Model United Nations team has been a tradition at SJHS for many years. It is supervised by Mr. David Hansen, history teacher at SJHS, and Mrs. Lise Carpenter, science teacher at SJHS. In Model UN, the students represent a country and practice parliamentary procedures to find solutions to certain world issues. Model UN practices every Monday and Friday during Quest Time.
During the month of December, geometry students at Springville Junior High memorized formulas and got into the Christmas spirit by singing carols. These weren’t just the ordinary Christmas carols you hear on the radio. Before Christmas break, Mrs. Gleave, Algebra 1 and Geometry teacher, had geometry students create math Christmas songs.
Mrs. Gleave has had her classes carol for the past four years now. Before that, she researched on the benefits of music in memorization. Mrs. Gleave decided inventing Christmas carols for math formulas and theorems would help students remember them better. And so the tradition was born.
The first day of school started, and so did the journalism class, which is taught by Ms. Tiffanie Miley during sixth period. They started to work on their first articles about a week in, after practicing to become the new journalism staff. Now it’s January and the journalism staff is about to leave and join new classes next semester. “It's really sad to me. This is my second and final year as a journalist, and I've really enjoyed the class and the teacher,” said Cody Woolsey, ninth-grade student at SJHS. After January 13th, most of the journalism students will not be taking the journalism class the next semester. “I really enjoyed teaching this semester's journalism class.
As Christmas Break approached, students and teachers alike found ways to spread the Christmas spirit throughout Springville Junior High School. Mrs. Brenda Bales, school attendance secretary, found her own way to celebrate the holidays: she has decorated the office!
As soon as Thanksgiving break ended, Mrs. Bales and her teacher assistants (TA’s) quickly started putting up decorations around the office. Some of the decorations were: two decorative snowmen, a Christmas tree, and various snowflakes around the room. Mrs. Bales said, “The tree here was finished before my tree at home.”
At Springville Junior High, students are learning how to serve by interacting with first graders. Mrs. Diane Bird’s service learning class visits the first graders at Brookside Elementary every Monday during the service learning class period. This helps the class learn how to serve kids younger than themselves.
On Friday, December 12th, the eighth and ninth-grade choir students and the choir teacher, Mrs. Leslie Walker, went around to different elementary schools and sang Christmas songs.
The junior high choir students sang at Art City, Sage Creek, Brookside, Westside, and Cherry Creek Elementary Schools, but in the middle of the tour they stopped at the mall and had lunch. Josh Dalley, eighth grader at SJHS, said, “I enjoyed it because it was really fun!”
Students in the Springville Junior High sewing and clothing class are now making Haan Crafts. Haan Crafts are a fancy name for different types kits you get to make stuffed animals and/or pillows and blankets. If students are in a sewing or clothing class, they have the opportunity to make these kits.
Students at SJHS had lots of choices on what they wanted to make. “I wanted to make a soccer ball, and they looked fun!” said Ashley Cutler, an eighth grader a SJHS.
At Springville Junior High there are several counselors. The seventh-grade counselor, Mrs. Monica Distefano, was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in a suburb called Sheffield Lake, near Lake Erie.
She went to BYU for a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and later, went to the University of Phoenix to get a master’s degree. She spent 10 years working for a company that provided services to people with disabilities. She was a manager and a director over some residential programs. Later she was the director of staff development.
At the start of chilly December, the students in Mr. Cole Nelson’s eighth-grade history class started a new project, Revolutionary War posters. “The main theme of these posters was Continental Army recruitment in the Revolutionary War,” said Mr. Nelson. After hearing the instructions the students got to work. “When I first heard we were going to make war posters, I thought it would be a great experience,” said Nik Grosland, eighth-grade student at SJHS.
The SJHS Mission statement mentions that the students will be “responsible citizens” to help that happen, Mr. David Hansen’s Government and Law class has set up Peer Court. As the Springville Junior High School Handbook reads, “A Peer Court will be created as part of a Government and law class to give students the opportunity to be involved in addressing and enforcing school policy.”
