West metro school briefs

Dream Makers hosts dinner fundraiser The Minnetonka Public Schools Foundation's seventh annual Dream Makers dinner, "A Taste of Tonka," is scheduled for Feb. 6 at the Bloomington Sheraton Hotel, 7800 Normandale Blvd.

Food will be provided by several local restaurants, and silent and live auctions are planned. The event will have a casual "Jeans and Jewels" theme.

Tickets are $60.

Over the past six years, Dream Makers has raised more than $850,000 in support of local education.

For more information, go to the foundation's website at www.minnetonkafoundation .com or call 952-401-5040.

Providence Academy takes first in quiz bowl The eighth-grade team from Providence Academy in Plymouth came out on top in the 17th annual Catholic Grade Schools Quiz Bowl competition at the University of St. Thomas.

The team is made up of Lila Anderson from Minnetonka, Brendon Boldt from Plymouth, JP Daughtery from Buffalo and Rachael Maguire from Hamel, with Rachael Onserio from Maple Grove and Patrick Buehler from Maple Plain as alternates.

The event is sponsored by local Catholic High Schools. Matches began at 9 a.m. and concluded at 3 p.m., with 48 schools participating. Each team answered 40 to 50 questions in each series of competition, and the final round was held in the auditorium in front of a crowd of more than 250 people.

Educators win awards for use of technology Mary Jo Lang and Mary Klempke, media specialists at Bloomington's Oak Grove Middle School and Washburn Elementary, have been named TIES Exceptional Teachers for 2009.

They received the honors at the recent 2009 TIES Education Technology Conference. TIES is an education technology consortium of 39 Minnesota school districts.

The awards recognize educators who model the best practices available in using technology in the classroom and engaging students in learning.

Lang was an integral planner in the district's Model Media Center, which incorporated technology as a key tool in the research process. She is also involved in piloting a one-to-one laptop computer project at Oak Grove Middle School.

Volunteers help feed Dominican Republic More than 700 volunteers gathered last week at the International School of Minnesota to pack 285,000 meals for families in the Dominican Republic as part of the school's ISM Against Hunger project.

The meals will fill a 21-ton industrial shipping container and provide nourishment for thousands of families. A team of 15 ISM high school students will deliver the meals to the Dominican Republic in June and complete a second service project.

The school coordinated the project through Minneapolis-based ImpactLives. The 14-hour packing event last Friday was the culmination of two months of fundraising efforts that involved nearly all of the school's 600 students from preschool through grade 12, as well as teachers, parents, other school staff and local companies.