Panama Buena-Vista District: The Southwest Voice

Berkshire Eagle's Flag Football Team

Mr. Jason Pannell did an amazing job coaching the Berkshire Eagles flag football team. The Eagles were one game shy of playing in the championship, but they played with heart, determination and respect.

We thank Coach Pannell for all of his efforts!!

Congratulations, Lady Bulldogs!!

Congratulations to Buena Vista's Lady Bulldogs on making it to 3rd place in the Volleyball Tournament. Everyone at BV is so proud of you. All of the girls did such a wonderful job this season.

Way to go Lady Bulldogs!!

A great big thank you goes out to Mrs. Kostner for all your hard work. Your time and dedication towards the girls was greatly appreciated. Without you, they wouldn't have made it this far. You're an awesome coach!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!

Erm, We Exist Too

Everywhere I look on the Southwest Voice, I don't see anything about Old River Elementary School in the Panama Buena Vista Union School District.

Come on, people! We exist too!

I am an Original Wrangler at Old River, and this is my last year. It is my hope that we will one day be acknowledged on the Voice.

As I see it, all schools are now created equal.

Thank you.

PBVUSD Summer Music Conservatory Program

School may be out for many, but for four weeks of this summer, PBVUSD student musicians practiced hard at their instruments. For the final three days of the session, parents, summer school students and their teachers, district employees and guests were treated to performances at Warren Junior High School by both the intermediate and advanced music conservatory students. Classes were taught by talented orchestra and band teachers from throughout the district, with several musically-inclined high school and college students serving as assistants. They all joined in the final performances to provide the audience with a fantastic show.

Trumpets, flutes, tubas and such cleverly joined forces with those annoying cellular ringtones to provide us with a song with a new twist, "Cellular Symphony". School fight songs and movie and television theme songs were also energetically performed. Violins, cellos, violas, etc. played the familiar "Smoke on the Water", along with other rock, disco and Celtic numbers. One encore that many students are sure to remember was the ice cream they were all treated to, courtesy of Dreyer's!

PBVUSD G.A.T.E. Students At It Again

Do you stub your toe on chair legs often? Does your oven mitt tend to fall off? Does it drive you crazy when you try to raise your blinds and they go all crooked? Would you like your toddlers to be learning the alphabet as you are stuck in traffic? Then you should have attended this morning's Invention Convention, held at Stockdale Elementary.

Each morning this week, 5th grade G.A.T.E. students from Old River, Laurelglen, Buena Vista, McAuliffe, etc. showed off their creativity at an annual "Invention Convention." Students have been working diligently for weeks, first visualizing their creation, then constructing it on paper, and finally, producing a model that represents their invention as closely as possible. Sixth grade GATE students served as judges. Visiting students, parents and teachers were in awe at the originality of these inventions. Things were being invented that we didn't even know we needed! (a hands-free clipboard? a scented airline "barf bag"? a remote control backpack?)

G.A.T.E. coordinator and 5th grade instructor, Kathleen Scrivner, has been hard at work supervising the huge variety of inventions, with a different set of schools displaying their product each day. With a little press coverage, she could have the makings of an entire week's worth of The Ellen Show's Childhood Inventors! With the right marketing, maybe even the next product lineup on QVC!

"The best Fifth/Sixth Grade Teacher is at Buena Vista Elementary School"

I would love to nominate Jennifer Townson as teacher of the month. She has taken on a 5th /6th combo this year for the first time and I must say she is doing a fabulous job. She always has a smile on her face, she's exciting and fun. The students respond to her wonderful personality. One of the things I admire most about her is she has an ease about her that makes the students learn without getting stressed out. She's open and willing to work things out if there is a problem and is willing to be flexible. Teachers today are under so much stress that it is truly hard for some to take the time for each student that needs some extra attention. She also turns her attention to character building, another subject that gets pushed aside because of all the other things teachers have to do. As a parent it is obvious who the good teachers are just by watching the kids. You will notice when she is out on the playground there will be a hive of children around her. The kids want to spend their spare time chatting with the adults that inspire them. We are truly blessed to have my daughter in her class this year. She has grown in so many ways and it is because of this wonderful person that truly cares.

