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Blast from the Past:

Chris Clardy,

owner of

C-R-A-V-E

here in

Farmington

Features

CONTENTS:

Board of Education

Getting to Know YouMr. Stokowski

Fine and Performing Arts

High School Musical

Winterguard“A Soldiers Tale”

Students of the Month

Solar Panel Project

Science Olympiad

3

6

7

14

16

19

27

30

Cover:Mural by

student

artist

Katie

Kiesewetter

The Haystack is a digital

magazine created by

Farmington High School

Desktop Publishing class.

For more information

about FCHS please visit

www.dist265.com

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District 265 School Board

• Current members of our School Board include: President Kelly

Threw, Vice-President Todd Guidi, Secretary Dakota Horn, Assistant

Secretary Wendy Clark, Chad Johnson, BJ Oldfield, and Anne

Stufflebeam. The School Board creates all policies, approves budgets

all while overseeing school operations.

• School Board members are elected positions! April 7th, 2015 will

be the next election. The members whose terms end this year are

Kelly Threw, Todd Guidi, Dakota Horn, and Anne Stufflebeam. There

are five people running for 4 spots, including: Kelly Threw, Todd Guidi,

Dakota Horn, Kay Faralli, and Ron Zessin.

• One thing the board has been working on is improving the school

curriculum, headed by Chad Johnson and Wendy Clark. They are

continuously working to improve what and how the students will be

learning. They have also recently given approval for our solar panel

project.

• On behalf of the students in the Farmington School District, thank you for all you do!

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Special EducationBy: Stephanie Melgoza & Aleigha Miller

Special Education -- what is it? If you were to ask someone, would it really be that easy to answer? We asked Mrs. Kerry Klesath, Special Education Coordinator, about special education to get a better understanding of what it is. Mrs. Klesath oversees our cross-categorical teachers in the district who offer students a wide variety of services. There are life skills teachers, social workers, psychologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech & language therapists. The Special Education Department in Farmington works with anything from physical disabilities to speech impairments. There are about 100 students in Farmington who require these services.

This is Mrs. Klesath’s seventh year teaching Special Education. She was head of the department and this is her first year as a Special Education Coordinator. She informed us that every student learns differently. Teachers need to know the student’s learning abilities in order to find out how they learn best. We asked what special education strategies and techniques she uses to help her students. Mrs. Klesath’s response was “it usually depends on their disability and also their strengths, weaknesses, and interests.” Lastly, we asked Mrs. Klesath why she became a special education teacher. She told us that her mother was a special education teacher and that she had always wanted to work with children. There were also some members of her family with disabilities. She knew in high school when she started working for HISRA (a camp for kids with disabilities) that she had a passion for it as soon as she started working there.

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Who is Mr. Vallas?After interviewing Mr. Vallas to gain some insight into his daily

life as a U.S. History, Geography, Current Issues teacher, and

head football coach, we learned

he enjoys being a teacher

because he gets to meet and

instruct new students every

year, so his job never gets stale.

He made the point that people

like to bash on teachers’ pay,

but he believes it is not all

about the money. It is about

helping, teaching, and connecting with students. Mr. Vallas

spent one year as the Assistant Principal here at FCHS. However,

he felt like he was missing out on being a teacher in the

classroom. He also wanted to get back into coaching and that

was not an option as an Assistant Principal.

Mr. Vallas decided to teach because where he grew up, for him,

being a teacher or going into the medical field were the only

options. “Can you imagine me in the medical field? Yeah, right.”

His favorite topic to teach is the Civil Rights Era and his favorite

activity to assign to his students are group projects. Mr. Vallas

believes he does very well at connecting with students, but

believes finding challenges for his students needs some work. A

more accomplished time in his life was when he helped some

students, who seemed to never be able to be successful in life,

find sports and activities to turn their life around. The first hour

of his day is his prep period, which allows him to plan out the

rest of his day. He prefers to eat lunch by himself in his room, so

he can focus on what he needs to teach in his afternoon classes

and also so he can have some alone time.

If you’d like to learn more about Mr.

Mr. Vallas, be sure to take U.S. History,

Geography, or Current Issues!

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Getting to know you…

Mr. Stokowski

What made you want to become

an English teacher?

Majoring in speech

education made him realize if you

have the confidence to talk in

front of people, you can do

anything. For example, applying for a job or asking

someone out on a date.

Where did you attend college?

