Students accomplishments highlighted, events planned for end of year
I was shocked to hear just the other day that we have less than 40 days of school left for the year! It is unreal how quickly the school year flies by. As we continue to push through the last few weeks of the year, May will soon be here and our schedules will become extremely full. Field trips, Prom, banquets, concerts, graduation, parties and end-of-theyear celebrations will be highlighting our final weeks of the school year. This is always an exciting time for all.
On March 16, our middle school Pathfinders and our high school Trailblazers helped the SOLES committee sponsor another spring carnival for our elementary students. Middle school students Hazel Fitzl, Flynn Hanson, Colter Rueth, Lincoln Smith and Eva Stieglitz belong to the Pathfinder group. High school students Rogan Ashbeck, Jordynn Corder, Parker Smith, Noelle Teschner and Autumn Zvolena belong to the Trailblazers group. It has been a pleasure working with these students this year and I look forward to more students becoming a part of these groups in future years.
Our spring sports for MS and HS have begun. What was an early opportunity to get outdoors and hit the fields early has now been hindered a bit by cold weather and snow. Being forced indoors always makes it tough on our players and coaches. I give our players and coaches a lot of credit for hanging in there as spring sports are always a roller coaster of a ride. Being an athlete is tough and demanding, especially during our spring seasons. Many of our student athletes miss hours of classes due to meets and games starting much earlier than other seasons. New this season is our combined MS boys and girls track team with Greenwood. This opportunity will open the doors for our MS team to be able to fill events and compete as a boys and girls team. We have roughly 12 boys and 12 girls representing our Loyal-Greenwood MS track team. The coaches are excited to get their season started.
We hosted our annual CTE/Fine Arts nights on March 26. The evening was filled with the talents of many of our students. Featured on this night were the students involved in our business ed, tech ed, family consumer ed, ag ed, Spanish, art, financial literacy, band and choir. Live performances from our jazz band set the tone for another well attended fantastic evening. Unique to this year was a silent auction, raffles and donations, which will all go toward the purchase of a new timpani set for our band program. Our current set is well over 50 years old and desperately needs to be replaced. Thanks to the generosity of everyone who attended, numerous donors and each of our student program areas represented, we raised nearly $4,000!
We have begun and will soon wrap up our annual cycle of state testing over the past and next few weeks. Although this may not be the most exciting experience for our students, I have no doubt that they all have grown in their knowledge throughout the school year. As we receive the results we will continue to analyze this data to improve our programming for all students. The final snapshot for our students will be their end of the year FastBridge screening in math and reading in early May. This data will be used to compare results from the beginning to the end of the year. This will help in developing our intervention plans for the next school year.
Over the next few weeks, many of our student organizations will have their state competitions. This includes our FFA, FBLA and FCCLA. It is great to have so many students involved in these organizations and competing for such recognition. All these events require countless hours of planning and preparation to be ready for state. Many of our students qualified for state competitions and it is great to be able to share. The following students attended the state FBLA conference on April 8-9 in Green Bay: Addysen Wolf, Danielle Strey, Jonah Vircks, Sheila Tellock, Leah Kayhart, Bryce Deegan, Joe Treffinger, Mya Lobner, Payten Wolf, Sky Allen, Sam Lathrop, Molly Zvolena. The following students attended the state FCCLA conference from April 8-10: Bryce Deegan, Stefany Degenhardt, Sam Lathrop, Olivia Nikolai, Hope Peroshek, Jillian Rueth, Tryn Scheel, Parker Smith, Summer Smith, Maleia Smith, Hannah Strey, Noelle Teschner, Cain Toufar, Payton Tsai, Savannah Wilke, Autumn Zvolena. The following students will be attending the State FFA Career Development Events in Madison: Floriculture team – Annika Schley, Mallory Jakobi, Lizzie Lindner, Eva Stieglitz; livestock team – Braxton Kauth, Hunter Walter, Reese Clintsman, Cain Toufar; farm business team – Devon Roehl, Parker Smith, Jackson Roehl; milk quality team – Ashley Schubert, Leah Kayhart, Paisley Hagen, Colter Rueth. As you see, we have quite the list of names. This is amazing for these students, and we all know they will represent our school with the same dedication and pride they have shown throughout their competitions. Good luck to you all!
MSHS Parent teacher conferences will be on Thursday, April 18, from 3:30 to 7:00. We encourage all of you to stop in and talk with your child’s teachers, as we are halfway through the final term. It is always great to see parents staying in touch with our teachers and keeping the communication bridge connected.
I have been so impressed and excited to watch our elementary students in action this year. I enjoy stopping by classrooms to see the work our students and teachers are doing on a daily basis. Although there are some of those “full moon” days, we truly have great students in our school. One thing I really appreciate watching is how our students welcome new students into our school. I had the opportunity to give a couple of new families a tour the other day. As we were walking through the building, we were able to introduce our new students to their classmates and teachers. Our students and teachers welcomed their new classmate with excitement, kind words, personalized letters and lots of smiles and cheers. What a great thing for our new families to witness. This is what our school is about.
Our seniors are quickly approaching their final moments here at Loyal. I would like to congratulate our valedictorian, Leah Kayhart, and our salutatorian, Sheila Tellock. Both of these young ladies were also recognized as our Cloverbelt Scholars. Sheila Tellock and Connor Genteman were recognized as our Cloverbelt Scholar Athletes this year as well. Our senior banquet is scheduled for Wednesday, May 15, at the American Legion Hall. Graduation rehearsal will be on Friday, May 24 and then senior graduation on Saturday, May 25. A lot of huge milestones for our seniors as they press through their final days of school. We have been given a great class of seniors to send off to do great things in their futures and I am proud to be able to be a part of their education.
Lastly, as many of you may know we will be saying farewell to Mr. Bell at the end of this school year. Mr. Bell will be the new MSHS principal at the Stratford school. I have really enjoyed working with him this year, as he has made a huge impact on our school. So many things this year he has embraced and really worked hard to increase learning opportunities and enhance all of our programs and services within our school. We will greatly miss him and wish him the best on his new endeavor. With his departure, we welcome Mr. Justin Stoegbauer from the Lomira School. Mr. Stoegbauer is currently a physical education teacher and coach at Lomira. He is extremely excited for his new position at Loyal. Mr. Stoegbauer plans to spend a couple days at school over the next few weeks to get to know students and staff. He brings a very positive, energetic attitude and we are excited to welcome him to the Greyhound team.
Have a great rest of the school year and I hope to see you around at some of our upcoming events.
Take care.
Loyal 4K-12 Principal Doug Dieckman
