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Show -NEWS- B6 • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2008 Spanish Fork Covering what matters most Employee honored Courtesy photo SERVICE WITH A SMILE: Student member of the Salem Hills PTSA help serve cake (and eat some too) after the Salem Hills High School dedication. PTSA serves at SHHS Samuel G. Egbert PTSA under the direction of the Salem Hills High School PTA. Many were involved The PTSA has been very with the historic dedica- active with the school, plantion of Salem Hills High ning and carrying out the School, Tuesday, Sept. 9, open house in June, help2008, including the stu- ing with the back to school dent body, district leaders night in August, and with and school board, along the dedication of this longwith PTSA students who awaited building. served refreshments to all Assistant Principal in attendance. The PTSA Brenda Burr added spoke Student Chapter, which enthusiastically of the orgacurrently has over 125 nization. members, was formed "I especially enjoyed the PTSA student servers, wearing aprons with the official PTSA Skyhawk logo emanating school spirit," she said. It was a momentous occasion . Burr recalled the success of the evening when she spoke to the PTSA presidency. "I was thrilled with the community support and hope we have created the foundation from which memories can be built upon," she said. Brockbank Marsha Ward has been chosen as the Nebo Transportation 'Outstanding Employee' for September 2008. Marsha was chosen by previous outstanding employee Roni Reed, to acknowledge her dedicated service to the transportation department, the students and the Bus drivers. Marsha was a bus driver for Nebo and Tooele school districts for a combined total of 17 years. She then became the secretary for Nebo Transportation Department and has been working in the office for the past 16 years. When she first began as Secretary she did a lot of jobs in the office such as scheduling Fieldtrips, answering phones, mileage, and more by herself for a long time, Marsha Ward until our district grew so much that they had to hire more people to help her. Marsha is a very dependable and dedicated employee, and does whatever it takes to help in anyway she can. Her current responsibilities include: Dispatch, Accounts Payable, etc. Marsha and her husband Clarence live in Goshen. They live in the house Marsha grew up in. Her son Jeremy is also building a house behind them. -Marsha has three boys: Jeremy, Ted and Parker. She has five grandsons; Colter, TVson, Bowen, Bridger and Morgan, and three granddaughters; Teddi, Makardi . and Cora. Colter is serving an LDS Mission in Chile. Marsha loves to sew, do yard work and spend time with her family in their cabin at Fish Lake. Congratulations Marsha for a job well done. Thank You for all the hard work you do to keep things running smoothly at the Transportation Department. Establishing traditions Carrie Christensen SHHS puters and the teachers have voice enhancement systems, so that every New traditions are student can hear what is starting at Salem Hills being taught. All the text High School. With a great books are new, and there opening assembly school is enough for everyone. started just like every other As far as blending Payson year. With one big excep- and Salem together there tion, we are blending two has been no problems rerival schools together. Sev- ported, 2008-09 started eral students had mixed off just as planned. feelings at first but now One of the greatest exit is school as usual. New periences the students will building, new teachers and face this year will be comnew traditions will help ing up with new traditions. with the transition. We have a new a school The building is so song, which will be sung amazing and everything is every Friday morning durnew. Each classroom has a ing announcements. We are new projector, new com- all wearing new t-shirts, sweatshirts and hats with Salem Skyhawks logos on them. A new tradition this year started with the administration is having every student in the school belong to a club. Almost every teacher at Salem Hills has volunteered to sponsor a club, and every student will belong to a club. The idea is to have every student feel they belong to something. Whether it is ultimate frisbee, guitar, PTSA, drama or band, there is something for everyone, They are offering over 40 clubs, so there really is something for everyone. Nebo School Board meets Lindsay B. Wolsey STAFF WRITER Courtesy photos COLORING CONTEST: In conjunction with Spanish Fork's first ever Sky Spectacular (Wind Power Celebration) that was held recently, students from Brockbank had the opportunity to enter a coloring contest sponsored by Macey's. They colored and decorated kites. Winners were selected from each school and given a certificate to take and redeem for a prize. Winners from Brockbank were, back row, left to right, Juliana Millet, Leorah Malone and Kate Baadsgaard; front Kara Dickey, Stott Eichler, Abbie Kirk, Cambrie Oyler and McKenzie Gavin. Not pictured, Gracie Beckstrom and Zack Schaugaard. AUTHOR