Hello Community,

Once again we are starting a new year enjoying an abundance of snow. The snow helps create a feeling of truly starting over; erasing all that was once there and preparing us for the year ahead. In contrast, the school year is only about halfway through and though the break is a great time to relax and rejuvenate, returning creates a mad dash to finish up the first semester and prepare for the second.

We start this new year continuing some activities from last year. Basketball, wrestling, cheer, and dance all continue their seasons. Basketball and Wrestling have several remaining contests including the Battle for the Paddle January 21st at Lakeland High School. Cheer and Dance have their competition season during this time. We encourage you to come out and cheer on our student athletes. We also have a huge drama production in mid January that is now two years in the making; Willy Wonka will be performed at SHS and you don’t want to miss this show!

We also continue to work on improving our service to students. We have been focused on creating an atmosphere of engagement where we hope students will want to come every day. Part of this has been looking at how we help students feel welcome to school and each class and creating relationships of trust with our students. We spend some time every month discussing how we can better reach our students both academically and emotionally as well as considering what we might do when we notice students are not responding to our efforts and expectations.

We are now very much looking at what next year will look like. We are in the process of reviewing class numbers and expected numbers of students for next year. We will soon be publishing class offerings and asking students to register for classes next year. Of course, that is a lot of planning and puzzle building but it’s all worth it when the following year begins to come together.

Please remember the end of the first semester, and Term 2, for students is January 27th. All classes will be completed by that time and final, permanent grades will be entered and added to student transcripts. This leaves only three weeks to shore up and get remaining work completed before we start an entire new selection of classes. Friday the 28th is a non-student day and the second semester starts January 31st. Attendance continues to be important as we know regularly attending classes increases a student’s likelihood of getting a good grade.

Remember I am always open to parent input on anything related to school. If you have any questions or something to share, please call or come in and talk to me.

Go Bulldogs!

David Miles II; Sandpoint High School Principal

Pictured from left to right:

Colton Moore, Aidan Smith, Ryan Graham, John Keegan, Andrew VanCorbach, Antonia Briatta, Ben Jordan, Sophie Mikat, Chloe Mikat. Not Pictured: Rylie Hancock, Ryan Kimmelshue, Kyla LaFountain.

On December 11, the SHS Academic Decathlon teams competed against the Priest River Lamanna High School team to win first and second place at the Idaho Academic Decathlon Invitational Meet for North Idaho. This year’s topic is the Water: A Most Essential Resource. Twenty-two SHS students competed against five Priest River students. The four SHS teams won a combined 33 gold medals, 34 silver medals, and 28 bronze medals. The main team had a very impressive total score of almost 40,000. Three students truly stood out at the meet: Kyla LaFountain (team co-captain and 3rd year decathlete), who medaled in all ten events and was the overall gold medalist in the Varsity division, Logan Jones (team co-captain and 3rd year decathlete), who also medaled in all ten events and was the overall gold medalist in the Scholastic division, and Alex Kingma (2nd year decathlete), who medaled in eight events and was the over gold medalist in the Honors division. Kingma was also the highest scoring individual decathlete. The students are now preparing the IAD Regional Meet scheduled for the end of January. They will then compete at the state championship at Marsing High School in March where they hope to win a fourth state championship in a row.

Idaho’s Forests

Payton Betz, 11th

AP Environmental Science, Hastings

betz.payton@lposd.org

Sandpoint, ID 83864

Idaho forests play a crucial role in our everyday lives. They provide wood for many building supplies, clean air by producing oxygen, habitat for wildlife and storing carbon to help slow the impacts of climate change. Overseeing these forests is very important and one must remember to incorporate the interests of the environment and animals along with humans. Idaho’s landscape in many areas supports lush and successful forests, but these areas are also subject to many stressors and challenges such as invasive species, wildfires, climate change, people, and disease.

Invasive species are non-native species that disrupt and harm the natural environment. One invasive species specific to Idaho is the white pine blister rust disease that was introduced from Europe and kills branches, treetops in Western White Pines as well as causes leaf loss in gooseberries and currants. The disease caused an obliteration of white pines and wiped out the white pine industry. There are now very few white pines in Idaho and now people are not supposed to harvest white pine for firewood purposes. Another invasive species that negatively affects the Idaho forests, is the gypsy moth that consumes needles and foliage of trees, harming the natural growth and health of the trees. Along with invasive species, Idaho forests face major threats due to climate change.

Climate change is affecting the habitat and environment of earth in extreme ways, such as intense wildfires that have been affecting the American west and other places in the world. Wildfires are an important and natural part of the ecosystems, and some trees called pyrophiles rely on fire to open the pinecones and reproduce. Climate change has made these fires more intense, and the forests are not naturally equipped to handle these uncharacteristic fires. In some places forests are not growing back due to the weather, drought, and other climate change factors, and are instead becoming grassland type biomes where very few trees grow.

In order to maintain healthy forests, it is important for people to practice sustainable harvesting and logging techniques that allow regrowth and a safe habitat for animals and plants. Humans use wood for many products as well as a sustainable heating source. Allowing some Idaho forests to be completely protected as wilderness is important for certain ecosystems and wildlife, especially animals that need a lot of space and dislike humans such as grizzly bears and wolves. Balancing public lands also helps maintain a place where people can access to recreate on. It is also important to have land for logging and timber purposes too. To be sustainable in forestry practices it is important not to totally strip an area of its timber as in clear cutting the forest, but to be selective and environmentally aware while harvesting. Through sustainable silviculture and harvesting of trees, Idaho can maintain healthy forests and reduce disease, insects and wildfires, as well as providing animals and people with the important resources and habitat that they deserve.