Terence Maguire, principal at All Saints Catholic School, challenged students to reach new heights this year in their annual penny drive to benefit food banks.

They rose to the challenge, raising more than $4,000 between the school’s two campuses in Fife and Puyallup. Tuesday was payback time: Principal Maguire promised he’d spend the day atop the roof of the school’s main campus in downtown Puyallup if kids surpassed the fundraising goal. Fortunately, the sun was out as Maguire greeted students,  held meetings and worked on his laptop (and his tan) from on high.

Money raised will go to the Fife …

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University of Washington Tacoma professor Charles Emlet has been selected as a Fulbright visiting research chair in science and the environment at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. He is the sixth UWT faculty member selected as a Fulbright scholar.

Emlet was granted the award for his project that will examine the experiences of older, HIV-positive Canadians. His work will be conducted during the 2012-13 academic year.

He joined the UWT faculty in the university’s social work program in 1999.

Lincoln High School in Tacoma recently celebrated “signing day” for graduating seniors heading off to college and careers. More than 100 parents, community members and school officials attended. The event was created to help create a “college-going culture” at the high-poverty school.

High school seniors in The Evergreen State College Upward Bound program will be honored Wednesday, May 16, at the Evergreen Tacoma campus. The event begins at 5 p.m.

Many of the 80 seniors in the program joined it as eighth-graders. The program is aimed at low-income and first-generation college-bound students enrolled in Tacoma Public Schools and at Chief Leschi High School. It offers college preparation classes, workshops and a summer program that allows students to take classes and live in college residence halls.

This fall, Upward Bound students from Lincoln, Foss, Mount Tahoma, Stadium and Chief Leschi high schools will …

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Pierce College has been selected to join the Achieving the Dream National Reform Network.

Pierce joins with 15 other colleges in Washington and 200 nationally that are working on strategies to help close the achievement gap for minority students and increase college completion rates.

Parents Across America Tacoma will sponsore a screening of the documentary “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman” at 7 p.m. May 17 at King’s Books in Tacoma. The book store is at 218 St. Helen’s Ave.

The film was created by New York City parents and teachers as a response to the movie “Waiting for Superman.”

27^th Legislative District Rep. Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, will lead a discussion after the movie. A non-perishable food donation, a cash donation for the film’s creators or a book purchase from King’s will admit you to the movie viewing.

The film shares stories of …

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Prompted by concerns voiced by parents, the Tacoma School Board took another crack at the school calendar for the next two school years.

In April, the board approved calendars for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years. But board members asked for changes to one week in March of both years.

That week had originally scheduled two early-release days for elementary school parent conferences and one day off for all students for a teacher training day.

Under the calendars adopted Thursday by the board, the teacher training day has been moved from March to the day after the January Martin Luther …

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Washington state eighth graders in public schools scored higher than the national average in the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) science test, according to the latest results from 2011 testing.

The NAEP, often referred to as the nation’s report card, is overseen by the U.S. Department of Education. NAEP administers tests in various subjects to nationwide samples of students in grades 4, 8 and 12. NAEP does not provide scores for individual students or schools.

In 2011, the average Washington eighth-grade science score was 156, just above the national average of 151. But Washington students also scored well in the 2009 …

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