Angie's Little Hearts Daycare is enrolling Buena Vista Students

Angie's Little Hearts Daycare, conveniently located in the Tesoro development right across the street from Buena Vista School, is now enrolling Buena Vista Students for the 2008 - 2009 School Year. Both before and after school spaces are currently available. If you are interested in enrolling, please visit the website at www.AngiesLittleHearts.com or call (661)654-0571.

Educator of the Month Winner - Mrs. Scrivner!!

Our nominee: Kathleen Scrivner, 5th Grade G.A.T.E. teacher for PBVUSD, Stockdale Elementary School

"She does so many great things, it would be hard to sum it up in one paragraph", said my daughter, Leigh, a Thursday student of Mrs. Scrivner's. "She made learning fun," my son Grant remembers, as he had the benefit of her great teaching in both 4th and 5th grades. Mrs. Scrivner currently teaches all 5th grade G.A.T.E. students in the Panama-Buena Vista school district. Having so many students is certainly challenging, yet she makes each student feel important and individual. She genuinely cares about her "kids". Her vast area of knowledge is remarkable. Her enthusiasm and positive energy -- if only it could be bottled! Mrs. Scrivner has that special charisma that stays with you long after you've left her presence. I think we can speak for both her students and parents alike when we say we adore her! Thank you, Mrs. Scrivner, for all you do for so many, and for how well you do it!

Teaching the whole brain

Stockdale Elementary School has transformed. Floor to ceiling artwork lines hallways and adorns tables. A harpist strums softly in the library as a fifth-grade student plays classical music in front of a Michaelangelo display in the multi-purpose room.

It isn’t the Louvre or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but tell that to the parents strolling among the vast, one-of-a-kind pieces of artwork on display at Panama-Buena Vista Union School District and Stockdale Elementary School’s first ever “Night at the Museum” event March 12.

The artwork isn’t what one would associate with an elementary school. One display is in surrealism, and one wall is dedicated to recreations of “The Son of Man” by René Magritte.

The son of who? Ask the students.

At a school that is small in comparison to others in its district in terms of enrollment and certainly among larger campuses in Bakersfield, students are learning how to think in a big way: by using both the right and left side of the brain.

It isn’t part of a wacky scientific experiment, and the school’s motives aren’t driven by any curriculum-bolstering, standards-boosting ideas implemented to secure funding for special programs.

It’s art. Think Picasso, Van Gogh. And Stockdale Elementary School thinks it’s pretty important.

“It’s a fun program to get kids interested in art from a young age,” said Julie Fleming, artist in residence and the elementary art specialist for the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District. Fleming is a professional artist who has worked for Stockdale Elementary for 17 years, as well as 12 years at Bill L. Williams Elementary School.

The program shuffles 1,500 students per month through Fleming’s door, 300 from the district’s Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program. No child is too young to start learning elements of art. Students from kindergarten to sixth grade see Fleming once per month for at least an hour, where they are treated to an entire lesson in art, from art history to the actual production of a piece of artwork they can take home that day.

But why art? It must be difficult to justify a non-standards based subject during a budget crisis, but art is something that Stockdale Elementary is not willing to forego.

“Test scores and art studies point out that students who have art in school are better academically and have better focus,” said Fleming.

Stockdale Elementary’s Growth Academic Performance Index (API) report supports that theory. In 2007, the school scored 870, well above the state’s recommended target of 800.

In layman’s terms, they are doing well.

Could art have helped the students learn their core subjects better? Perhaps. But that isn’t groundbreaking news to longtime teachers.

Gayle Steele was a California teacher for 44 years and has watched a decline in the arts in lieu of more academic pursuits.

“Rather than educate the entire student, the whole person, education now is limited to curriculum aimed at meeting California test scores,” said Steele.

California standards testing is a means to measure a student’s progress and is also an indicator of the school’s strengths and weaknesses. Students are tested yearly in English-language arts, mathematics and science. However, according to Steele, the tests cannot measure everything.

