 |
New YSHS/McKinney
art teacher Elisabeth
Ventling Simon has readied her classroom
for the new school year. |
So what’s new at YSHS, Gudge?
By Virgil Hervey
If you follow, at Yellow Springs High School/McKinney School, the glistening,
new, Bulldog-blue floor as it circles the gym and flows like a river
past the art room, the weight room and a host of other venues on the
first floor and peek into the rooms, you are likely to find, in a scene
reminiscent of Ray Bradberry’s Farenheit 457, people reading everywhere.
In the art room, you will find new art teacher Elisabeth Ventling Simon.
In the fitness room, you will find new equipment. In the administrative
office you will find a new resolve to help at-risk kids. These are a
few of the things returning high school and middle school students will
find in the new school year, according to Principal John Gudgel in a
recent interview. Students returned to school on Wednesday, Aug. 27.
Over the summer, much of the hallway flooring was replaced. The old
floor, which, according to Gudgel, was only about five years old, had
become the victim of a combination of the weather and poor installation.
A canopy has been installed to keep the rain from beating on a door
where it had been leaking through and under the floor and the new floor
was allowed a week to cure before receiving two coats of wax.
“The custodial staff has been working hard to get the school ready,”
Gudgel said.
The new equipment in the fitness room, an elliptical bike and a multi-press
weight machine, were donated by The Antioch Company. On a recent visit,
the room was full of athletes readying themselves for the fall sports
season.
Last year, the schools had initiated a reading literacy program. While
the new project went forward at Mills Lawn, it got derailed at YSHS/McKinney
by the very ambitious Water Immersion program, which taxed students
and teachers almost to their limits in terms of time and effort. With
a busy play schedule, community service, senior projects and a variety
of extra curricular activities, it soon became apparent that the school
had taken on too much last year, Gudgel said, so reading literacy is
being revived this fall.
High school English teacher Elizabeth Lutz-Hackett originally proposed
the reading literacy initiative when she became aware of a nationwide
decline in students’ reading ability. Students who do not fully
comprehend what they are reading are set up for failure, she said last
year. She doesn’t want anyone to fall behind because of difficulty
reading, not only in English, but in all courses.
“Reading phobia masks the students’ ability to read and
comprehend,” Gudgel said. “Standardized tests are all essentially
a test of a student’s reading comprehension.”
Implementation of the reading literacy initiative will involve a team
of teachers from all disciplines who will attend monthly workshops at
the Greene County Educational Center and then incorporate the new strategies
into their own courses. Small libraries will be set up in the classrooms
to make books available to students who do not have their own, and time
will be set aside for reading, not only for the students, but for the
teachers and staff as well.
On Fridays, students will use English class time to read for fun and
will be required to read two independent books per quarter, writing
book reviews for posting on the Internet. They will also be encouraged
to participate in the book club at the library.
A Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) program is planned, during which 20
minutes of a period on a rotating schedule will be set aside weekly
for students, teachers and staff to read silently. According to Gudgel,
he will join in the reading as well. He will also develop a library
for his office, so that students who are sent there for disciplinary
reasons will have something to read while they are waiting to go back
to class.
As the school year drew to a close last spring, Gudgel told the school
board at one of its meetings that he was becoming increasingly concerned
about the “kids who drop through the cracks.”
“This year we will have a new focus on the academically at-risk
kids,” he said recently.
To that end, he has asked Assistant Principal Vickie Hitchcock to start
planning strategies for identifying early on those students who are
at risk of not graduating, and for giving them the help that they need.
Gudgel is currently interviewing for a new play director, to replace
former art teacher Andrea Auten, who also held that position. No current
faculty member is interested, according to Gudgel, who said the job
has been posted.
With the retirement of long-time math teacher Chris Rainey, there has
been a shifting of math teachers. Former McKinney math teacher McKenzie
Reynolds is taking Rainey’s position, teaching algebra and advanced
math. Jack Hatert has moved up from Mills Lawn to teach seventh and
eighth-grade math.
New art teacher
Elisabeth Ventling Simon comes to the art room at YSHS/McKinney by way
of Lebanon and Xenia, with a short stop in St. Louis. If her name has
a familiar ring to it, it’s because her father, Jim Ventling,
has taught at the high school for 30-plus years, and currently teaches
computers.
She is excited to teach in a community that supports the arts, Simon
said in a recent interview.
She grew up in Xenia and lives there now, and started drawing at an
early age, always taking art courses while attending the Xenia Community
Schools, Simon said. After graduation from Xenia High School, she went
on to Webster University in St. Louis where she earned a bachelors,
and she took her masters and teaching certificate at Wright State. In
Lebanon, she taught art in the junior high in a large school system
that offered a strong and growing art program.
She is married with a 1-year-old son. Her husband, John, works for Reynolds
& Reynolds in Kettering as a quality analyst, and he also plays
and teaches guitar.
Her position is part-time, teaching periods 2–6, which comes to
about five hours per day. She also does free-lance art work, including
murals and illustrations, and recently did a magazine cover for New
Moon, a literary magazine.
She would love to see the art teacher position grow, Simon said.
“I am looking forward to building a wonderful program here,”
she said.
Contact: vhervey@ysnews.com