At the Winslow Unified School District governing board meeting last week, the board heard a presentation from sixth grader Cinniah Echoles who won the North District Elk’s Hoop Shoot competition for 10–11-year-olds, which is a basketball competition where students compete to make the most free throws.
Cinniah had to win the city, district and regional competitions, with each step being tougher and tougher, and she recently traveled to Las Vegas to compete in the inter-state portion of the competition.
When she was asked by board member Alan Leonard what her favorite part of the competition was, she responded, “the food.” The Elk’s provided stay and transportation for her and her family via the “junk food express,” a bus provided by the Elk’s to transport them to Las Vegas, which was filled to the brim with sweet treats for her and her family to enjoy on their way to the competition. Leonard and board chairman Debbie Martinez both spoke about seeing Cinniah and her father outside their house every day practicing basketball. Leonard commented “I think this goes to show you that if you support your kids and spend time developing their skills it can lead to great success even at such a young age,” adding that with Cinniah entering junior high next year, “we are about to have a really great program.”
The board also discussed providing the Holbrook Unified School District with services from Business Manager Shirley Lomeli, because WUSD is currently in the process of transitioning business managers from Lomeli to Casey Hancock and HUSD currently has no business manager during a time of year when there is much financial work to be done. The board approved helping HUSD, and they will be billed for the days that Lomeli spends helping them so there will be no financial loss to the district but it allows WUSD to help out their neighbors and ensures that students in Holbrook are not negatively affected by any issues that may arise with having the position open.
WHS Principal Sal Hernandez spoke to the board about the success of the vape detectors that the school recently installed in their downstairs bathrooms. The boys and girls restrooms have different brands of vape detectors because this is supposed to act as a trial to determine which company they go with when they expand and install these detectors in every bathroom.
Hernandez says, “I don’t know what the problem is but sometimes when I get the notification that someone is vaping in the bathroom, even if I am right there and able to go check it out immediately often times when I go in the bathroom is completely empty or if there is a student in there, we will search them and not find anything.”
Vaping in high schools is an epidemic that has crawled its way into every corner of America, this is not just something that Winslow has to deal with but practically every high school in the United States is scrambling to find a solution to save their kids from the insidious effects of addiction.
“Obviously we want all vaping to go away, but my real focus is THC vapes; that absolutely has no place at our school and the stuff the kids are puffing on now are much more potent than what we grew up with.” Hernandez said. Hernandez noted that he has booked a public speaker who is incredibly effective at getting kids to understand the risks they are opening themselves up to, but the speaker is booked until August. He will be presenting at every school and even do a presentation at night for parents and community members to better educated themselves on the new, more covert, ways kids are able deliver these drugs into their system.
In other business the board:
* Approved fundraiser for WHS Senior Class T-shirts at $20 each.
* Approved out of state travel for employees Jeff McCrickard and Leander Reid to attend Powerschool Edge Training in Orlando, Fla.
* Approved adding an early release for May 5.
* Approved gifted and talented program curriculum.
* Approved $90,000 contract for occupational therapist services to Jones Telepractice, LLC and National Recruiting Consultants, Inc.
The next meeting of the WUSD school board will be held at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Mar. 15, in the meeting room, located at 800 N. Apache Avenue.
