Bobcats Making Headlines

Marshalltown High School junior Ashlyn Ruiz has started a new podcast with a focus on diversity. Several of her fellow MHS students are featured on the first podcast.

With a goal to give a voice to students and an avid interest in broadcast journalism, Marshalltown High School junior Ashlyn Ruiz has started to host a new podcast featuring MHS students. The podcast will spotlight diversity on a bimonthly basis and is named “Choice Diversity.”

The first podcast is now online and features Ruiz and several other students candidly talking about the start of school and other matters of interest to them.

“I want students to have an opportunity to voice their thoughts and opinions,” Ruiz said. “I enjoy getting to talk to the students.”

Assisting Ruiz is MHS teacher Jocelyn Frohwein, who said she has been impressed with how the student produced her first podcast. Frohwein said the podcast idea came about after a group attended a diversity and inclusion summit and this was part of an action plan as a result of the summit.

Ruiz said the response she has received from the new podcast has been very positive.

“People say I have a great radio voice and I like to talk a lot so I guess that works,” Ruiz said with a smile.

To listen to the first podcast visit the new student podcasts page on the MHS site at www.marshalltown.k12.ia.us/mhs-student-podcasts.

This group of Marshalltown High School students were among those featured on the new “Choice Diversity” podcast at the school. Pictured from left are Ashlyn Ruiz, Jesus Silva, Lenny Nunez, Oscar Zazueta and Koffi Tengue.

Three Marshalltown High School seniors have joined the school board as student board representatives. Pictured from left are America Dominguez, Jane Ragland and Jocelin Sharfnejda.

They might not be able to cast an official vote, but their voice will matter on the Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education. The school board welcomed three student board representatives from Marshalltown High School to provide the student perspective to the board during meetings.

The three students selected from an application process are all MHS seniors and include America Dominguez, Jane Ragland and Jocelin Sharfnejda.

America Dominguez
Dominguez is involved in tennis, Science Bound and Students Teaching and Empowering Philanthropy (STEP) at MHS.

“I really want to be a voice for the Hispanic and Latino community,” Dominguez said.

She said it’s important for her to work with the students and the board to find solutions.

Jane Ragland
Ragland is involved in dance, National Honor Society, Student Senate and STEP.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to get involved and be a voice for the students,” Ragland said of being a student board representative.

Jocelin Sharfnejda
Sharfnejda is involved in the National Honor Society, STEP, Science Bound and the Health Careers Club.

“I want to be a voice for the students and I want to get to know more students and hear what they have to say,” Sharfnejda said.

These student board representatives are the first of their kind in Marshalltown Schools and are among just a handful of student school board representatives in the state. The three were inducted as student board representatives at the September 4 school board meeting.

Marshalltown High School students Javier Ramirez, right, and Marcos Medina work on a coding project in a computer science class at MHS. Marshalltown Schools is receiving additional state funding to help grow computer science programming district-wide.

Marshalltown Schools have been leaders in implementing computer science instruction in the classroom at all grade levels in recent years and new state funding will help that momentum continue.

The school district will receive $67,348 in additional state funding for computer science, which was announced by Governor Kim Reynolds recently. Locally, the grant will be spent in three areas of computer science.

• A total of $29,448 will fund tuition reimbursement for two college courses for nine teachers in the district, which would be credits toward an endorsement in computer science.
• A total of $23,900 will allow students and teachers to access creative coding curriculum through the program BrainPop to be used in preschool through 6th grade.
• A total of $14,000 will allow 75 Marshalltown teachers to be able to attend a 7-hour computer science workshop held on a weekend this fall or winter. This will be for teachers at all grade levels in the district.

Marshalltown Schools Director of Instruction Dr. Lisa Stevenson said this grant will continue the effort to provide more coding and 21st Century learning for our students.

“We have a lot of computer science programming going on now,” Dr. Stevenson said. “This is a way to give more teachers and students access to it.”

For more information on the funding from the state for this program, click here.

Marshalltown High School senior Shakira Herrera is honored during the MHS academic letter award night by MHS Principal Jacque Wyant.

Marshalltown High School hosted the annual academic letter award night on August 29 in the MHS/Community Auditorium.

The night honored current sophomores, juniors and seniors who achieved at least a 3.5 grade point average for both semesters last school year. A total of 198 students were recognized.

Those who received this distinction for the first time received an “M”  letter while those receiving this honor for a second or third time received a bar pin for their letter.

