Did You Know from Principal Sherry Hingley

• We have successfully completed another school year.
• 170 days of instruction in 13 different grades are now history.
• It was a good year with many students busy with projects and individual accomplishments.
• May 21st - 9 seniors graduated.
• Several seniors received scholarships:
• Kristy Gallien – Jack Hopkins scholarship KPEA scholarship
• Jordan Geagel – Jack Hopkins scholarship
• Oren Kroll – SNA scholarship - Laborer Apprenticeship
• Katie O’Leary – Elks scholarship – UA scholar
• May 21st - 4 eighth graders moved into high school.
  
  The school building is taking a big sigh of relief – all the students and teachers are checked out and now there is paperwork, planning and cleaning to be done before we can think about starting over in the fall. We will keep you posted with changes for the upcoming year, staffing, curriculum, etc. Thanks to everyone for your time, effort and contributions to Susan B. English School. It takes a community! Have a great summer! Read! Do some math! Explore your world!

New!    View pdf on Travel Rules for Students

ARE YOU READY FOR SUMMER?

Kenai Peninsula Schools Film Festival showing at the Homer Theatre April 29. A film called “The Normal Day” was created by Quest students Aidan Philpot, Olivia Turner, Riley Alston, and Patience Raby. Pictured are Quest teacher Mindy Hunter, Aidan Philpot, Riley Alston, teacher Holly Alston, and Patience Raby.

Here are the teams that participated in the Seward Math Bowl. One team, the Mathaletes, consisted of Brittany Sparks, Tim Haller, and Patience Raby.

The Powerful Powers team had Robert Sparks, Riley Alston, Dylan Waterbury, and Thor Burt. It was a fun and challenging competition. Mrs. Alston was the teams’ coach and Mr. Clint Raby came to help chaperone. Maggie Alston attended as a spectator.

On May 9, 2009 at Susan B. English School, I was able to see my ideas come to life! It all started with an idea Mrs. Zinszer and I had about putting on a fashion show. Mrs. Zinszer suggested a fashion show because I was interested in fashion, make- up, and hair design and she thought it would help me down the road. The idea grew into a challenging project.

I was nervous to ask Mrs. Hingley if I could do it, but that was the first thing I had to do. Luckily, she thought it was an excellent idea. Next, I had to write letters asking for help! I had to ask Wild Celery designers to share clothes, back stage helpers to get everything ready, SBE Booster Club and Lisa O’Leary to make deserts, and find models brave enough to be on stage. I learned a lot about fashion shows by researching and talking with Ila Dillon. The hardest parts were holding a fitting to see what models could wear, holding rehearsal, and organizing the entire show. The rehearsal was the most difficult because I had to tell the models how to show off their items, how to walk, how long to stay on stage, and when to go on stage. Mrs. Hingley’s art class showed their work also. It was cool to see everyone’s different types of art all in one place!

This project helped me in many ways. I had to read, write, research, and organize in order to pull this off. Because fashion and design is something I am interested in, this project convinced me that reading, writing, researching, and organizing are important skills for life. I used to think that I could never accomplish a project this big. Now I feel like I can do anything. This project helped me learn not to doubt myself. If you are a student who has a good idea, you should not doubt yourself. You should ask Mrs. Zinszer to help- don’t let your ideas go to waste.

I would like to thank all of the models and designers, especially Ila Dillon, Nichole Bouchard, Deidre Cameron, Sandy Geagel, Rob Rurka, Renee Purpura, Mrs. Hingley, Lisa O’Leary, and the SBE Booster Club. Also, thank you to the community for coming to my show. I could have never done it without all of you!

The following photos were taken by Byron McCord - who graciously provided them for the paper! Thanks Byron!

From Seldovia's own School Secretary - Sandy Geagel

Tri-Schools Academy was a success!  This was the first time this school has explored the area of using Workforce Development Skills in a two week concentrated session. 

Construction skills, chemistry and science at Kasitna Bay, on line classes in Serve Safe and OSHA with students receiving a certification on completion of courses, First Aid certification course on top of keeping up with their US History, Alaska Studies, Rosetta Stone Foreign Language and Language Arts classes held at the school. 

