GIBRALTAR school news
Friends of Gibraltar and Gibraltar Area Schools
Door Community Auditorium Passport Programs Grade 6 Working
Door Community Auditorium
(DCA) Passport Programs are a series of unique cultural and educational experiences, bringing the world to Door County students. Friends of Gibraltar (FOG) and DCA work together to provide these experiences for Door County schools. This school year the Passport Program has already provided four experiences: the Alash Tuvan Ensemble (Tuvan throat singing), Supreme Love, celebrating John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme with Jumaane Taylor (tap dance), Joy Harjo, and Some Enchanted Evening (jazz).
During the Alash Tuvan Ensemble concert, students from Gibraltar and Sturgeon Bay schools experienced the remarkable Tuvan culture through the technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time, along with traditional Tuvan instruments. Believing that traditional music must constantly evolve, the musicians subtly infuse their songs with Western elements, creating their own unique style that is fresh and new, yet always true to their Tuvan musical heritage. www. alashensemble.com
Students from Gibraltar and Sturgeon Bay schools also attended a matinee performance entitled Supreme Love, celebrating John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme with live music and dance. Tap dancers Christina Carminucci, Ayan ImaiHall, and Keyana Latimer; choreographer Jumaane Taylor; and a live quartet reimagined Coltrane’s 1965 classic. Taylor, a Chicago native, has been tap dancing since the age of 7. He has received the Chicago Dancemakers Forum 2017 Lab Artist Award, 3Arts 2019 Award, and he has presented his work with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Jazz Institute of Chicago, Columbia College Dance Center, and abroad. Since 2021, Taylor has also been the artistic director of the Chicago Human Rhythm Project. www.jumaanetaylor.com Gibraltar students in grade 5 had a dance workshop with Jumaane Taylor thanks to a collaboration between the Door Community Auditorium, Friends of Gibraltar, and the Door Kinetic Dance Festival. www.doorkinetic.com
Gibraltar students in grades 5-12 experienced Joy Harjo and her band. Harjo is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and the first Native American ever to hold the position of United States Poet Laureate. Harjo is the author of ten books of poetry, several plays and children’s books, and two memoirs.
As a musician, Harjo has produced seven award-winning music albums including her newest, “I Pray for My Enemies.”
Her album of traditional flute music, “Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears and Winding Through the Milky Way,” won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year in 2009. www.joyharjo.com/ Gibraltar students in grades 5-12 attended the Some Enchanted Evening performance led by Emmy-nominated crooner Benny Benack III and singer and social media sensation Stella Katherine Cole. Some Enchanted Evening led the audience on a jazz-inspired journey through Broadway’s greatest hits from the Golden Age of yesterday to the freshest hits of today. From Hammerstein to “Hamilton” and everything in between, this multi-disciplinary musical mashup also showcased Jabu Graybeal, a one-of-a-kind talent and tap-dancing star. Thank you, Door Community Auditorium, for making these experiences possible for Door County schools.
New Club at Gibraltar
By Anna Knapp, Special Education Teacher,
Club Advisor
Gibraltar Middle and High School students have an opportunity to join a new club this year. We are Many United Against Hate, formed this year with a club for students in grades 6-8 and grades 9-12. Mrs. Knapp is the advisor for the middle school club, and Mr. Schroeder is the advisor for the high school club.
The goal of each club is to promote community at Gibraltar, reduce hate and increase tolerance for everyone. Middle schoolers have celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month in September and recognized anti-bullying month in October with a Kindness Campaign. High school students are connecting as a community with anti-stress activities. Middle school students meet on Tuesdays during their lunch period and high school students meet on Thursdays at lunch. Anyone is welcome to join at any time!
Gibraltar students in grade 6 have an autumn tradition of attending an overnight leadership and team-building retreat. Grade 6 is a transition year for students between having a homeroom teacher in elementary school and rotating classes in middle school. It is a year of increasing independence and responsibility. It is also a time of teamwork, with more sports and music offerings and more group class work. Although Gibraltar is a small school and students likely know all of their classmates, this retreat gives them the time and space to get to know each other in a new context: solving problems together. The unique setting and set of activities give students the opportunity to discover their leadership style, observe the style of their classmates, and explore ways to work together better.
