It’s a new year at Wheeler High School with a new set of freshmen. And with the new school year, there are changes. These changes include ‘Den Days,’ which will be intervention every Tuesday and Thursday for the last 30 minutes of every class. Another change would be asynchronous days instead of early release, where the students go online and do the assigned school work at home. Then, there is the QR code the students will have to scan and fill out the form to use the bathroom. They will still have to take the bathroom pass given by the teacher.
When asked about everything new at Wheeler, the Assistant Principal for students with the last names P through Z, Mr. Bowdre, said, “The premise of our newer things is just to strengthen our culture here. We have some things we are trying to implement, such as our climate team. The climate team will serve from the framework of PBIS. Ultimately, it is to make sure that our students are getting rewarded for their good work but also that our faculty and staff are making sure that they do their part to really embrace that culture. To start, really make games on the good work the students are doing and not always just the bad or the things they can improve on. So that’s one of the big things I’m most excited about is our new climate team at Wheeler. We’re more strict this year, but I think it’s just more so creating a sense of urgency for our students to be in class during class change but, more importantly, during lunches, doing what you were supposed to do, being where you’re supposed to be, and making sure that you’re doing that you are doing the things you need to do to be the very best you can be.”
Mrs. Kuhn, who teaches AVTF (Audio Video Technology and Film), said, “Asynchronous learning days have the opportunity to be a better thing than the early release because now not everyone has to come to campus. Students can wake up, log in, check their assignments, and be at home all day, so it’s better for them. It seems to me that we’ve only had one; for now, it seems like an improvement over early release because you don’t have buses to deal with, and you don’t have students scrambling to get to school only to be here for 40 minutes per block so they can be at home. They can restfully take breaks, go through their day, and do whatever assignment was listed. To me, it just seems more efficient. Intervention, on the other hand, isn’t a class-wide attack. It’s to address where certain students are struggling, and then they address that struggle all in one.”
Mrs. Robson, Assistant Principal for 12th graders and master scheduler, said, “Den Time, that is our intervention extension period. We did it last year, but we did it once a day a week for 45 minutes. Some people are caught up in the intervention, but that’s untrue. Some kids get it and need something else above and beyond to push them academically. It could be they need help or getting more of an academic push. Now we do it two days a week because research shows that the more often you do that kind of thing, the more benefit you will see. So, it’s every Tuesday and Thursday, and it’s the last 30 minutes of every class. And we like that because every kid in every class will get what they need twice a week. What’s new this year, and we’re still tweaking it and looking at ideally to get into 45 minutes, but we’re going to try to ease into it. Next year, we hope the students will switch to teachers; they won’t stay in that classroom. So, they would go specifically for those standards that they’re struggling with or need the extension on and switch during that 45-minute time to go to teachers that specialize in that particular thing that they need help with or need some enrichment on. Asynchronous days were put in place by the County. But I believe it goes back to allowing professional development, so it’s like courses and workshops that teachers need to be better. I think that’s the idea behind it because that’s what we’re doing: professional development for the teachers. The traffic flow is different as they’re building East Valley, which will be open after fall break so that traffic will be different. They changed the traffic pattern out here as if you are parked out front where the visitors are, those people can come out and go left, and that’s the only area. You’ll have to turn right if you’re up in the teacher’s parking lot. But that’s to help traffic ingestion when East Valley opens up. We are preparing for cosmetology to come. We hoped it’d be open this year, but they couldn’t get the needed supplies. Next school year, they will open up and change the Horticulture room into our cosmetology. Ultimately, kids can obtain a certificate to enter that field after high school if they take the right courses. We did have the renovations over the summer, so the three-story building has all been refreshed with new paint and new lights, and they pulled out the carpet. They took out the stairs in the three-story building that will be turned into a walkway that goes straight into the science building.”
With all these changes at Wheeler High School, there will be changes in how students did things before, whether from previous high or middle school years. From changing early release days to asynchronous days to the new traffic pattern to keep the flow going even when East Valley opens to the Den Days that look to be everything new at Wheeler. Wheeler has a new set of courses and plans on the way, such as the Cosmetology class and the new walkway, and that will have to change how the non-senior students will think about choosing future courses, and all students navigate from one place to another.
