Wednesday, January 6, 2016

January-I'll Tell the World-Eric Hutchinson

Each year every school in the district is asked to host the School Board for lunch to give them an idea of what is happening at the school.  It's a time to share data on student learning as well as what other initiatives or programs are happening in the school.

As soon as we were back from winter break, the School Board visited us on Tuesday.  They ate lunch in the cafeteria so they could see what the school lunch offerings are like.  During lunch they spent time talking with students.

Lunch was followed by dessert provided by our Pro-Start students.  These students are interested in going into the hospitality field and they learn professional standards for cooking, serving, planning, etc.  They do an amazing job of catering many events around the building to gain experience of what life is like as a professional chef.  Their food is always amazing as you can see by the photos which were just two of the many dessert offerings they provided.  I was bummed they ran out of Avocado pudding, it looked so good!
 

Kevin, our principal, provided some data about closing the achievement gap at BHS.  Generally speaking the achievement gap is referring to the gap between the performance of white students and minorities.  In Bozeman we don't have a lot of minorities but we do have a fairly significant gap in the performance of average students and economically disadvantaged students.

Art teachers presenting different aspects of their program.
Finally, the art program at BHS was showcased.  I have talked about the amazing things this department does on my blog in the past, but it was great to see them able to share the exciting opportunities students have to express their creative sides.  From the professional art gallery (pictured) to graphic design to jewelry to connections at MSU to the Bridger Program to university style classes, BHS students certainly have the opportunity to receive a well round education.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

December-Step Into Christmas-Elton John

Faculty ready to dance!

I love the week before Winter Break.  The halls are festive, everyone is a bit more cheerful than usual, people seem to take more time to appreciate each other, there are cool things happening in classrooms, the art department hosts their annual jewelry sale and the week culminates in the Bozeman High talent show in which students display all kids of cool talents, and the faculty always does a sweet dance routine.

One of my favorite things this week is that the early morning orchestra classes set up by various doors around the school and play holiday music as everyone is entering the building.  The impact this has on the tone of the school is remarkable.







Participating in the chestnut toss as part of the Latin class' Saturnalia celebration.  I learned during this time the slaves wore red hats and were treated as equals with their masters.
  

Bozeman High hosts a professional art gallery and this year, the art teachers have displayed their own work.  It was so impressive and also such a great motivator for art students to see their teachers' art.




Geography classes were studying urban development patterns and guessing cities based on ethnic patterns, this game was hard!!
 

The World Language classes host a multicultural holiday festival the last day before break.  Each class learns a verse of "Silent Night" and they sing it in a round so it changes from Spanish to Latin to French to German, it was beautiful.



 

December-Just Another Day-John Mellencamp

Meetings. classes, meetings, email, presentations, meetings-that seems to sum up my schedule in the last few weeks before the winter break. Every other week the district administrators come together to discuss big picture policy decisions, procedural updates, and leadership moments.




Class highlights:

Advanced Placement U.S. History classes had created interactive presentations on cultural interest topics of the pre-Civil War era.  Not only did students have to learn about the architecture of the time, but then they had to compete to create certain characteristics with Legos.  Other students were playing a game to review terms they needed to know for the A.P exam.



Advanced Auto students were self directed as they worked on individual projects.  Their knowledge was impressive!



French students created a memorial for the November terrorist attacks in Paris.



A math class practiced graphing while also learning the locations of the different Reservations in Montana.



Bio-Med and AP Human Geography students collaborated for a project on infectious diseases.  Bio-Med students provided the background on various diseases and created PSA's about their prevention while the AP Human Geo students presented information about the impact the diseases have sociologically and economically in different parts of the world.







In the meantime, I was also helping our admin team present annual school data to the School Board.

Getting calls at 5 in the morning because some pipes burst and were flooding a parking lot (luckily it wasn't a major problem and was taken care of by the time I woke up and heard the message),
 

inviting students to participate in a motivational speaker opportunity and watching this speaker get everyone in the gym to hold hands,


answering emails,

listening to presentations on the effectiveness of different programs in the school, 
 

appreciating working for someone who takes the time to say thank you to the staff (and enjoying eating Kevin's wife's amazing caramel popcorn!),

 and getting peanut butter on my clothes because I eat breakfast on the run (this was pointed out to me by a student at about 10am :) 









November-Thank You-Dido

Thanksgiving is always a good time to take a few moments and appreciate all that we have.  Our Choir programs host a Candlelight concert where students sing for guests as they enjoy a variety of desserts.






The Bridger Alternative Program does a full Thanksgiving dinner for students during lunch on the last day before break and teachers and administrators serve the students.  It was a wonderful community building event.















During "No Shave November" our school raised hundreds of dollars for a school custodian recovering from heart surgery.  Female teachers could participate by creating a "craft" beard.  This was my favorite, it was seasonal and school spirited!


