South metro school briefs: Carleton senior wins Churchill Award

Carleton senior wins Churchill AwardMichael Coughlin, a senior at Carleton College in Northfield and the son of Burnsville City Council Member William Coughlin, has been awarded a scholarship to earn a master's degree at the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University in England.

Coughlin is the only student from a Minnesota school to earn the national Churchill Scholarship, presented by the Winston Churchill Foundation of the United States.

It is worth between $45,000 and $50,000 and covers all fees. In addition, Churchill scholars receive a living allowance of up to about $17,000, depending on the length of their program.

Coughlin is the fifth Carleton student to receive the Churchill scholarship. A mathematics and physics major, he has focused his undergraduate research on gravitational waves, using data from observatories in the United States and Italy to research the accuracy of various models of gravitational wave emissions.

His long-term goals include earning a Ph.D. in physics/astrophysics and working at a NASA facility or a national laboratory as an experimental physicist investigating cutting-edge problems in astrophysics and cosmology, utilizing new technologies to explore the universe.

Coughlin has participated in summer research projects at the Virgo Gravitational Wave Detector in Italy and at the California Institute of Technology, as well as undergraduate research at the University of Minnesota. He's also organized a research group at Carleton, mentoring younger students. And he has authored three and co-authored seven scientific journal articles.

Fewer days in class may mean more targeted instructionSuperintendent Jane Berenz of the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School District is proposing to add a couple of summer days to teacher workloads for them to do student assessments.

If the changes are approved at a March 12 meeting, the school year would end two days earlier for elementary students and teachers -- on June 5 instead of June 7 -- in exchange for the work time that would be added to the summer.

The individual assessment meetings would be scheduled for sometime during the two to three weeks before the first day of school. While students are meeting with their teacher, their parent or guardian would complete permission forms and other paperwork that must be submitted to the school each year.

The other proposed change to the 2012-13 calendar would affect levels K-12. The change would convert three days of school to days for teachers to analyze student achievement data, collaborate with colleagues and align their instruction. These days of no school for students would be in the middle of each trimester to provide time for data review at regular intervals in the year.

In January, the school board approved a similar change to the calendar for the current school year, making March 9 a day for data analysis and instructional alignment. As a result, March 9 will be a day of no school for all District 196 students.

The 2012-13 school calendar, as approved by the board a year ago, has 174 days of instruction for students. If three days of school are converted to data analysis and instructional alignment days for teachers, that would leave 171 days of instruction, the same number as last year's average for school districts statewide.

Education Minnesota, the union that represents 70,000 teachers statewide, organizes and underwrites the state's Teacher of the Year program.

A 22-member committee of community leaders will name semifinalists and then finalists for the 48th annual award. The Teacher of the Year recipient will be announced May 6 during a ceremony in Brooklyn Park.