Friday, January 14, 2011

Join an Oxford Hills Technical Program Now



[caption id="" align="alignright" width="118" caption="Image via Wikipedia"]Chefs in training in Paris, France (2005).[/caption]


by Abby Shanor

Last Wednesday, Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School held it's annual Technical Program fair. Each Tech Program set up a display in the main hallway, and students were free to walk around and get information about each one. Although there were students from all grades, the majority of the prospects were freshman. Tech Programs are only available for sophomores and above.

Tech Programs are classes that students apply for/ They are focused on a specific career. For example, the Early Childhood Education Program gives students the chance to work in a real preschool setting. The students become teachers to preschoolers, and see for themselves what that career would be like.

With a wide variety of programs such as Culinary Arts, Auto Collision Repair, Media Arts, and many more, there's a program for anyone interested. Although some programs can take up to 3 periods of the day, it's a great experience for students who are undecided about their future to explore careers they might want to study further in college.

NOTE: Applications for all Tech Programs are due by January 28th.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Eating Green at OHCHS



[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Eating on the Pyramid"]Healthy eating pyramid similar to that of the ...[/caption]


by Crissy Lewis

There are many different options to eat at lunch. There are healthy choices but there are also some bad choices of eating there. Eating healthy can make you feel better and get you ready for your day ahead. It can be very hard sometimes to get students to eat healthier at school. OHCHS is trying to improve what they are making and selling for students to have for lunch.

Ken Morse, the main representative for Healthy Oxford Hills, works with schools to eat fresh healthy foods. His job is to help schools eat better and to be more farm to school. He is part of the National Farm to School Network. Their job is to make a better relationship between school and farms, support community-based systems, and to help children be healthy and to prevent childhood obesity.

The website of the Farm to School says it’s a program that connects schools and their local farms “with the objective of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving nutrition, providing agriculture, health and nutrition education opportunities, and supporting local and regional farmers”. They go beyond than the farm fresh salad bars and local foods in the cafeteria. They consist of “waste management programs like composting, and experiential education opportunities such as planting school gardens, The Allan Day Garden on Maple Street, cooking demonstrations and farm tours.”

It would be nice to have a strong connection to local schools with farms and have the students eat more local. Having a school garden where they can grow their own things can make it more special too. It’s a benefit you get with Farm to School and Ken Morse says, “If you grow it yourself, you'll eat it”. Children and the community will learn more agriculture and nutrition and the environment. Food security will be better too since food travels a lot, making it not fresh. Buying local food will mean local taxes, which helps the school. A salad bar is offered in the cafeteria that's has fresh vegetables in it. By doing all this you're just, “changing the whole culture on how to eat” says Morse.

You can always get more information about Healthy Oxford Hills because it's not too far from OHCHS. You can also go on Farmtoschool.org to find out more information about what it’s all about. If you eat a lunch that is healthy and local your day will be better and you will feel better about yourself and what you're eating.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Best Part Is Eating

"My favorite part of making cookies is eating them!" explains Oxford Hills preschooler Nicholas Clough. 

On December 16, The Early Childhood Education program (ECE) at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School (OHCHS) expanded their normal classroom boundaries into the larger school, to make gingerbread cookies in the Culinary Arts kitchen.The ECE room is just like any other preschool, complete with their own kitchen, play areas, and bathroom, so they normally have no need to leave that area. This made the children even more excited, because they got to explore new parts of the building. Before heading to Culinary, the eager children gathered for their circle time, where they discussed rules and directions, but they were far too excited to pay any attention.

The excited children and their teachers, who are OHCHS students,took a walking field trip down to the Culinary Arts kitchen, to make gingerbread cookies. This is an ECE/Culinary tradition that has been going on for years. It's one of the few occasions where two Technical Programs at OHCHS work together.


[caption id="" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Image via Wikipedia"]Scandinavian-style ginger thins.[/caption]


"Culinary always enjoys working with the kids in making cookies." says Culinary teacher Frank Maccarrone.

The Culinary students prepared gingerbread dough, so when the children arrived they could start right in on cookie cutting. The ECE instructors, Deb LaFrance and Genivieve Ricard, supplied the children with various sprinkles, raisins, and gumdrops for the children to decorate their cookies.

Preschooler Kate Belanger shares that her favorite part was "decorating the gingerbread people to make them look like my family".

When finished, the children returned to their preschool and continued their day with play time and lunch, as they waited for the Culinary students to return their baked cookies, and the children got to take the ones they made home.

School Board Meets



[caption id="" align="alignright" width="90" caption="School Meeting"]Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education main ...[/caption]


by Abby Shanor

Cathy Scribner from Otisfield Elementary was congratulated by Superintendant Rick Colpits, along with the rest of the school board, for being selected as staff member of the month, at Monday night's SAD 17 school board meeting.

They board also recognized Kayla McMichael, Lacey Ryder, Forrest Kugell, and Emily Kist as high school students of the month.

A large portion of the meeting was dedicated to the "Cluster Model" which was created to help save the SAD 17 district money, and make things more efficient. Colpits explained how the model exceeded saving estimations by $49,000, with a total savings of $657,523.

The cluster model was effective in increasing class sizes, integrating 5th and 6th graders, exceeding budget savings, continuing to operate schools, and maintaining specialist programs (art, music, library, guidance, physical education) for K-6.

Although the Cluster Model has been successful in many aspects, there are still some areas the board struggles with. For example, the issue of having buses arrive on time still remains.

The board also would like to find a way to be more supportive of the Gifted/Talented programs, as well as music and adaptive physical education.

Audience member Tim Luff shared with the board that the district  received a letter from the state commending them on their special education program, and received meets on all the standards on their annual report card.