The trip has moved to several locations over the past ten years including Manitowish in Boulder Junction, WI, and Upham Woods in Wisconsin Dells. The trip this year stayed closer to home by utilizing the Door County Adventure Center and staying in the wonderful yurts at the Wagon Trail Campground in Ellison Bay. The time saved on bussing was used to offer more adventurous team building and leadership activities. Students had a variety of problem solving challenges to meet with their class. These team challenges were designed to require students to work together and consider everyone’s ideas to find a solution. They may have come across as fun and games, but the challenges were designed to evoke group listening skills, collaborative leadership, and perseverance through trial and error to find success.
Students also had opportunities to practice leadership and team skills while stargazing, night hiking, kayaking, and ascending the high ropes course zip line at Rowleys Bay. The trip was two full days and one night with a follow-up field trip to the Door County Adventure Center in Valmy. Thank you to the Door County Adventure Center and the Wagon Trail staff for making the experience so positive!
DC TO DC 2024
By Mike Scoville Library Media Specialist and DC Trip Advisor
By the time you read this, the entire Gibraltar 8th grade class (the Class of 2029) will have gone and returned from their trip to our nation’s Capitol. Gibraltar has been taking 8th graders to Washington DC for almost 30 years. What makes this trip a bit more special is that the group will be in Washington DC on November 5, 2024…Election Day! The trip has always been about experiencing the history of our nation from the early beginnings. This class will get to experience history first hand as they witness how Washington DC gets ready for a new president. Photos are from the 2023 trip. Check back for what happens on the trip in the next installment of DC TO DC 2024. For now, enjoy a few pictures from last year’s trip.
Reinventing Monsters in ELA
By Angie Hallett, Middle School English Teacher
This year the middle school has adopted a new English curriculum, EL Education. In the 8th grade, we are reading Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe García McCall. This novel retells The Odyssey and takes place in Mexico, with LatinAmerican monsters. Five sisters travel on a quest through Mexico, hoping to reconnect with their paternal grandmother. Monsters such as lechuzas (owls with witch faces), a nagual (an evil warlock), and el chupacabra (a goat-herd/goat sucker character) are just some of the monsters that obstruct their journey. Recently, students invented a new scene for the story and reinvented monsters in their scenes. Many of the students created magical scenes, and it was hard to choose! The students have been enjoying this novel and writing original stories. Please enjoy these excerpts from original narratives that reinvent Latin American monsters.
This excerpt is from Ema Collack’s story about the monster “El Cuco, also known as El Viejo del Saco and El Sacomán, a boogeyman character” (https://remezcla. com).
Pita: I felt a nudge on my shoulder. I thought it was one of my sisters waking me up. “St-sss stop, let me sleep,” I mumbled. They grabbed my arm and threw me over their shoulder. “I’m serious, stop,” and with that, they covered my face with their hand and I dozed back off. Shortly after I woke back up, I felt like I was in a dream that continued to replay and replay because somehow I was still tied to a tree. I tried to move my legs but I couldn’t. I thought it was my legs being sore from all that traveling. So I tried again, but they still didn’t move. Panic set in as I opened my eyes, trying to focus them in on the morning sun. They were blurred, but my senses were coming back. I looked down and saw rope constricting my body from any sort of movement. I tried to yell to my older sisters, “Juanita, Od-i-l-i-a.” I tried to yell, but no noise came out. “Don’t even try to yell. I have restricted any noise from coming out of you,” a low grumpy voice spoke. I turned around only to meet the gaze of a boogeyman. He was tall and slender with long, scrawny arms. “Leave me alone or my sisters will come for you.”
I was just humming because my lips were sealed. I was trembling, begging for my sisters to realize I was gone. “Oh, they won’t know where you are at all.” I froze at his words. He had read my mind like a book. The odd boogeyman-like figure started to head toward me. I started to squirm, trying to escape. “Don’t move or this will be over before you know it.” He grabbed my shoulder and took a deep breath in. His long snoutlike mouth stuck out and suctioned on my neck. I felt weaker and weaker by the second. I could see my soul in the form of small shiny dust particles leaving my body. And then, within a second, I just passed out cold. Will my sisters ever find me?
This excerpt is from Azucena Jauregui’s story about
“La Ciguapa, a hypnotic mythological creature that takes the form of a woman with backward-facing feet” (https://remezcla.com).
