I'm now to talk with Chuck McCauley here. He is the superintendent of Bartonsville Public Schools And this is our community connection. It's being brought to you by Wesley and Kidney College and twelve Grass Motors and Jack welcome aboard. It's great to have you here. We're getting closer and closer and closer to the end of that calendar.
You're right, Thank you, Yeah, thank Tom, thanks for having us. Yeah, we're just a little over about four weeks from tomorrow, I guess to be the last day of school. And so it's just a busy.
Time lot going on.
And we had our April school Board meeting earlier this week and had a couple of those annual items that we kind of started the meeting with. We first of all with our school board officers. That's when they are chosen for those positions as well. And Starboard made some slight changes. Scott Builder is going to remain as board president. He's been ward president now I think for about nine years,
and Andrey and Nightingale is now vice president. And Kender Shamhart is going to move over and serve as a clerk. But appreciate their those hardboard board officers for willingness to step up and take those roles. We also had a couple of spotlights. The first one we did was our Bruins on the Run mentors. They with our so we have a lead teacher at six elementary schools that mentor our kids. We have over fifty mentors that worked with over one hundred and fifth graders. That that's our after
school running program, mentorship program. And like I said, we have fifty eight mentors, so we couldn't quite get them all in the boardroom, so we just have the six six teachers come and thank them for all their effort. They really do tremendous work and really model healthy behavior for our kids. And you know, that's something that I think it's really important in this world that we live in now for kids to pick up some good habits,
some high quality habits. And so, you know, we had one hundred and I think it was one hundred and well over one hundred kids that completed the Bruin at K in the fall, and they went through their spring program that ended with scheduled to end with the K Life ten K. They didn't because of the weather, they didn't participate in that, but they did all the training
for that. So really proud of the kids, and we just continue to make that part of our culture of what we do in taking care of yourself, that healthy lifestyle. And then we had Anthony Tucker come on and a couple of our students, Owen May and ell A good One talking about our internship program. And we had a couple of videos at the State Chamber of Commerce put on using our Bartlesville High School internship program as a model for the state.
Good it's pretty cool, yeah, Owen May.
Owen May does something with our local here with Phillip sixty six. He has an internship with them. And then Ella good One who graduated last year, she's went with Washington County Emergency Management. She's actually in there working on being a fire department a firefighter.
Wow.
Yeah, and she's she's amazing. And so we had a video that we showed the Nanthy Tucker who directs the program, an gave a update with that.
And so we have over one.
Hundred kids involved in an internship tom, I know, arranging from folks that are interesting teachers to intersted in, you know, with Phillip sixty six or Conico Phillips and abb we have lots of hospital, we have numbers of several kids that spend time there, so it's really great h experience. So we did all those things at a board meeting, and then also just something else that came up, just a couple of things I'll mentioned over on the academic side,
kind of new things for the upcoming school year. We're going to add our fourth AG teacher for Barsel Public Schools. We had enough interest, we finished up enrollment. We need we need, we need some more teachers to teach. The number of kids that want to take AG if you build it, that's exactly right. And we're going to expand AG to our seventh graders this this upcoming year. Yeah, yeah, so we'll have so they're working on fill in that position.
As you can imagine, there's been a great deal of interest in that with our with our community and so with our to staff that AG teacher. So what we'll end up doing is we'll have a full time AG teacher at Central, a full time teacher at Madison, and the two at the high school. So and and Marty Jones tells me, we'll see what the how the enrollment numbers end up. But we'll we may have ended up having the largest ACT program in the state of Oklahoma.
We'll see, we'll see how all the enrollment shakes to number one in five years. It's incredible. Yeah, it's really really proud of that. It's really cool.
I told you Martin is the best cheerleader you could ride.
You're right, You're right.
And you know Cameron Dale who also oh yeah, she teaches I got the high school.
She was our second teacher that we hired.
Uh.
And she's the president elect for the National f f A program.
Yeah.
And so our program is just really recognized across the country. So really really really excited for that. Construction and aviation continues to grow. Our construction matter of fact, Uh, Doug Boudreau, we're gonna have hired an additional person to kind of help with that program because we have so many kids that are interested in and we anticipate having about one hundred and fifty kids. We're gonna we started with construction one this year. We're gonna add a construction to class
this year. So that continues to grow. In an aviation, Uh, well, well this is this year we've we started, you know, we have Aviation three and the next year we're gonna add Aviation four. So we have over uh many kids that are enrolled in that. Matter of fact, we're looking at expanding that as well. We have actually highest towers able to teach all those classes now and now we're looking at if we need to have additional teacher get them trained to teach the course as well.
These kids what this does, and you know, it all of a sudden, school becomes cool, that's right, you know, and they're paying attention not only into that class, right, but to all of them.
Yeah, it's it's and I think that's the big thing.
And we've always had and we you know, on the academic side, just with you know, our AP program, Events Placement College, you know, those college bound classes, we've expanded that. We have more kids taking an AP class than we've had. I've been in the district now for twenty four years, and we've got more kids taking AP classes than we ever had. And so in a lot of those kids on that track obviously are getting ready to go to college.
We've been nationally recognized for that program. But you know, we have a lot of kids that aren't going to college, and that's okay, and we'll make sure they're getting those skills I think about, you know, in our AG program.
Of course with a lot of our ad kids are going to college as well, but some of the skills that they're learning to get them ready for work, you know, internship program, you know, construction and aviation and so really just giving kids flexibility, especially when they get to the end of their high school years where they can really be spend time on courses that they're interested in, they are most interested in. It kind of help get them ready for that next step. So it's exciting stuff, it's fun.
And then the springtime also, Tom, I need to kind of jump over and mention I know your daughter is involved. We have our big spring production is this weekend.