Special thanks to all the guest speakers from:  Job Center Employability, National Park Service Careers, Saturday and Sunday leadership workshop sponsored by the State School Board Association, Wells Fargo in Budget, Saving & Banking, and Tim Dillon, City Manager.  

 Many thanks to Parents/Grandparents who provided desserts and fresh fruit for the Nanwalek students and staff, the teachers (Nanwalek and Seldovia) working extra hours to accommodate the hours needed for the students to be granted a half credit.

Mrs. Bornheimer and her home ec skills taught during clean up in the kitchen after dinners, Seldovia Bible Chapel for use of the van to haul students to and from Kasitna Bay and around during the weekend of Prom.  Mrs. Bornheimer and Mrs. Hingley for use of their vehicles for all the trips back and forth to Kasitna Bay for staff and supplies.  Seldovia Village Tribe for the use of their van to bring students back from Kasitna Bay.  B&G Club for opening the club to our visitors, Dede Higman for pottery and Lifeguards; Matthew and Katrina for those extra swim nights.   MANY, MANY thanks to everyone that made this program a SUCCESS!!!

From Nanwalek Principal, Cheryl Schweigert

Nanwalek School and the Village Council joins Seldovia in celebrating the first completion of a Workforce Development Academy during an intense two weeks of the regular school year requiring double-duty from everyone involved! 

This particular academy was an action to provide training and credit on a limited budget to students who may otherwise not receive crucial job and career skills.  Besides keeping up in regular classes, students were required to complete OSHA Training, Serve Safe Training, Construction Training, First Aid Card Training or Upgrade, plus Cold Water Survival Training, Leadership and Employability Training, Culinary Arts Training, and gather and present data about life within the Kasitsna Bay habitat. 

As you can imagine, all the time demanded of students required twice as much time from staff and presenters:  Skip from Chugachmiut, Glenn from NOAA, Ingrid from KBRR, Tania  (a UAF graduate student), Tracey, a Marine Biologist in Seldovia, Lisa who did the on land session for first aid, Becky sent by Chugach to represent the archeological opportunities through the Park Service, Doug sent by Workforce Development and Job Service to represent employment skills and opportunities, Wells-Fargo and the City of Seldovia for representing what students need to know and practice in money management, and the Alaska State Schoolboard Association and Nanwalek Youth Program for providing leadership and employment training all weekend, and every single staff person from Nanwalek and Seldovia Schools. 

Thank you to Kris at Kasitsna Bay Lab and UAF for providing an outstanding opportunity for pertinent environmental education.  A special thank you to the secretaries, Carol and Sandy, for keeping everyone organized and covering all planned and unplanned, foreseen and unforeseen situations that happen on a daily basis in a school. 

Project Grad supports students with goals that include post-secondary training and/or college.  This program supports many activities of Nanwalek School that include students achieving graduation goals.  Once again, Project Grad was involved by joining Workforce Development in paying for student and staff transportation to the Tri-Schools Academy.  Two very supportive businesses allowed Project Grad and Workforce Development to afford the transportation by hauling students at very reduced fares, and not charging for all the extra freight:  Homer Air and Smokey Bay Air.  Thank you to these two business who are always there for our students!

Thank you for the input from both the Nanwalek and Seldovia Village Tribes detailing student needs for life and job responsibilities.  Thank you also for the tremendous amount of time donated to supervising students. The Seldovia Village Tribe, Seldovia School staff, and Church of Seldovia also provided all transportation for students.  The Tribe, staff, and parents also contributed to and assisted the KPBSD, Seldovia and Nanwalek staff feeding students, as well as Skip and Nancy volunteering their time-off from teaching water and land survival skills to cook and assist with chaperoning. 

None of this could have happened without the people from the community willing to substitute to continue regular classes for all K-8 students who were not involved in the academy this year, so thank you to our special subs:  Kelly, Rhoda, and Sally

Student choice time was really enjoyed and appreciated!  Students loved the pool – thank you for opening it so often for us!  Thank you to Dede for giving extra time to students practicing their pottery skills, thank you to all the time, special activities,  and food provided by the Boys and Girls Club, Seldovia Village Tribe, and Sunday Youth Leadership. 

A special thank you to the students and staff of Seldovia School for sharing your time, space, and especially your prom.  What a special ending to a terrific two weeks!