The
LASTING LEGACY
Tiger HI-LINE
Thursday, Sep 14, 2017
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Volume 58 Edition 1
“Job shadows are a great way to explore interests you may have ...” — Counselor Chris Wood
Job shadowing seeing recent growth The counseling department is partnering with Cedar Valley Career Connections to offer job shadowing opportunities to students fall semester. Participating students would spend an allotted amount of time in a work environment with a qualified professional from the Cedar Valley. Sessions typically last a couple of hours, a half day, or a full day. Opportunities are available in a variety of different career paths, including health sciences, education and communications. Guidance counselor Chris Wood elaborated on why he felt this would be an impactful experience for students. “I think the opportunity to explore careers and what it is like to be a professional in today’s society is critical to the success of all
students. Many students simply do not know what is out there for careers. Job shadows are a great way to explore interests you might have. Even if you don’t know an exact job, we can work with Kelly Kobliska from CVCC to identify careers of interest.” Senior Sylvia Brown participated in the career connections program last year. She shadowed nurses at both Allen Hospital and the Alternatives Pregnancy Center in Waterloo. Brown was given the opportunity to follow her mentor around and ask questions, along with partaking in charting and visiting patients. While she was not placed in the type of nursing that she had hoped, she found that she still enjoyed the experience. “Shadowing a nurse confirmed that I want to be a nurse
and care for others. It also helped answer some of my questions I had about the nursing field, along with opening my eyes to all of the different paths nursing can take. Before my shadow, I had a very specific type of nursing that I wanted to do. However, in my shadowing experience I was on a surgery floor. I still would want to try to be a nurse in some sort of NICU or OB GYN area, but I have realized I’d enjoy working in surgery as well,” Brown said. Brown’s shadowing experience at Allen has provided her with the opportunity to volunteer at the hospital, which she plans on doing later this fall. In order to reserve a spot to meet with Cedar Valley Career Connections coordinator, Kelly Kobliska, students must fill out a form posted on Schoology. Stu-
dents who sign up will receive a pass to meet with Kobliska. “Kelly will discuss the expectations of being a professional in the work environment, contacting the business to set up the time and day of your shadow, and how to follow up with a thank you note,” Wood said. The deadline to see Kobliska for a fall job shadow is Sept. 15. Those interested can attend of two power hour meetings on either Wednesday, Sept. 6 or 13. Opportunities to shadow will be offered again in the spring if students miss the fall deadline. There is no fee to participate, however, students must find means of transportation in order to attend a shadow. By Editor-in-Chief Clare
2014-2015 25 applied 6 completed
Arts, AV, & Communication (3) Transportation, logistitcs, & distribution (2) Education (1)
2015-2016 43 applied 20 completed
Health Sciences (14) Arts, AV, & Communication (2) Other (6)
2016-2017 123 applied 117 completed
Health Sciences (38) Food & Natural Resources (14) Public Safety (12)
ROLINGER
World languages starting early for some eighth graders
Power hour restrictions set tone for incoming sophomores
After adopting the suggested changes from last year’s foreign language committee, eighth graders are now able to take a foreign language for the first time this year. The eighth graders have the option to choose between Spanish I, French I and German I. German is taught by Gunda Brost and is only available at the Cedar Falls High School. French is available at both middle schools and is taught by Elaina Lloyd (Holmes) and Brittan Engels (Peet). Spanish is also available at both middle schools and is taught by Sara Blanco (Holmes) and Christine Gruhn (Peet). This new opportunity has come with complications involving larger class sizes and more students commuting between the middle schools and the high schools, but having a class with eighth and ninth graders combined seems to be going smoothly. “It’s alright and nice having other grades with you.” Emmy Nelson, a freshman taking Spanish I at Holmes Junior High, said about the combined classes. “I think the Foreign Language classes that include both eighth and ninth grade students have been going well so far,” Jeremy Jones, the principal at Holmes Junior High, said about how this change is going. Having 8th graders mixed in with 9th graders have made the class sizes significantly larger, which led to sending a
Last year, power hour restriction was introduced for the first time to the 2016-2017 sophomores because of the misuse and abuse of the system. Many kids went out when they weren’t supposed to go out, and were not cleaning up after themselves in the halls while having lunch. The main reason for this policy coming into effect last year was ultimately that kids weren’t going and getting the academic support they needed from their teachers, and that’s what power hour is all about. But this year things needed to change. Majorly. For incoming sophomores, there’s a new workload, new building, new people and new teachers, but some sophomores said they think the three week restriction assumed too much time for students to learn the lessons for using power hour appropriately. “I think they’re being too hard on us and should let us have more freedom. I didn’t come to high school to still be in junior high,” sophomore Emma DeWitt said. Sophomore Emmey Sherbon agreed with Emma’s response. “Exactly what she said, like it makes me feel like I’m five, and it just gives the upperclassmen another reason to pick on us.” Sherbon said. “I hate it. It’s stupid. I think that if we are supposed to fit in and adapt to the high school, then why would they
class of 9th grade students up to the high school for a Spanish I class. “Larger class size has been the main difficulty this year,” Monica Jarchow, the Spanish I teacher at the Cedar Falls High School, said. “Also, due to budget constraints, we have been unable to attend, more than one educational conference per year.” Spanish I is the language with the largest enrollment this year, Jarchow said. “Class sizes are larger due to increased enrollment, though no hiring of more teachers to accommodate the larger number of students. More students tend to choose Spanish because it is spoken more in the United States than other languages.” This change has also made it so that more eighth graders have been having to go up to the high schools for a class. “This practice has been in place for many years in our district,” Jones said. “Our counselors work very hard to make sure the students who travel to the high school are set up to be successful with that transition.” Even after the changes, however, some things remain the same as always. “The teachers of the world language department all have the same passion for teaching a language as well as culture,” Jarchow said. “We are very supportive and helpful of each other as a group, and each teacher brings their own unique style to teaching the language.” By Staff Writer Rowan
O’BRIEN-CARLSTEIN
have us in lockdown?” And while some sophomores felt strongly about not having more flexible time to start the year, students like sophomore Shelby Conditt were indifferent about it. “I’m fine with it. It doesn’t bother me that much. It’s really not that bad. I don’t know why people are bothered with it.” Regardless of student opinions, the purpose of power hour this year stays the same as last year: To help students get on the right foot and stay there for the rest of the year. Counselor Chris Wood never thought of this year’s power hour restriction as a punishment. “I don’t like that people feel like it’s a punishment because it’s not a punishment. It’s just, here’s three weeks that we want you to kinda get off on the right start because sophomores last year will tell you that if you got behind in those first three weeks, and you dig yourself a hole, it’s a huge challenge to get out of, and the last thing we want to do is set people up for failure,” Wood said. And on Thursday, Sept. 14, power hour restriction will be done and over with for most sophomores, so this means longer lunches, more time to study, more time with friends and less time confined to a classroom. By Staff Writer Chase
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