VISITS: Brockbank third through sixth grade students were able to spend Friday morning Sept 12, 2008 with local author Jeff Savage. Mr. Savage held an assembly and discussed the steps in the writing process. He entertained students with a few magic tricks and discussed finding the magic within themselves. He even started a story with all of the kids that they could go finish on their own. The students were not only excited about writing their own stories but are also excited to read the author's new book in the fantasy series called Far World. Pictured with Mr. Savage are, left to right, top row, Railee Mitchell, Sydney Black, Kiera Hiatt, Katie Thomas and Matthew Moleff; bottom row, Natalie Noorda, Taylor Swan, Bridget Pace, Josue Lopez, Chelsey Froelich and Jessica Mendoza. Your source for Schools News^ m ^ The Spariish fqx£lSSSws. It was easy to see that the school year is in full swing, and attendance at the Sept. 10 meeting of the Nebo School Board of Education showed it. Students from Mr. Griffin's class at Salem Hills High School filled the old Westside cafeteria with only a few rows of seats to spare. Board President Dean Rowley teased the students, telling them that if this meeting was at the old district offices, some of them would have ended up in the hallway. He also got the students a little riled up, assuming at first that they were students from Payson High School. To be fair, Mr. Griffin taught at Pay son High before moving to Salem Hills this school year. After briefly going over the consent agenda, the meeting became more intense than usual when Sixth Grade students from Hobble Creek Elementary started debating each other over a theoretical program to improve air quality in Utah. It turns out that there are two elementary schools in Nebo School District that are currently participating in a statewide debate program. In addition to debating each other, students from Hobble Creek elementary debate students from Mapleton Elementary as well. According to District Gifted Specialist Debbie May debate is great for teaching language and dramatic arts. "It's a pretty impressive program. We hope that when kids participate in this program that they become good critical thinkers, that they are able to organize their thoughts, do research and share opinions, as vyell as using skills of reading, writing, thinking, speaking and listening." May said. "What they're really doing is learning to present a point and do it based on research, not on feelings/' May continued. The debate topic for the 2007-2008 school year was "Should the state of Utah start a program to substantially improve air quality?" Students from the debate program at Hobble Creek Elementary were more than happy to demonstrate skills they have obtained through the debate program. Students Jacob Grimshaw and Gable Munn argued the positive side, while Shelby Wayment and Emily Robison argued the negative side. The majority of the funds for the debate program come from the National Energy Foundation (NEF), with the remainder being supplemented from the Gifted and Talented Program. Each year the NEF sponsors a conference where debate teachers are able to attend with a select number of students. "The really great thing it's the one time I've seen students and teachers with notebooks in hand, going to a conference and learning together. We send a bus load of kids up each year so that can participate in that conference," May said. After the great example of the positive aspects of debate by the Hobble Creek Elementary Students, the School Board discussed the Nebo policy on School Enrollment and Transfer policy with the Salem Hills High stu- dents. Although the time for public comment had passed, this intrepid batch of educators was not going to let an opportunity slip to let the high school students learn how the School Board meetings worked. "I'd hate for the students to be doing an assignment and not have a clue what's going on," said Board Member Debbie Swenson, after looking out at the bewildered faces on the students. Currently, there is a brief window of time in which students can apply to enroll in a school outside of their zoned attendance area. Assistant Superintendent Rick Nielson provided the Board with a spreadsheet detailing what the capacity of each school was, and what the actual current enrollment is. The only school that is enrolled over capacity is Springville High. When Maple Mountain High opens for the 2009-10 year, that issue will be resolved. School capacity was a topic of interest to quite a few of the Salem Hills students. One student mentioned that he has five classes with over 46 students in each class, even though the District strives to have 28 or less in a classroom. Salem Hills is experiencing some scheduling issues, which isn't a surprise during its inaugural year. Board members promised to keep an eye on the situation. "We noticed that English classes have had a surge of enrollment due to new state requirements of additional language classes," said Superintendent Chris Sorerisen. "We're going to have to check what's going on." r |