Roosevelt and Camelot students joined forces for a successful Manny Peña Academic Field Day on Tuesday, Nov. 13. Third, fourth, and fifth-grade students took part in various academic activities that were broken into more than a dozen stations. Students from Roosevelt’s gifted and talented (GT) program took on the task of planning the lessons and preparing the materials.
“We looked at the TEKS that are for Texas and we applied it to different games or math activities,” said Roosevelt GT student, Rylee Huffington.
Members of the Practicum of Education and Training class at Roosevelt visit Camelot every Tuesday and Thursday to serve as classroom teacher assistants. This class is offered through the District’s CTE program and also allows the students to be members of Texas Association of Future Educators (TAFE).
“The Academic Field Day serves as a readiness course to help the students with their STARR objectives,” said Nathan Smith of the Practicum of Education Training class at Roosevelt. “Hopefully they can go into the test knowing more than they would have.”
This year the Academic Field Day was renamed in honor of Manny Peña, a Roosevelt student who passed away over the summer. Manny’s dream was to work in education and he was one of the student leaders who founded the Academic Field Day at Camelot the year before.
“It is exciting to see that Manny’s legacy lives on,” said Manny’s older sister, Sandra Peña. “This is what he always wanted to do and we (the family) are overwhelmed by the generosity of the District and the school for honoring him in this way.”
