Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome in. It's time now for our community connection. First of two this hour, and we are speaking with Chuck Pacauley.
He is the superintendent of.
School's Bartonsville Public Schools and my goodness sakes, things are just getting better and better. The school and the foundation just received a big check the other night.
Yeah they did, Tom, Thanks for getting me in today. I know it's a busy time. Yes, Monday night we received our vest wrote a give us a fifteen thousand dollars check to the Public School Foundation and this is there for their continued support. This is I believe three years in a row now and what that is is to help our teachers with the cost of childcare. We partner with Tri County Tech. They have an outstanding childcare program.
This is something that was part of our strategic plan trying to come up with ways for the recruitment and retention of teachers, and daycare is one of those things that can cause teachers to choose to stay home when their kids are young, before they get to the school agent.
So the way that has evolved is Try County Tech has modified their childcare where it's August through May, so our teachers, if their kids are enrolled in that program, they don't have to pay for June July when they're off contract, and in those months they do pay for, they get a fifty percent discount. And that's what that RVEST check is helping the district with HASP help cover
that cost. And so that's tremendous. We have twenty three kiddos, little bruins out at Track County Tech that their parents are teachers, and so it's been a tremendous benefit. I really appreciate Tammy Strobel, Jolie Bryant out of Tri County. Of course, David Nickel and his leadership at RvEs and Stevie Williams. Earl Sears came to our board meeting on Monday as well. Of course Blair Elis and Jesus kind of works miracles for us. But it's really been a
tremendous benefit for us. And we're excited to announce that on Monday.
So we've got a big spring break coming up. And then after that, Boy, it's pedal to the medal.
Isn't it. It's your Tom.
We have you know, we have You're right, matter fact, we have a parent teacher conferences for a little for elementary parents or last night tonight, so elementaries will be out on Friday. Middle school and high schools having school Friday.
Excuse me.
Next week is spring break and then it's nine weeks in school. It's it's a race now. I mean, there's a lot going on, lots of activities. It's a fun time I think we have. We're out on Good Friday, and then we have a graduation that Friday before Memorial Day, last day on Thursday.
I know, Tom, you've got one that's going to be there.
The last, last, last one.
Seven.
Yeah, and so it's been it is a race. We do have lots of activities. I want to hit on just a couple of things. Also, just tonight, there is the at the center that the tall cop is going to be here, and what that is. That's that from that opioid abatement grant that the district wrote. We have a nationally known speaker that's coming in. We receive this grant. This is just for opioid awareness and so he's gonna be from six to seven fifteen at the center.
And this is for just for adults eighteen and above.
No media, and he's really coming just to get they do some research on what it is and how that's impacting Bartlesville and Washington Counting. So encourage anybody that wants to come. They can just come. There's no cost, and it's it should be a good, good learning opportunity for all of us. I know I look forward to being there as well. It's tonight at six o'clock. I want to mention our we recognize a couple of things at our board meeting.
In addition to the check presentation.
On Monday night, we had our our Academic All Stater, Luke Huck as a senior, and they recognized one hundred the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, they recognized one hundred seniors in the state as Academic All Stators and Luke Huck is one of those, and we've had one of them.
We've had at least one.
At Bartlesville High School every year since they've been giving out those, making Academic All Stators.
Really proud of, really proud of Luke.
He shared with us he's thinking he's going to go to ou as considering going to being a lawyer. A really sharp young man, and really proud of him and his excellence.
We recognize our swim teams.
You know, are both of our swim teams, boys and girls finished as state runners up.
We had a couple of girls.
