Baldwin-Whitehall School District
SCHOOL BUZZ aldwin-Whitehall BALDWIN-WHITEHALL SCHOOL DISTRICT NEWS
EQUESTRIAN EDUCATION
Through a partnership with the Horses with Hope Program, J. E. Harrison Middle School students attend the stable on Mondays to interact with horses and other farm animals as they hone their collaboration, communication, and critical thinking skills. Our young farmers really enjoy feeding the goats, petting the farm cats, and grooming their equestrian friends!
SPIRIT DAYS SPREAD HIGHLANDER PRIDE
This year, students from Baldwin High School instituted Spirit Days by going“ on tour” to R. A. Lutz & McAnnulty Elementary schools, hosting a high-energy, 15-20 minute pep rally – style assembly filled with games, music, and school spirit. The traveling pep squad consisted of 10 BHS class officers, 23 members of the BHS marching band, 14 cheerleaders, and student athletes from each fall varsity sports team.
SERVING UP A LOVE OF READING
R. A. Lutz Elementary is now home to a book vending machine filled with a wide variety of popular fiction, nonfiction, and colorful picture books— truly something for every reader to enjoy! Students can earn special book tokens through positive behavior initiatives. Each token can be“ spent” in the vending machine to select a brand-new book to keep forever. This encourages students to not only make great choices at school, but also to build their very own personal library at home.
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STORYTIME BRINGS READING TO LIFE
McAnnulty’ s Pre-K program is fortunate to partner with Cristen Dando, the Children’ s Library Outreach Coordinator at the Whitehall Public Library, for a monthly storytime visit. These sessions feature a fun mix of books, songs, flannel boards, puppets, and hands-on materials like instruments and scarves, making storytime an engaging and interactive experience.
FIRST GRADE CAN!
In Mrs. Harris’ s and Mrs. Koeppl’ s first-grade classrooms at Whitehall Elementary, students are learning that independence is something to be proud of. Each month, the First Grade I CAN Club challenges students to master an important life skill, celebrating all the things they CAN do on their own. The first challenge: shoe tying! Students took the entire month to practice and perfect this skill. Once they master it, they add their name to the I CAN Banner, proudly announcing to everyone that they are a shoe-tying expert. It’ s been so exciting to watch their confidence grow as students achieve their goals and help others reach theirs!
JOURNALISTIC RECOGNITION
The Baldwin High School newspaper The Purbalite is the third student newspaper out of 400 nationwide to earn Distinguished Site status from School Newspapers Online.“ It’ s our eighth straight year for this achievement— and this year’ s staff earned it five weeks faster than any previous Purb staff,” explains BHS teacher Keith Harrison. Distinguished Site status requires a newspaper staff to demonstrate mastery in six different areas: story writing, continuous news coverage, multimedia, audience engagement, design of individual story pages, and overall design of the website.