2015 Football season pg. 18
Ed Sheeran concert pg. 15
Band preview pg. 8
Students given Dell laptops to replace Latitude tablets By Emily Ruthven Around Creek Editor
This year, every student at Creek received their own Dell laptop, replacing the Dell Latitude tablets that were originally distributed in January of 2014. The Creek campus has distributed approximately 2,200 laptops. The new laptops are faster, slimmer, more durable, more user friendly and are less problematic than the tablets were. “We’re having very few hardware issues and the main [issue] we’re having right now is with the Microsoft accounts, which we have instructions for. If the students are having trouble with them, then we have the staff here to help them reconnect,” said Mrs. Fuentes. A major benefit to having the laptops is that now all students have access to a keyboard, with is vital to efficiently typing things such as essays and lab reports. “Pretty soon we’ll have no textbooks; it will all be online. [Eventually], everything is going to be digital. So our goal is to help [students] learn from the technology,” said Fuentes. Overall, most of Creek’s students are happy with the laptops. They are “easier to navigate” and “more fit to consumer needs,” commented Robert Gonzales, a senior. The original reason for issuing the
tablets instead of laptops last year was to increase the mobility of teachers, who are often stuck behind a desk when demonstrating something online for their students. The thought with the tablets was
with certain software, projects, or other outlets of technology that help made the connection from teacher to student. “Technology is great when it is working. When it is not working, it can add a lot of
Photo by Hannah Pearson
that teacher would be able to eliminate this problem with the ability to move about their classroom during lectures or demonstrations, therefore becoming more engaged with their students and consequently elevating the success of the students’ learning. While this may have been true in theory, many teachers were unable to achieve this efficiently. The tablets were sometimes not compatible
stress,” said Mrs. Fuentes. Once it was decided that the district would be switching to dell laptops, CCISD sent most of the tablets back to Dell, where they were refurbished. The district kept approximately 10,000 tablets, which are used as classroom sets in every elementary school across the district. Sixth and seventh graders have their own tablet to take home every day and eighth to twelfth grade students have their own
Dell laptop to keep for the school year. With new laptops came new software programs and learning platforms. Teachers now have the ability to upload assignments, notes and Power Points onto ItsLearning, the district’s new outlet for classes, replacing OneNote. Students can download these documents at school and at home, which helps them complete missed assignments more easily. Teachers can also upload quizzes onto ItsLearning so students take them at home or in class. Along with ItsLearning, students can access Skyward on their laptops. Skyward is taking the place of CCISD4me; it is the place where students, and their parents, can check their grades daily. Both ItsLearning and Skyward can be accessed through LinkEd, CCISD’s main hub for students and parents. The laptops also allow students to have easier access to their online textbooks, where they can take notes and complete online assignments. For any students having difficulties with their laptop, Mrs. Fuentes, Mr.Pott, Mrs. Galvan and Mrs. Pavish, who is the learning technology coach and the teacher-student liaison for technology at Creek, are in the library tech office. Mrs. Fuentes is there from 7:00 to 3:30 every day of the week and is “anxious to help any student that needs it.”
Wildcat family welcomes many new teachers to Creek By Troylon Griffin II Managing Editor
As Clear Creek begins its 20152016 year, both new and old students are introduced to twenty new teachers from a variety of fields. These teachers are part of the big group of teachers that come in every year when a school year begins. This includes three new teachers in the social studies division: Mr. Mathew Alvarez, James Wyman and Stephen Mayol, three science teachers: Michael McGregor, Ashley Dolen and Kortney Field, a new math teacher, Dalona Pierson, two new English teachers: Jenny Harrell and Amanda Penney, three new physical education teachers: Coach Travis Golden, Candle Carmichael and Marka Wood, three new elective teachers: Brian Darby for debate, Rex Williams and Stephen Seymour for band and five new teachers in the foreign language division: Aide Garibay, Velia Davila and Nilda Burgos for Spanish and Tanya Arredondo and Catrice Eaton for American Sign Language. Aide Garibay was born in Monterrey, Mexico and came to Texas for a better high school education. Before high school, Garibay had traveled back and forth from Mexico to the U.S. due to having relatives in both countries. She has been teaching for three years and had previously taught
first level Spanish and Spanish for native speakers at Spring ISD. Now, as a teacher at Creek, Garibay is looking forward to achieving her goal of “implementing and developing a great curriculum for Spanish
Veila Davila and Nilda Burgos. Señora Burgos is a teacher of Spanish 1 and 2. She explained that she is excited and proud to be here. “I want to help people learn a new
New teacher Mr. Darby teaches at his whiteboard.
language and so that way Photo by Aledia Solesky. give them the language opportunities,” Burgos said. can grow and students can grow interested new What’s also notable about Burgos is in choosing it as a course and elective.” “I have a passion for my culture that she has recently come from Puerto and language so teaching Spanish is Rico and has taught there for the past definitely in my interest,” Garibay said. twenty years. She considers her new Garibay has joined Creek’s Spanish coming as “challenging” but she is program along with newcomers “giving it a chance.” Burgos plans to
teach for a long time at Creek and is anticipating “helping students be able to communicate and speak in Spanish.” Señora Davila is also a teacher who is new not only to Creek but to the U.S. For a long time, Davila taught in Mexico before coming to Laredo, Texas to get her bachelor’s degree in Spanish. She is now working at Creek to educate students about the Spanish language. “I like the language and I think it’s a language that needs to be recognized in the United States,” Davila said. “Everyday, Spanish becomes more important to know in the states.” Davila has noted that she loves the diversity at Creek and feels it’s a good place to start teaching in the U.S. She looks forward to teaching at Creek and developing her career. In the American Sign Language department, Creek welcomes Tanya Arredondo and Catrice Eaton. Arredondo’s first year at Creek is also her first year ever teaching. She took an interest in sign language and teaching when her father began attending classes after he began to lose his hearing. “I’m really excited and I got ready as much as I could,” Arredondo said. In general, she looks forward to the “high spirited student body aiming for success in anything they do.” (continued on page 9)