Eighth Grade Service Learning

Today at Gibbs Lake Park, our 8th grade students assisted in service learning projects. They took down old trail signs, pulled garlic mustard, picked up trash, groomed trails, and stained equestrian obstacles. These hours could be their first on their way to earning a high school Wildcat Service Cord!

"Putting it all together" in Health 9

Mrs. Tretow's Health 9 students welcomed Dr. Angelie Singh, a resident at UW Family Medicine, into their class today. This year, they have discussed how their choices impact their health. Dr. Singh talked with the students and was able to show the students the impact their choices have on their organs. She had examples of a smoker's lung, liver, heart, and brain, as well as a spleen and spinal cord. This lesson was the culmination of many of the class's discussions this year.

Culinary Arts Showcase

Aspiring Chefs:

Culinary Artists completed their Final Showcase Project on Tuesday, May 30. Students planned a brunch menu and designed a marketing tool and production sheets to keep them on task during preparation. Students met with two judges (a staff member and another student) who scored aspects of the project. Thanks to staff judges Mrs. Alsteens, Mr. Bussey, Mr. Cryderman, Mrs. Dettwiler, Mrs. Knudson, and Mrs. Schween, along with student judges Dylan Gratz, Cole Kleibor, and Kristen Lowery. [Submitted by Mrs. Gartley]

Middle School Students-of-the-Month

With the end of the school year just one week away, Belleville Middle School acknowledged its last round of students-of-the-month for May. This group included students that staff thought deserving that had yet to be nominated this year. We look forward to the 7th graders providing leadership as 8th graders next year and for the 8th graders to blossom as freshmen in the high school.

From left to right: Carol Rankin, Jenna Blask, Jeremy Matteson, Shylah Lietz, Raegan Harnish, Samantha Behr,  Jenna Duerst,  Logan Niesen, Berlyn Gobel, William Meyers, Tori Olson, Elise Mousseau, Drew Enloe, Michael Walker, Jacob Engstad, Cade Miller, J.J. Wenger, Kaitlynn Bowers, Cole Monroe, Hunter Lindstrom, Natalie Brown, Jackson Sies, Alexis Lamboley, and Aiden Lietz

Red Nose Day

Students at Belleville Middle School celebrated Red Nose Day on Thursday, May 25th. This was in an effort to raise awareness and money to fight child poverty in the United States. Seventh and eighth graders raised about $150 for the cause and had a fun time at lunch today with their noses!

Little Free Libraries

As part of the Middle and High School's School Improvement Goals this year, we combined our academic goal to improve literacy with a community outreach goal. This came to fruition today when several student-designed and student-built Little Free Libraries went up around the village. Mr. Neumann's Trades classes were involved in the construction, while the National Honor Society supported a book drive to help fill them. We hope that they are put to good use! 

Jazz in the Park

Despite less than ideal weather, Jazz in the Park went on as scheduled Wednesday night (5-24). The Jazz Band and Vocal Jazz played and sang in Library Park for nearly an hour and a half. Even though they played in overcast, windy conditions with temperatures in the fifties, the students heated up the venue with their performance. Thank you to the Music Boosters for running the concessions at the event!

Rotary Ethics Symposium

The Rotary Ethics group led a symposium today at Belleville High School. The morning started out with two skits to prepare students for the day. Then, within 10 student groups, junior and senior student leaders who had received training from the Rotary led others through three rounds of ethical dilemmas. The Rotary teaches students to:

R: Recognize an ethical issue.

O: Obtain information about the situation.

T: Test alternative actions from various predictions.

A: Act consistently with your best judgement.

R: Reflect on decision after you act.

Y: Yield to your ethical judgements.

This is all in an effort to ultimately get students to make decisions based on the Golden Rule.

Holocaust Speakers at BHS

Mrs. Jenkins's English 10 class and Mr. Hodgson's Advanced Placement United States History class had the opportunity to hear from Holocaust survivors today (5-19) during 4th block. Dr. Mark Olsky from Fitchburg spoke and answered student questions. This event occurred in conjunction with a presentation last night in the high school auditorium put on by the Belleville Public Library. Students received a copy of the book Born Survivors about the concentration camp at Mauthausen.

