News from the Churchill County School District

Churchill County High School

November marks the beginning of Native American Heritage month and to kick it off Title VI Indian Education Liaison, Carlene Pacheco invited Stephen Frank, an elder and tribal member of the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe, to sing the Shoshone Flag Song in his native language during morning announcements.

Frank was born on the Walker River Paiute Tribe and is well known in the tribal community and among the pow wow community.

“I wanted to bring in Stephen to sing a Native American song with his hand drum to include an Elder of our community in Native American Heritage Month,” Pacheco said. The students enjoyed hearing him sing and thought it was a neat experience.

"His singing was so cool,” said student Elayne Ernst.

Student Keliah Brady agreed, “I liked the singing this morning because it was really different and neat to hear.”

CCHS librarian Holly McPherson was also very impressed.

“It was the coolest thing. I loved hearing him sing to our school over the loudspeaker,” she said.

Churchill County Middle School

Students in Victoria Purrell’s classes were able to investigate spooktacular science on Halloween. They investigated and learned the science behind various Halloween-related experiments and demonstrations, which included disappearing ink, haunted raisins, ghostly science, magic skittles, dancing ghosts, and witch’s brew.

“It was fun to see their reactions to each of these experiments, especially the witch’s brew one when the ammonia reacted with phenolphthalein turning the potion bright pink,” Purrell said.

The dancing ghosts station was the most popular. The students loved getting all three ghosts to stand up and dance so they could create a dance party. Purrell put music on so they could move them to the beat. Students Liz Chapman and ArlieAnne Wood said they worked hard to create a lot of static during this experiment.

“The energy we were creating passed to the ghosts making them dance,” Chapman said.

Numa

Students in Kristina Lee’s class have been studying figurative language and how they see and use it all the time in stories, poetry, and everyday conversation. They also learned that music is just a form of poetry and discovered that many of their favorite songs are full of figurative language. “To help students review what they learned, I sent them on a scavenger hunt,” said Lee. Students were tasked with matching the lyrics of popular songs to the type of figurative language used. Students enjoyed connecting what they learned in the classroom to popular songs they like. “This was fun because I liked the different types of music,” said student Yanis Barajas. Student Linnea Koenig liked the music but also the thought process behind the activity. “I liked this activity because it was challenging and really made me think.”

E.C. Best

E.C. Best hosted a Top Gun Maverick themed family night on Tuesday.

Principal Keith Boone kicked the school year off by giving each teacher a Maverick call sign, so it only seemed fitting to use that as the theme for their Family Literacy Night.

“True to the Maverick theme, parents flew in despite the sandstorm, and we had a great turnout,” said Literacy and Implementation Specialist Linda Rasmussen.

The night was full of various activities for families. The CCHS ROTC color guard performed, students Denton Faught and Brodie Rossback led the pledge of allegiance, Top Gun Dragsters had students spin to win prizes, families could participate in Top Gun themed karaoke, Naval Air Station Fallon Strike Weather Service showed students how they track the weather and why it is important, Shirl Thomas from NAS Fallon discussed emotional support available to be strong and successful, and ECB teachers provided literacy games for students to take home with them.

“We couldn’t have pulled off this event without our community,” Rasmussen said. “We had so many incredible volunteers come in, Fallon Rotary and United Way donated books for everyone in attendance, and Fallon Glass and Sign donated an F-18 photo backdrop so all of our bulldogs could get that full Maverick experience.”

Lahontan

Students and staff got into the Halloween spirit and dressed up on Monday. Students participated in various Halloween learning assignments throughout the day and then ended their day with Halloween parties.

“This is such a great age to celebrate Halloween with our students and the incredible LES staff really went all out for them. When I visited all the Halloween parties I could tell they were having the best day,” said principal Kimi Melendy.

Northside

Last Thursday’s Fall Festival included several fun activities that also help develop pre-academic as well as fine and gross motor skills. Students were seen digging through sensory bins to find gold coins with numbers, they tested their balancing skills while walking the plank and completed various Neverland Challenge tasks.

Families enjoyed shape walks to earn candied apples, students also hunted for letters to complete treasure maps that they turned in to claim their free books. NELC would like to extend a special thank you to their very own preschool teacher Octavia Merritt for making delicious candied apples, Chief Keith Bryska and CCHS ROTC cadets for volunteering their time to help run the games and activities and Louie's Home Center for donating the use of their cotton candy machine and all of their wonderful families who came out and helped make this event so much fun.

"We couldn't have done it without our incredible community and our families. It was a successful and fun night for all," said teacher Sandy Wassmuth.