Gobles Public Schools

District News

Building a spaghetti bridge is an educational experiment that demonstrates how bridges work. In Physics class, students researched a bridge somewhere around the world to model. Students were given a budget, drew up blueprints, chose "jobs" during the process (we had a general manager, an accountant, an engineer, and a carpenter) that each had to be responsible for, and were given a timeline with tasks that needed to be met each day.

This activity will allow the students to browse and search for information required to complete their project. The bridge was designed and built by the students out of inexpensive materials such as spaghetti, lasagna, tape and glue. It required the students to do a cost analysis of their project and to conceptualize how their completed project will look before having built it. The spaghetti bridge was a fun and challenging activity. Success is typically determined by how many times its own weight your bridge can hold without breaking. This year had some very exciting designs! Ian Gildea, Brian Hayward, Tyler Pasek, and Austin Uumin's bridge held 120 pounds!!!

Solar Car Races

We had some great success at the solar car races!!! At the Martin Speedway, schools from all over Allegan and VanBuren County competed in the solar car races! Students are given kits to build their cars and have about six weeks to build them however they want; as long as they follow certain specifications. This is a great way to use physics and look at using alternative energy resources. Once at the speedway, each car is put into a heat, and the top four cars continue to the next round. After two eliminations, those students are sent to participate in the "on the spot engineering" challenge. Students are given unlimited supplies and one hour to build a new solar car that will compete in the "come back round."

Eighth grade student Brittany Osmun and English teacher Loriann Harbaugh display one of the dozens of butterflies which will be displayed in the Holocaust Museum in Houston, Texas, to remember the 1.5 million children killed during the Holocaust. Gobles students made the butterflies in Harbaugh's English class after reading the book Milkweed, a story about children trapped in the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

Literacy Month Activities Continue to Pay Off at Gobles Elementary

We know the more they read, the better they do in school, and everywhere. (Suzie Stambek)

Students were quiet today in Suzie Stambek's fifth grade language arts class, working on writing sentences with words that don't "get buried". While others worked, one student stood at the teacher's desk discussing the word choices on his paper.

"What kind of tree was it," Stambek asked. "Think of what an adjective could do to describe the tree?"

"It was blue tree."

Suzie Stambek

"The squirrel ran around a blue tree. Okay, what other kinds of tree are there?"

Seniors Rita Morris and Alex Wright get a dose of financial reality during annual Reality Store activity at Gobles High School.

Gobles High School students participating in the annual Reality Store were able to interact with adults from the Gobles community, many of whom could share financial expertise in areas ranging from insurance planning to investing and bookkeeping.

The annual activity is one in a series of experiences our students have that help them score well above the national average on a financial literacy test given to high school students across the country. During the Reality Store experiences students are given a certain amount of money, and then have to figure out how to make ends meet as if they were out in the real world, really trying to make it happen. Many find that a paycheck doesn't go far when you have the financial responsibilities of an adult.

Gobles sixth grader Kamryn Henderson has big dreams. If pro basketball doesn't work out some day, her backup plan is sports journalism. A career in science might be an option, or perhaps she'll follow another unique talent recently displayed at the Gobles Elementary Spring Concert when Henderson performed a piece of music she composed herself for clarinet.

Kamryn Henderson (foreground, left) is pictured here rehearsing with the sixth grade band.

Henderson played the song she calls Waves, named "for the way the notes sound like they go up and down, kind of like waves in the water," she explained.

Gobles Band Director Emily Cox says the song came about when Henderson took an assignment from music to heart. "We have an assignment in sixth grade music class where students have to write their own melodies," Cox said. "Kamryn took it one step further. She asked if she could write the piece for her clarinet, and I said 'go for it'. I give her credit, because it takes a lot of work, and a lot of guts, to write and perform your own music for an audience. Read More...

Bahamas Trip Opens the Eyes of Gobles Students

Biology teacher Bob Lisowski understands that sometimes you have to see it to believe it. With that in mind, he called the experiences of the recent Bahamas trip "eye-opening" for the fifteen students who traveled to San Salvador as part of a biennial trip taken by the Gobles High School Biology Club.