High School Combined Band & Choir Concert

A school year that began with marching and included a Veterans' Day performance, Winter concerts, jazz tour, trip to Washington, D.C., large group festivals, and Solo & Ensemble started to wind down with Wednesday night's (5-17) Spring Concert. The Treble (Women's) Choir began the night by performing five songs. Over 70 high school students in the Concert Choir then performed another five songs. The Symphonic Band also played five songs to conclude the evening. Mrs. Krueger and Mrs. Meir said goodbye to a very large senior class that included a combination of 31 12th graders that sang in the Choir, played in the Band, or did both.

Be sure to come out next Wednesday for Jazz in the Park at Library Park, beginning at 6:30pm!

Yahara River Writers Ceremony

Ten Belleville students won Finalist Awards in this year’s Yahara River Writers Contest. Sponsored by the Greater Dane County Advanced Learner Network, the annual Yahara River Writers Contest encourages Dane County students in grades 5-8 to create poems, editorials, short stories, and cartoons. Over 50 Belleville students from grades 5-8 entered this contest along with students from other Dane County and area schools.

Of the thousands of entries, 165 were chosen as Top Ten Finalists and received Top Ten honors at the Yahara Writers Workshop and Awards Ceremony at the UW-Madison on May 9. At the ceremony, finalists attended a workshop with the other award winners in their category. After the workshop, each finalist received an award and a copy of the 2017 Yahara River Writers Anthology, which includes all the top ten finalists’ entries in each of the four categories. 

Belleville Top Ten Finalist Awards went to:
Grade 5:
Cartoon: Alora Spiegel
Grade 6:
Editorial: Ella Blask
Grade 8:
Poetry: Cecilia Grefsheim
Cartoon: Cassie Narf and Jaxson Pier
Editorial: Jenna Banfield and Christian Hakala

In addition, two 8th graders received special recognition. Roxana Grunenwald was honored with the 1st place Editorial Award, and a drawing by Josephine Latorre was chosen as the cover art for the 2017 Yahara River Writers Anthology. [Submitted by Sandy Walejko]

Biotechnology Presentation Night

Tonight (5-10) at the BioPharmacetical Technology Center Institute (BCTI). sixteen seniors from nine Dane County high schools presented the research they were involved with at their Youth Apprenticeship worksite. Belleville senior Mikayla Cann presented on-going research on P-Rex1 in cancer, a project Mikayla assisted for the last 17 months at Dr. Robert Lowery's Biotechnology company, Bellbrook Labs.

Youth Apprentices in this career pathway are enrolled in Biotech courses at BCTI one evening per week. For more information contact Teresa Gartley, School-to-Career Coordinator.

Middle School Combined Band and Choir Concert

Mrs. Krueger and Mrs. Meir put on the Spring Middle School Combined Band and Choir Concert on Wednesday night, May 10. Over 50 7th and 8th grade Band students performed four songs. Over 70 7th and 8th grade Choir students also performed four songs. The night featured "send off" songs for the departing 8th graders, with the Band playing "Funkytown" and the Choir singing "Hooked on a Feeling." As Mrs. Meir said, they will be taking their show on the road on May 19th to the Trills and Thrills Festival at Six Flags Great America. We are so lucky to have the quality music program that we do in Belleville!

Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) Project

The Project Lead the Way course Computer Integrated Manufacturing is a new class to Belleville High School this year. During the computer aided manufacturing unit, students were introduced to programming G&M code. Their first activity had them creating 20-30 lines of code to run their initials on the Fadal CNC mill.

The playing card box activity challenged students to create a BHS-themed box of their own design. The activity utilizes Inventor HSM Pro to create the milling functions and G&M code. The top of the card box contains over 26,000 lines of code to "tell" the mill where to cut. 

The activity would not have been possible if not for generous donations from Cate Machine and Welding, Isthmus Engineering, and JM Performance Products.

High School Students-of-the-Month for April

On Wednesday (May 10th), high school teachers recognized the last round of Students-of-the-Month for the 2016-17 school year. Staff from each content area nominated a deserving student by writing about how these students exemplified the Wildcat Way. Students celebrated with a pizza lunch with the principals. They also received movie passes donated by the Marcus Theater Student Motivation Program. This was a great group with whom to wrap up the year!

Left to Right: Josh Grebel, Brenna Meier, Tashayanna Derke, Lily McMahan, Britney Markhardt, and Grace Schulting
Not pictured (due to AP Testing): Derek Baumgartner, Patrick Schwoegler, and Tim Wegehaupt

BMS Pastries with Parents

Thank you to the parents who joined us in the Middle School Commons for Pastries with Parents this morning (Wednesday, May 10th). Thank you also to Taher for helping set up and serve the coffee, juice, and doughnuts. It was a great event to begin to wrap up the school year, allowing for teachers to talk with the the most influential people in these 7th and 8th graders lives- THEIR PARENTS!

