by Jacob Wilson

With finals fast approaching, it’s important for students to begin preparation for exams.

But with so many different methods for studying, it’s hard to know which ones work. To get the real “in-side scoop” on studying to fi-nals, I asked our very own BCHS Guidance Coun-selor Mr. Eef Fontanez to give us a few tips on the matter.

According to Mr. Fontanez, the f i rs t and most important thing to do when preparing for finals is to create a distraction-free environment for studying in. To do so, a quiet room in your house, a library, or at school must be found. All electronic de-vices should be turned off, as well

as anything else that might distract you from your studies.

“Find what works best for you,” Fontanez said. “Some people study best while listening to music they like, others do best with complete quiet.”

After a dis-t rac t ion- f ree environment is created, you must gather the necessary mate-rials for study-ing, like study guides, notes, and other in-formation you were given in class. A snack can also be ben-eficial, as hun-ger can be one of the most stub-

born distractions against studying.Now that you know how to

prepare best, good luck on taking your final exams from the Pirate staff, as well as from the BCHS Guidance Office.

December 5, 2013

Berea Community School 2 Pirate Parkway Berea, KY 40403

THE PIRATEPassion, Pride, and Purpose

THE PAPER BAG PRINCESS

by Emma Crump & Abi Woodie

In the last edition The Pirate re-ported in the “Seminar Spotlight” article that the leadership seminar is implementing a variety of projects for The Leader in Me. Recently a new project, the scoreboard project, was implemented and requires each teacher to keep track of all their classes and their progress for turning in as-signments each week. The scores will be displayed on graphs that will be updated weekly around the halls to show progress.

National policyorganization seeks

teacher input

The goal of this project, while not student initiated, is designed to increase the percent of homework assignments turned in; this will help student accountability and goal set-ting skills.

Principal Donna Lovell and six oth-er teachers attended leadership train-ing with the Franklin Covey organiza-tion about goal setting, which helped influence the scoreboard project.

“Research shows that if you set solid goals, then hold yourself account-able with data, you are more likely to achieve that goal”, said Principal

Lexington Children’s Theatervisits BCES, performs two plays

(L to R) Diedre Cochran, Michael Whitten, and Antony Russell of the Lexington Children’s Theater perform The Paper Bag Princess for BCS elementary students on Monday, Nov. 26.

by Lincoln Satterthwaite

On Monday November 26, the Lexington Children’s Theater came to the Conkin Gymnasium to perform two plays for the elementary school.

Featuring Diedre Cochran, Mi-chael Whitten, and Antony Russell, the trio performed The Paper Bag Prin-cess, originally by Robert Munsch for K-2nd grades, and Anansi the Spider, adapted from African folklore for grades 3-5.

The Lexington Children’s Theater has been coming to Berea Community Elementary School for over a decade now, and is always an event to which

the students look forward. Each year, the touring division of the theatre visits twice to perform two different plays aimed at different grade levels. The Theater works with each school it goes to, looking to spread appreciation and love of theatre.

According to Mrs. Tina Williams, art teacher for the elementary, these visits are extremely important in in-troducing performance arts to young children. After their visit, teachers continue to work with the students’ experiences with the performance.

“The elementary school was weak in the response category for state test-ing last year,” says 1st grade teacher

Wendy Satterthwaite. Each classroom, depending on grade level, looks at what they saw, how it made them feel, what made the acting effective, and so on, really focusing on the response aspect.

“The Lexington Children’s The-ater always does a great job with our elementary school,” says Mrs. Tina Williams, and rightfully so. The troupe spends three weeks learning two shows in August, working for 8 hours per day for 6 days a week. They spend the next semester going to vari-ous locations and performing their work, occasionally returning to home base in Lexington for a performance.

by Jacob Mondine

On Tuesday, Nov. 26, juniors at BCHS attended a career fair held at Eastern Kentucky University. They were chaperoned by English and journalism teacher Angela Baker, So-cial Studies teacher Adam Coleman, librarian Leah Graham, Gifted and Talented teacher Leona Blackburn, and guidance counselor Eef Fontanez.

The junior class spent the day exploring many different career op-

by Gammon Fain

In the summer of 2013, BCHS English teacher and Journalism ad-viser Mrs. Angela Baker was selected as a Kentucky State Teacher Fellow by the national non-profit organiza-tion Hope Street Group, earning a title bestowed to only 21 of over 150 applicants.

