Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome
you to this time now for our community connection right here on K one.
The one you trust and with is today is Chuck McCauley, supertenit of Schools,
Bartlesville Public Schools. So, mister McCauley, let's see fifteen thousand dollars
grant and a brand new basketball coach. What do you want to talk about
first? It's a great it's a great entry. Thanks, good morning,
Tom, thanks for having me. How about we start with the grant.
How about well let's do that, because that's going to go a long ways,
it really is. And so really what we're talking about is our Best
Foundation donated fifteen thousand dollars to the Public School Foundation and those funds will be
used for a discount for our teachers for daycare. And so that helps our
district, helps our kids in two ways. One, it helps us recruit
teachers. We've had teachers that have applied to come work for us now that
surrounding areas so that they can receive that discount at a high quality daycare like
Trec County. We really appreciate our friends over at Trie County, especially Joe
Lane Bryant over there. And then also from a retention standpoint, once we
have our teachers in the classroom, you know, if their families are expanding.
You know, I've had just walk in the halls like I do every
week, I've had a few teachers come up to me and say it's keeping
them in the classroom, especially they've had maybe their second child, and that's
real money. You start talking about a fifty percent discount on childcare. So
yeah, so we're really excited about that. We've got about fifteen of our
current teachers are taking advantage of that. This year we had a twenty percent
discount and this upcoming year we had a fifty percent discount. So David Nickel
and Aaron Tazavis came over and Stevie Williams to our board meeting and Blair was
able to introduce him on Monday, so he has a fun way to start
our board meeting. And we went from that leading into we recognized our from
our Bruins on the Run program, from our teachers, our lead mentors.
We have six elementary schools and we have a teacher at every school that is
that leads the mentors in our program. And we have over fifty mentors that
are involved with our kids that running program. You know, this fall they
ran the wool Rock eight k. They just finished up the k Life ten
k, which is a six mile run, just a couple of weekends ago.
I know I participated, had a great run. I visited. I
had a young man, Tucker Sins who's a fifth grader at Richard Caine Elementary.
He ran with me the whole way and about the last hundred yards left
me in the dust just like you, just like you did at wool Rock.
And had a great visit with him. But we recognized our mentors because
we really appreciate them. Those teachers, you know, they work a full
day and this is for no extra money. They do this because they want
to build relationships with kids and help them set goals, run with them after
school a couple of days a week. And then I thank them personally.
I'm so thankful for them and appreciative because they're just showing our kids, your
kids can do hard things and this is a good thing for them to be
involved with, what a healthy thing for them to be doing. And then
yes, yeah, we introduced our new basketball coach, Tom, which I
know that's been a big buzz around town and a big piece of that.
Obviously, basketball in Bartlesville, going back to the sixty six ers has been
a big part of our community. Uh, Tommy is a Tommy's Uh you
know, he played here and was part of probably the as good a run
or the best run in high school basketball and state history there when when he
was playing, we played on a couple of state championship teams for Steve Hesser.
But you know, we have a rich tradition here boys basketball team going
back to college high school winning state championship in the sixties and and uh so
Tommy has you know, left here when played college basketball. I think people
know his story and then has been coaching college ever since. And his parents
are here, Tom and Judy Desam. They just had their sixty first wedding
anniversary. By the way. Yeah, Tom volunteers reading for kids over Jane
Phillips every month every Jane Phillipsilver Elementary every Monday. Tommy was back in town
Easter weekend, and you know he was our number one target, and so
it really came down to, you know, if he was ready to get
out of college coaching. He'd been a head coach for twenty three years and
had I think over four hundred and seventy wins, so highly successful. His
team went to the Elite eight this year. He obviously could have continued to
do that, but you know, I was I was showing him around yesterday,
which obviously he's from here and comes back often. But we visited our
middle schools and went to a couple of elementaries and I had one of our
principals stopped and asked him and said, look, hey, you know,
coach, I hear once you are bruin. Weren't you you know, weren't
you a bruin here? And you know, he stopped her quickly and said,
I've always been a bruin. You know, this is this place is
important to him. Uh and so, and I think his age. You
know a lot of folks in that age group that are good friends with him,
that are just really pillars in our community. You know, think about
Judge Russ Backlaw and there's several of that claws that are in that age range.
Their kids are in school now. Chris Batchelder and Maria Guss. You
know, those guys all went to school with him and kind of are probably
the two biggest cheerleaders for our town, and Jay and Jessica Butler. Jessica
is involved in everything, and and Craig was Miller a good friend of mine,
and so just David Nickel from our vest, the CEO, and so
we were just all the folks that known him his whole life. And he's
coming back and it's really exciting, really excited to get him back. And
he's gonna start May first, so he'll get going before the school year is
up. And I think our community is going to look forward to coming watching
the Bruins play. And I know he's going to work at it, and
our kids are going to work hard, they're going to play hard, and
there'll be something to be proud of. So I'm really glad to get him
back. He's glad to be back. And then, you know, previously
we'd mentioned we hired a new wrestling coach, Brian Vashis, who I know.
