By PHHS staff

Congratulations to Mr. Chad Miller, Patrick Henry’s Teacher of the Year for 2015!

Mr. Miller has been a teacher at Patrick Henry for the last 10 years. He was hired as an English teacher and currently teaches tenth grade students. Mr. Miller is known for his academic push in helping all students find success within his classroom. He develops lessons that are interactive and require students to analyze and critique the author’s intent or consider the symbolism and how it gives meaning to the story. He is particularly great at making students accountable for what they’re learning and each student rises to his expectations because of his friendly and welcoming spirit.

Mr. Miller, reflecting on his career at Henry, stated, “Teaching at Henry has been a very meaningful experience. I’ve learned from and been mentored by a number of strong teachers who’ve modeled for me what good teaching is (Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Frerichs, Mr. Myette, Mr. Pruden and Ms. Thomas). Within that process though, I’ve learned that I have to forge my own path and create my own identity; as much as I wanted to be like them and “do what they do,” what worked for my mentors didn’t always work for me. So, to that end, I’ve relished the freedom at Henry to pursue what I think is best, to experiment, tinker and explore with ideas and strategies that will most benefit our kids.”

When Mr. Miller was asked to consider a favorite teaching moment he has had over the years, he shared a story about how he was able to get a selectively mute student to give a speech in front of the entire class. He also said he gets lots of positive feedback from his students, but making a positive difference in the lives of every student is what sets him apart from other teachers. PHHS is thrilled to have Mr. Miller represent them at the District Teacher of the Year competition for the 2014 – 15 year.

Congratulations to Mrs. Lara Dickens, Educator of the Year 2015 finalist for the CLHS!

Lara Dickens was named the Educator of the Year finalist from the California League of High Schools Region IX competition. Lara teaches freshman physics and AP Environmental Science to seniors at Patrick Henry. Walking into any of her classes, you can feel kinetic energy sparking out of Lara. Her lesson plan requires the students to do the thinking as they ponder their use of our scarce resources throughout the process. She likes to start her lessons with worldwide issues keeping her students informed but also linking them to what they’ll be learning along the way. Some of the videos she shows are playful, while others are dead serious, but regardless the students are expected to respond and consider how it affects their daily lives. Both courses are rigorous yet somehow the students find success because Lara finds simple mnemonic devices, hilarious songs, or crazy rhymes to help them remember the facts. Students love her class because she cares enough to design lessons that are engaging and thoughtful at the same time. Every teacher could learn a trick or two from Lara in terms of her outgoing and passionate teaching style.

PHHS is under construction from 2014 – 2019

Construction at Patrick Henry High School is alive and well for our first phase. PHAME! (Patrick Henry High Arts, Media, and Entertainment) is beginning to take shape with walls going up and the orchestra pit poured. We have the 200 and 500 buildings up and running with air conditioning, new windows, paint, and bright ceiling tiles. By the end of the year, we’ll add the 100 building and a new weight room and locker room facility. Phase 2 begins in 2016, immediately following the first phase project with a beautiful, state-of-the art two-story building, and the front office is getting a facelift. Phase 3 (2017) includes a new stadium entrance for the football field with a press box, restrooms and a new snack bar facility. PHHS will also be upgrading the baseball and softball fields. Hopefully, most of the improvements will coincide nicely with the 50th anniversary celebration coming in 2018!

Kiwanis honor PHHS Student of the Month

Each month, the Allied Gardens Kiwanis club honors one student from Patrick Henry High School as the student of the month. To date, four students have been recognized for the 2014-15 school year. Congratulations to Tre Tyler, Carlee Anderson, Chris Berkoben and Huyen Danh! These students have distinguished themselves as school leaders and give back to the community in a variety of ways. PHHS is proud of their accomplishments.

CyberPatriot Competition by Ian Rodney

The final scores for the Category/Regional CyberPatriot VII Rounds were posted and overall, the PHHS Navy Junior ROTC program did quite well for this expansion year, even though the top PHHS team did not advance as one of the two Navy teams to the finals as they did last year.

They made it into the Platinum Tier semifinals and ultimately ended up placing fifth for all NJROTC programs in the country and were only nine points away from third place and 13 points away from a trip to the finals. The team was 19th overall in the “All Services” Division — a division that started out with over 1000 teams competing nationwide. After the first two rounds, the teams were placed into one of three tiers based on rankings from the two rounds of competition: Platinum, Gold or Silver.

Two new PHHS teams earned a spot in the Gold Tier and were part of six Navy JROTC teams advancing to the Regional Finals. PHHS was proud to have one of their teams, Razak’s, place 1st and another, Lolly’s, place 3rd out of all the NJROTC teams competing in the Gold Tier. In addition, Razaks team placed second overall in the Gold Tier (All Service Division). These are very exciting results for the two new PHHS teams and one returning team from last year. This has been a fantastic year for the PHHS NJROTC Cyber-Patriot Program!

To get to this point, the team competed in four, six-hour competitions (hosted by generous team members’ families who gave up their homes on the weekend), attended two out-of-school practice rounds and participated in weekly lunch meetings. In addition, the more successful cadets devoted hours of personal time to learn and further develop their skills by reading CyberPatriot training materials, researching security auditing techniques, applying their skills on Ubuntu and Windows Virtual Machines and completing modules in the Cisco Networking Academy. PHHS coaches developed thorough checklists providing a detailed roadmap of the main vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the operating systems for Windows and other applications.

In looking at the scores from the season, the strongest areas for all three teams were Linux and Networking. Both subjects were introduced to cadets just this year. The weakest areas were the Windows Workstation & Server Images. In the Platinum Tier Semi-Finals, PHHS had the highest Linux and Networking scores out of the NJROTC teams. In the Gold Tier, two PHHS teams had the top five scores in networking. PHHS now knows what they need to work on for the Mayor’s Cup later next month, and they can prepare for the CyberPatriot VIII competition in the fall.