Mr. Stokowski attended Illinois Central College (ICC) for

two years and then Illinois State University (ISU) for two

years.

Why did you choose to work at Farmington High School?

Mr. Stokowski’s mother works here and he thought it

would be a great place/community to work.

What would you do to make education better for your

students that enter your classroom in the future?

For future students, he wants to further the use of

technology in the classroom, giving the class more real

life implications.

Why did you become a football coach?

As a child, Stokowski really enjoyed football; he likes

watching guys grow and learn discipline.

Some of the football players say you are “an insane

coach,” Why?

“I like to get the best out of my players, sometimes it just

takes some verbal encouragement.”

What is “guy?”

Everyone has been asking the same question: What is

“guy?” Well, Mr. Stokowski worked under a coach who

referred to everyone as “guy,” and it stuck with him.

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Fine & Performing Arts

Art:

During center time the Pre-school children in Mrs. Harris' classroom can build and create 3-Dimensional art at the wood center. This center has a variety of materials available for students such as: popsicles sticks, beads, scrap wood, buttons, feathers, lids, paper towel rolls, clay or yarn. When their creation is finished, it is displayed in the classroom or taken home for their family to enjoy.

Basketball Hoop by Brynn, Cash, &

Peyton.

Pipe Cleaner Art by Various

Students

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• Art Club is a fun way for students to create art and participate in related activities outside of school. Ms. Kurtz is the sponsor of Art Club, and she watches over all of the events taking place. As members of Art Club, they must pick officers. Once the officers are chosen, they decide what events they would like to do. Some of the events Art Club has done in the past include: going to the St. Louis City Museum, going to see the musical “Dirty Dancing,” and summer painting. Later in the year, Art Club plans on having a Spring Social Event, where members come watch movies and have a lock-in; they also plan on going to a ceramic studio. Art club designs t-shirts for the club members and then they can decorate them, making the shirts their own. The club also has bake sales to raise money for the club’s use.

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Ceramics:

The high school

ceramics class is learning to throw clay on the potter’s

wheel.

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High School Art Gallery:

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High School Art Gallery:

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Jr. High Art:

The Jr. High Art classes have finished their gigantic candy replicas. They began with an original candy wrapper and sketched it. When done sketching, the students then moved on to doing the giant replica.

Some of the junior high students have entered into an art competition.

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Music Departments

Elementary:The fourth graders have started to learn how

to play the recorder and will be performing

at their spring concert. This is a great

opportunity for the students to become more

interested in playing instruments because

they will get a chance to be a part of the fifth

grade band next year.

Solo & Ensemble Competition:

The Junior High and High School will be

participating in the Solo & Ensemble contest.

Students who choose to compete will be

judged on how well they perform their piece.

The high school’s competition at Manual

High School is on March 7th and the junior

high’s at Illinois Central College is on March

13th. In competition, the students are given a

score for how well they do, and then given a

medal that goes with that score.

High School:

The chorus is getting ready for Bradley

Honor Choir. As of now, the class is

taking nominations for who they think

will best represent the class. The

students who are chosen will perform at

Bradley University with students from

other schools. The band and choir will

perform at the Peoria County Court

House for Arts in the Park on

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015. They are

also having a concert on Sunday, May

3rd, 2015 at 2 PM.

High School Musical 2 on Stage!

The High School has been putting together this year’s

spring musical: “High School Musical 2 On Stage!” with

a cast of over 40 members, a live band, and the largest

set ever. This production promises to be one of the best

that our high school has ever put together.

The director, Mr. Ryan Lambert, has been working to

challenge the talent in this production and bring in

Junior High students to give them the chance to get

involved in theatre before the come up to high school.

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Book by: David Simpatico

Songs by: Matthew Gerrard and Robbie Nevil; Ray Cham,

Greg Cham and Andrew Seeley; Randy Petersen and Kevin

Quinn; Bryan Louiselle; David N. Lawrence and Faye

Greenberg; Jamie Houston

Music adapted, arranged and produced by: Bryan Louiselle

Based on a Disney Channel Original Movie Written by: Peter

Barsocchini

Director’s Note:

We’re all in this together! This motto from “High School Musical 2: On Stage” is what we will be putting on stage this year. I have never worked with actors so dedicated to the craft. We have a variety of flips, extreme dancing and fun interactions. Our rehearsals are 5:30-7:45PM every day.

