September-Back to School Again-The Four Tops

As everyone began to settle back into their school routine, I soon discovered one of my favorite things to do was to visit classrooms where I could interact with students, talk with teachers and see some of the cool things happening at Bozeman High.  Here are a few highlights of the first few weeks of school:

Bozeman High has an outstanding art program made up of five dedicated teachers-artists who work hard to cultivate students' creative sides.  In addition to traditional drawing and painting, BHS offers ceramics, graphic design, jewelery and more.











Here are some students in Advanced Placement Human Geography.  Over the summer, students had read Where Am I Eating? or Where and I Wearing? and now the authoer was a virtual guest speaker as students discussed key concepts from the book and their questions via Skype.







Students in Bio-Med classes begin the year with a CSI type crime scene to investigate.  When I stopped by they were analyzing footprint patterns and blood samples.  What an engaging way to capture students' attention on the first day of class.

  

Intro to engineering students were sketching block puzzles.  Over the course of the semester they'll not only create the puzzles in class, but test them on other students, and create packaging with targeted marketing strategies, all while learning the engineering behind each step.

  

While I would love to spend everyday going from class to class, I also had to keep up with all of the logistics of my new job.  While the book room shelves are getting emptier as students check out books, I had to make sure we had it staffed the first week so kids could pick up their textbooks.  I also had to order new books when we were short to ensure every student had the books they needed.  This also meant I had to check in each one, match it with the credit card receipt, give it a bar code and add it to our inventory. 
  


I also had to brush up on my seizure procedures because whenever a student has a seizure (this happens way more often than you would expect) admin is called to respond on the radios.  I needed to make sure I knew what to do if I was the first to respond.  This cheat sheet is a good reminder for all of us.



I also submitted our federal Perkins grant paperwork.  This is a grant from the federal government to support career and technical education programs.  It means tens of thousands of dollars for our school so I spent many hours training, researching, meeting, and preparing the grant paperwork.  

Many hours means lots of sparkling water for me! 

 
I've discovered that with my new job, I could easily spend 24 hours a day sitting on my computer and never get done all that I should do.  However, I also know that I need to get outside and get some fresh air!  I love walking by our creek that is in the process of being restored.  The first week of school, volunteers from Montana Conservation Corps spent several days planting new trees and shrubs, adding rocks, and laying new sod. 

I also spent time supervising games like soccer and volleyball. 

When I took the job as assistant principal, I didn't feel totally ready to give up my classroom side so I'm also teaching one class of Advanced Placement Government online for Montana Digital Academy.  This means that, in addition to all of the my work as AP, I'm also grading assignments like this each week.