Three six. Yeah, Mondy, good morning, good morning, welcome,
welcome, welcome in this time now for our community connection right here on K
one, the one you try stand we have with this year our friends from
Bartisville Public Schools we have are Superintendent Chuck McCauley. And we also have probably
the best cheerleader for any program I have ever met, in my wife,
the FFA Marty Jones. Hey, guys doing, gentlemen, Hey, we're
doing great. Thank you for having us. And I brought mister Jones along
with us. It's National ff A week and so we they presented at our
board meeting, and I want to give mister Jones an opportunity just to brag
about what we've got going on with our f FA program right here in Boultlesville.
Well that that's going to be a long list, so we could be
here. How are you doing, Martin, I'll try to keep it.
Oh, you're doing. We're doing great. Things are really awesome. We're
excited this week to celebrate National off of a Week. You know, I
always like to look up a little bit of history. The very first National
off Fay Week was celebrated in nineteen forty eight by the Board of Trustees at
the national level, and so ever since then, local programs have been celebrating
nationalf Fay Week, highlighting the success of their students and their involvement in the
community. So we're excited that we get to celebrate that here in Bartlesville.
You know, we started our program in twenty nineteen, and so this week
is all about celebrating some of those successes from our students and then giving back
to the community. We did the board meeting on Monday night, got to
celebrate with our school board, and yesterday we got to interact with some members
of our community. We stopped by a local nursing home and had some succulent
plants so we could give away and hopefully just be able to spread some positivity
with some happy grams and some words of encouragement to them. We're doing our
staff appreciation day to day and so excited that we could to celebrate, you
know, together with our community there in the school system, of our staff
and all those support groups that help us with our students every single day and
allow them to be successful. Thursday, we've got our Chupter meeting. We're
doing a riveting game of dodgeball. Our students are very excited about some dodgeball,
so I love it. Most of them are very excited. They're warming
up their arms already, but they're excited and we get a chance to come
together as a chapter and celebrate this week and then Friday, we're encouraging everybody
community and our school staff to wear blue or gold or a combination of both.
If you've got some old FFA shirts or something like that that you can
wear. But we'd love to just be able to have lots of blue gold
in our community and be able to celebrate this National Affair Week. This is
great, This is really awesome. You know, there were two highly coveted
jackets when I went to school. One was the varsity jacket. The other
one was the big blue FFA jacket, and there are a lot of lucky
Cusses who had both. Absolutely absolutely, man, you're sat In Chack.
This has been a great program and a great addition to our school. There's
no doubt. It's pretty incredible when you think about this is our fifth year
of the program and it all starts with leadership, and Marty was our you
know, we hired Marty in the spring, and prior to that year,
and we knew that we had some interest in the program. I personally didn't
know if we would ever be to a place where we would need three teachers,
but we quickly got there and that was really I know, talking to
mister Jones when we hired and we got started, a lot of the decisions
that we're making regarding the program were fifty year decisions, really long term when
you think about it, and it just has obviously exploded. You know,
we quickly recognize that we need to hire a second teacher, Cameron Dale,
that came in and has done a great job, and then this year Ashley
Darso started with us. So we have three full time teachers working with kids
eighth grade and above and providing some great opportunities for students, which that's what
we're all about. I know that we're making some tremendous strides on the workforce,
get our kids ready to go to work. You know, we want
our kids to be college and career ready, and we really think that this
opportunity for kids helps in both of those areas. I know the kids that
go through that program, I know just interacting with them Monday night before the
board meeting, kids are very well spoken. Their communication skills are strong.
I mean they have that, they have the type of skills that anybody would
want to hire them. And so I'm just so pleased that we have this
this program for our kids, and so thankful for our community because part of
that. We started the program with just mister Jones in a classroom, and
so I mean literally that's what that's what we did, and things quickly.
You know, there was strong interest in it. I know that we had
lots of community members. I had lots of former students or uh, you
know, mister mcaulay, why didn't you start to us We're in school and
so uh, but we we got it started. And so obviously we have
this part of a couple of bond issue packages, and we built a classroom
and shop space right next to our indoor facility next on Bartsville High School's campus.
