Homecoming Week is over and plenty of fun was had by many. The cheerleaders set the tone early as students walked into the building Monday morning and noticed decorations in the lobby entrance. The rest of the 7-12th grade students took time at the end of Monday to 1) decorate their specified hallway, 2) decorate floats, 3) practice lip sync, or 4) decorate windows of local businesses. Coronation was on Tuesday night and the lip sync battles were entertaining. At the end of the night, Dylan Hartman and Natalee Junck were crowned Homecoming King and Queen. On Friday, the students had a full day of fun with powderbuff volleyball, powderpuff football, a pep rally led by the cheerleaders, and a parade. Some junior high students also had time to play goose chase. It was a successful week for our sports teams, which also helps set the tone for the week. The last event for Homecoming was the high school dance on Saturday night, which was well attended for a while, but ended around 10:45 due to lack of students still around.

Things settle down now, but here are some important upcoming dates to know about:

Fall pictures will be taken on Thursday, September 29. Students in grades 4-12.

Jostens will be here on Thursday, October 6th to talk with our 10th graders about class rings and 12th graders about caps and gowns. The meeting will be held in the multipurpose room at 1:05 for the 10th graders and 1:25 for the seniors.

Safe2SpeakUP: People can now report bullying through the Safe2SpeakUP app or on our school website. If you use the app as a student, use your school email when signing up. If you are using the website, go to www.hintonschool.com, click on students & parents, click on Safe2SpeakUP, then report either 1) a bullying situation 2) alcohol/drug situation 3) general tip 4) a school threat.

Let's have some shoutouts! This year our school is focusing on SOARing into greatness. You'll see the phrase "Watch Us SOAR!" frequently in our communication. Along these lines, each week during professional development, staff recognizes and celebrates colleagues and students who have SOARed that week. Here are some of the students and staff recognized in the last month:

Staff:

Sara Kochen- Always has a wonderful, positive attitude and balances teaching multiple classes in one period. She is really patient and understanding especially with all of the students who were going in and out of her classroom for hallway decoration supplies.

Jennifer Jacobs-List- Is very reliable in her job performance and completing the extra duties like breakfast and parking lot supervision. She also has a skill of getting 9th graders to come out of their shell and open up.

Julie Clausen-Continues to work diligently with all of the students, their schedules, college needs, and mental health needs.

Lisa Cotter-For taking the time to help a frazzled 7th grader figure out where they are supposed to be and help calm them down.

Aaron Zyzda- For revamping his presentation style of his curriculum by incorporating PearDeck, which allows students to take notes on their own and then discuss it more deeply as a classroom. It has taken a lot of work, but it's paying off.

Katherine Hunter- Has been very busy organizing, planning, and communicating out about homecoming events and making sure everything goes smoothly. It's a lot of work and she handled it well.

Jamie Renken- Has shown a lot of professionalism in her preparation and organization in her classrooms and knows all of her students' names now.

Clint Sargent- Continues to impress with the amount of time and energy he puts in for preparing his lessons and presentations. Although only in his first year of teaching, he is performing at a very high level when it comes to providing pertinent information, engaging students in the lessons, and adjusting his lessons based on feedback.

Alex Black, Paula Hodgson, and LaDonna Deavers- This 7-12 special education team has overcome many challenges when it comes to shortage in paraprofessional help and handling the added caseloads and accommodations for students. They have handled it all very professionally and are always finding creative ways to meet the needs of the students. We are lucky to have so many staff members who advocate for our students.

Sue Popken and Courtney Casey- Both of our nurses have done an incredible job managing the job responsibilities, which includes many student needs as well as a bunch of paperwork. They collaborate well and help out when needed.

Ben Hertenstein- We're lucky to have an individual who wears so many hats for our school district. He is our technology director, math instructional coach, cross country coach, and is also a trained EMT. All of his services have already come in handy this year.

Students:

Keely Derochie- was a rockstar helping multiple people in study hall. She never says no and always does a good job of being a "teacher" if you will.

Glen Carlson-did a small yet huge thing for a 7th grader when helping him calm down this week.

Skylor Parks- He is just a stellar photographer and it has been excellent talking to him about his photography!