“There is no objective test for art. You cannot measure originality and creativity,” said Steele.

Art may not be on the STAR test, but it’s an important part of the curriculum to Stockdale Elementary’s principal of 21 years, Ron Madding, who says that if the current budget crisis ever dictated the dissolution of the art program, his parent club would raise the funds to keep Fleming on campus.

“Julie Fleming makes the students feel successful,” said Madding. “And success breeds success.”

If feeling successful during an art project turns into the confidence to answer a scary question on a math test, or, maybe later, on a job application, perhaps there’s more to art than putting paint to canvas.

“There’s always a kid who’s not good at sports, but he can draw,” said Fleming. “Because of that, he’s somebody. You have to give them an identity.”

There are some things that will never be measured by standards testing.

It's A Sacramento Field Trip!

The alarm flashes 5am -- on a normal school day, we would cringe at the thought of rising so early, but... it's FIELD TRIP WEDNESDAY! My daughter and I amazingly bounce out of bed, ready ourselves and make it to the Amtrak Station by 6:30am, even allowing time to pick up friends and Starbucks! We excitedly join about 60 fellow PBVUSD 5th grade G.A.T.E. students (from 11 different schools), 30 parents, and our fabulous G.A.T.E. instructor/coordinator, Mrs. Kathleen Scrivner, for a 5 hour trek to Sacramento to visit our state capitol. Chaperone-experienced parents may instantly ask "why would you put yourself on a train for 5 hours one way with all of those students?" It was actually terrific! We had the luxury of our own car, but even better, the kids had the freedom to move around at all times, thus alleviating the stuck-in-the-school-bus-seat syndrome.

The kids soaked up the view of pistachio, almond and citrus trees. They pointed out the countless farms, oil producing areas, cotton gins, and were well aware of the 8 stops and 9 counties we passed through on our trip. Long after the educational value soaked in, Nintendo DS's were up and running allowing a peaceful transition for our arrival. The five hours passed before we knew it, where we would now embark on a 1.1 mile journey by foot to the capitol. Unbelievably, this felt more like a short jaunt from a Saturday parking spot at Valley Plaza into the mall. As we ascended on the capitol's lush grounds, we ran into (literally) none other than Bakersfield's Mayor, Mr. Harvey Hall! He must have felt like Miley Cyrus as we surrounded him with cameras flashing for a priceless photo opportunity.

After a short walk admiring the gorgeous trees scattered throughout the beautiful park, we were escorted through metal-detectors, which may very well have garnered the most excitability from the kids yet. We were then split into groups, where we were taken on a tour by very knowledgeable guides. Students were encouraged to ask questions as they were busy photographing both the senate (decorated in red for wealth)and legislature (green). We were educated on the history of California, including the importance of the gold miner, the grizzly bear and the Goddess Minerva to our state's seal. The kids were told, above all else, that the biggest voice in this building was that of the people. One of the groups was even fortunate enough to have been personally greeted by State Assemblywoman, Jean Fuller. She told the group that while she is in meetings constantly, talking about many laws, the highlight of her day is getting to meet the bright students who are eager to learn about our state.

Some of the group managed to fit in a brief visit to Sacramento's Old Town area before we all boarded the train bound back to Bakersfield. Again, the five hours sailed by, as the kids chattered on about their favorite statues, politicians, etc., and just how big this building really is! Decks of cards and neatly-packed snacks took us through the evening, where only the occasional parent could be caught napping. We were back in Bakersfield by 9:40pm, where we left the train station with the knowledge that memories had been made.

TJHS eighth grade girls volleyball team are state champions!

Wow — what a season! The Tevis Junior High School eighth grade girls volleyball team had! They went undefeated in their league:12-0. They were the champions of the Garces Tournament; champions of the Panama-Buena Vista Tournament; champions of the Kern County SCMAF tournament; and biggest title of them all: champions of the Southern California State SCMAF Tournament!

We are so proud of our Ranger Girls! Their record for the season was 31-2. Just amazing!