Capitol Conference Academic Top 10 Banquet

Belleville High School recognized its Top 10 academic seniors tonight (5-8), along with the eleven other Capitol Conference schools at a banquet at the Sheraton in Madison. Over 120 of the areas brightest seniors came together for the conference's celebration of academic excellence. They were joined by their parents and principals. Congratulations to these members of the Class of 2017 on their outstanding high school careers!

Front Row: Joseph Sokol, Rachel Uebelacker, Britney Markhardt, Grace Przybyl
Back Row: Madeline Bartels, Taylor Halvensleben, Krista Diaz, Mikayla Cann, Shea O'Malley, and Grace Schulting

8th Grade ELA Farm Field Trip

Mrs. Schultz and her 8th grade students at Belleville Middle School experienced two local farming operations today as an extension of a literacy unit surrounding the book Omnivore's Dilemma.  Students will be able to share the experience in a position paper about where our food comes from.  Thank you to the Fahey and Paris farms for hosting our groups!

Youth Apprentice Senior Banquet

The Dane County School Consortium hosted its annual Senior Recognition and Employer Appreciation Banquet tonight (May 4th) at McFarland High School. Mikayla Cann, Lexi Helsell, Dan Meier, Tony O'Connor, Musica Perez, Aiden Pottratz, and Grace Przybyl had participated in the program this year. Along with their paid job, students take (or have taken) a corresponding college-level course and get release time and credit for their work. It is a tremendous experience for students to begin exploring careers. Thank you to Mrs. Gartley, our School-to-Career Coordinator, for developing this program to provide our students with these types of experiences!

Belleville Town Hall Meeting: Teen Mental Health in Our Community

On Wednesday night (May 3rd), the Belleville Area Cares Coalition hosted a town hall meeting on teen mental health in the high school auditorium. Dr. David Deci from UW-Health and Tim Perry from Crossroads Counseling spoke to the audience. They were later joined for a panel discussion by Rachael Hansen, the school psychologist at Belleville High School, and BHS student Vivianna Sarbacker. Over 50 students, staff, and community members attended this event.

Belleville Cares distributed free lock boxes for prescription drug storage at home during the event. Judith Edge, the pharmacist at Belleville's Hometown Pharmacy, also had a table set up. BHS Health and PE teacher Jean Tretow encouraged student participation in the event with free pizza prior to its start. The town hall forum produced valuable discussions on how to better support our struggling teens.

Capitol Conference Art Show

Eight Belleville High School artists submitted their work for the Capitol Conference Art show. Student work was on display for two weeks at the Pyle Center on the UW-Madison campus, with a final ceremony on Sunday, April 30. Congratulations to senior Skyler Grulke for receiving the "Best of School" award! Other BHS participants included Skylar Buttenhoff, Grace Hicks, Cheyenne Koeppel, Jaden Kieler, Noelle Maire, Emma Veeneman (not pictured), and Madalynn Weber.

State Forensics Results

Congratulations to all of our Belleville High School Forensics competitors at last week's state meet at UW-Madison. The following students medaled at the event:

Gold Medal (25 out of 25)
Patrick Schwoegler - Prose
Taylor Vesperman - Solo Acting
Evan Reifert - Radio
Noah Fahey - Solo Acting
Alexis Walker - Poetry
Julia McNamar - Farrago
Jade Halvensleben, Rylee Hubbard, Anna Nolden, and Abby Winterburn - Group Interpretation
Gianna Diaz - Poetry

Silver Medal (24-23 out of 25)
Taylor Halvensleben - Farrago
Jered Barclay - Solo Acting
Rhett Cisler, Grace Hoffman, Shea’OMalley, and Mikaela Steckelis - Group Interpretation
Eliza Woods - Farrago
Emily Flick - Farrago
Owen Benash - Radio
Mili Julian - Prose
Alan Woller - Prose
Mya Enerson - Poetry

Bronze Medal (20-22 out of 25)
Grace Patrow - Farrago
Gary Salmela - Public Address
John Dohm - Demonstration

Small Bronze
Eduardo Fraire - Prose

It was a great exhibition by our Wildcats! Coach Alsteens would like to give a special shout-out to Mrs. Walejko for all her coaching and support over this season.