Fowler USD #225
April 2019 Newsletter
Where Education is Experienced
Email: erarden@usd225.org
Website: usd225.org
Location: 100 East 8th Avenue, Fowler, KS, USA
Phone: 620-646-5661
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fowler-USD-225-121272627970328/?ref=ts
Southwest Kansas Regional Science Fair
Division I Materials Science: Gold- Hannah Masri
Division II Energy: Silver- Samanta Granados, Shaylin Garcia, and Ethan Boese
Division II Microbiology: Bronze- Ryleigh Foster, Jacelyn Huelskamp, and Joselyn Romesburg
Division III Animal Science: Silver- Micah McDowell, Dray Dawson, and Maxine Thomas
Division III Animal Science: Bronze- Evelyn Prieto and Lillian Littlewood
Division III Health Science: Silver- Kate Cunningham and Aiden Barrera
Division III Chemistry: Silver- Eddy Mendoza and Desmond Thomas
Division III Engineering: Silver- Landon Bollinger
Division III Engineering: Bronze- Saul Mendoza and Colt Dizmang
Division I State Qualifiers: Hannah Masri
Division II State Qualifiers: Ryleigh Foster, Jacelyn Huelskamp, & Joselyn Romesburg
Division III State Qualifiers: Micah McDowell, Dray Dawson, Maxine Thomas, Kate Cunningham, Aiden Barrera, Eddy Mendoza, Desmond Thomas, Landon Bollinger, Saul Mendoza, Colt Dizmang, Jacob McNemer, & Dakota Martin
Kansas State Science & Engineering Fair
Division I (9th-12th Grade)
Hannah Masri, Silver
Division II (6th-8th Grade)
Jacelyn Huelskamp, Ryleigh Foster, & Joselyn Romesburg, Participation
Division III (4th-5th Grade)
Micah McDowell & Dray Dawson, Gold
Colt Dizmang & Saul Bailon-Mendoza, Silver
Kate Cunningham & Aiden Barrera, Bronze
Landon Bollinger, Bronze
Desmond Thomas & Eddy Mendoza, Bronze
In addition, Micah McDowell and Dray Dawson took 2nd place overall in Division III, earning a trophy and $200 prize for their project, Bunny Vision.
SPIAA League Math Contest
4th Grade: Jayden Renfro, Silas Brown, & Saul Bailon-Mendoza
5th Grade: Lillian Littlewood, Landon Bollinger, & Eddy Mendoza
6th Grade: Alex Zortman, Danny McLachlan, & Jayden Bartlett
7th Grade: Abby Zortman, Jimmy Bower-Fink, & James Littlewood
8th Grade: Ryleigh Foster, Joselyn Romesburg, & Ethan Boese
The top 10 places in each category were awarded medals. Congratulations to the following Goldbugs:
4th Grade Mental Math: Silas Brown, 2nd Place
4th Grade Geometry: Saul Bailon-Mendoza, 10th Place & Silas Brown, 8th Place
4th Grade Problem Solving: Silas Brown, 2nd Place
6th Grade Geometry: Alex Zortman, 2nd Place
Kansas State Assessments
Monday, April 1
8th Grade: Science
Tuesday, April 2
3rd Grade & 4th Grade: Language Arts & Math
5th Grade: Language Arts, Math, & Science
9th Grade: Accuplacer
10th Grade: Language Arts & Math
11th Grade: ACT & Science
Wednesday, April 3
3rd Grade & 4th Grade: Language Arts & Math
5th Grade: Language Arts, Math, & Science
6th Grade, 7th Grade, & 8th Grade: Language Arts & Math
School in Session on April 4th & 5th
IPS Meetings
Self-Directed Learning
To best prepare our students for their future, our school adopted personalized learning as a pillar of our redesign. You may notice that we talk about personalized learning often, but you may also ask yourself, “What does it really mean?” To answer that, take a look at this latest Blog post from our friends at Summit Learning. It describes why schools choose personalized learning, and what that means for our students.
Personalized learning here at Fowler means deeper relationships between students and teachers through mentoring, students master skills through projects, and students understand how they learn best through self-direction. In our school, students are guided by their teachers and mentor through a learning cycle that teaches them how to learn. They develop the ability to set goals, select strategies to achieve those goals, put their plan into action, and reflect on their progress. You can likely think of a time in your life where you use this process weekly or even daily to succeed in your career. By teaching self-direction, we are preparing our students to have skills that will be invaluable to them as adults.
As a parent, you can help your child work on self-direction. Ask them what goals they have set this week or what skills they are focused on developing. Together, we can help our students develop the skills they need to be successful. The photos below show students receiving one-on-one support through math and physics workshops offered during self-directed learning time, as well as one-on-one mentoring.
3rd Quarter Reward Qualifiers
Middle School: Ryleigh Foster, Jacelyn Huelskamp, Abby Zortman, Alex Zortman
High School: Alejandro Arenillas, Avery Bollinger, Hannah Masri, Jahim Ross, Patty Anurat, Sydney Bollinger, Caleb Heinz, Jurney Bird, Savannah Bollinger, Logen Kernell, Alexa Snook
New Books for MS/HS
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Wildly Important Goal Progress
Senior Capstone Project Week 2019
At Fowler Schools, we not only focus on what’s important to us, but we also focus on what’s important to the students. We believe in the success of every student and every staff member.
Fowler Schools is a place where we focus on the future. We hardly use formalized textbooks - which people might disagree with - but what we use is the Summit Learning Program on Chromebooks, into which book learning is embedded. This program is very helpful not only to the students but to the teachers as well. It tells the students what courses they should complete, the problems that need to be solved, and tells the students if they have passed the course or if they have flunked the course. For the teachers, Summit is a tool that shows what precise skills the student struggles with, what skills in which the student excels, and supports 1-1 mentoring meetings with students in order to encourage and help the students set goals.
This program is fully developed and takes stress off of the students and teachers while still challenging them to become more active participants within their educational careers. Fowler students rarely receive homework due to our emphasis on in-class practice time. Not all people like change. That’s understandable; with this program, it makes change easy and simple. Along with this curricular change, Fowler JR/SR HS has implemented an Individual Plan of Study. This allows each student to create their own schedule that fits their future goals - if students plan on studying welding, they get a custom schedule based around preparation for these welding courses. If a student plans on becoming a nurse, students have immediate access to outside courses through Dodge City Community College. This IPS system also makes it easier for kids coming from other schools to adapt to this school and not have any trouble with credits. Fowler Schools believes in the success of each student and with this program, I believe we will succeed for a very long time.
This school believes in creating leaders, hard workers, problem solvers, and creative minds. This is where our PBL course and Internships come into play. PBL stands for project-based learning: it’s a class in which the student thinks of something that deals with their hobby or future job and they create a project based on these interests. The PBL course is helpful because it teaches students the necessary skills to get the job they want, the mentality for that job, and what college classes are needed to go further with that career. It’s also useful because it shows students how to be responsible, how to become a leader in a workplace environment and face problems that adults in the workforce typically have to overcome. Along with our PBL course is a mandatory internship, which is similarly designed to help students enter the workforce or college for example: if the student is going to college for journalism, he or she can work during the school day at a local newspaper in order to gain experience in a real-life journalism situation (and sometimes these internships can become actual jobs!)
Fowler is a school where teachers actually care about the students’ well-being. I believe that this school is taking off in the right direction, and I hope that other students and schools are willing to follow in our steps. Fowler is the future!
by Emie Carillo
For more information on the options and details related to the Senior Capstone Project Week, read the following article by Savannah Bollinger, Meade County News intern.