The night also included remarks from MHS Principal Jacque Wyant and Marshalltown Schools Superintendent Dr. Theron Schutte. Also, MHS senior Phoebe Osgood provided two poetry readings.

For more photos from this event, visit the MCSD Facebook page.

MHS sophomore Brian Heckner receives his academic letter from Principal Jacque Wyant.

Marshalltown High School students gather near the start of the Homecoming Dance last year.

Thanks to a generous donation from the Cinderella Dress Outlet of Omaha, Nebraska, Marshalltown High School juniors and seniors will have the opportunity to receive a free Homecoming dress for the dance this fall. Also, freshman and sophomores can receive a dress for $15.

The dress giveaway event will be at 10:30 a.m. at the MHS cafeteria on Saturday, September 8. Dresses will be available to try on and select at that time. First come, first served. All students must bring their MHS student ID to get in the door. Students will get to keep the dresses.

MHS would like to thank Terri Smieja, owner of Cinderella Dress Outlet, for these generous donations.  The idea came about to donate the dresses following the tornado in Marshalltown to help families. The dress giveaway is open to all juniors and seniors at MHS, not just tornado victims.

MHS is also accepting gently used dresses to give away to students. To donate dresses, drop them off at the main office at MHS.

The Homecoming dance will be on Saturday, September 29 at MHS.

The School Improvement Advisory Committee (SIAC) is a group made up of representatives from the community and school district. Its purpose is to enhance the relationship between the school and the community. The group also offers an avenue to get information and identify educational concerns from a community perspective.

The district is looking for representatives to serve on the MCSD School Improvement Advisory Committee  which includes community members, staff, students, and parents. The 2018-2019 group will meet 4:30 – 6 pm on the following Mondays: November 12, February 11, and May 13 at the Central Office, 1002 S. 3rd. Ave.

If you are interested in serving on the School Improvement Advisory Committee and available to attend the meetings please contact Dr. Lisa Stevenson at (641) 754-1000 or lstevenson@marshalltown.k12.ia.us  by Friday, September 7th.  If you previously served on SIAC and would like to continue, please do email or call to let us know your plans to return or not.

Spanish

Comité Asesor de Mejoramiento Escolar
El Comité Asesor de Mejoramiento Escolar (SIAC) es un grupo formado por representantes de la comunidad y el distrito escolar. Su propósito es mejorar la relación entre la escuela y la comunidad. El grupo también ofrece una vía para obtener información e identificar problemas educativos desde una perspectiva comunitaria.

El distrito está buscando representantes para servir en el Comité Asesor de Mejoramiento Escolar de MCSD que incluye miembros de la comunidad, personal, estudiantes y padres. El grupo 2018-2019 se reunirá de 4:30 a 6 pm los lunes siguientes: 12 de noviembre, 11 de febrero y 13 de mayo.

Si está interesado en servir en el Comité Asesor de Mejoramiento Escolar y está disponible para asistir a las reuniones, comuníquese con la Dra. Lisa Stevenson al (641) 754-1000 o a lstevenson@marshalltown.k12.ia.us  antes del viernes 7 de septiembre. Si ya trabajó en SIAC y desea continuar, envíe un correo electrónico o llámenos para informarnos sobre sus planes de regresar o no.

John Christen, plant manager at Marshalltown Company, talks to Marshalltown teachers on August 13 as part of the teacher externship academy.

Marshalltown teachers learned about local job and internship opportunities, toured area companies and made invaluable connections with local professionals during the teacher externship academy held August 13-16.

The program was led by Dee Burt of Marshalltown Schools, but program partners were plentiful on making these connections. Fifty Marshalltown Community School District teachers took part in the program.

“The MCSD teacher externship academy was an excellent educational event for our teachers to participate in,” Burt said. “The businesses and speakers provided exciting and informative tours and presentations each day.  The teachers were amazed at how many career opportunities Marshalltown businesses and industries provide for our students and families.”

Burt said the externship academy will continue next year, but the partnerships formed through this program will benefit all involved on a daily basis.

“I am looking forward to continuing to build partnerships with Marshalltown businesses and industry so internships and work-based learning opportunities can be created for our students,” Burt said.

Click here for a video of the academy.

The teacher group poses for a photo as part of the Burt Farms tour.

The Class 4A state baseball qualifying Marshalltown High School baseball team received distinguished academic status recently from the Iowa High School Athletic Association.

Marshalltown High School baseball players in grades 9-12 were recently awarded distinguished academic status by the Iowa High School Athletic Association. When grade point averages for all high school players in the MHS program were averaged the Bobcats earned a collective 3.49 out of 4.00.

