Students in Brandy Proffitt’s agriculture science class at Great Bend Middle School recently learned all about corn – from dissecting a stalk to making ethanol to fuel a small engine.
Proffitt was joined Tuesday by two of her students, Kalyn Carroll and Kade Thexton, for a presentation to the USD 428 Board of Education.
First, students dissected a stalk of corn donated from a test plot and examined a cob of corn. They used the data to make some calculations.
“We did some math to see how many corn kernels would be in a bushel and how many would be in an entire field of corn,” Proffitt said.
Then they made ethanol in the classroom, starting with corn mash and letting it ferment, then distilling it.
“After we did it in class on a small scale, the class went to the ethanol plant at Lyons and they showed us what that looks like at the commercial level – all of the processes that the corn goes through,” Proffitt said. “They explained that they are about 95% sustainable right now – they make their own power that they feed back into the grid. All of the waste products, with the exception of a little CO2, are reused, so they reuse all of their water, all of the spent grain is turned into animal feed, and some of the CO2 is captured and then sent off for use as refrigerants. A lot of their CO2 goes to Dodge City to refrigerate the meatpacking plants and it’s also used in sodas and things like that.”
The school board visits each attendance center in the district center over the course of the year for monthly luncheon meetings. On Tuesday, GBMS Principal Myron Ellegood and other staff members, along with a few students, shared information regarding the academic programs and school improvement efforts.
Electronic hall passes
Hall passes at GBMS are now digital, Principal Ellegood said.
The school piloted electronic hall passes last year and purchased the system this year.
“The EHallPass is basically a digital pass system where the kids can sign into their Chromebook and it will take account of every time they’re out of the classroom,” he said. The number of passes or the locations students are allowed to go to can be limited. If only four students are allowed in a particular bathroom at one time and a fifth student puts in a request to go there, a message on the Chromebook will say that bathroom is full and the student will have to use a different one or wait until someone comes out.
“We’ve seen a dramatic decline in the bathroom issues with the e-hall pass system and having one student out of the classroom instead of multiples,” Ellegood said.
“We have students who meet up in the restroom for one reason or another,” he continued. If teachers see a pattern, the system may limit specific individuals from being out of the classroom at the same time. The system will also show how often students ask for hall passes. “If a student has been out of the classroom several times, he’s avoiding work. We can have a conversation with him and potentially we can limit his particular passes.”
Ellegood described the system as “a bit pricey,” but said the cost was offset by doing away with another program, an electronic agenda system that wasn’t being fully used.
GBMS Yearbook
Student Michah Ellegood demonstrated how to use a Chromebook to request an e-hall pass. Then Ellegood joined two of her classmates, Baylie Kelly and Sophia Bauer, along with instructor Holly Tittel, to talk about the GBMS yearbook, a new class that started last year.
The students learned how to use a camera and then they learned how to design a page, choose the cover, write photo captions, and meet deadlines. The yearbooks will be printed by Jostens, which works with the students throughout the process.
Bauer described how she and her partner had to contact Jostens for help troubleshooting the process of uploading content for the pages dedicated to cross country. “Bits and pieces of the spread we had already worked on disappeared,” she said. “We face-timed overnight and got it finished.”
Tittel said there was a lot to learn, especially for the first yearbook, but the students stepped up and finished the work on time, sending her an email after school when it was done. “They did a great job.”
The deadline for the 2023-2024 yearbook will be spring break and everything should be done by that time except for pages dedicated to spring sports. The yearbooks will be back from the printer before the end of the school year. They cost $30 each and last year’s edition sold out.
Also during the building report, Instructional Coach Peggy Haag shared information about ALEKS, an adaptive math learning and assessment tool. Ellegood talked about student recognition efforts and gave an update on GBMS promotion and retention. “Building stats show a 6.77 % drop in the number of students with a failing grade at the end of the first nine weeks this year compared to last year. This is a marked improvement,” he said.
Cook and Touslee to retire in 2024
In action items, the school board approved a personnel report and accepted several gifts to the district.
Two teachers announced they will retire at the end of the school year. The board approved the retirements of William Cook, GBHS science teacher, and Dara Touslee, kindergarten teacher at Park Elementary School, effective June 1, 2024.
Robotics Club helps with seat-belt promotion
The board also approved several contributions, including $2,555 to the GBHS Robotics Club from DCCCA Inc., for participating in the SAFE (Seatbelts Are For Everyone) program. SAFE is a statewide, student-led program focusing on peer-to-peer promotion of traffic safety.
Jake Hofflinger is the Robotics Club sponsor. As part of the SAFE program, students take an inventory of the number of students wearing seat belts as they arrive at school on a specific day, and then host a variety of awareness activities to promote seat belt habits. They’ll typically do a second day to collect data to measure the results of their efforts.
Other donations:
• Ty Buchanan, American Family Insurance, contributed $300 to help students with past-due Food Service meal accounts.
• 10th Street Eyecare Center contributed $150 for registration fees ($75 each) plus mileage for two district school nurses to attend the Children’s Vision & Learning Conference in Wichita. GBHS Athletics also received a $200 donation from 10th Street Eyecare.
• GBMS Booster club donated $69.26 to the GBMS Library for Daily Trivia prizes and $992.50 for GBMS Cheer poms.
• GBHS Orchestra and Strings received $150 in anonymous chili supper contributions.
• GBHS FFA received $500 in vendor incentive rewards from Zoetis, designated to the FFA by Animal Medical Center.
• GBHS Drama received $100 from Sunflower Electric for Treats Around the Track.
• GBHS Cross Country received $150 from Catalyst Therapy and Sports Rehab for students going to the state competition. USD 428 Public Information Director Andrea Bauer explained, “The donation is to cover additional meal costs while the students are traveling. Typically, athlete meals are paid for by the funds raised from Panther Card sales but when teams move beyond the regular season these types of donations help to offset expenses of the team and ensure they have quality meals.”