Uh. And then now obviously our outdoor facility agriculture facility that is by
along Shawnee, which we're substantial completion is scheduled for right around first of April,
which they are working on the greenhouses right now. So if you happen
to drive down drive by the facility, you can see that and so that
all the weather looks great and we have all they have all the materials that
they need to finish the building. So then we think our kids are going
to be in that by the end of the school year. And it's really
really exciting about what our kids will have the opportunity to do now and also
in the future. Wow, that is tremendous. And to think, you
know, they hurried in and then you had to get two buildings, I
mean a lot of space. I guess it is. Mister McCaulay said,
you know best, I think this job is. I tell people all the
time, I have the best job in the world. We get to interact
with the best community in our state and our country. The community has been
so supportive of our ACT program. We have phenomenal students, and honestly,
I'm really blessed to have two fantastic teaching partners that keep me corralled and keep
us focused every single day and working with students. We hope that we can
just continue to instill some of these really good life left of students. We
hope that they, you know, take some knowledge of agriculture. We know
most of them aren't going to go into production agriculture, but we want to
give them as many experiences as we can so they can ultimately become informed consumers
in our community and be a great, you know, invested citizens here in
Bartleschooll. That's important to us, and we're going to continue to grow our
program in those aspects as well. One thing is really nice is that I
have to cover the junior livestock shows that's coming here in a little bit and
also the County Fair. And you know, you're always going to see Copin,
You're always going to see Dewey, You're always going to see Candy Valley.
But shows Ziam, here's Bartlesville right there making the appearance and representing and
it really looks good. It looks good seeing all those kids from all those
different schools. And the thing is there's quite a camaraderie once once they get
out there in the paragraund It's like, hey, what are you doing?
How's this working for you? You know, they compare notes and then I
realized that, you know, when you get into business or even in agriculture,
everybody shares a little bit about what they know in order to make the
product stronger for everyone. Absolutely, you know, we really try to teach
our students about being informed consumers. We want them to know where their food
comes from. That's important. We hope that we can develop some of those
communication skills, being able to have a conversation with somebody who they may or
may not know. That's that's important. Those are important skills that our students.
We hope that they learn from our program and we give a unique opportunity
for them. Students found a home in our ACT program, and so that
was the need for more facilities, bigger and better. It is because the
need continues to grow and that home that our students are part of continues to
grow. I know we do a big student spotlight, but I understand we
got some swimmers that did anything. Yeah, we do. I think this
week is really it's a great example of what our schools have to offer for
our kids. You know, we're talking about our national FFA week and that's
a nationally recognized program now, so proud of mister Jones and his team.
You know, on the athletic side, that's right, our swim teams.
I've heard of debate that we won forty one or forty two state championships and
swimming, So I'll just say over forty. But our girls won. Our
girls won the state championship, which is not a surprise. They look,
we're a half point from winning it last year and they have two the two
returning individual state champions from the team. They had two girls win two events
you can only could meet in two individual events. We had a freshman and
a sophomore that both won both events that they were in set state records and
so they'll be very good for years to come. Our boys team finished second
their runners up, so really proud of that. Over on the athletic side,
fine arts wise, we recognized our all state music students Monday night,
and so we have kids in our vocal music program, our instrumental band,
and also an orchestra, very strong programs that are big parts of what we
do and so really proud to recognize them as well and give you good and
lass. Kids are involved in multiple things. I know our Luke Olsen one
of our all state orchestra students. You know, he's one of our outstanding
swimmers, and I know on they over in our FFA program, I mean
we have our kids that are also rules you know, big parts of our
football program or all part of it too, so really together. Yeah,
I'm really proud of that. And then I'm also continuing on the academic side
as well. Our Madison kids, our Math Counts program. They won their
regional competition. Actually they weren't unable to compete last year. They won this
area's region, but this year they had to go to the Southwest because it
conflicted with our district Science fair. Yeah, so the kids they went over
there and won that, and so now they'll qualify for the state competition.
And we just found out in the last couple of days too, we have
two Academic all Stators. There's only one hundred of those in the state of
Oklahoma. We've got to that's right, Lauren Lee and John Ortiz, a
couple of seniors. And we have multiple kids that have the academic qualifications to
qualify, but we had two that were selected, and there's only a handful
of schools that have more than one kid selected, and a lot of schools
don't have anybody selected as academic all Stators. So it's really been a great
week, I think, just to kind of show all the different opportunities for
our kids on kind of whichever direction you want to go. And I did
want to update just a couple of things to moving along. There is next
week we are hosting our two big things. But one I want to mention
specifically is our pre kindergarten and kindergarten roundup that's on Tuesday and also on Tuesday
from five thirty to six thirty at all of each of our elementaries and we
have six. I know it's a big decision for parents on when to start
school, and so if you have a kiddo that is going to turn forward
before September first, and you're not sure or you are sure, either way,
we encourage you to go to the school. There's an opportunity to visit
with the principal, the teachers to really see what school is like. So
we offer full day pre k at all of our schools, and so it's
from five thirty to six thirty on Tuesday. Parents will have the opportunity they
can enroll right then. We also know that some families they choose to keep
their kids home and maybe they start in kindergarten, which is fine, and
so they'll have the opportunity to see what that's like. And some kids even
choose to wait until they're in first grade. But we're opening up our elementaries
on Tuesday because we know there's lots of families that really can use that resource.
