Good morning, Good morning, good morning. Welcome WENK. Golovin's time now
for our community connection, right John kay one, the one you trust.
We have Chuck McCauley, the Bartlesviille Public Schools Superintendent and men. There's so
much going on as we head into Thanksgiving. Wow, where do you start?
Yeah, that's a great question. How about we start. Uh,
let's start on the academic side. Let's do that. Let's do that.
Uh. The newest award that we see some recognition for is from our regarding
our AP program, which Advanced Placement on most people are familiar with that.
That's those are courses that our kids take in high school, their college ready
or college level courses. Uh. They've actually been audited by the AP to
ensure that curriculum is covered all the college courses and at the end they take
a test and if they pass that test to get college credit. Well,
uh, yeah, we've got those numbers continue to increase. Uh, And
so we received recognition from Advanced Placement that we were considered a bronze level with
access. That what that means is, uh, we had of our recent
graduating class, we had forty eight percent of our kids that had taken at
least one AP class and then so in other words, the percentage of kids
that I've taken an AP class as well as their performance on those tests,
which put us in a category in Oklahoma in terms of schools, you know,
public high schools. That was I believe five of us five schools in
Oklahoma that received that qualification. I think us Jenks, Edmund and Norman I
think were the schools, and some of us have multiple high schools. But
so anyway, so I was pleased to receive that recognition. That's a new
recognition that the AP has started to dole out, and so I'm glad that
we were included in that group. And our teachers put in a lot of
work just to be able to offer those courses. There's continual training that has
to be done, and our counselors do a good job of making sure our
kids are enrolled in those classes. Yes, because there's really a lot of
benefit for kids, and that's what the research will tell you just being enrolled.
You know, if you're on the college bound track, just being enrolled
in one of those classes makes you much higher, much more likely to graduate
from college in four or five years, which obviously on that college side,
that's what we're we are looking for. So as pleased to receive that and
happy to share that information. Leadana Chanceller talked about that a little bit during
her Teaching and Learning update our Monday school board meeting. We also took a
little bit of time and recognized our AG program, our FFA. You know,
I know you guys have publicized that for us, we really appreciate that,
but they know it's a big deal. They received that National Premiere Chapter
award last actually last week. I've been two weeks ago now at their the
National FFA Convention in Indianapolis. Yeah, and it's you know, once again,
it's their fifth year of existence and the program just continues to flourish.
We have the three we now have three FFA three AGG teachers at at Martlesville
Schools. They all came to our school board meeting on Monday along with more
importantly, had some kids come, which is always great to hear. That
spotlights price. Man, it's really cool. And we had a we had
a four o f F A student that's in college now that she actually came
back and spoke as well, and so it's pretty cool. So it's our
community, something our community should be proud of. I know, I'm making
a point to visit all of our schools every week. And I was over
at Richard Kine Elementary Monday morning during their morning assembly and Principal Kraus had had
our FFA kids were there speaking to them about, you know, the opportunities
that they're going to have if they're interested in that one as they get older.
And so because it's a wide variety, it's not just you know,
it's not just about animals. There's a lot of leadership and public speaking skills,
and so tickled about that. And then of course kind of jumping over,
you know, on the athletic side, and we're still playing football,
which is fun. That's exactly right. Yeah, we're we'll be in the
quarterfinals this week, playing over at Edmund Deer Creek and there's gonna be a
send off. So that's on Friday at seven, and I know that if
you don't make the trip, I know K one TV, well we'll have
that streaming and Evan and his crew do a great job with that. There's
gonna be a send off Friday afternoon if people want to come out over at
the high school at one o'clock. So Friday, at one o'clock on the
south side of the high school, we'll have a little sendoff. We'll have
the you know, uh cheer and palm and band and and I'm sure we'll
have Coach Wright, he's a man a few words, but I'm sure we'll
have a couple of things to say as we send our kids over to Edmund
Deer Creek. And this will be our second year in a row. Would
be to make it this far, and and the really, the future is
future really is bright for football. I really appreciate all those kids and staff
and parents hard work. So that's that's an exciting thing. And I'll also
mention last week we had some the first round of the college signing day,
and we had three kids that that are signed with some Division one schools.
A couple of swimmers, Gryffin Craig and Emma House. Griffin's going to University
of Missouri. You know, there's limited opportunities for kids in swimming that people
even offer that. So it's really you know, there's no place in Division
one to swim in Oklahoma or Kansas and not too there's only three in the
Big Twe so he's actually going to over in Missouri, which is an SEC
school, and so really proud of Griffin for getting that scholarship over there.
