annual Youth Expo in Costa Mesa at the Orange County Fairgrounds on April 26-27, 2008.  The annual event features 4-H and scout competitions as well as school science, art, and sewing competitions. 

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North Orange County ROP HOSA Students Win Gold, Silver and Bronze—Again!

April must be contest month, because all the North Orange County ROP chapters of the Health Occupations Students of America placed extremely well in the state contest. There are several HOSA chapters: two vocational nurse chapters, two high school chapters and a dental chapter. Here’s who placed, and what they won. There were 39 medalists: 17 gold medalists, nine silver medalists, and thirteen bronze medalists. 

2008 HOSA Medalists

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ROP Auto Tech Students from Loara High School Capture 21st Place in National Contest

Russ Bacarella’s North Orange County ROP Automotive Technology team of Francisco Lopez and Breck McVay placed 21^st in the national auto troubleshooting skills contest sponsored by Automotive Dealers’ Association, and took 3^rd place in the “New Entrants” category. Thirty-seven teams competed in the national contest, many of them repeat contestants.  Out of 3500 original contestants, Lopez and McVay were among the top 80 finalists in the United States.

The national contest involves an intense two-day hands-on competition: the first day is spent rotating through 10 workstations in a three-hour period.  The second day’s three hours is used to “debug” a non-starting car rigged with twenty-five problems, ranging from the simple, such as tire inflation, to the complex, such as advanced electrical troubles.   Not only did the ROP duo have to fix the problem, but they had to document everything they did as they worked.

The team took first place in the local contest sponsored by the Orange County Automobile Dealers Association (OCADA) in January at Hyundai headquarters in Fountain Valley.  OCADA sponsored the ROP team trip this week to New York City to compete in the national contest.   
 

Francisco Lopez is an Anaheim native and Loara High School student.   Brent McVay travels from El Dorado High School in Placentia to take the North Orange Count y ROP Auto Technology class at Loara High School. 

Lopez and McVay trained at the ROP’s auto shop at Loara High School and Toyota of Orange.  Notified that they would be assigned a 2008 Camry during the national competition, the duo spent hours after school and on weekends in the one of the dealership’s service bays practicing how to fix the 2008 Toyota Camry bugged by master technician Gary Upton.

The students returned with $2,000 worth of automotive tools, scholarships to advanced technical institutions, and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime contest  and trip to New York City.  At the local level, Lopez and McVay were awarded full scholarships to Fullerton and Cypress community colleges that have industry-sponsored auto repair programs, and partial scholarships to area trade-technical schools.  

The North Orange County ROP serves more than 23,000 students in the region.  High School students can take classes anywhere in the region and earn graduation credits.  There are a limited number of classes available to adults. For more information about classes and services at North Orange County Regional Occupational Program, call Student Support Services at (714) 502-5858, or visit us on the web at www.nocrop.us.  To enroll, high school students see their on-campus counselors; private and home-schooled students call (7145) 502-5874; adults enroll by mail, online during specific times, or at the ROP Education Center, 385 Muller Street, Anaheim, CA 92801.

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