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Brenham Independent School District

Superintendent's MessageDear Brenham ISD,

Today is a great day to be a Cub!

Brenham ISD is staffed with some of the most talented and compassionate educators in the state of Texas. BISD students are greeted with smiles when they arrive at school, fed nutritious meals, educated in a technology-rich environment, and kept safe while in our care. From maintenance to transportation to child nutrition to instruction, Brenham ISD is committed to providing an exceptional educational environment for all students. I want to express my sincere thanks to each of you who strive for excellence every day and inspire our community of learners. Thanks for being Game-Changers!

I choose Brenham!

Sincerely,

Walter Jackson, Ed.D.

Superintendent of Schools

Brenham ISD

Department Focus

The Career & Technical Education department at Brenham High School is giving students a taste of what it?s like to be a retail business owner. Using specialized software from Knowledge Matters, BHS CTE teacher Chris Kenjura is offering six sections of Virtual Business, a brand new class at Brenham High School. Students work together in small groups to build a virtual retail store from the ground up. Students do everything from product pricing to placement of displays and checkout counters to staffing and even advertising. Groups complete cross-curricular lessons involving industry specific math and reading lessons and also compete in challenges. The first step in becoming a Knowledge Matters ?Mega-Mogul? is to establish a grocery store. Last week, students were given 16 items for their grocery store and competed to see who could price the items for the largest profit.  Kenjura awarded the winning groups a soda and candy bar, in addition to classroom bragging rights!

When students have successfully established a grocery store, they can move on to a sporting goods store and then an electronics store to build their virtual retail empire. In addition to learning how to run their own business, students also focus on business-related vocabulary every Wednesday. Kenjura places vocabulary term around the classroom and students rotate through stations researching vocabulary on their personal devices. At the end of the course, each student receives a certificate of completion that can be used on their resume.

Kenjura is hoping to add a personal finance class next year to offer students the opportunity to learn skills such as budgeting and saving, paying taxes, building credit and even buying a car. Providing students with opportunities to have discussions about real life problems is Kenjura?s favorite part of this program. To learn more about the CTE department at Brenham High School, visit http://www.brenhamcte.com/.

November 2, 2015

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Campus CornerThe Brenham Junior High Robotics Team, led by BJHS teacher Christine Cmajdalka, recently competed at the Brazos BEST Robotics Competition at James Earl Rudder High School in Bryan, Texas. Cmajdalka, who is entering her sixth year at Brenham Junior High, leads the Robotics Team as part of the Gifted and Talented program and also teaches eighth grade Advanced English. In order to prepare for the competition, student programmers learned math lab programming by watching YouTube and training videos. Cmajdalka?s design team met with local engineers from the ESS Group to build, reengineer, and rebuild robots to complete specific missions.

When the team reached the competition, they were simply given a box of hardware supplies and informed of the mission the robot needed to complete. The students had to design, build, and program the robot to complete the assigned mission. The theme for this year?s BEST competition was Pay Dirt - A Mining Mission. The robot?s mission was to go into a mine that was not safe for humans to collect precious minerals and perform other tasks to make the mining situation better for humans.

The Brenham Junior High Robotics Team made it to the semifinals and came home with two awards - The BEST Heart Award and the BEST First Year Team Award.

The team members include:

Cole Gaertner, Rowdy Weidemann, Thang Pham, Derrick Chovanec, Jacob Counts, Mrs. Cmajdalka, Christina Powell, Joshua Cruz, and Carson Melead.

Brenham ISD | 711 E. Mansfield  |  Brenham, TX 77833  |  979-277-3700 | www.brenhamisd.net

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