During our November in service day, the admin team hosted a breakfast for teachers to show our appreciation for all they do.



November-We Are the Champions-Queen

Students rushing the field after the win
Pep assembly to celebrate fall sports
Bozeman is known for strong academics, an variety of programs to serve students, exceptional extra-curricular programs like speech and music, and also strong sports teams.  So strong in fact that every single fall sport finished in the top three except for one with four teams winning their state championship.  The football teams win at the end of November was the final jewel in a stellar fall sports season.

 
 


I think I'm busy, but I'm nowhere near as busy as our athletic director.  He is at school at the crack of dawn everyday and I still see him there running a fork lift and moving bleachers between fields at ten at night.  On the day of the State championship game he was plowing the fields to remove the snow as it kept accumulating in addition to making sure the stands were set up, the lines were visible and everything was ready for the game.

supervising in the stands when it was about 5 degrees-brr!
 

November-Overwhelmed-Rachel Platten


By the end of October, I was starting to realize how much I had to do and how little time I had each day to actually get things done.  Needless to say, I got really overwhelmed.  So much so that I ended up making a mind map to help me keep track of all of the things I needed to do.  To give you some context, this list was for about a two week time period.  Here are some of the things that kept me busy:

my lunch once a week-today's topping=salsa
Serving on the Superintendent's Commission on School Lunch and Nutrition Programs.  This committee has been very interesting.  Each week we meet during lunch to have school lunch.  Most of the time I have to have lettuce with random toppings because most school lunches are not gluten free.
  


I was part of an accreditation team who visited Flathead High School to determine whether or not they should receive state accreditation.  It was so fun to visit another school and see how they do things and bring back ideas for Bozeman High.  We also had to complete 10+ hours of online training and meetings in order to participate in the trip.  Flathead had such a great school climate and culture, hopefully we can implement some ideas at BHS.


online training
eating lunch and working on the accreditation report
 

Flathead had an amazing sense of community and school spirit
 



Since I'm in charge of technology at BHS, I attended a STEM Mentor Summit.  The goal of this event was to inspire more women to explore STEM fields and the information was pretty interesting.  I thought back to the Intro to Engineering class I visited in September in which there were four girls compared to about 24 boys.

 


In my spare time, I was also preparing to present and participate at the annual National Council for Social Studies conference in New Orleans.
          

And there are always more books coming in.  Not only are we still receiving new books to hand out to students (in November!!) but also by this time some students are moving or dropping and new students are always coming in so I'm still dealing with books for a least a little while each week.  I started to jokingly say that by the time I get everyone a book, it will be second semester and time to check in the first semester books and check out second semester books so it will start all over.








Of course I was still getting into as many classrooms as possible each day, here are some highlights from those visits:


 Practicing vocabulary and conversational language skills by creating sentences about their families in French classes.

Playing Financial Fued, a Family Fued type game, in Personal Finance.  This class offers so much important information for students it's sad to think it's just an elective and not every student will gain this important knowledge about budgeting, checking accounts, retirement planning, credit cards, and investments.  This class was a good reminder that sometimes the best thing to do is just laugh with your students.  I ended up laughing to hard I had to leave the room!



World Geography students were participating in a role playing simulation dealing with immigration.  Each student was either an immigrant, or an immigration officer and it was interesting to see them interact as they acted out their roles and determined who was allowed into the country based on refugee status.


Students in a U.S. history class had created patriotic displays as part of their recent unit on American historical culture.



I especially liked this one created in Minecraft






The Intro to Teaching class was visited by Lieutenant Governor Angela McLean who was a former social studies teacher.  I was so impressed by the questions the students asked.



These Spanish II classes were in the middle of an art unit.  Each student had selected a piece of art and was explaining the history and background of the piece, describing the piece, and explaining how it made them feel-all in Spanish!  Students took notes as they learned about different pieces of art in small groups.


 

One day I was walking down the hall on the way back to my office (after delivering books) and I heard a lot of activity from a science classroom.  It looked and sounded fun so I poked my head in and saw Biology students building glucose molecules.  I ended up staying and joining in the class as they discussed glucose and diabetes.
 


These German students were participating in several stations to help them practice and assess their language skills.  Each station had a different focus and students were actively engaged all period.  I even got to join in the Bingo game, thanks to Google translate on my phone :)

 




With all of this going on, I try to remind myself it's still important to take time for the little things and a few laughs.  Here is a piece of the Bozeman High professional art collection that I enjoy seeing outside my office.  And here I am with the photo teacher as we competed in a rap-off skit for a Hawk tv segment.

 


And when fire alarms keep going off all day, I am now expected to know how to deal with that.  There are always so many things to learn!!