While on San Salvador students snorkeled both pristine coral reefs, and reefs affected by environmental concerns. They studied the history and culture of the island and the Bahamas, visiting the local high school, attending church service, and exploring remnants of the slave trade, an underground bat cave, the site where Christopher Columbus first made landfall in the New World in 1492, and many sites of significant biological and ecological interest.

Gobles junior Joey Olsiewicz climbs up from the

underground bat cave on San Salvador.

All-Conference Academic

On Friday, April 27, 2012, five seniors from Gobles High School, along with seniors from each conference school, were recognized as All-Conference Academic. The seniors from Gobles are: Clayton Mandigo, Lauren Dietrich, Lydia Gildea, DJ Delong, and Abbey White. These seniors were recognized for their hard work and efforts in the classroom with a combination of their Grade Point Average in core subjects through the first seven semesters, and their score on the ACT. This is truly an honor to be recognized as one the top scholars in the conference. Congratulations Seniors!

Gobles Student Advances to NHD National Competition

Each year, more than half a million students, encouraged by thousands of teachers nationwide participate in the National History Day (NHD) contest. Students choose historical topics related to a theme and conduct extensive primary and secondary research through libraries, archives, museums, oral history interviews and historic sites. After analyzing and interpreting their sources and drawing conclusions about their topics’ significance in history, students present their work in original papers, websites, exhibits, performances and documentaries. These products are entered into competitions in the spring at local, state and national levels where they are evaluated by professional historians and educators. The program culminates in the Kenneth E. Behring National Contest each June held at the University of Maryland at College Park.

This year's state level competition took place at Central Michigan University and featured 350 competitors from both peninsulas. Only two entries can advance to the National competition in each category.

Congratulations to Garrett Fragala as he advances to the National competition to represent the entire state of Michigan. This is Garrett's third year representing his community and his state at the National finals in the historical performance category.

Garrett is pictured here with State Representative Bob Genetski after being introduced on the House floor and receiving a special tribute from Representative Aric Nesbitt an

A Message from the Superintendent

Jeff Rehlander

Hello. It is an honor for me to serve as Superintendent of the Gobles Public Schools. The Gobles Public Schools is a great place for the young people of the school community to gain the knowledge and skills required to help them to be successful in life. I know this to be true from the conversations that I have had with staff and community members, the programming in place, as well as the data that shows how our students perform on assessments. We have seen good success at our schools and that is directly connected to active and strong parental involvement, a dedicated and talented staff, and a supportive community. Yet the current reality can and will be improved. It is important that ALL our children have the knowledge and skills that will allow them to be competitive with any group of students around the state, country, and world. We must be committed to continuously advancing the core mission of teaching and learning.

It isn't often when an entire class of students rises to a challenge put in front of them by a teacher, but Gobles eighth graders are responding to a recent reading assignment with unprecedented enthusiasm, and the results can be seen all over Southwest Michigan.

The writing of Gobles eighth grade students has been featured recently in the Kalamazoo Gazette letters-to-the-editor-section. Students responded to criticism of The Hunger Games, the popular new book by Suzanne Collins students read in English class that explores a world where violence and entertainment are interchangeable and used by a corrupt government to control its citizens.

Teacher Loriann Harbaugh shared a letter with her students that had been published in the paper written by a concerned grandmother criticizing the book as violent and of questionable value. Harbaugh then invited her students to respond to the criticism with their own letters, and dozens of students took up the challenge.

Teacher Wish Lists

Teachers at Gobles Public Schools are participating in the Teacher Wish List on line. TWL is a website where teachers can go to list their "wishes" for supplies and other materials needed at school. It provides a way for teachers and donors to connect. You can access this site at http://teacherwishlists.com/ or you can also find it at www.woodtv.com in their community section. Review the items that teachers are requesting. If you and your family or business can grant a wish by donating any of these much needed supplies, teachers would greatly appreciate it. Contact the teacher directly or by calling the school and make arrangements to drop off your donation. Together, as a community, we can help our teachers help our kids!

Student Drop Off and Pick Up Traffic Flow