AVHS Principal's Blog

I had the great fortune of being invited to come along with ten of our student FFA (Future Farmers of America) members to attend the 2019 FFA State Leadership Conference in Anaheim, California (https://www.calaged.org/). Funded through the NCAP (North Coast Agriculture Partnership) Grant and under the guidance of our incredibly talented Agriculture teacher, Beth Swehla, our students have the amazing opportunity to attend the conference along with nearly 7000 students from around the state of California.

I don’t know if any of you have ever had the opportunity to be in a room with 7000 high school students, and while that may invoke a sense of trepidation for some of you, I assure you, these are 7000 of the most highly motivated, respectful, driven students I have ever met in my life. Gathered together in the Anaheim Convention Center Arena, all donning their dark blue FFA jackets, the energy in the room was palpable. With music booming and laser lights flashing, led by FFA State Officers, students were treated to a hilarious video and dramatic production by the officers, dance and musical talent by members (including a light-saber battle between two of the state officers), singing, dancing and a general air of camaraderie that I have never witnessed with a group of students.

“Wait a minute”, you say? “I thought FFA was just a bunch of farmers!”.

Yes, you are correct. FUTURE farmers. Future engineers, chemists, biologists, heavy equipment operators, business owners, conservationists… there are so many opportunities that our students have who go into to Agriculture as a field, and the FFA is an organization that helps them to develop not only the career-specific skills necessary to enter higher education and the workforce in agriculture-related fields, but the soft skills necessary for any career, such as interviewing, public speaking, responsibility and being articulate and punctual humans. And this conference was the place where they all came together to participate in a student-run conference. It was truly an amazing experience.

Of course, there was also some fun involved. The night before the conference was a special event for FFA students at Disney’s California Adventure. Students got to go on rides and indulge in a Disney-filled evening that was closed off to everyone except those involved in the FFA. We were treated to an outdoor show that involved lasers, lights, and fire. We went on rides and ate a lot of food with questionable nutritional content. We all got together as a group and rode the Guardians of the Galaxy ride (formerly the Tower of Terror). Overall, we had a great time, learned a lot, and many memories were made.

 

Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.

– Mariam Wright Edelman, Founder & President of the Children’s Defense Fund

Hello! Welcome to the first entry of the AVHS Principal’s Blog. I must preface this by telling you, I’ve never created a blog before, so bear with me while I attempt to figure this all out. For those of you not familiar with the term, a blog is short for a “web log” and although blogs are not a new thing, it is a new way for me to communicate with students, parents, and our school community.

Since I took on this role I have been actively looking for ways to connect our school community together to highlight all of the inspiring learning experiences that are happening at Anderson Valley Jr./Sr. High School and in our school district. I also hope to use this as a platform to share the amazing activities and projects that happen within the classrooms and throughout our school with parents and community. We may be a small school, but we are fortunate to have an incredibly talented and diverse group of students and staff that make this school an incredible place to be.  I am excited to share with you what I see happening every day that makes our school so special.

To be clear about who this blog is meant for, by “school community” I am referring to our students, teachers, staff, parents, alumni, and our entire community at large. So essentially, everyone in the Anderson Valley or who has ties to the Anderson Valley. If you do not have students in our schools you might be thinking to yourself “well, since I don’t have any students in the school, I’m not really a part of the school community”. Not true! One of our goals is help create more connections between our students and our community at large. As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. I would expand on this by saying that it also takes an involved and active community to provide high quality educational experiences for our children.

We already have tremendous local opportunities for our students that connect them to our community. One of those is the Anderson Valley Education Foundation’s Internship Program (https://www.andersonvalleyeducation.org/Internships) where students apply to work in local businesses, gaining valuable skills and providing service to their community. I hope to highlight this program in an upcoming post. Our Senior Project is a graduation requirement and the capstone of the AVHS student experience, and another opportunity for our students to get out into our community doing volunteer work, working in local industries and being mentored by people in the community. This month the Senior Project Orals are coming up and I will be highlighting the exciting projects our seniors are doing. We have a Service Learning Team who have been leading an effort to reopen Paul Dimmick State Park and several other local community service projects, and I will be featuring some of their work soon here as well.

These are just a few ways that AVHS students have the opportunity to interact with our community and further their learning. I hope to find more ways to get our local community involved in helping us to provide exceptional learning experiences for our students, and in turn, give our students opportunities to give back to their community. If you ever have an idea or an opportunity for a school-community connection that you would like to share, please don’t hesitate to contact me at jsnyder@avpanthers.org.

In this blog I will also be highlighting a lot of what goes on in the classrooms on a day-to-day basis. A lot of the magic that happens within our school doesn’t get seen by our families and the public, and I hope to change that. Through this blog I hope to provide a lens for our community to see some of the amazing projects, activities and work that our students are producing every day.

Thank you for reading the first of what I hope becomes a frequent publication about what is happening at Anderson Valley Jr./Sr. High School. Please subscribe to this blog and follow me on Instagram @principal.snyder to see more. Please feel free to contact me at jsnyder@avpanthers.org.

Go Panthers!!