Public School Capital Construction board adds its voice to the anti 60, 61 and 101 chorus

The public entities opposing Amendments 60, 61 and proposition 101 on the fall ballot keeps growing.

The state's Capital Construction Assistance Board for Building Excellent Schools Today program formally opposed the measures this week, joining  entities the Aurora Public Schools Board of Education, the Cherry Creek Schools Board of Education and the Aurora City Council.

The initiatives bound for the November ballot would severely limit tax levies, restrict local governments’ ability to borrow money and reduce the legal scope of bond projects across the state. School boards and city councils across the state are rallying to defeat the measures.

The BEST initiative is funded through the state land trust, lottery proceeds, matching grant funds and leftover money from previous grant programs.

The full release from BEST follows after the jump.

Cherry Creek Human Resources official receives award

The Colorado Association of School Personnel Administrators recently awarded Cherry Creek Schools District Human Resources Director Lyndal Brookhart with its 2009-10 Sandra Shreve Award for Excellence.

Since 1998, the CASPA has given the Shreve Award to human resources employees in the Colorado school system who make an outstanding contribution to education. Brookhart has taught classes in the Aurora Public Schools district as well as Prairie Middle School. She also served as the assistant principal at Heritage and Littleton high schools.

As the district’s human resources director, Brookhart oversees pay negotiations, arbitration, grievance proceedings and change management.

“I try to keep the ‘human’ element in mind and afford people dignity in difficult situations,” Brookhart said in a statement.

Brookhart is a member of the Cherry Creek Education Association, the Colorado Association of School Executives and other professional education associations across the state.

Adolescent behavior study

AURORA | Male adolescents who take drugs, get in fights and act out in other ways may be victims of faulty brain chemistry, according to a recently published study by researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

The study links antisocial and reckless behavior in adolescent boys to brain chemistry. Specifically, the study conducted by researchers at the Anschutz Medical Campus, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Maryland ties poor decisions to malfunctions in the brain.

The study drew on data gathered from 20 boys who had psychiatric diagnosis of conduct disorder or substance use disorder. The test subjects played a computerized risk-taking game that presented choices between cautious and risky behaviors. Researchers compared results with data from a group of 20 adolescent boys who had no serious antisocial or drug issues.

The results showed a marked difference in brain functions between the two groups.

“Brain responses to everyday rewards and punishments gradually guide most youngsters’ decisions to conform with society’s rules. However, when these seriously troubled kids experience rewards and punishments, and make decisions, their brains apparently malfunction,” said Thomas Crowley, a psychiatry professor at the School of Medicine and lead author on the study. “Our findings strongly suggest that brain malfunction underlies their frequent failure to conform to rules, to make wise decisions, and to avoid relapses back to drug use and antisocial acts.”

The study was funded in part by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Kane Family Foundation of Colorado Springs. The findings were published in the online journal Public Library of Science One.

Aurora High Schools set to participate in national cyber security contest

Four schools in the Aurora Public Schools district will take part in a national cyber security competition organized by Northrop Grumman and the Washington-based Air Force Association.

Aurora Central, Hinkley and Rangeview high schools, along with Pickens Technical College, have registered for the CyberPatriot contest, a national cyber security contest that offers winners college scholarships and a free trip to Washington, D.C. Teams of five students and one coach from the high schools will participate in online scenarios where they will defend a computer network from real-life computer threats.

Finalists will participate in further online scenarios, and the top teams will then continue to Championship Round to be held next year at the Gaylord National Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Applications for the CyberPatriot competition will be accepted until Oct. 8. For more information, log on to CyberPatriot at www.afa.org/CyberPatriot.