Page 5 - Bella September 2015

During her time as BJHS principal,
Hill has facilitated adding the following programs:
Barton Gives Back: “We began it after The Prom- ise was announced be- cause we wanted the stu- dents to realize, ‘To whom much is given, much is expected.’ We raise mon- ey and do different things. Our big thing is Project Christmas. The school finds families that will not have Christmas and pro- vides them with food and gifts. Barton raised mon- ey for Vilonia after the tor- nado and for the Norphlet library after its fire.”
Bistro: Students have to apply to work in it before and after school. They can read and do homework there. Kids that work there learn real world business tasks such as scheduling, supply orders and custom- er service.
School garden: “I got tired of asking kids where does food come from and they would said ‘WalMart.’ Now we have a semester class with a garden. And we have great teachers
who plant, weed, harvest and can. We started an orchard. We make pre- serves and jellies, pickles. They learn to cook fresh food and learn about nutrition. The students learn to read labels and that nutrition is different in food that is canned or frozen and learn the eco- nomic difference. We are teaching financial litera- cy and nutrition. They do container gardening and other things. They get to see that even if they live in an apartment in a city, the can grow vegetables.”
Animals: “We bought a chicken coop. We are go- ing to raise chickens and do that as well and gather the eggs. We will probably get the coop put together this year.”
Career development classes: The school partners with communi- ty businesses, talks with employees about the dif- ferent jobs possible and students realize there are lots of jobs that we do not know about. They can get a two year degree and have great paying job. “We want to teach them responsibility, punctual- ity, collaboration. Com- mon core pushes those things as well. It is work- ing hand in hand with us.”
different teaching kinder- garten from teaching senior English. Either end of the teaching spectrum says they would not want to teach junior high, but it is the only one I would like to teach,” Hill said.
“Junior high age kids are, as my mom said, ‘Too big to be little and too little to big’.’”
“You can get into interest- ing discussions with them. You can see them developing their thought processes. They are not too cool to be interested in education. If approached the right way, you can get them involved.”
She talked about catching students’ attention by teach- ing them oddities such as the Plains Indians collected buffalo chips for fires. “They never forget.”
During studies of the Holo- caust, she showed a compi-
lation of the footage taken when the Americans entered the camps. “You’d see the football players with tears in their eyes. They’d say, ‘I did not realize it was real.’ When you see that, you know there is hope for the next genera- tion and compassion.”
“Being principal has al- lowed me to look at learning needs and life skills that kids need. and to incorporate them in the class,” she said.
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September 2015 – BELLA – 5