Yes, it is lame As Big Days, one big Avenaue.
That's right Friday, Saturday at seven and then Sunday at three. Bartlesville Choir dot com is where you can buy tickets. It's our kind of our twentieth year anniversary. I was working at the high school. I remember when they last time they did lame Is. It's it's quite a production. It's a huge production. Yeah, I've often teld folks in the spring it's probably the if you want to see the as many kids as possible participate in an event,
would become to that program. Because whether it's building the sets or obviously involved in it or playing the music. I mean, it's incredible doing all. Yes, and we have super super talented kids and what a great Uh. You were obviously heavily invested in the arts as well, you know, mentioned on some of the academic and career and so as well, and uh, it's really fun to watch them, and so it courage people to come out uh and
see that as well. And then you know, spring sports we're in the probably more towards the tail end of that's kind of ending up. I think next week, as a matter of fact, we're hosting softball regionals on Tuesday.
Uh.
Coach Men's done a really good job. Just as a reminder of you know, they went to the state tournament last year in the spring, and they're able to play on the same field where they host the you know, the women's College World Series and also the Olympics is going to be hosted.
There as well. So what a great deal.
Our girls got to play on that field last year and they went to the state tournament fast pitching the fall, and they're hosting a regional on Tuesday. I think our girls golf regionals next week or regional girl girls and boys golf, and uh you know tennis and baseball, and uh Cody Price continues to do great things on baseball leading that program as well. And just as a reminder, we've got some kids. Uh you know, Jacob Hall, one of our baseball players, was drafted last year. You know,
he's in the Minnesota organization. And uh zeb Henry's uh playing for Wichita State currently and uh you know Brendan Asher is pitching at Oral Roberts University. You know, he's a true freshman and he got to start over at the University of Arkansas game.
And so kids are really uh.
Coach Price is a tremendous job of developing kids and getting them ready for for those that have the talent and the work ethic to go to that next step as well. And then mentioned as well, May fourteenth, we'll have our special Olympics send off. We'll give some information out and that's really a fun thing we do. At seven o'clock in the morning, kids they load the buses in front of the circle drive there at the high school and go to special Olympics, and we do. You know,
we have everybody there. We have the only football kids come out and cheer and palm and the band and we play for him, make a big deal.
And matter of fact, Tom, I think.
I've got a call from you before about what's going on at the high school at seven o'clock.
It happens.
Yeah, but we'll be doing that again. He's the community to come out. And then graduation is coming up obviously quickly. We're scheduled for that Friday before Memorial Day, May twenty third, scheduled for seven pm. We will have an outdoor graduation. We want to make sure we can get everybody wants to come can come uh that ceremony. Typically it's going to take an hour and twenty minutes or so, even
with the number of graduates that we have. We don't have a We just have kids speak during that program. We don't hire an additional speaker to come in and you know, take a long time because that's not why people are there. They're there to see their kid walk across the stage. We may shift that time depending on the weather. You know, sometimes we've had to move it up, you know, a little bit earlier, a little bit later. H but we're gonna do everything we can to have
it on Friday. If if we get rained out on that Friday, then we'll look at we'll look at the weather and schedule on Saturday, we'll have it that next day. But we're gonna have an outdoor, outdoor ceremony. We we did have that indoors a few years ago when we just we just you know, the feedback that we had, we're just best off having it outside where everybody wants to come can come.
Yeah, So yeah, we're gonna do that again.
And then last thing, I'll just mention just a reminder Tom that our pre k enrollment's going on. We have room at all six of our elementary school. So if you have a four year old, it's gonna be four before September first and they're ready to come to school. You know, we have full day pre k at all six elementaries as well, and we really especially I know parents, if it's their first child, they may be and sometimes maybe not sure whether they're ready to start or not.
So you'd really encourage them to contact the school and make an employment come up and visit and help determine if that if the kiddo is ready or not, and and sometimes I can change over the summer too, but just for staffing purposes, we would love to know if they're make sure we're staffed appropriately, and then we're also mentioned that our to help with that in terms of those class sizes. You know, we're finishing up our first year at Wayside Elementary. We're in that it's going great.
Ranch heights. I walked through yesterday that's going to be opened up this this coming year, and boy that got some It's a beautiful addition.
I know, I went through.
There, like their art elementary art and elementary music rooms are huge and beautiful and kids are going to get to do some wonderful things. And so really glad to be able to offer those experiences for our kids. And now with those space, you know, we're able to staff appropriately so we can have good class sizes as well. Our average elementary class sizes won the twenty or one the twenty one, depending on the age level. So anyway, Tom, a lot going on. We're finishing up here just a
little bit. You got a new principal, we.
Did, Oh, thank you Stacy Goodwin.
Yeah, she's been with the district now for twenty five years, and she's been in several roles. Most of her career has been at Ranch Heights, but she's most recently been over at Jane Phillips Elementary as an instructional coach. And Stacy's she's ready. She's going to be We're really excited to elevate her in that role. She's been there working kind of a lot of assistant principal type duties and she does a tremendous job.
She's ready.
Kevin Brown, who has been the principal there for nine years, he's going to go to the he's going to the high school and being assistant principal. He's getting kind of closer to the end of his career and he wanted to kind of he's been there leading Jane Phillipson, done a great job, and he was ready for a new challenge. And so he's gonna go back to the high school as an assistant principal and he's been there before, he'd done that several years ago. We've hired he's a great person.
He'll help round out that staff there as well. So yep, really happy for Stacey and really looking forward to laymen's this weekend.
All right, Hey, thank you very much, mister McCauley, appreciate it. Folks, you've been watching and listening to our community connection