And then Emma House, we're swimming up at the University of Kansas and we've
had I think we've I think she's our sixth or seventh swimmer since twenty nineteen
that have gone up from Barnlesville to swim at Kansas. So I just kind
of called that Bartlesville High School North affair, so MLB going up her sisters
on the team at Kansas. And then Zeb Henry Zeb graduated last year,
signed with a junior college this year, but he just signed with Witchesta State
for baseball. Yeah, I'm really proud of Zeb. He's a great,
great, great kid and he's going to do great around his dad the other
day, So really proud of those kids and really look forward to following their
progress in the future. And then also kind of jumping back over on the
academic side, our aviation program is doing great. I know it's one to
mention that. Actually High Tower and Michael Harp, the principal, they just
went to a national conference in Orlando this past weekend and look forward to them
bring back some some more good things for our kids. That program continues to
grow. I know they've had speakers come in, We've had a lot of
support folks that want to reach out and give information to our kids. And
really thankful for all that all that support that's happened. And then just talking
when we've kind of talked some about the you know kind of the college college
ready, and we will make sure that we also providing some things for our
kids on the career side. We are in the process of working on adding
a construction class at balls With High School. You know, we're still working
on that. In the seventies and that was one of the best classes and
it straightened out a lot of kids that could have gone, well, we're
it's it's a process, you know, it's a commitment and we're working on
it. I just wanted to share that and that's our goal would be.
Ideally, we'd like to have a program where kids are building a house.
You know, we're building a house a year. You know. Granger Matter,
he's kind of our local historian in our district and he came across that
back in the fifties, they did that in Bartlesville. There's a couple of
houses here in town that our high school kids had built. So anyway,
so we're working on that. We're totally get a first to kind of entry
level Construction one class because where we are is our our friends that try County
Career Tech. They do a great job with our know, they have lots
of opportunities, great facilities, teachers. The only problem that we have is
we have a lot of kids that don't get in and so but they still
have interest in that on that getting some skills, getting ready to go to
work, and we know here in town, you know, we need we'd
love to have more that skilled labor. And because if you don't have those
folks here and available, it costs you more money to bring labor in from
outside. If you're coming in from Tulsa Clahoma City at costsmore so anyway,
so we kind of would like to grow our own So we are moving forward.
We wanted to get a Construction one class started and kind of long term
goal would be where we're doing some building a house a year, and so
we'll be talking to our community community members about that because we're gonna need some
help getting that off the ground. Kind of similar like we did with ag
and we've done with some of our aviation as well. Also mentioned our internship
program. We have over sixty seniors and a couple of underclassmen too, where
they spend a couple of hours a day doing an internship here in town.
So appreciate our community folks were taken. Most of those are unpaid. But
if you have someone that's interested that we have Anthony Tucker at the high school.
If you'd like to have a high school senior come in and spend some
time in your business, please reach out to him and let us know we'd
like to get those kids placed. They can either do it for a semester
or for the entire year, and typically it's two hours a day where they'll
spend spend at that place of business. And then just a quick update on
the job fair. We had a job fair last week. Yeah, and
our plan is to we're just gonna offer those ones every semester. We had
sixteen people show up. Obviously this time of year, we're not necessarily we're
looking more on the teaching end. It's teachers for the next school year,
but we always have a need for you know, bus drivers, substitutes,
teacher assistance, and we've did some hiring right there on the spot for that.
We'll have another job fair in the spring. Typically it's early March.
I think it's I'll make a guess on the date, but it's early March,
before spring break. But I just wanted to share that if those are
a great opportunity for people, whether that's a support staff or if they are
interested in teaching. Just to remind people, we do have a lot of
support for new teachers. You know, we have a new teacher academy that
we started last year. Last year we had forty two new teachers go through
it. We retained thirty eight of them this year. This year, we
have even fewer teachers going through it this year, so which is a good
thing. They matter of fact, they met this past week, so that's
something. If people maybe are interested in teaching, if they will come,
they can learn more about the process. You know, sometimes people are maybe
stay staying home with their children or thinking about this may be a good fit
for them in the future, even if they're not ready right now, but
they'd like to talk about the future. Would encourage them to come out.
So encourage people to be looking for more information about that, and then over
on the construction side, you know, things continue to roll. Yeah,
they really are. Go by Shawnee by the High School, that act facility,
it's on pace. We're going to be in that in March. It's
really looking great. And then our work over at Wayside Elementary, that expansion
is really coming along. We've got some information on our website with some drone
photos from that that we sent out this past week. But our plan is
to uh at Wayside, we'll have that new build, you know, those
those pre k and kindergarten pods along with art and music rooms. Those are
scheduled to be finished in March, and then we'll get started on the renovation
side of those spaces that we're moving out to get ready for school in August.
Yeah, so a lot going on. Yeah, you been love me
when a plan comes together. Yeah, it's going great. So I appreciate
you, appreciate you having me on and we're looking forward to Thanksgiving next week.
All right, Thank you very much. Chuck macauley with Bartols with Public
Schools. Thank you