By Sue Moore
Schoolcraft has celebrated its Back to School night in August each year with food, a dunk tank, information about school activities and a lot of school cheer.
This year brought a new twist with the special “walk-ride-bike” challenge by Superintendent Rusty Stitt in an effort to raise scholarship money for the Community School Foundation. Stitt wanted to put an emphasis on scholarships as he himself benefitted greatly from those he received as a college student. This was his effort to “pass it on,” he said.
He spent the day walking and riding his bike while broadcasting his progress via Facebook, hoping to receive pledges as he gained momentum. He walked the victorious final lap into the Eagles Stadium.
He was excited to announce that the effort was within $1,000 dollars of reaching the goal of $10,000 at press time. for the $50 for 50-mile scholarship fundraiser. The donations will go to honor Schoolcraft students as they pursue post-secondary opportunities.
The new school year is emphasizing a program led by Matt McCullough, director of innovation, to involve students with the community. Students have worked successfully with Walther Farms, the Schoolcraft Historical Society and local businesses and will begin a seven-month stint with the South County News in October. The English Language Arts (ELA) classes in the high school and middle school will each take a month to prepare a news article to appear in the newspaper. It will be written by the students and submitted to the editor of the South County News along with a by line for the class and the student who ends up with the best story along with pictures they take.
The story assignments will come from ideas created by each class, researched and written by the students themselves. It may involve a survey of the community, school topics or even a subject appearing in the national news, McCullough said. Teachers helping with this effort include Kim Klocke, freshman English and life sciences; Mary Visser, 8th grad English language arts (ELA) and leadership; Kathy Taylor, 6th grade ELA; Doug Martin, 11th and 12th grade English; Tracey Branch, 10th grade and 12th grade English, Karin Lynch, 7th grade ELA.