I quickly tried to grab Delia but she was so angry she pushed me away. Juanita stepped in and together we separated the girls. Enrico stood in the corner with a mischievous smile, and I knew something was wrong. A couple of minutes went by and we finally got Delia to calm down, but she was still not speaking to any of us.
I decided it would be best to sleep on this and deal with the girls tomorrow, so I separated the twins as much as I could and we headed back to bed. I fell into a deep sleep, and suddenly I started to dream about Velia and Delia getting taken by a monster. I couldn’t help but awake from my slumber. With a cold sweat running down my back, I looked around to make sure all my sisters were still there. Pita and Jauntia were still there, but Velia and Delia were nowhere to be seen and Enrico was also gone. I knew there was something wrong with that boy!
I quickly got up and woke Pita and Jaunita. We needed to find our missing sisters. We began to search and when I looked over into the water I saw Enrico floating in the air, but he seemed a little different. I took a closer look to realize his feet were backwards and when he opened his mouth I saw the sharpest teeth I’ve ever seen. Then I noticed Velia and Delia floating above the water and screamed, “Get away from them you evil Ciguapa!” He turned my way and began to laugh, “Look there’s nothing you can do, they fell in love with me which granted me the power to hypnotize them and now they will be my next meal.” I ran toward the Ciguapa and ripped a branch off a tree. He saw me running and quickly bit into Velia’s thigh. I ran faster and dove into the water. I got to them and started to hit the Ciguapa with the brach in the eyes which caused him to let go of Velia.
He came back stronger and ripped the branch from my hand, shredding it with his teeth. “JUANITA, PITA, COME HELP ME!” I yelled. Right when the Ciguapa was about to bite my head off, I saw a sharp object stab right through his chest. It was Pita, she began to stab him rapidly before he could do anything else to me or the twins. “This is what you get you ugly Ciguapa,” Pita screamed angrily. She stabbed it in the heart and with that, the Ciguapa said, “You evil little girls you will pay.” His voice faded as he dropped dead in the water. Velia and Delia fell into the water too and Pita helped me get them to shore. When we reached the shore, I couldn’t do anything else but cry. The twins were still hypnotized, and we didn’t know how to get them out of it. Velia was also bleeding everywhere and nothing was working out. At that moment hundreds of butterflies swarmed the twins, almost consuming them. The butterflies lifted the girls off the shore and into the air.
Under the Spotlight
by Lizz Thomas, Theater Education and Musical Director
Gibraltar’s theater department has expanded in the 2024-2025 school year. Our successful One Act extracurricular team is competing on November 7 in Oconto Falls for the opportunity to advance to the Wisconsin State Theater Festival, November 21-23 at UW Milwaukee. Gibraltar’s One Act teams have participated for 20 years. In that time, they have garnered numerous awards. In fact, the director Lizbeth Thomas was inducted into the Wisconsin Hall of Fame for Theater Directors in 2023. This year’s amazing ensemble is hoping to be just as successful with their One Act, Almost Maine by John Cariani. If they advance to state, a send-off showcase performance will be Tuesday, November 19, at 6:30 at the Door Community Auditorium.
The expansion of theater at Gibraltar includes an exploratory theater class for all 7th and 8th grade students that provides a general understanding of what theater is, people in theater, basic acting and performance skills, and audience etiquette and participation. Gibraltar also offers a theater class for high school students, which is more in-depth and takes place daily. This course is designed to provide students with a broad understanding of theater arts from foundational concepts to specialized skills. Students explore acting, technical theater, play study, musical theater, playwriting, theater
business, and global theater traditions.
Mark March 14-16th on your calendars for Gibraltar’s 2025 Musical TBA. We promise this will be a production that the whole family will enjoy! We are not ready to give out our secrets yet, but this comedy musical is sure to entertain young and old alike.
The date of the musical has been moved up because Gibraltar is part of The Center Stage High School Musical Theater Program through the Fox Cities PAC. This program is an education initiative that celebrates and supports the achievements of high school theater students both on and off the stage. Throughout the school year, students in Northeast Wisconsin develop confidence, creativity, collaboration, and camaraderie as they celebrate their peers and school communities. Through the Center Stage Program, local students engage in various learning opportunities including performing and attending performances, receiving educational feedback on their school’s musical productions, participating in interactive workshops with local and touring arts professionals, and celebrating each other’s accomplishments at the year-end showcase.
