Student Resources

Meet Your Art Teacher

Ms. Candace Brush

My teaching career began six years ago as a teaching artist at a summer camp in Baltimore City. From day one, I enjoyed seeing students being able to express themselves through art and knew I wanted to make teaching art a full time career. My husband and I have three daughters at home and a big fur baby named Mac. I love spending time with my family as well as in the garden, painting and reading. My favorite food is beef stroganoff and anything related to chocolate, I also like to start everyday with coffee. Blue is my absolute favorite color.

Meet Your Music Teacher

Ms. White has been teaching for over 20 years and loves playing music and singing with her students!

Reading Tips

The following tips are shared via the U.S. Department of Education:

Simple Strategies for Creating Strong Readers

Without doubt, reading with children spells success for early literacy. Putting a few simple strategies into action will make a significant difference in helping children develop into good readers and writers.

Through reading aloud, providing print materials, and promoting positive attitudes about reading and writing, you can have a powerful impact on children’s literacy and learning.

• Invite a child to read with you every day.
• When reading a book where the print is large, point word by word as you read. This will help the child learn that reading goes from left to right and understand that the word he or she says is the word he or she sees.
• Read a child’s favorite book over and over again.
• Read many stories with rhyming words and lines that repeat. Invite the child to join in on these parts. Point, word by word, as he or she reads along with you.
• Discuss new words. For example, “This big house is called a palace. Who do you think lives in a palace?”
• Stop and ask about the pictures and about what is happening in the story or text.
• Read from a variety of children’s books, including fairy tales, song books, poems, and information books.
• Read aloud to your child to help improve their fluency. You can even share reading a book: You read a few lines/pages and then they read a few lines/pages.

Reading well is at the heart of all learning. Children who can’t read well, can’t learn. Help make a difference for a child.

Service-Learning

The Maryland State Department of Education defines service-learning as a high-impact instructional approach that combines meaningful service to the community with curriculum-based learning. It is a form of civic education that provides students with diverse opportunities to explore and reflect on what it means to be active, engaged citizens. Some service-learning experiences are embedded within the curriculum of certain courses, while others are completed independently by students outside of instructional time.  

Queen Anne’s County Public Schools promotes high-quality service-learning experiences for all students to help them become active participants in making a difference in their community. Students who successfully complete 75 hours of service-learning experiences in Queen Anne’s County Public Schools will meet the Maryland State Department of Education graduation requirement.

To learn more about how service-learning is different from community service, volunteerism, and an internship, please click HERE (Google Doc). All are important ways to give back to your community, but they are not all the same.

All Service-Learning experiences must include all three Core Components and all of Maryland’s Seven Best Practices.  

The Three Core Components of Service-Learning – Academic Preparation, Service Action, and Structured Reflection – provide the foundational structure of every service-learning experience. All service-learning experiences, whether embedded within the curriculum or completed independently, must include all Three Core Components.  

• The Academic Preparation component should be intentionally designed to ensure students are ready to engage in service action that is informed, appropriate, and effective. Preparation may occur at multiple points throughout a service-learning experience as students’ understanding deepens.
• During the Service Action component, students engage in purposeful, personally relevant service that meets a recognized community need. Students should spend the majority of their total service-learning time engaged in service action through direct, indirect, and/or advocacy service.
• The Structured Reflection component should be differentiated to support diverse learners and to ensure equitable access across grade levels and learning needs. Students may use multiple reflection strategies within a single project, select different strategies across projects, or choose approaches different from those used by peers.

Maryland’s Seven Best Practices of Service-Learning function as tools that guide the design and implementation of service-learning experiences across the Three Core Components. The presence of all Seven Best Practices defines a high-quality service-learning experience that meets MSDE guidelines.   All service-learning experiences, whether embedded within the curriculum or completed independently, must demonstrate all of Maryland’s Seven Best Practices of Service-Learning.

Maryland’s Seven Best Practices include:

• Identify and Meet an Authentic Community Need
• Plan Ahead for Service-Learning 
• Acquire Knowledge and Skills Needed for Service 
• Develop Initiative and Responsibility 
• Collaborate with Community Organizations 
• Achieve Curricular Objectives Through Service-Learning 
• Reflect Throughout the Service-Learning Experience

Throughout Maryland, students can use a combination of embedded and independent service-learning experiences to meet the 75-hour graduation requirement.  In Queen Anne’s County Public Schools, students can earn their 75 hours through embedded experiences starting in grade 5.

Elementary School

At the elementary level, students will complete one embedded Service-Learning project in grade 5 earning 15 hours.  These experiences are embedded in ELA, social studies, and science blocks.

Middle School

At the middle level, students in grades 6, 7, and 8 will complete one embedded project (earning 15 hours) each year. These three middle school projects satisfy 45 additional Service-Learning hours. Students who began their Service-Learning experiences in elementary school can enter high school with four completed projects and 60 of the 75 Service-Learning hours required for graduation. Service-learning experiences in the middle level are embedded in ELA and science classes.

High School

In high school, students complete at least one more embedded project (for an additional 15 hours) to earn the required 75 Service-Learning hours for graduation. These experiences are embedded in ELA, social studies, science, visual arts, and CTE/ Carpentry classes as well as through various clubs such as the Spanish Club and the Interact Club.

Samples of embedded projects can be found HERE (Google Doc).

At the end of each marking period, student service-learning hours will be updated and added to the report card.

When students complete at least 75 hours of approved Service-Learning by the end of 8th grade year, they will be recognized at a QACPS School Board of Education Meeting.  When students complete at least 150 hours of approved Service-Learning by the end of 12th grade, they will be recognized at a QACPS School Board meeting and wear an honor cord during graduation.

Service-Learning in Queen Anne’s County Public Schools

Service-Learning in Maryland (MSDE, external site)

For more information, please contact your school’s Service-Learning Coordinators:

An effective school health program places emphasis on prevention, case finding, early intervention, and remediation of health problems. This is an important benefit to students from both health and educational perspectives. Equally important is the focus on health promotion through individual and group education, health counseling and efforts to provide a healthy and safe environment.  

The nurses at QACPS also provide services to students with a specific diagnosis and special health needs. Diabetes, asthma, spina bifida, seizures, allergies that require EpiPens, and gastric tube feedings are just a few of the diagnoses and treatments performed in schools each day. Our goal is to maintain or improve a student’s health in order to prepare or enable the student to learn and benefit from the educational program.

Meet Your School Nurse

Ms. Snoberger always dreamed of being a school nurse! She encourages students and parents to reach out with any questions – her door is always open!