Decatur Community Schools

-Photos by Tiffany Witt

Linda Glaze, who is also the librarian at the grade school and the high school, took on an additional job this year – seventh grade Family and Consumer Science teacher. Her goal for the year is that “the students will have basic living skills.”

To help them learn these life skills, they will be doing a unit on cooking, personality/decision making, and sewing. In the sewing unit they will make a pair of pajama bottoms. During the cooking unit, they will do a muffin lab, ground beef lab, and a simple dessert lab.

Mrs. Glaze said she enjoys teaching the class and finds it to be a lot of fun. She decided to take on the additional class this year because she feels passionate about the program and did not want it to be dropped after Marlene Moxter, the former FACS teacher, retired last year.

Mrs. Glaze is qualified to teach the class because she has a degree in family and consumer science as well as a library/media degree. She said she enjoys working one on one with the kids and likes seeing them have fun.

Recently the FACS class has been filling the halls with delicious smells as they have made various kinds of muffins and a meat dish so far.

The objectives of their most recent cooking assignment was to prepare a ground beef dish and have it ready to eat at a specified time. They also had to do a price analysis and figure out the cost.

When asked how her food tasted, Rayne Erickson said, “It tasted really good! In the muffins you didn't really taste the zucchini. The hamburger stroganoff tasted really good too!”

Addison Mathews said so far her group has made pumpkin and cream cheese filling muffins and spaghetti.

Blake Garner said he enjoys FACS because “We get to cook and have fun.”

-Photos by Sheila Jansonius

Last week was Bullying Prevention Week in Kansas, so the juniors and seniors in Student Council and National Honor Society went over to the grade school and talked about bullying with the younger students.

Those high school students were Faith Meitl, Isabel Grafel, Kaden O’Hare, Alex Hayward, Kaylen Ashley, Clayton Carter, Reegon Witt, Dustin Nichols, Trae Woolsey, Dawson Kempt, Colton Ketterl, Anna Carter, Alyssa Van Vleet, Erin May, and Amy Wentz.

The week before, the elementary students talked about bullying in their classes, so the high school students reviewed what they had learned: how it is never okay to be a bully, what they should do if they see someone being bullied, and what they should do if they are being bullied.

All of the high school kids said they had a great time eating breakfast with the kids and seeing how the grade school has changed since they were there.

Senior Isabel Grafel said, “I really enjoyed it! I had preschoolers, and they were adorable. We talked about how it's never okay to be mean, and we read a book about not bullying.”

Junior Alyssa Van Vleet said, “Taking a trip to the grade school brought back a lot of good memories. It was good to see all my old teachers and be able to interact with the kids.”

“Hopefully, this is just the first of several visits for the high school students,” said Student Council adviser Brenda Breth.  “All of the kids enjoyed the experience.”

The weight room and wrestling rooms have switched places. On October 2 and 3, students in physical education classes, grades 7-12, helped carry out  - literally – the idea of Principal Ben Jimenez and athletic director Brandon Gehring to switch the rooms.

In order to make the switch happen, they had to first clear the wrestling room, and then move the weight-lifting equipment, and finally move the wrestling mats.  Moving the equipment was a workout in itself – especially since the weights had to be moved upstairs to the old wrestling room, which is behind the upper bleachers in the gym.  Mr. Jimenez and Mr. Gehring also helped move the weights and equipment.

According to Mr. Gehring, switching the rooms will lower the cost of heating and, therefore, save the district money. It will also provide more space for the weight-lifting equipment and allow for a new setup in the weight room. The old weight room’s layout did not allow enough space for a complete weight room design.

Now that it is moved, the plan is to create a “station style” lifting room. The switch will benefit the students in P.E. classes and those in the wrestling program. Mr. Gehring said that head wrestling coach Shane Bird is on board with the change.  One advantage is moving the mats for meets. In the past, the mats had to be carried up the bleachers and over the rail.  Now, it will be a matter of moving them across the hall.

A disadvantage of moving the rooms is that they will have to block off the equipment when the upper bleachers are being used, but that isn’t very often.

Writing a grant for new weight-lifting equipment and remodeling is the next step in the process of the switch. Mr. Gehring hopes “it is a weight room the kids will be proud of.”