They need that additional support being at school and make sure they've got good
meals for our kids and transportation, all those different types of things. And
really it's a good start for them getting ready to print their elementary school because
you know they're going to be there for seven years, and really good academic
preparation for them. Also wanted to mention on Monday, Conical Phillips is hosting
a they're putting on a math and science night for middle school kids. It's
called hands On, hands On, minds On Event, and this is the
first time they've offered it after COVID. We've got this started a few years
ago, but it's over at Madison Middle School at six point thirty for every
middle school and even if you're a kid that doesn't go to Bartlesville, you're
a go to a private school or your homeschool, or you're in the area
that's come on over. Conical Phillips is a great job. They feed everyone,
they provide pizza, They have drawings for kid I think they end up
giving up two or three laptops at the end, but they bring in their
folks that are in their young engineers or those folks that are doing some really
neat things to interact with kids parents and so really encourage folks, any middle
school age family. We encourage them to come on Monday at six point thirty.
And then also just wanted to share just a couple of things if we
have time, just a couple of things too. So thinking about this is
an exciting time. We have a lot of things going on that we've talked
about right now as it's gonna be a spring break here before you know it.
But obviously speaking of the pre k in kindergarten role that we're preparing for
next year, and so as we think, we think about those things too.
You know, I think our FFA program, our AG program has been
by any measure, has been a great success and we're so proud to have
that part of our school. We've also provided additional opportunities for kids. We've
also always had the Fine Arts program, but over on the STEMS side and
in career tech ready side, you know, thinking about it, we have
our AG program was within Bartlesville School. Our STEM program, which you know
is nationally recognized. We have four different levels of computer science. We are
adding UH in terms we have green architecture, Civil engineering we're we're adding at
Bartlesville High School on campus UH and now all of those in pre engineering that's
all gonna be housing our campus. Students will not be going over to Track
County Tech for part of that. They're gonna be housed at Bartlesville High School.
So we'll make sure that as people are making choices, especially I I
was meeting yesterday, even at the middle school level, to be able to
offer these courses, whether they're computer science or architecture or civil engineering, kids
can get exposed to that right here at Central and Madison Middle School. So
as they're making choices on enrollment, to think about that. You know,
till we talked about our construction course we're going to offer that, We've we've
kind of the first thing we did was we put it together a course description
and and shared that with our kids as part of the enrollment PROSS. We've
had over eighty kids select that, so that's enough to say we're going to
offer. It's at Bartlesville High School. So we're gonna start with a construction
course it's going to be housed on our campus. You know, our long
term vision for that program is eventually we'd like to have a program excuse me,
where our k kids are building a home a year. That's going to
take us a while to get there, but we're getting started. We felt
like carpentry was a place to start because they'll get exposed to several different trades,
and we really think that program has a lot of promise and that's all
gonna be housed on our campus at Bartlesville High School. Or aviation program has
gone from actually high tower excuse me. We went from a year ago she
taught a part time schedule. This year she's teaching full time aviation. Next
year, we're going to need more than one teacher to teach the class because
we're gonna it's grown and it's developed, and we're seeing that there's a need
for kids that are interested in being a pilot or drones. But then secondly,
also over on the mechanics side, and so we're going to open up
a pathway for kids to take that over on the canon side. You know,
there's such a it's such a viable job opportunities for kids in that career
right here, especially with American Airlines right down the road that we can provide
for our kids. So anyways, want to share all those different opportunities that
we have that are you know, right here on our campus. And uh,
we'll continue to obviously hit on the academic sides as well. You know,
we had over two we had two hundred and eight kids last year that
that scored three or better on an AP test on their so that's a college
level test that they took and passed it to get college credit. For those
are our students. So I know a lot of times we sit here we
talk about all these new opportunities for kids, but we have obviously, we
know a very strong option for many of our kids is going on that college,
that college bound route, and we want to make sure they're ready for
that as well. Alrighty, I want to thank you both for coming in today.