The goal of this show is to break the rules of theater and challenge the cast. There are very few closed curtain scene changes, costume changes are minimal, and modern ideas are added. Countless hours were spent putting the script together, rehearsing music, learning several different dance styles, and learning about stage interaction. And yes, we promise to have a few surprises….and funny moments.

We would like to applaud the numerous hours of preparation the cast and crew put into this production. They believed that we would execute a script that was worthwhile and with their abilities it will come alive. This musical promises to be fresh with “A Mid-Summer Nights Dream” undertone. We hope you can come out April 10, 11, and 12th to enjoy the show!

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Winterguard: “A Soldier’s Tale”

• What is winterguard?

Winterguard is a combination of sport and artistic interpretation that allows our school with just about 400 students enrolled into the high school to compete with schools that have over 2,000 students enrolled.

This will be the team’s fourth year going to state. This year’s state competition was in DeKalb, Illinois at the Northern Illinois University Convocation Center on Saturday, February 14, 2015.

• This year’s team:

Anna Siepel Cailey Platt

Courtney Howard Destany Wood

Emily Kenney Katie Orozco

Lindsay Cash Megan Gilstrap

Megan Rogers

Coached by Mr. Ryan Lambert

• Coach’s Note:

This is our 4th year competing with Team Dance Illinois, which is based out of Chicago. Our school is the farthest away from every competition but if we want to be the best, we must compete against the best. We are not funded or recognized by our school as a sport; but we receive support from our administration with our team. We continually qualify for the state competition, which means you must receive an 81/100 or above. This year, we have decided to pay tribute to the military: Past, Present, and Future Soldiers. We have never had such an overwhelming emotional response from other coaches and teams. Our first competition of the year at Mahomet-Seymour resulted in a standing ovation (the audience clapped until we sat down). We are very proud and honored to present this year’s competition routine: “A Soldier’s Tale.”

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Dance Team

JV and Varsity Dance Teams

Back Row (Left to Right): Ilsa Strough, Josie Melton, Rhiannon

Shelby, Kiersten Matthews, Alyssa Thompson, Maicee Ralston,

Breanna Springer, Megan Vallas

Front Row (Left to Right): Trisha Mcguire, Grace Behrens, Anna

Siepel, Courtney Howard, Sam Wineland, Sabrina Wiesbrock,

Taylor Whitehurst

The dance team is a group of girls that all enjoy

dancing! Each member continues to strive for

perfection. There are two dance teams: a JV team

and a varsity team. Both teams preform at

basketball games: the JV team preforms at the

girls’ varsity games and the Varsity at the boys’

varsity games. The girls preform different types of

dances, such as hip hop and kick, where routines

are choreographed with fun music. The team is

coached by Angie Courtois, Shelby Courtois, and

Emily Johnson.

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• National Honor Society is a program for Junior and

Senior students. If they have earned a 3.5 GPA or

higher, and possess acceptable behavior within the

school district, they may be invited to submit

paperwork for consideration to the NHS Selection

Committee. NHS requires students to have community

service hours, and provide opportunities for them to

receive those hours. Throughout the year, NHS helped

with the fall blood drive, ringing Salvation Army bells,

Wildlife Scary Park, tutoring students in need, junior

high state speech event, and helping young

elementary students in an afterschool program at the

public library. As the year goes on, more opportunities

will arise, such as the food drive in March and putting

flags on military graves in remembrance of their

service on Memorial Day.

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•

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• OTSD raises safety awareness in teen driving. They focus on safe driving skills needed to prevent speeding and impaired driving, while promoting seatbelts and their importance. For basketball games, OTSD has different themes for the night, and one night after a game there is a game night. Game night includes board games, volleyball, and Wii games with impaired driving goggles on to show what it would be like to drive under the influence. OTSD was also involved in a Farmer Family session where they had several different stations set up for the students.

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• These stations showed motorcycle safety, how to change a tire, how to change oil in a car, and what happens if pulled get over by a police officer.

• OTSD does not just have events within the school, there are different out of school events going on. Each year, OTSD receives a grant from the state in the amount of $2,000 to raise awareness. Also, the group prepares a PowerPoint presentation for the state to show the program, the state reviews it and enters it in a competition against fifteen other schools. The top five schools get to go and see professional drivers teach driving skills to the students, our OTSD group received fourth place.