"My 7th grade social studies classes rocked this week learning about the different economic systems. They were engaged and we had great discussions."

Isabelle and Garin Froehlich- Both rocked their test in history and have been great additions to our student body. So happy they became Blackhawks!

Dylan Hartman and Ian Hertenstein are preparing for All State Chorus Auditions. They've been spending several hours per week giving up study halls and open periods to practice for their auditions in October. Auditioning for All State is a huge undertaking and they are rocking it!

Eric Brown - doing a great job in science class! Last year he was very quiet. This year he is much more outgoing and doing well in both Early Bird and Algebra. His year is off to a much better start.

Carlton Torres - he is back in band for the first time in a couple of years and is working really hard and asking for extra help to catch back up to his peers.

Cameron Newberg- has been participating very well and gives great answers. I have been very proud of him and his willingness to share.

The cheerleaders for doing such a good job during Homecoming and setting the tone for the week and leading the Coronation and pep rally. Thank you Emily Attrill for cleaning the windows to perfection!

Gabbie Friessen- helped the foreign exchange student Lovisa.

The Business Education program at Hinton is alive and well. This year has seen the introduction of several new business courses; Business Management, Introduction to Business, Entrepreneurship, and Principles of Marketing. Not to forget Accounting; which had been offered in previous years and meets the financial literacy requirement that students need to graduate. .

Each course has students working on a semester-long project. In Business Management the students have identified a leader that they admire; they do an indepth dive into their leader and the students will complete the Clifton Strengths assessment to identify their own personal strengths. Intro to Business the students have selected an American Business and dig deep into that Business and apply what they are learning in class to their business. In Accounting students are introduced to the basics of accounting; learning about the Accounting Equation: Assets = Liability + Owner's Equity. They also find themselves investigating a company of their choosing that has been impacted by Financial / Accounting Fraud. Entrepreneurship students have identified an opportunity or business idea that they are passionate about. They learn about entrepreneurs and the process and will write a business plan for their business.

Students are exposed to real world concepts and experiences with the goal to bring the course work to life. The classes will have various opportunities to hear from leaders in our community, region and state. Our first speaker was Hinton Mayor Kelly Kreber who spoke with the Business Management class on the decision process managers go through and the importance of community involvement and volunteering. We are actively working to schedule additional speakers such as the Secretary of State Paul Pate (via zoom on October 18) - speaking with the Entrepreneurship class and State Auditor Rob Sand speaking to the Intro Business class about Business Ethics.

What better way to top off the Business Education program than the introduction of the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) student lead organization. We are in the planning phases now of growing and developing with the students what that organization will look like now and in the future.

College/Trade School/Community College Applications: The sooner your student applies to school options for the fall of 2023, the sooner you will receive more individualized information about that school. At this point, if you have not visited your school, apply anyway to get admitted. Some schools set up housing preferences based on which number you were in their application process. Mrs. Clausen has transcripts if you need them electronically or Ms. Fay can process transcripts if you need them sent by U.S. Mail.

Playing Sports at the College Level: If your student is considering playing sports at either the Division I level in the NCAA or for a private NAIA school, they need to set up their account in the clearinghouse.

NCAA - https://web3.ncaa.org/ecwr3/

NAIA - https://play.mynaia.org/

FAFSA: The financial aid award letter is mostly determined by the student and parent FAFSA which opens October 1. This is based off of the tax returns that you filed in April. The student and the parent will each need their separate log-in information. Studentaid.gov is the main homepage and the links for creating an accounting and logging into the FAFSA are below. It is super important to write down all of your username/password, PIN number, and security questions and keep them in a safe place as you will be required to do this application each year your student is in school.

FSA ID: https://studentaid.gov/fsa-id/create-account/launch

FAFSA - https://studentaid.gov/fsa-id/sign-in/landing

Military: If you are interested in the military, Hinton has recruiters stopping in often to speak with high school students. Individualized meetings can also be set up based on which branch you are most interested in receiving more information. The military does offer scholarships for traditional entry or through their ROTC programs.