Go Rangers! You make us proud!

Native American Day at Castle Elementary

Kindergarteners at Castle Elementary experienced life as Native Americans for a day on Nov. 7. Thanks to teachers, dozens of parent volunteers and some special guests, the kids were able to participate in many activities from the daily lives of Native Americans.

Children were able to fish, hunt for bison, and grind corn and berries, They danced, wove baskets, made totem poles and had their faces painted, all while dressed up in their unique Native American head dresses and vests.

Betsy Johnson of the Tubatulabal tribe and Ramon of the Yaki tribe visited and shared with the children, explaining specifically what life was like for Native Americans in California. She described what they ate and how they lived in different ways from other tribes. They shared some of their sticks and drums, allowing the children to play some Native American music.

Laura Ziemer, kindergarten teacher and avid artifact collector, dressed in Native American clothing and shared a small part of her collection of arrowheads, rain sticks and Kachina Dolls. At every turn, children with smiling faces learned something new and had a wonderful time as Native Americans!

Poetry ballads for Stonecreek staff

Poetry ballads for the staff of Stonecreek Junior High.

Ms. Kincaid
Ms. Kincaid is the principal here at Stonecreek,
And I look forward to greeting her every week.
She organizes many things for us students to enjoy,
Even the typical bad boy.

She tries hard to remember everyone’s name,
Even if they may sound the same,
But I know that in a decade
I will still remember my favorite principal, Ms. Kincaid.

Ms. Kincaid keeps all students updated,
Even if the information may need to be translated.
She tries to get everyone involved,
Which may have student’s fears dissolved.

Ms. Kincaid is very cool,
The awesome principal of this school,
Who wants every student to succeed.
That is part of the Stonecreek Stampede.
By Lupita Loya, grade 8

Father of the School
To one who is not a teacher,
Who doesn’t teach us planets and help us use beakers,
He doesn’t read us books,
He is not the one who cooks.

He is like the father of our school,
Who is like a borother; he is very cool,
Who has a smile on everyday,
Who rolls our trash away.

He is very humble,
He who clears when we stumble,
Very modest, very nice,
Keeps our school clear of mice.

He cleans up our mess,
Whether more or less,
In a way cleans up all our sorrows,
None other than our janitor, Carlos.
By Jordan Fulmer, grade 8

Mr. Gallego
He always tries to make us laugh,
He never makes us draw a graph.
History would not be fun without him,
It would be very, very grim.

Many notes are assigned,
To keep the knowledge of history in mind.
He has a pet snake names “Worm.”
He also has a turtle that like to squirm.

He makes us outline every page.
He never gets in a howling rage.
He grades us fairly with good and poor,
But when writing lots of notes my hand gets sore.

He’s been my history teacher all junior high,
And he’s a really cool guy.
There aren’t very many history teachers like him that are as cool.
I’m going to miss him when I go to high school.
By Nicholas Nelson, grade 8

Mrs. Goodwin
The wonderful thing about math
Is that Mrs. Goodwin shows us the right path.
Our work can be fun
But sometimes I can’t get it done.

Her hair is brown
And I never let her down.
We bring our book
But sometimes I can’t get a look.

Sometimes I can be a clown
And she always seems to turn around!
She helps me get my work complete
For later I don’t have to weep.

She helps me go on the right course
So later I don’t have to work like a horse.
She also has a serious gaze
And her eyes can get me through the math maze.
By Ismael Barron, III, grade 8

Mrs. Herndon
Mrs. Herndon is the one
Who makes science fun.
She is short,
But still holds down the fort.

Mrs. Herndon is down to Earth.
She has been since her birth.
The thing that’s great
Is that she doesn’t hate

She says that I’m smart.
Saying that with a straight face is an art.
She has lots of jokes
And that’s all folks.
By Amir Alfahoum, grade 8

Junior High students explore self definition through poetry
The following poems were written by Stonecreek Junior High School students.

I am.
I am becoming the person I want to be.
I wonder what the future holds.
I hear the voice in my head telling me what is wrong and right.
I see that hard work pays off.
I want my dreams to come true.
I am becoming the person I want to be.

