RACINE - The Racine Unified School District Board of Education have recognized some outstanding achievements of students and staff members throughout the district. The first order of business was to have a moment of silence in honor of Case High School teacher Dean Pettit, who passed away before Christmas.

The recognition period then honored Dr. Ronda Ewald, director of Project Cape; Christine Gajewski, Mitchell Middle School eighth-grade literacy teacher; and Lori Sue Pelk, directing principal of McKinley Middle School; and the school's assistant principals, Rosalie Daca and Dr. Richard Larson.

These educators were honored for their work in professional learning communities funded through Project Cape. The One Book, One School Program and a class lending library are just a few of the projects that are a direct result of the hard work put forth by them.

Angela Ress Apmann, directing principal of Horlick High School; and Gayle Titus, directing principal of Knapp Elementary School, were also honored by the board for earning their 10-year Master Educator license.

The principals developed a portfolio that showed mastery of the state's educator standards, which is a process that takes two years to complete.

The portfolio includes work samples, evidence of exemplary practice and other supporting information that documents the educators' contributions to student achievement and their profession.

The board also honored the outstanding accomplishments of Starbuck Middle School students who recently took part in the Fluid Power Engineering Challenge. The students competed against other schools from Wisconsin and Illinois and received several awards. During the challenge, the students were asked to design and build fluid power mechanisms for picking an object from one platform, rotating and placing it on another platform.

Teams were evaluated on the number of pick-and-place cycles a school's machine completed, as well as a review of each teams design, portfolio and teamwork.

Nol Luigi Enriquez, Victoria Jensen, Michael Kelly and ZaDonius Morris all took first place in the overall championship.

Steve Burton, Modesto Cruz, Curtis Rondeau and Nicole Woodard were second place overall champions.

Cassandra Rohleder, David Ross, Aaron Salvo and Sean Waiss all won first place in the portfolio championship; and Jacob Knotek, Samuel Bieneman, Du Kim and Denise Mohrbacher earned second place.

The board also honored Starbuck Middle School staff members who helped the students during the course of the challenge: Jim Davidson, technology education teacher; and school counselor Clarence Allen.