On Friday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released an update to their Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools through Phased Prevention. Some key changes:

On Saturday, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued an update to their January 14 guidance. The state’s updated guidance strongly recommends distancing of at least three feet for students in classrooms. The updated guidance also renders all schools eligible to open if case rates are below 25 per 100,000 population. In all tiers, schools that have not yet opened must post their COVID Safety Plan online five days before reopening. In the purple tier, all schools must also submit their COVID Safety Plan to their local health officer and the State Safe Schools team concurrent with the online posting. 

Stanislaus County Health Services Agency, Public Health guidelines published in June 2020 actually reflected a three feet spacing recommendation that, at the time, was aligned to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Detector Building, 3rd, Nate Haynam & Matt Haynam

Machines, 4th, Zach Coughlin & Natalie Schultz

Protein Modeling, 2nd, Ashley Huh, Lilyane Stessman, and Jacqueline Maggard

Pitman High School had 14 students compete in 19 events, earning medals in 7 events and placing 5th overall in Stanislaus County in the Regional Science Olympiad competition.

April 24th will be a virtual Elementary Science Olympiad. There will be 17 events, some will be done via Zoom, like Mystery Architecture. Some will be via a link to a test. Others, the building events, catapult, paddleboat will be a video sent in for judging. This year is a participation-only year.

BULLDOG ATHLETIC UPDATE: WEEK OF MARCH 15-19

On Wednesday, the Turlock Girls Golf team finished their abbreviated season by playing against Pitman and Downey High Schools, at Dryden Golf in Modesto. The day was cool and cloudy, with the sun peeking through occasionally, yet providing the ladies a rain free event. Somehow, this season worked out, and the golfers only to only deal with 15 minutes of drizzle during the winter months.

The Bulldogs won the match, shooting a 243 followed by Pitman’s 270 and Downey’s 279. The 243 for Turlock was close to last week’s successful score of 241. The top four scorers (Ainslie Coughran, Sydney Streeter, Madi Mendes and Isabella Dowd) did a great job of keeping their scores close and low, setting the stage for the team to continue with their improvement and meeting goals. We are showing consistency along with small improvements, moving the team to a level that the program used to maintain or better, during their run of 15 consecutive league championships. We are on the right path and Coach Krupka is all smiles!

An unexpected transportation issue with visiting Downey forced Tuesday’s match to be postponed a week. The Knights are rescheduled to play here this Tuesday. On Thursday, the Bulldogs hosted Modesto’s reduced roster and fortunately beat the weather, finishing with an 8-1 score over the Panthers. 

CROSS COUNTRY by Coach Davison

Wednesday we competed in our final CCAL meet in Cross Country. This is a no glory sport. You slog those miles, mostly when no one is around to see just how hard it is. So, we are already inherently proud of anyone who signs up for this. But this year was a completely different set of challenges. This team took up the yoke like never before and gave us a season. Our Seniors:Adrian Gutierrez, Matt Haynam, Nate Haynam, Eric Hernandez, Segio Mazon, Ryan Meadows, Luiz Mendoza, Israel Valdivia, Fatima Chavez, Cynthia Varela, Lilyane Stessman, and Phoebe Santos put in a lot of lonely miles to stay ready. They gave life to our practices, merit to our meets, and spirit to our team. Ten of these young people have been with us for all four seasons of their high school career. They never complained about restrictions, rather joyfully followed any rule that allowed them to do what they do best…compete. We are proud beyond measure of them as athletes, but more importantly, as people! Our top juniors, Brody Vecchione, who won the varsity boys CCAL#, and up and coming Ryan Arias, Calvin Dorsey, and Julian Hernandez have big shoes to fill. For the lady dogs, Kylee Redman, Andrea Gonzalez, and Eliana Morena and Isabella Sanabria will carry the torch. Broddy Vecchione, Sergio Mazon and Eric Hernandez claimed the top 3 spots on Wed., while Cynthia Varela and Fatima Chavez were the one-two punch all season for the lady dogs.

Swim traveled to Enochs last week for their fourth of five CCAL meets. JV girls continued their winning streak with a 118-47 win over the Eagles while the JV Boys fell just short by a one-point margin, 81-82. On the varsity side, both squads remain unbeaten as the girls topped the Eagles 121-48 and the boys 118-50. 

It’s been roughly sixteen months since Joe Debley Stadium has hosted a football contest. On Friday the Bulldogs couldn’t have been more excited to see the yellow school bus arriving filled with Downey and the powder blue. While both sides were plagued by careless penalties, both squads were able to balance out the sloppy play with effective scoring. JV held the Knights scoreless, finishing the night with a 49-0 win while Varsity put up 56 points to Downey’s 24.  

Mon 3/22: Boys Golf @ TGCC 11 AM

Tue 3/23: Boys Tennis v Downey 3 PM (make-up from 3/16)

Fri 3/26: Swim v Pitman - 3:30PM

Varsity Football v Modesto - 4:30 PM @ Johansen HS stadium

JV Football @ Escalon