6th Graders Become Citizen Scientists During Forest Days
By Libby Humphries – Forest Day Teacher, The Ridges Sanctuary
The Forest Day program at Gibraltar is facilitated by environmental educators at The Ridges Sanctuary. Once a month during the school year, students in 4K through 6th grade venture into Peninsula State Park, where they engage with the forest through teacher-led lessons and self-guided exploration. This school year, middle school teacher Andrew Ortmayer and Ridges environmental educator Libby Humphries decided to take 6th grade Forest Days in a new direction that focuses on using citizen science to connect with the natural world. These citizen science experiences are a combination of GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) protocols and modified studies that Libby conducted when she studied environmental science at Georgia Gwinnett College. In October, 6th grade science students spent their Forest Day sessions surveying invertebrates–animals without a spine. To capture bugs and other creepy crawlies, students constructed pitfall traps: empty shallow cups placed in the ground just deep
The fourth graders celebrated the end of their poetry unit with a poetry slam at Blue Horse. Each student presented one original poem with a description of what inspired them. We had a beautiful fall morning to sit on the patio and enjoy the poetry. Thank you to Blue Horse for hosting us!
entitled Philomel Cottage. In this intimate psychological thriller, the queen of mystery reminded the audience that not everyone is who they seem.
enough so that they were level with the forest floor. After setting their traps, students hypothesized what they would find in their traps based on seasonal conditions and their experiences from past Forest Days. When they returned the next day, the results were a mixed bag. Some groups turned up empty-handed, and others discovered velvet mites, spider crickets, roly polys, and more—but why? That was for students to decide. While increasing citizen science efforts at the middle school level has clear benefits for developing scientific literacy and a positive relationship with the environment, there is another more subtle gain for these Forest Day students: confidence. The forest and its inhabitants do their own thing on their own time. By getting comfortable with the possibility of getting things “wrong,” students will open themselves up to opportunities where they may fail. When failure is viewed as a challenge–a chance to learn–children thrive.
Third graders at Gibraltar loved learning about our local history with the Ephraim Historical Society. They were able to learn
schoolhouse,
News from Gibraltar HS Art Room
By Emily Salm, HS Art Teacher
Ombeline Finck Grade 12
Dasia Daubner Grade 12
4 Charcoal Portraits
Aaron Greene Grade 12 Jacquy Sandoval Grade 12
Art 3 Student Choice Charcoal Projects
Megan Gallant Grade 11 Berkeley Schwab Grade 11 Courtney Foy Grade11
Elizabeth Bautista Grade 11
Art 2 Kehinde Wiley-Inspired SelfPortraits Mixed Media
Carenna Reisen Grade 10
Molly Virlee Grade 10
Piper Grady Grade 10
and Bones~Charcoal
Elizabeth Bautista Gr 11
Nelson Gr 11
Benzow
12 Sunny Benzow Grade 11
Megan Gallant Grade 11
Courtney Foy Grade 11
Art 3 Metamorphosis Drawings~Mixed Media
Megan Gallant Grade 11
Emilie Glocke Grade 11
Sunny Benzow Grade 12
Courtney Foy Grade 11
Welcome Back Gibraltar Staff Lunch
By
Friends of Gibraltar Annual Membership 2024-2025
Become a member/sponsor of the Friends of Gibraltar (FOG), a non-profit organization that has provided Gibraltar students with unique educational opportunities by working collaboratively with Gibraltar Schools and the community since 1982!
FOG Membership/Sponsorship: Name: __________________________________________
___ Family: $30
___ Business: $50
Email: __________________________________________
Address: ________________________________________
___ Sponsorship: __________ Phone: _________________________________________
Sponsor FOG programs:
____ Sponsor outdoor education with the Forest Day program for any amount $_____.
____ Number of students you want to sponsor at $50/students for Forest Days $_____. (Forest Days costs FOG & Gibraltar $50/student/school year and is provided for 240 students).
Please send to checks to:
Vinni Chomeau, Friends of Gibraltar, Gibraltar Schools, 3942 State Highway 42, Fish Creek, WI, 54212
Thank you for your support!
Friends of Gibraltar: (920) 868-3284 Ext. 205
vinni.chomeau@gibraltar.k12.wi.us
Mary Witteborg, Gibraltar Public Relations
Julie’s Park Cafe, Main Street Market, McEvoy Culinaria, SIP, Sub Express, Sweetie Pies, White Gull Inn, and Wild Tomato.