Baker’s role as a State Teacher Fel-low, as well as Hope Street Group’s role in Kentucky is simple: gather teacher input on new education policy, specifically Kentucky’s Pro-fessional Growth and Effectiveness System (PGES), a new framework for teacher and administrator evaluation.

“My role is to disseminate infor-mation to my Professional Learning Network, gather their opinions on PGES, and then hopefully inspire them to gather input from their own colleagues,” Mrs. Baker said.

Hope Street Group was announced as the sole provider of teacher input to the Kentucky Department of Edu-cation (KDE) through a partnership announced in April of this year.

To gather teacher opinion, Mrs. Baker has been building a network through convenings, hosting online discourse through a Virtual Engage-ment Platform, and providing direct opportunities such as polls to teach-ers.

“This is the first time in the history of KDE we’ve been asked for our opinion on policy. All other profes-sions expect to have their voice heard on policy, but teachers have never been asked,” Baker said.

Mrs. Baker as well as the 20 other State Teacher Fellows will continue their work on PGES until May 2014, at which date input opportunities will close and a cumulative report will begin to be written by Hope Street Group. This report will be presented directly to KDE.

“When teachers are informed,

interact with the media, share criti-cal information about policies, solicit feedback from colleagues and share that feedback with policymakers, they ensure a fair and transparent effective-ness system. Hope Street Group is a critical partner in this collaborative effort,” said Mr. Todd Baldwin, a for-mer BCHS faculty member currently working in KDE as an Executive Strategic Advisor in the Office of Next Generation Learners. Mr. Baldwin presented on behalf of KDE at Hope Street Group’s Summer Convening and continues to work closely with the organization.

Hope Street Group is a national non-profit organization founded in 2003 that according to its website is striving “for a healthier, wealthier, wiser America,” comprised of proj-ects in healthcare, job creation, and education.

After playing a key role in the development of Race to the Top in 2009, the organization’s education tenet is currently focusing on teacher evaluation all across the nation. The Commonwealth of Kentucky’s PGES, as well as statewide teacher input pro-vided by 21 Kentucky State Teacher Fellows, are playing a leading role in national reform. Besides KDE, Hope Street Group is also partnering with the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and the Kentucky Educa-tion Association in their Kentucky efforts.

Editor’s note: Mrs. Baker would like to note that any teacher inter-ested in providing comments on PGES may contact her for more information at angela.baker@berea.kyschools.us. Participants may be teachers from any school district, including but not limited to Berea Independent. Her next convening is Monday, Dec. 9 at 3:30 at Berea Com-munity School. More information on Hope Street Group can be found at www.hopestreetgroup.org.

Scoreboards to begin tracking student assignment completion rates

Donna Lovell. “Scoreboards are a tool to keep track of [students’] account-ability”.

Mrs. McCay’s leadership seminar has taken on the project as leaders in the school to get the scoreboards started.

Mrs. McCay thinks this will give a good perspective on all classes: “It’s been interesting looking at my [classes’] numbers.”

This project will be ongoing for the rest of the year and teachers will be implementing individual goals, as well.

Junior class attends EKU career fair on Nov. 26tions by attending three sessions with presentations by guest speakers who worked in the prospective career field. This was followed by a brief question and answer session with the students.

Junior Taylor Justice attended the Math and Science, Information Tech-nology, and Health Science sessions. “I learned the basics of what careers in these fields involve and how much they pay,” he said. “The best part was being able to learn about careers in these fields. It was a great benefit in helping to

choose a career for the future.”Other sessions available included

arts and humanities, communications, engineering, public services, educa-tion, and manufacturing, in addition to others.

After the career fair, they ate lunch at CiCi’s Pizza and returned to school before the final bell.

The junior career fair has been held at EKU for the past several years. Berea plans to go back next year with the class of 2016.

ADVICE FROM THE COUNSELORH O W T O P R E P A R E F O R F I N A L E X A M S

photo by Lincoln Satterthwaite

Mr. Eef Fontanez

BCHS TEACHER ANGELA BAKER IS NAMED HOPE STREET GROUP KY STATE TEACHER FELLOW