Miami High School

Miami Orchards As Miami Junior-Senior High School continues to punch above its weight, we have learned to make sure that each project we take on helps to solve two or more problems. Miami Orchards is an excellent example of how an initiative can address academics, practical education and drug education. Our High School Health & Wellness Grant from the Governor’s Office of Youth, Faith & Family supports a string of projects at Miami we call I’ve Got Something Better to Do, something better than drinking or using drugs or engaging in other unhealthy activities. One of our main efforts under I’ve Got Something Better to Do is the new Miami Orchards. Agriculture students working with Trees Please, a habitat restoration group from Tucson, planted more than two hundred fruit and nut trees on campus, along with dozens more edible and medicinal plants. All of the plantings are native to our climate and altitude, and will produce food, spices and herbs for the school’s Culinary Arts classes, the school cafeteria, and our food-to-home project.

Agriculture teacher Amanda Bickel plans a second round of planting this fall, and is designing a greenhouse installation for the field north of MHS.

Dr. Brown Visits the

Miami Sr./Jr. High School

Each year, Dr. Adolph Brown talks with the students from Miami and surrounding high schools. All the way from Virginia Beach, with a doctorate in in clinical psychology in hand, Dr. Brown has a whip smart attitude about teaching young people how to navigate through life. Avoiding substance abuse is one of the key topics at most of his lectures.

When you first meet Dr. Brown, you will discover that he does not walk up to the stage in a suit, but rather in dirty clothes and dreadlocks. The students who have not seen him before make a shocking discovery when he reveals himself on stage. Dr. Brown proposes that anyone can “change” if they want to, mastering and shedding the traumatic events represented by the “second backpack”. Dr. Brown’s presentations pulls students to the stage and few ever notice that he runs over time.

Parents and community members are invited to Miami High School in the evening for a special event with Dr. Brown, only this time, Dr. Brown relates to the adults in the room just as easily as he did the students. Parents are inspired by his bold “Real Talk” attitude. They appreciate that Dr. Brown has a willingness to bring up controversial topics on parenting because, let’s face it, parenting is hard. As technology becomes more widespread and vaping more discreet, it’s harder and harder for parents to track. Dr. Brown gives a refreshing point of view on coping with today’s children and teens.

If you haven’t had a chance to see Dr. Brown, he travels to Miami High School once a year, typically in January and, pandemic pending, will again this next school year. The Parent Engagement Grant from the Governor’s Office funds this yearly opportunity and the cost to attend is free. Announcements for future Dr. Brown events will be in local news media and Facebook. Cherry Foster Roberds (1937-2020)

Cherry Foster Roberds was a force of nature. Smart, fierce, hardworking and fearless, Cherry was a major player at Miami High School for nearly seventy years.

Cherry was a standout student in the Class of 1955, a National Honor Society member who ranked fifth in her class, varsity volleyball and badminton player, and 1955 state badminton champion.

Her accomplishments as a coach are legendary: 53 years coaching tennis, badminton and volleyball; 27 Coach of the Year awards; 2019 National Girls Tennis Coach of the Year; and more than 30 state championships.

Perhaps more impressive, she taught English and physical education for nearly fifty years, helping mold thousands of Vandals to become strong, upstanding and grammatically correct citizens. Her annual December lecture on correct punctuation was something that I, the grandson of a formidable English teacher, made sure never to miss.

Cherry will be missed at school and across the community, but she will never be forgotten. Her impact, her drive, her absolute commitment to our school and our students are touchstones for all Miami Vandals. Glen Lineberry

Filmmaking at Miami High – Out of Focus Production and Professor Christian Rozier When Miami was awarded a High School Health & Wellness Grant three years ago, we had three primary goals for There Is No D In Miami: 1. Significantly reduce drug and alcohol use on campus and at school events; 2. Educate families about the risks of marijuana, alcohol and prescription drugs; and,

3. Create a way to keep the program going after the funding ran out. We have seen an enormous reduction in alcohol and drugs on campus, so that regular visits from K-9 units typically turn up nothing. We are now pushing information out to famiies through the Scholastic Over-the-Counter Medicines project, Too Good for Drugs curriculum and a host of other initiatives.

To build our capacity to continue this programming, we created a filmmaking project at Miami. Students work under the quarterly guidance of filmmaker Christian Rozier, and produce pieces about life at Miami Junior-Senior High School. The students have formed Out of Focus Productions (OOF), with their own YouTube channel and a continuing stream of new pieces.

Christian Rozier began his career as a music video and commercial director, producing broadcast videos for politically engaged artists locally and internationally. His documentary film credits include Among The Trees, a world tour feature film that follows the seminal hip-hop group Arrested Development throughout Asia and Europe, and Life In The Age Of Excess, a documentary about an emerging barter economy movement in Los Angeles. Christian is also one of the featured filmmakers in the United Nations sponsored global film One Day On Earth and a screenwriter of the 2013 feature film Lineage. He has produced documentary film series in Senegal and in Southeast Asia, and his documentary Racing The Past has won awards at numerous festivals. He is the director of the 2020 film Apache Leap, filmed in Globe-Miami and San Carlos Apache Reservation. He serves as Professor of Film Studies and Digital Storytelling at the University of Missouri.

LA STREET POETS AT MIAMI HIGH SCHOOL