What a Year! The school year was greatly affected by COVID. A second wave of the Coronavirus affected about every teacher on campus and it limited the number of substitute teachers available. From December through mid-February every teacher was spending their prep periods subbing for a teacher that was out with COVID and no substitute teachers were available. This could be a problem moving forward.
This year we said goodbye to Kathy Stephenson. She retired in mid-November. We lost Jerry Adams the first week of school as he was voluntold to be the principal at Upland HS until a replacement could be found, as the beginning Principal quit on the 2nd day of school.
In November we lost our math teacher Rosy Ambriz to Upland JHS where she is now the Assistant Principal. We lost Jason Dashinsky to a head injury sustained in PE on October 29 for a period of over three months. We lost a long-term sub who I had mentioned at the end of last year, Steven Miller, who quit during lunch one day in October.
We picked up five long-term subs to fill in for the loss of Rosy (Math), David (Steve)(English), Kathy(Elective), Jason (Math), and Jerry(Principal). The substitute teachers for the year were Fro, Ashlee (Double E), Ms. Ruvalcalva, and Dr. Andrew Stager our interim principal. It was a very good combination of staff members. We had many Thursday potluck lunches in which everyone participated. Meaning lots of food.
We also added a whole new office staff. This year we replaced our office manager Beth Boswell. Beth has been replaced by Rebecca Wells, Rebecca comes to us Via Sierra Vista Elem. school. We also added Aiesha Perez and Mrs. Yolanda Powes. (Mrs. Powers did not finish the school year out with us due to her son's bout with cancer. We expect her back next year. Mrs. Boswell replaced her at the end of the school year.) Mrs. Powers and Mrs. Boswell kept track of school records and attendance. The dynamic duo of Mrs. Perez and Mrs. Powers came from the Hawk's Nest. The Hawks Nest has been in operation since I began teaching and has been closed for at least a year for lack of student parents. Now that is a whole conversation on its own.
This year our counselor and custodian became full-time employees at HHS and working exclusively for HHS. In the past, Ms. Berrigen has been splitting her time between schools as well as Mrs. Hernandez our custodian.
Our proctor Mr. Martinez has been a welcomed presence on the HHS Campus. He took over for Mr. Broadway last school year, during the 4th quarter when staff and students were allowed back on the HHS campus with.
Leadership, run by Ms. Garcia expanded into new areas. She had school-wide elections for a school president. She had the students have shows off-campus. And there were many activities on Fridays for the students to show school spirit and be involved.
Mr. R. Connor continued on with the Tiny Home. This school year they added exterior trim, painted the exterior, installed insulation, and installed the interior lighting and outlets, this was a slow process. The students were a bit challenging this year. The students picked up bad habits with COVID and have trouble weaning themselves from their phones. It will take some time to change their cell phone bad habits. Over the past two years, it appears they had uncontrolled access to their devices during the Covid pandemic. Mr. Connor's students also participated in the rocketry unit, gravity race car unit, and contest and rebuilt a ping pong table, then created ping pong paddles to play games. A ping pong competition ensued.
Two gates were installed along the existing wrought iron fence to allow the tiny home onto campus in front of rooms 13 and 14, which has now become the outdoor construction area. This school year Room 14 is dedicated to the construction class. Future plans include a roll-up door in place of a window, interior cabinetry to house tools, changing the flooring from carpet to a linoleum product, and purchases of an exhaust system. This will only be possible if we can find someone interested in teaching the class after next year.
The Farm. This year we made some changes to the farm. The first change was to remove the large center-raised garden. It was hard to maneuver around. The second was to come up with a system to keep the chickens out of the garden. The students successfully moved the large center-raised planter. They then created four separate raised beds. The students also continued creating raised garden beds in the east garden area adding shut-off valves to each bed. (These had been removed with the project WET grant, which I was not happy). We also moved the irrigation controller from the shipping container to the garden.
We relocated the sink from outside the garden to inside the chicken coop. This helped fill the chicken water containers faster but left us without a sink to wash our hands. A sink to wash hands was then added outside the coop.
We picked up two pigs in December. They were loved by the staff and students but came to an unfortunate death. The deaths are still under investigation. We believe it was something they ate. The pigs died a week apart. A vet was brought in to try to save them. The pigs died fast. One day they were walking around then two days later they were on the ground unable to move. The Vet did indicate that the pigs and chickens should not be housed together. The students then created an area for four-legged creatures.
We continued to work on the Portable chicken coop idea. We took chicks to two schools this year. We took them to Baldy View and Upland JHS. For the Upland JHS visit, we made a portable cage. The idea was to take the pigs but came to the realization they were just too big to move easily.
We also had two visits by Elementary schools. We had Foothill Knolls and Sierra Vista visit the farm.
On the last day of school for the seniors, we had a senior appreciation time out on the field from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM where the staff had ordered pizza and a shaved ice truck. Mr. Smith provided the DJ activities. There also was a photo booth.
Room 1 - Mr. Dashinske/ Miss Ashlee (3 months) (Algebra & PE)
Room 2 - Mrs. Bennette
Room 3 Mrs. Garcia (Art)
Room 4 Mrs. Bryer (Science)
Room 5 Mrs. Cazaraz (English)
Room 6 Mr. Fro (History)
Room 7 Mrs. Saranana (English)
Room 8 Mr. Dean Connor (IS), Ms. Barragan (Counselor)
Room 9 Mrs. Stephenson, Ms. Ashlee (4 months)
Room 10 Mr. Smith ( Gov. & US History)
Room 11 Mrs. Ambirz, Ms. Rubacalva (Geometry)
Room 13 Mr. R Connor (Technology-Construction/Farm)
Office: Mr. Adams, Mr. Stager (Principal)
Our Seniors!
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