Hazen Happenings

English 10 News

English 10 students have developed an American Dream definition that will be the umbrella for our reading this year. They have composed celebration poems, explored early American poetry on the Hardwick Trails, and will soon delve into the darker period of the Salem witch trials. The new Honors English 10 “hit the ground running” with their summer reading of Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle and independent books. Discussion is lively and will culminate in immigration debates on Wednesday, September 12, at 8:00 AM. Parents and community members are welcome to sit in. Sophomores will be taking part in a Fall Reading Assessment in September and should be thinking about signing up for PSAT’s at Hazen on October 17. I hope to see many parents at Open House on September 13th.

Sue Trecartin

Hazen Awarded AP Designation

I'm pleased to announce that the College Board approved our Calculus course for an AP designation through their new course audit process. Students who wish to take an Advance Placement math class now have that opportunity at Hazen. The opportunity to take the AP Calculus test in May is nothing new. Hazen's calculus students have always had the chance to test their mettle against an extremely difficult test in past years. However, what's new is an AP designation will now appear on their transcripts which will lend itself to participating colleges to accept that as credit for a calculus class in college.

Barrett Jones

Spanish Challenge

All parents, staff, community and students are invited to participate in the first of 21 taste testings offered via the Spanish bulletin board outside of room A-2. The "Ticket" to the every-so-often taste testings is correct completion of the bulletin board challenge. The current challenge includes matching 21 Spanish speaking countries with their capitals. All may enter by leaving their list, written in their own handwriting, in the folder on the bulletin board by September 7 at 2:34. In the next "Hazen Happenings" the winners (all 100% correct entries) will be listed with the date of the testing in Room A-2 one day after school...probably a Wednesday. A delicacy from Equatorial Guinea will be available for the winners to taste and a game involving the capitals will be played.

Mary Morrison

From the Principal’s Desk…

Greetings to the Hazen Community!

It is with great excitement that I welcome you to a new school year full of challenges, changes, and exploration. On Monday, August 27, we opened the first day of school with a school-wide assembly addressing expectations and a challenge from our superintendent, David Ford, for the students to conserve energy to lower our electrical bills. Our hats go off to Mr. Jay Modry, Science Department Chairperson, for coordinating the program for the students.

Our students were welcomed back to Hazen by eleven new faculty and staff members: Angela Bauer, 7th grade English, Cindy Dailey, Guidance Administrative Assistant, Judy Henchel, Librarian, Mary Morrison, Spanish, Kevin Nadzam, Social Studies, Renee Piernot, 8th grade English, Amanda Pruden, English, Jennifer Schoen, Reading Specialist, Christine Shatney, Food Services, Jack Strong, Driver’s Education, and Mary Wheeler, paraeducator. Please stop by to say hello and to welcome them to their new positions.

Hazen is a great school and our scores are a testimony to the academic atmosphere that is created each day by each and every teacher at Hazen. As I reported in the 2007 Annual Report, our NECAP scores continue to climb. I am extremely pleased to announce that Hazen Union’s 2007 SAT scores are soaring! The verbal scores increased by 9%, the math by 6% and writing increased by 11%. Our scores are higher than the state average as well as higher than the nation’s average. Yes, we are soaring and we will continue to do so in years to come!

Our Open House will be held on Thursday, September 13 from 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm. We look forward to seeing you.

We are off to a great start! Thank-you for being part of the Hazen community! You make it happen!

Hazen rocks!