The distinguished honor is the highest awarded by the IHSAA and was also earned by the Bobcat Baseball team in 2017. Head Coach Steve Hanson said he was very pleased to see players perform at the highest academic level.

“That’s a fantastic accomplishment for our guys,” Hanson said. “Participating in a high school sport is tough enough and when you add in classroom demands it’s easy for students to get overwhelmed. Success in the classroom has always been a priority for our program and it’s great to see these guys rewarded for their hard work.”

Sportsmanship ratings

Annual sportsmanship ratings were recently released by the IHSAA for the 2018 varsity
baseball season. Following each playing date, 57 umpires graded MHS on the sportsmanship shown by players, coaches and adult spectators. All of those scores were
tabulated and averaged to create the school’s final marks. On a five point scale with 1.0 being a perfect score, Bobcat players earned a 1.07 rating which was better than the Class 4A average of 1.27 and also better than the state average of 1.19.

On the same scale, Bobcat coaches earned a 1.09 rating which was better than the
Class 4A average of 1.28 and also better than the state average of 1.22. Adult spectators
earned a score of 1.16 which was better than the Class 4A average of 1.37 and
better than the state average of 1.28.

“We hope our players, coaches and fans conduct themselves in an acceptable manner
and scores from this past summer indicate that each of the groups did a nice job,” Hanson concluded.

Leading the way for the Bobcat Marching Band this year are drum majors, from left, Caleb Jones, Phoebe Osgood and Caitlin Scully.

Band camp is traditionally warm for the Marshalltown High School marching band. While fighting the heat, another tradition is laying the groundwork for high quality performances by the Bobcats.

The three students leading the way for the marching band this year as drum majors are Caleb Jones, Phoebe Osgood and Caitlin Scully. The band wrapped up the first week of band camp on August 10 with more days to come to prepare for the marching season.

“I think the tradition is that we are all one group, we’re one big family and we stand by each other,” Scully said. “It’s really important to us to keep the tradition going.”

Jones concurs that the marching band is like a family.

“I think the fun part about this season will be the family aspect,” Jones said.

Osgood hopes her enthusiasm for band spills over to her fellow Bobcats.

“I wanted to be drum major because I want people to love band as much as I do and I look forward to the competitions,” Osgood said.

The first full performance will be held at halftime of the home football game on August 31. A preview show for the public will be at 3:45 p.m. on Friday, August 17 on the football practice field.

The band is led by MHS instrumental music director Brett Umthun and assistant director Nick Gardner.

Pictured in the back row are Kim (Williams) Bielawski with her son Kal Bielawski, left, and brother Mike Williams, right. Kim Bielawski and the school district she works for in Raytown, Missouri donated a U-Haul truck full of school supplies (more than 400 kits) to Marshalltown Schools. Also pictured are Anson Elementary School students who helped unload the supplies.

Kim (Williams) Bielawski, a 1984 Marshalltown High School graduate, and her current co-workers just gave back to her old community in a big way.

Bielawski brought a U-Haul truck full of school supplies to donate to the Marshalltown Community School District in the wake of the July 19 tornado.

Bielawski still has family in Marshalltown and works as an administrator in the Raytown, Missouri School District. Staff from Raytown Quality Schools donated more than 400 school supply kits, which were delivered to Marshalltown on August 2. Bielawski said she has a special feeling about Marshalltown being born and raised here and knew she had to do something after the tornado hit.

“I work with such caring and compassionate school leaders that when I mentioned my hometown, my (Raytown Schools) Superintendent Dr. Allan Markley, stepped up and said we’re all doing something for Marshalltown,” Bielawski said. “We wanted to first and foremost help the kids so school supplies is where we focused but along the way many of our directors, principals and assistant principals wanted to help the community too so several donated cleaning supplies, paper goods, gift cards and other helpful items.”

She said her neighbors also heard about her idea and dropped off items at her home.

“I’m thrilled to drive the 250 miles to deliver these heartfelt items,” Bielawski said. “Helping kids and families is the most important work I do so being able to do that in my hometown makes it 100 times more special.”

The donation was welcomed with open arms by Marshalltown Schools.

“This is a very generous donation which will go to families in need,” said Marshalltown Schools Communications Director Andrew Potter. “We thank Kim and the Raytown School District from the bottom of our heart.”

Volunteers unload a U-Haul truck full of school supplies donated to Marshalltown Schools by the Raytown Missouri School District.