Hello my name is Jamie Renken and I’m the new social studies teacher here at Hinton, here is a little background about me. I was born and raised in the beautiful state of Wyoming. I graduated from Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, SD with a Bachelors of Arts in elementary education. I spent my first year teaching fourth grade at an ESL school in Huron, South Dakota. The past 4 years I taught fourth grade in Shenandoah, Iowa. In 2021 I married my husband, who is also a teacher. We moved up here because he got a job as the new assistant tennis coach at Morningside University. We live in Sioux City with our 4 pets. I’m super excited to be teaching social studies here at Hinton. I have always loved learning about social studies and I can’t wait to pass my love of it to the seventh graders.

In seventh grade social studies, we have been learning about the economy. The students have learned about the different types of economic systems and discussed what systems they would use if they started their own country. We have also been learning about different advertising techniques that businesses use to get customers to buy their products. This last week, the students have been working on a group project where they had to come up with a product to sell to the class. The students have really enjoyed doing this project and there are some pretty amazing products that they have come up with. I and several other teachers would consider buying some of the products that the students came up with.

Introduction to Agriculture is offered as a prerequisite for other agriculture courses. Students evaluated if their basic human needs were met by collecting resources as hunters/gatherers, early agriculturists, and Americans in the 21st century. They also enjoyed snacking on Orville Redenbacher's popcorn while learning about the agricultural industries used to create his famous product. Additionally, students explored different FFA Career Development Events by completing an activity called "Game Time" where they evaluated a variety of cheeses, identify plants, evaluated a class of horses, etc. This class also had the opportunity to attend a field trip to Sutherland, IA for Iowa State University's Precision Ag and Animal Science Days. At the field trip they were able to learn about drone use in agriculture, isoponics, animal chiropractors, equine farriers, and goat herding to name a few.

In Agriculture Power and Technology, students studied the career areas within ag power and tech/ ag mechanics. They also measured the efficiency of tools including scissors, spoons, and popsicle sticks. Students have also learned about the engineering design process and how it was used by John Deere to design the plow. They then used that same process to develop a prototype to solve a problem. Currently students are constructing model wind turbines and evaluating how much work and power they perform.

Students in this class explored careers related to the companion animal industry. They then studied the importance of owning companion animals, animal taxonomy, and domestication. During this time, they created their own animal species and determined if Joe Exotic's tigered are domesticated. The next unit of study was cells and genetics. Students in this course created "Cell Superheros" and baby reebops (marshmallow creatures) with genes derived from two parent reebops. After the unit on cells and genetics, we will begin our species specific units, starting with dogs and then moving on to cats. The species specific units, we will study animal nutrition, reproduction, care, and breeds.

Plant Science students have studied plant industries (agronomy, horticulture, forestry, etc) and related careers. They have also evaluated why crops are grown within certain regions of the United States and the environmental factors which influence this. Students have studied the importance of plants in our world for medicine, fiber, food, fuel, and aesthetics. The next unit of study was soils. Students have evaluated the textures sand, silt, and clay found within a soil sample and learned to perform ribbon testing. They also studied the structures found in soils (granular, blocky, prismatic, platy) and are in the process of collecting microorganisms and macroorganisms in order to better understand their influence on soil.

Students in this course spent the first unit evaluating how agricultural businesses provide for our basic human needs (food, water, clothing, and shelter). They then compared business structures (sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, cooperative, and corporation). Students then had to select a specific food item and conduct research on how the food item makes it from the production level to our plates. In the next unit of study, students are learning about the financial aspects of a business such as income and expenses, cash and noncash transactions, current and noncurrent assets, and straight line depreciation. Our next lesson will be loans and we plan to have Josh Kovarna from Primebank speak with us on this topic.

Our FFA chapter has been busy the last several months between county fair, state fair, clay county fair, and AKSARBEN. Many of our members have been competing with their livestock and at county fair, we had a great time making grilled cheese sandwiches and milkshakes. Our first FFA meeting of the year was a success and we had a great turn out! We discussed National FFA Convention in October, t-shirt designs, and contests (Career Development Events). Kennedy Hensley, Haley Copenhaver, Kalya Sypersma, and Allison Hoefling will be competed in Soils Judging on Wednesday, September 28th at Morningside University. They received 10th place out of 27 teams!