Elaine F. Laine Principal

From the Students…

Dear Students, Parents, and Devoted Readers

We are writing this article to inform you about how to save energy that is wasted every day in school. Students and Faculty/Staff can help make the electric bill for the school lower by simply turning off the lights when they leave a room. Some of the lights left on are in rooms that are used the least. One of the rooms that have light on all day is the cafeteria. The cafeteria is used maybe three hours out of every day, although the lights are left on all day. The cafeteria is used for everything from make up work, overdue test and quizzes, to just going there with a teacher for extra help. We don’t see a problem with this being a workspace but when people leave, they don’t turn the lights off. When the lunch ladies leave, they are nice enough to turn them off, but within twenty minutes they are awakened again by more people. We calculated that the school is wasting $2041.20 every year. That’s about $11.34 every day. This is just the cafeteria lights alone. We could change the amount of money that we spend by not turning on the lights. Every day there are people who go into the cafeteria to get a drink and turn the lights on. There are enough windows in there that let in sunlight, so we don’t need lights. Another place that is used for a limited time in the school is the boy’s and girl’s locker rooms. Students are only in there to change for gym class, and they have five minutes after the late bell to be in there, and then about four minutes after class to change back into their clothes. The lights are on all day long. We are only in there for about nine minutes every gym class, and there are 5-6 classes every day. That’s almost an hour every day that we are in there, (not including after school practices and when people just hang out there.) We calculated that the lights are on about ten to eleven hours a day, (give or take an hour.) There are fourteen lights in the girl’s locker room using 109 watts. If you calculate the cost of the electricity, you find out that we are wasting $2.63 a day which equals $460.40 a year. Looking at this, we can see that we are wasting a lot of money everyday in different places of the school. With just those two rooms alone, the school is losing about $13.97 a day and $2,444.75 a year. The two places that no one ever thinks about are two of the most money wasting places here.

Ashley Foster and Kelsey Willette

Close Up

Any student or parent of a student in grades 9 -12 interested in the week long Close UP government studies trip to Washington, DC this year should see Mr. Pritchard as soon as possible for more information. We have a couple of fund-raising opportunities scheduled for September that we need to start planning for immediately.

Marvin Pritchard

Hazen’s Library “Happenings”

It’s wonderful to be back! After five years, four of which I taught at other schools (North Country High School and Orleans Elementary) and one of which I consulted with Vermont Strategic Reading Initiative, I am back as Hazen’s librarian. This school community is indeed special, and I am delighted to be here in this new capacity. Lorraine Montgomery, library assistant, and I are excited about our roles in the lives of students, staff, and the community. We are both avid readers and will do our best to match students with “just right” books and teachers with materials to support and enhance their curriculum. Also, we look forward to guiding students to print and electronic databases which will help them research wisely. Please do check out the library link on our school web page. You will see that we are now subscribing to Vermont On-Line (VOL). Soon students and staff should also be able to access it from home. This database contains a wealth of resources for both middle and high school students, as well as a professional collection. Spend some time browsing! This year’s DCF (Dorothy Canfield Fisher) and Green Mountain Book Award books recently arrived. These are books, fiction and nonfiction, which have been chosen by committees comprised of teachers, librarians, and community members. After reading hundreds of books, they select ones which meet their criteria for high quality literature (see links on library web page). Do stop in during Open House. We’ll see you then!

Judy Henchel

Physical Education

Welcome back returning students, and to our incoming 7th graders, welcome! A couple of reminders to parents (and students): please have a note excusing your son or daughter from part/all of class if they are sick or injured, and please, remind your son or daughter not to trust money or valuables in the gym locker or locker room area. And in honor of our refurbished gym floor, lets avoid sneakers that leave those nasty marks please! Middle school students will begin the year preparing for the fall portion of the President’s Challenge Fitness Program, which will measure endurance, flexibility, strength, and quickness. There are 5 tests included in the program: mile run/walk, curlups, pushups, sit and reach, and shuttle run. We test all 7th and 8th graders in the fall and spring with the hopes that improvement will be shown throughout the year. The beginning of each class is dedicated to fitness activities, while the remainder of the class time is dedicated to the activity or sport that we are currently engaged in. The fall units include soccer, speedball, and touch football. Senior high students were given a choice last spring (when they were scheduling their classes) between three “branches” of p.e.: Lifetime sports, such as tennis and golf, Team sports, such as speedball and touch football, or the fitness room, where a student can participate in a strength training and/or aerobic exercise program. Let’s make it a great year!

Wes Alexander