Yeah, So he came from out of state, came from Colorado,
and really we were just kind of a blessing. I mean, he had
My understanding is he's got a daughter that's going down to a Rema, a
Bible college now in Tulsa. Area. So he's kind of looking in this
area and has a rich, rich wrestling coaching background, which is the timing
is perfect for our wrestling program. Our numbers are the highest they've ever been
at our younger ages, our middle school. And so he's really and he's
got a son that's gonna be a freshman that's gonna be going to school here
and wrestling for us. And he has a great vision for the program and
something that's different than what we've had, and he's gonna be heavily invested.
So really look forward to and you when to visit about these coaches and you
know, our fine arts people and our band directors. The reason I like
to highlight them a little bit is because our families. You talked about your
own daughter, they're yeah, I don only involved in school stuff, but
they spend a lot of time with these people, you know, and leadership
matters. You know, it's important to have high quality people, to have
them a good experience, to really be invested. And you know, those
are a lot of memorable things, a lot of you know, you learn
life skills by having been practice at seven am in the morning or fill in
the blank about whatever activity it is. And so yeah, it's good to
good to get those two because those those impact a lot of families in our
community, and so really excited about getting them on board. I know Coach
Bascist is also working on getting up here hopefully next month, and so he'll
be involved this summer for a wrestling community as well, and really going to
be a lot of fun. Really going to be a lot of fun to
see those uh see our kids. There's a lot of buzz about that.
You know, we've seen that in some of our other activities, you know,
with our football program and the youth growing that numbers. It was funny.
Tommy, coach the Song, was talking yesterday. He's a classmate of
David Airs, who David's is our cross country track coach. Yes, and
teaches in our STEM program. And he was talking about David Air. He's
like, does David is he does he work? Is he an engineer?
And then come over and coaches after what does he do during I said,
no, he teaches in our STEM program and he's like, well that he
was the smartest kid in our great he's the smartest kid in our class.
And so it doesn't surprise me. But so anyway, it's just that that
group, it's really going to be a lot of fun. And because they're
all about just all helping all of our bruins, so it's gonna be a
fun time. I should mention also that tomorrow is our Bruin of the year.
That's where we we we're gonna pick our teacher of the year, our
support staff for the year, or substitute the year. It's really a lot
of fun and we planned for that to be and at the baseball field.
Yeah, yep, over at Overdune Stating in their rigged and field at the
gates open at five o'clock. The program will go from five thirty to seven.
Hopefully the weather's going to hold off for us, but for some reason
it doesn't, we'll go over to the high school in the Commons area.
But yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's free event. There's food,
just people see to come on out. You don't need to buy a
ticket, just come on out and cheer. It's coming out in cheer.
It's really a fun it's really a fun time. Ever since you switched it
to the ballpark, it just took on a whole new life. It sure
has. And once we've manage We used to have a separate event for our
support staff. So now we're just all together. That's exactly right, and
we really it should be. We have a good time. That's right because
it takes all of us to pull this school thing off for sure. And
Tom, I know you guys reported. I just wanted to mention and thank
Kevin Lynch in particular about on safety. You know, he kind of took
it upon himself to making sure that our resource officers had the you know,
to be able to provide those ballistic shields, hopefully something that they'll never need.
But now all of our resource officers have them. A lot of community
donations, I believe it was around twenty eight thousand dollars to pull that off
for ourroros and they did a new story this week, so we're just another
thing to be proud of here in our community. I want to mention our
back on the activity side, we also back to our board meeting, so
we did our board spotlight and probably another highlight. We sold. We sold
some bonds and the big rationale for that is to get ready for our Ranch
Heights project. We are getting ready to the same thing we're doing over a
waystside that's going to finish up in August. We're getting ready to do about
the exact same project at Ranch Heights, so that was just getting our funding
in place. We're going to open bids up at the end of this month
and hopefully approved the guaranteed maximum price of first week in May, so that
we'll get started this summer. That Ranch Heights will be complete our plan in
the August of twenty five, so it just continues to go on. So
that was kind of some highlights from that board meeting. I wanted to mention
over on the fine art side, our state band contest our Kids in Band
last Friday. They had a great pad unbelievable year and the way that works
if people aren't familiar, they have the marching band season in the fall,
which a lot of people when they think of band, if they're not involved
in it, that's what they think of. There's a state contest for that.
Our kids received ones which is the highest you can receive at the marching
contest. Last Friday they went to the OSSA contest and they did two things.
One, they play a piece of music that they're prepared for that they
received ones on, and then they do it what they call sight reading,
and that's where they come in, give them some music. They don't know
what's coming. They give them five minutes to read it, and then they
have to play it, and then they're judged on how well they play.
Oh man, I'm as a musician. I'm not a musician. I can't
So you can you can relate? Yeah, yeah, that's a little high
anxiety. Yeah, I know the sponsors had high anxiety. I mean we
had administrators there that were, you know, which kids to be successful.
