education in brief

Board Picks Leadership

The county School Board has elected Ilryong Moon (At Large) as chairman and Brad Center (Lee District) as vice chairman for this year.

The chairman and vice chairman are elected by board members at the first regular business meeting of the year. They serve for a year.

Moon, a partner in the law firm Moon, Park and Associates in Annandale, has served on the board since 2004. He also was a School Board member from 1995 to 1999.

Center is a senior program-business development manager for Karta Technologies Inc. and has been on the board since 2004.

Help With College Planning

A free college planning workshop for families is scheduled for 7:30 to 9:45 p.m. Wednesday in Annandale.

The workshop, at Little River United Church of Christ, will address strategies that high school juniors and seniors and their families can use to improve the students' chances of getting accepted by colleges. Topics will include the importance of academics, volunteer and other extracurricular activities, getting the most out of a college visit, how to obtain good recommendations, and selecting an essay topic for college applications.

The workshop will be presented by educator Jackie Shaffer, who is the parent of a freshman at Wake Forest University, and Shirley Bloomquist, an independent college counselor and former administrator at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in the Alexandria area.

The church is at 8410 Little River Tpk. For more information or to RSVP, call 703-978-3060.

How to Motivate Students

A professional speaker will talk about how parents can motivate students and help them be organized at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Herndon High School.

The speech by Jay Little is aimed at parents of students in fifth through 12th grades, but anyone can attend, according to a news release.

Little is a facilitator and trainer who provides professional development and management services to organizations in private industry and the public sector, the news release said. He is a frequent speaker for business, nonprofit, academic, community, association and government organizations.

Little's appearance is sponsored by the Greater Herndon Community Coalition. The talk is in the lecture hall at Herndon High, which is at 700 Bennett St.