September Newsstreak

Page 1

A6: How and where to go camping

The

B1: A look back at the old HHS 10 years after the move

B6: Fall sports team dynamics

Newsstreak

where every person has a story

Harrisonburg High School • 1001 Garbers Church Road • Harrisonburg, VA 22801 • 540.433.2651 • Volume XIC • Issue 1• September 30, 2015

Red Sea wants to up attendance in new season Ava Reynolds HHS Media Coord.

PHOTO BY AUSTIN SWIFT

S-T-R-E-A-K-S! (From left) seniors Lettie Rose, Chase Berkshire, Josh Byrd and Faith Runnells lead a chant during the Sept. 18 football game against Brookville. The four will take charge of the Red Sea for the new season.

The HHS Red Sea, the football team’s 12th Man, has a new look this year as seniors Lettie Rose, Chase Berkshire, Faith Runnells, and Josh Byrd have become the leaders of the student section. The Red Sea, a literal sea of students in matching red t-shirts, hoodies, and hats in the bleachers on Friday night home football games, has one major goal this year: involvement. However getting involvement can be harder than it sounds, according to Chase Berkshire reflecting on past years of the Red Sea’s existence.

“This year we’re just trying to make something to build off of. Last year’s school spirit was definitely at a low, so the main thing is that we’re just trying to get as many people. Numbers are what we need. Numbers are what we lacked last year,” Berkshire said. The Red Sea is open to all grades, but the leaders feel that it is especially important to get underclassmen involved because they are the future of the Red Sea. In order to increase underclassmen involvement and just involvement in general, they have several plans for the season, including more

See RED SEA page A2

Band adds to leadership as numbers increase Faith Runnells Editor-in-Chief Although the HHS band had over 100 members last year, there was only one drum major: Ava Reynolds. This year, because of the continuing expansion of the band, senior Hollyn Slykhuis and sophomore Emily Werner were selected to be new assistant drum majors,

alongside Reynolds. “Most bands over 50 [members] have multiple drum majors, but we are unique because we have had one [drum major] for our size for a long time and that’s really strange, because if [a band member] is way on the 30 yard line, it’s hard to see at times. So one of the reasons we have two new ones is so we can do side conducting and back

field conducting so [the drum majors] can stay on time better and everybody can see a drum major at one point in time,” Reynolds said. Both Slykhuis and Werner went through an interviewing and essay process to be selected as the assistant drum majors. They also each attended a three-day conducting clinic to learn the basics of conducting.

“We auditioned when everyone [in the band] auditioned for leadership interviews. So we had an interview and then we also had conducting that we had to do for [the people interviewing us],” Slykhuis said. For Werner, as a sophomore in such a high band leadership position, having this role has been a change

See BAND page A2

Students to receive individual computers in 2016-17 Abby Hissong Managing Editor Starting in the fall of 2016, classroom activities and homework assignments are going to be very different for students at HHS. Diana Flick, the instructional technology resource

teacher, has played a huge role in making this technology grant happen. “We [HHS] are now eligible for a huge chunk of money that will allow us, over four years, to give every student their own personal device. The logistics of what the device will be are still up in the air,” Flick said.

Next year’s junior class will be the first grade level to receive their individual technological device. Those devices will have to be turned in the next year when they graduate. However, in the coming years when sophomores and freshman receive the devices, those devices won’t have to be turned back in.

If all goes as planned, in the fall of 2019, all students at HHS will be equipped with their own technological device. Superintendent Dr. Scott Kizner believes this grant could mean great things for the education and participation of students who

See TECH page A2

Glick returns to HHS in administrative role Austin Swift Editor-in-Chief HHS graduate, long-serving teacher at the same school and now back in an administrative role, Joe Glick climbed the educational ranks and currently finds himself as the new assistant principal at HHS. He has offered his services around the community, gaining administrative experience along the way. “I’m in my 28th year. I taught biology and a little chemistry at HHS for 14 years, that’s where I did my student teaching, that’s where I graduated high school. I was an assistant principal at Thomas Harrison for six years and for the last seven I’ve been principal of Skyline Middle School,” Glick said. Glick felt it necessary to experience a new side of education when entering

administrative work. “I’ve never been an administrator at a high school, but I’ll tell you this, when the opportunity arose to go into administrative work it was important to me to go to the level I wasn’t familiar with, and after teaching 14 years of high school biology I was familiar with high school kids. I wanted to go to middle school to see how kids move through that really difficult time, so that’s why I chose to go into administration at the middle school,” Glick said. The mindset of both students and faculty appeared to be different than in high school. “What I was expecting to be different was how the presence of a finish line effects kids’ ability to learn and how that affects their own motivation. When you

Online programs see improved accessiblity Lucie Rutherford Sports Editor

PHOTO BY MARIA SNELL-FEIKEMA

ROUND TWO. HHS graduate Joe Glick is back as an assitant principal after working in similar positons at THMS and SMS.

See GLICK page A2

Coming up Fall sports updates Food reviews Homecoming Round-up Humans of HHS feature One act Competition band Columns and editorials Military feature Junk in the trunk

PHOTO BY FAITH RUNNELLS

ON MY COUNT. Senior assistant drum major Hollyn Slykhuis helps conduct during the band’s first football game on Sept. 18.

Social Media www.hhsmedia.com @_HHSMedia @StreaksSports @hhsmedia14

As each new year rolls around, the new technology is not far behind. Some wouldn’t believe the advances in technology that HHS has made from a few years ago until now, and this year is no exception. Instructional Technology Resource Teacher (ITRT) Diana Flick is one of the minds behind this new access, giving her more insight than most on the addition. “You’re going to see more and more teachers using Google Classroom,” Flick said. “It’s very easy for them to organize information and get it out to students, and for students to turn in information that way. Documents are already saved, and the name is already attached to that document.” Google Classroom is a

one year-old program that HHS was with last year as well. Flick is hoping the program will help in the hopes of using less paper this year. “That’s the hope, but teachers really love their paper.” This is English teacher Sara Gingras’ second year with Google Classroom, and she can see a big improvement from last year to now. “I had many failures of lessons first semester last year because we couldn’t log in,” Gingras said. “We would spend a lot of time trying to get on the computers and my entire lesson would be shot. That’s not happening so much. It was a little rough the first couple of days, but I think it has all resolved itself.” A big change to the 2015-16 school year is the

See ONLINE page A2

On the Web Updated sports scores and schedules for all seasonal sports Feature package stories and extended coverage of print packages Advertising forms and information Breaking news from school and the community Video footage of sports Variety of reviews and blogs


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September Newsstreak by valerie Kibler - Issuu