They work so hard. But they received ones on that as well. So
that means that's called the sweepstakes, getting ones all three of those and so
really proud of Chris and Heather Caine, their staff. Those kids. Another
great example of some things that kids can be involved in that really helped them
for their for their lives. And then on the music side, also I'll
mention that anything goes Spring Musical. I know you guys are advertising that for
us is coming up, uh here at the end of April, and we'll
do there'll be a Friday, Saturday Sunday show. Really encourage people to come
out and watch that. A ton of kids that are involved a lot of
fun you know your daughter's involved in that. We have lots of kids,
whether it's in terms of that or in the show, or preparing for the
show or preparing the set. A lot of kids and really hope people will
come out and support. Our community always does, but they do. It's
always to pack out. It's great and so I'm always amazed, especially people
that haven't been, because they always come out there. It's so amazing how
talented our kids are. It'll be a good deal. Uh, you know,
we're finishing up to school your tom I was just looking at my calendar
and the next time on the radio it's gonna be after graduation. Well,
which is nuts, but we're so in the middle of a lot of a
lot of testing going on, typical state testing that will go on this month.
I did want to mention at all different levels, some national testing as
well. Our Advanced Placement Program, our AP test, that's where our high
school mostly juniors and seniors that are in college level class and they test at
the end of the year to get college credit. Last year we more than
double the number of kids that were rolling those classes. Last year, we
had three hundred and six kids take these tests. This year we're going to
have right at four hundred, so that number continues to expand on getting those
kids ready for our pursue. Obviously, those kids are planning on going to
college and that really helps prepare them for that. Really thankful for our teachers
hard work and preparing them because they really push those kids hard to get them
ready for those those exams and we've gone through. That's part of how we
use some of our federal funds as we started two years ago paying for the
tests because those tests costs money, and so we pay for those tests for
the kids to take, which really is a great benefits those families and then
over kind of on the college and career side too. I just want to
mention a couple of things. Our AG facility for Facility y two, which
is we have it, it's ours and so which is a matter of fact.
I've been going to a bi weekly meeting now for a while and with
my last one yesterday, Yeah, it's really really exciting we did that.
I want to mention Caleb Robenstein. Caleb actually he's our facilities manager, he's
our district rep for that for that project and as well as all facility things
Caleb's a well known name in town. He's got there's four Romstein brothers,
so a lot of people are know them in town and their children. But
Caleb is a he's been with us now. I believe this is working on.
He's been a couple of years, and he previously had worked for Napole's
Construction, was a project manager, for example when we redid the renovated central
added on the Freshman Academy. So he understands that construction lingo and he truly
holds some folks accountable, so he knows what's going on and really does a
good job of representing the district and make sure our tax payers, our tax
dollars are being used wisely. That act facility we're most likely going to have
once we're settled into it. In September, we're going to have an open
house event probably that and wayside probably on this probably just something on a Sunday
afternoon or people if they want to come see that coming up. Really excited
about that. I want to mention just a couple of different new courses our
STEM program. You know, our aviation continues to expand were we've had additional
course there that's kind of related to on the mechanical side. You know,
we went from last year having a teacher working a half a day in aviation.
This year she's full time, and next year we're going to have need
a full time plus because such interest in aviation, which is great in our
STEM program, we're adding some civil engineering and green architecture courses for this upcoming
year. I've talked to you before about our construction class that we're going to
get started this year. Yeah, we have one hundred and nineteen kids enrolled
in it for next year, and so we're it's going to be a full
time class. It's gonna be housed at Bartlesville High School. We're kind of
starting with carpenter, going to hit all the trades. Doug Boudreau is one
of our current teachers that's an engineer background. He's going to be teaching the
course, so really excited about having him do that. He's the current teacher
at Ranch Heights Elementary this year, but we're going to move him over to
the high School to teach the course. So I want to mention kind of
some of those new exciting things that we've got for next year. It's interesting,
you know, I'm working at our I'm doing a presentation tomorrow for some
leaders across the state talking about college and career opportunities and how to expand that.
And I was looking at our enrollment from the last few years and from
five years ago, from twenty nineteen so which is the year before the pandemic
to now. We have over three hundred more students than we did at that
time. So it's really exciting. I mean, that's why we see all
this construction going on in these new programs for our kids. It's really exciting
to be able to invest in then. So just enrollment for next year.
Folks that are are interested in enrolling in the district for next year, that
process starts online. People can help you at the Education Service Center if they
need any help, especially for our little guys, if they're getting ready to
start. That's really helps us staffing. We need to know. So if
your kid's going to be four by September one, we encourd them to get
enrolled, we'll get in place. So a lot going on. Finished up
to school year strong and Tom, I appreciate you, appreciate you having me
again, and Jolway's great to have you around. Jack. We'll call it
here. With Bartlesville Public Schools, there are Superintendent, our book. M
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