Anna Young and Addie High, won a couple of individual state championships and they're both neither one of those are seniors. So we just keep keep having a great deal of success. Coach Inglehardt, who does such a tremendous job, he mentioned both of our swim teams. Their team great point averages was almost three point nine and our boys team minished by one hundredth of a point being the academic state champion as well. We have ten boys on the swim team,
all of them qualified for state. We had seventeen girls, sixteen of them which qualified for state. And so they just keep having tremendous success. And then I want to mention also something exciting a couple one thing that you might have seen tom as Oklahoma Western University of partnership with their we are working on really trying to grow our own teachers. And so something I saw at the national conference a few years ago and we've been talking
about it, but now it's happening. And so what that means is at Bartlesville High School. If we have students that are interesting becoming teachers, if they go through our internship program, which we have many kids as seniors that are interested, they do in a couple hours a day at one of our schools. They can earn up to
five hours of credit at Wesleyan University. If they go to Wesleyan University and get into College of Education there eligible for a five thousand dollars scholarship annually to become a teacher. And so it's really a tremendous benefit, especially for our local kids. You know, Wesleyan is a private school. I mean they do the best they can, be competitive on their tuition costs, but you know you can you know, living at home and getting some scholarships and and you
know you can graduate. You get a head start on your college credit. You look at graduating from college when you're twenty one, twenty two, and we will hire you at Bartlesville and help train you to be successful. So really proud of that. We want to make sure we're doing the best we can. You know, we talked about the teacher daycare in terms of kind of recruitment and retention.
This is hopefully a way for us to help with.
That in terms of growing our own because you know, we want to open that door to our to our young youngsters to help them see all the benefits of education. And then I'll also mention Ladan and Chancellor shared with us Monday night regarding our enrollment for next year in construction and aviation, some of those programs that continue to flourish. We started a construction class this year. We have ninety two kids taking construction at Bartlesville High School. Doug Bidrou's
teaching the course. So next year we're adding a construction too. And so we've gone through the enrollment process and we've had we're adding a construction two class, which we had I think it was thirty five kids requested to be in construction two, and then we had one hundred over one hundred and thirty kids request to be in construction one.
So we're gonna have to add some additional Uh, Doug can't, mister Madreau can't teach all those, so we're gonna work on We're gonna work on that, but we're gonna add at construction too. That's going to continue. I see that being a four year program and really want to get them. Kind of my end goal would be where they can be involved with some intornships where they can be out in the field and learning and getting them ready to go to the world to work, because you know, there's
lots of lots of good jobs out there. If you just have those have some skills and will work, you don't have to go to college to really to really have those opportunities. And then our aviation program, Uh, we've this is our third year of having that.
We're gonna add a fourth year next year.
Uh so we have four years of aviation at Bartlesville High School, so that construction aviation program continue, uh, just continue to flourish. We're excited to excited to offer that for our kids. And then you know, kind of the last thing Tom I wanted to mention that I have on my list here just to remind folks if they have a kidd oh that's that's going to enroll in pre kindergarten, if they're going to be four years old before September first, we need to know, so please help
us know. You know, we have a pretty good handle on our kids that are in school. They're gonna they're gonna age up to the next grade level for staffing, So please reach out to that elementary school. We have information online on how they can figure out what but boundary they're in. But if they'll just call one of the schools, we can help them to bring them up and help get them ready. We have full day you know, we have full day pre K for our four year
old programs. You know, this year we offer we have free breakfasted lines for all kids. We're gonna continue with that. It's been very successful. It's really helped our kids. Now that we have the number of kids I qualify for free and reduced lunch, So now every kid, no matter whether they qualify or not, they do get that free breakfast and lunch as well. So yeah, I'm pretty quick Rundown.
I was looking at my calendar and the next time I'm going to be on our next board meeting, I think it's April twenty first, and you know, by that time we're.
Just literally days away from graduation.
So it's been fast and furious, but it's been a great year so far and looking forward to spring break.
All right, Hey, Chuck, thank you very much, and keep up the good work. You know, we've got the Bradys some best looking kids in all Oklahoma.
I agree.
That's a parent and school combination, all right'd be good. All right. Once again, folks, you've been listening to our community connection, and that's Chuck McCauley. He is our superintendent of schools Bardonsville Public Schools.