I pretend not to care what people think.
I feel the support my family gives me.
I touch the sky.
I worry that I will never be good enough.
I cry over the loss of loved ones.
I am becoming the person I want to be.

I understand that everything happens for a reason.
I say, what does not kill you makes you stronger.
I dream big.
I try to keep my head held high.
I hope for the best.
I am becoming the person I want to be.
By Alandra Avila

I am.
I am a soccer player.
I wonder if I will become famous.
I hear people cheering me on.
I see a bright path.
I want to live the game.
I am a soccer player.

I pretend I am Beckham scoring goals.
I feel the passion of the game.
I touch the glory at my reach.
I worry this dream will fade away.
I cry at my disappointments.
I am a soccer player.

I understand the technique of the game.
I say get up and keep trying; do not give up.
I dream of becoming a professional soccer player.
I try my best at everything.
I hope to help my country win the World Cup.
I am a soccer player.
By Andres Valdez

I am.
I am an average, typical, teenage girl.
I wonder what I will be like in the future.
I hear what people say about me.
I see people’s lives being ruined.
I want world peace.
I am an average, typical, teenage girl.

I pretend to be normal.
I feel loved.
I touch people’s lives.
I worry that I will not succeed.
I cry when I am frustrated.
I am an average, typical, teenage girl.

I understand other people.
I say positive things about people.
I dream of a world with no violence.
I try my hardest on everything.
I hope that I will lead a happy life.
I am an average, typical, teenage girl.
By Priscilla Rubio

Warren Junior High School bee winner heads to D.C.
I’ve always enjoyed vocabulary and spelling words that adults often don’t know how to spell. I used to love it when someone asked me how to spell a difficult word and I knew how to spell it.
I learned the alphabet at a young age –– only 18 months old. I have always liked reading the dictionary. It is fun to learn new words and their definitions. I felt it was a great way to enhance my vocabulary too. When I would hear a word that I didn’t know the meaning of I had to look it up in the dictionary as soon as I got a chance.
I’ve been in two other spelling bees in addition to this one. I won the school spelling bee in fourth grade when I attended Loudon Elementary School, and also in sixth grade when I attended Van Horn Elementary School. This is my first district win and, of course, my first county win!
I know going to Washington D.C. and being a part of “Bee Week” will be very exciting. I highly anticipate being able to compete there. The competition May 30 and 31 is going to be tough, I know. I have been studying like crazy to try to prepare myself for this incredible competition. I’ve read much of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary and wrote down challenging words so that I might retain them to memory.
I have also had a lot of help from my family. They have read words for me to spell. I have studied anywhere from an hour a day up to eight hours a day. After over two months of studying, I have really expanded my vocabulary and extended my knowledge of the formation of words.
When I become an adult, my dream is to be a successful author. I think maybe an author of fiction. That seems like it would be the most fun. I have always gotten good grades in English class throughout my childhood. I often proofread many things for my friends and even for kids I barely know. It feels good knowing how to spell and help them.
Spelling has always come easily to me and I hope now that I’ve honed those skills enough to do well at the National Finals in Washington, D. C.
I didn’t have any idea what was in store for me upon winning the Kern County Spelling Bee. So far I have received a free subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica, a large trophy, a copy of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, a Russo’s Books gift certificate, a trip to Washington, D. C. and even spending money!
I really appreciate The Bakersfield Californian for their support and sponsorship.
Last week I received in the mail the Scripps National Spelling Bee Commemorative Watch, T-shirts for my entire family and study materials on discs to study on the computer.
Being the winner of the Kern County Spelling Bee gives me great pride. When you receive the support of your friends, family, and even strangers, it feels great! You feel like a celebrity and even more so, you feel like a winner!
— If Johnson makes it to rounds two through four without misspelling a word, he will advance to the May 31 semifinals that will be televised live on ESPN from 7 to 11 a.m. EDT. The championship finals can be seen on ABC (locally on KERO channel 23) from 8 to 10 p.m. the same day.