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• Key Club is an organization that focuses on our community. The club fundraises, volunteers, and raises awareness for organizations such as St. Jude and UNICEF. Throughout the past year, the group volunteered at various community functions, including: Italian Fest in Farmington and Breakfast with Santa at the Logan-TrivoliFire Protection. They also volunteer to raise money for charity, the club participated in trick-or-treat for UNICEF and also rang bells out in the cold for the Salvation Army.

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• Spanish Club is a club for Spanish students to get to know each other, along with learning more about the language and the culture. Spanish Club has events afterschool once a month, doing activities such as Spanish movies, holiday parties, and candy filled piñatas.

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The Farmington FFA is planning and doing many things this semester. Some of those activities are CFE (or Career Development Events) which include Horse Judging, Agronomy, Ag Sales, Parliamentary Procedure, Poultry, Record Books, Public Speaking, LTS-Leadership Training, Live Stock Judging, Soil Judging, Dairy Products, Job Interview, Ag Business Mechanics, Horticulture and Forestry.

Our FFA is also participating in National FFA Convention, Chapter Bake Sale, National FFA Week, FFA Banquet, 212 Conference, Washington Leadership Conference, Farm Bureau, Youth Conference, FFA Convention (State), Live-Stock shows and Section 12 Banquet.

The FFA is currently working on State Parliamentary Procedure, Poultry, District Record Books, and District Public Speaking. They are also planning their annual FFA Banquet and Ag Education day also known as “Barn Yard Day.”

The FFA’s Motto is “Learning to do, doing to learn, earning to live, living to serve.”

The FFA’s official dress is for the Male participants-black slacks, black dress shoes, a white collared shirt, FFA tie and FFA jacket. For Female participants- white collared shirt, FFA scarf, FFA jacket, black slacks or black knee length skirt, black pantyhose, and black flats.

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Blast From the Past

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Farmington Central School District has

installed 2,520 300-watt solar panels on the roof of

their school. Farmington is now the current record

holder of having the largest solar array, of a public

school, in the United States. It will cut the cost of

electrical power and conserve one-third of the

energy used in other schools. It will save the school

over 1 million dollars over 25 years. The panels are

also guaranteed for 25 years. The Illinois Clean

Energy Foundation of Chicago has granted the

district $1.15 million to fund the project. They found

a way to get the rest of the money without raising

taxes of the community. Not only will it save the

school money but they are finding a way to weave

the solar panels into school lessons. They are hoping

that the solar panels will impact the students for a

long time. So far everything is going well and things

are working out.

Farmington Solar Panel Project:

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Game ClubGame club is open to all high school students, and allows the students to come together and play games one night a week after school. A variety of different games are played; board games, card games and video games. Students have added to the original games that were offered and now bring in their own games and the materials needed to play those games, such as consoles and televisions.

•The club is hosted by Mr. Paul, a high school science teacher. Many students and teachers go each week to the club and play the different games offered. Games like Yahtzee, Phase 10 and Super Smash Bros. are played each week.

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Illinois State Scholars

The State Scholar Program identifies

those students that have superior

potential academically. This honor is

based on the ACT scores, “sixth

semester”, and class size of the students.

The sixth semester means the students

third semester before graduation. This

would be the students last semester of

junior year.

Our Scholars:• Max Balagna

• Bree Bozsoki

• Colton Evans

• Calli Fletcher

• Josh Lozier

• Jason Meyer

• Colton Smith

• Gabby Verbeke

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The Science Olympiad team successfully competed at

regionals Saturday, March 7th, securing first and second place. The

junior high and High school teams have earned themselves a spot in

the state competition. The coach, Mr. Weyers, has successfully

achieved the honor of bringing his teams to state for more than 20

years in a row! The team is usually in the top four competitors at the

regional competition. The difference between going to state can be as

little as one point scored in an event.

There are many different types of events. Building, testing,

and identifying and reading maps are just a few of the skills the

competitors require to compete fiercely. There is usually a lot of

excitement in the air at state. People rushing all over the place, last

minute studying and design changes. Most of the team members

have about three different events they participate in.

The entire event goes on from as early as six A.M. to about

four in the afternoon. The awards ceremony usually starts later than

the time it is scheduled to begin. Over twenty schools participate

each year. Some of which bring over 100 students and staff. The

larger schools usually win the top three spots. But Farmington sticks

its leg in there and often lands one of the top positions in a few of the

events.

Science OlympiadBy: Wyatt Fennell