Springville Junior High school is undergoing a few changes this year in appearance and staff. Mrs. Courtney Johnson has been added to the staff at Springville Junior High as the new vice principal. “I love how well-rounded the school is. Mr. Rolfe and Mr. Knudsen really understand the kids here, and you can tell they really care,” Mrs. Johnson explained.

Mr. Dave Knudsen, another vice principal at SJHS, shared his thoughts on working with Mrs. Johnson when he said, “I enjoy working with Mrs. Johnson; she’s really funny and a hard worker. She’s also very energetic about her work.”

SJHS has a lot of hard working teachers. One of them is Mrs. Diane Bird, who teaches three classes: service learning, CTE, and sewing. She has been teaching here for one year and has loved it. Even though she is busy with school work she still has time for her family, pets and her big yard at home.

This year is Mrs. Bird’s fifth year teaching. Before coming to SJHS, she taught sewing, service learning, CTE, foods, child development and Interior Design at Provo High School. Before teaching, she helped with her husband’s business and has been busy raising four children.

A great component to the quality teaching in both schooling and sports at Springville Junior High is thanks in part to Mr. David Kindrick. Mr. Kindrick teaches science at SJHS, coaches the girls' basketball team, and also helps out with the track team.

Mr. Kindrick has been teaching for nine years, eight of those years at SJHS. The other schools he has taught at include East Hardy Early Middle School and Timpview High School.  Mr. Kindrick is currently teaching and has mostly taught eighth-grade integrated science. He has also taught body conditioning and study skills. “I really like the ecology section [of eighth grade science] because I get to integrate a lot of art,” said Mr. Kindrick.

Did you ever write an autobiography? The students in Mr. Steven Robbins’ class are writing one right now. Mr. Robbins has been teaching English and doing these autobiographies since 1990.  However, he took eight years off to teach Geography. “My favorite thing about having my students write these essays is watching students get into writing them,” said Mr. Robbins.

Students in Mr. Rob Bentley’s ninth-grade geography classes have been working on presentations about specific countries in Africa. They do the presentations because, according to Mr. Bentley, there isn’t enough time to talk about all 53 countries in Africa. Students had two weeks to work on the presentations, and they presented their reports on Monday, December 14. Before making their reports, they did two class periods of research on Africa.

The Springville Junior High boys' and girls' basketball teams at played games on December 3, 2009. Both teams played against Murray Junior High School.

The girls played hard, but lost their game 33 to 35. The boys won their game 62 to 56. Cole Bertelsen, a member of the boys basketball team, said, “We played pretty good against Murray. Our defense was really good against the team.” 

Jantzen Dalley had the most points for his team with a total of 18. Mindy Stapel had the most points for her team with the total of 21 points. Mr. Shaun Blakey, the boys basketball coach, said, “We would love to see more students at the games to support the basketball teams.”

Every year around this time Springville Junior High has their Christmas Dance. This year the dance was on Thursday, December 17, 2009. The Service Learning class made posters for the dance, and the student council decorated. The dance was filled with Christmas lights and Christmas posters to help with the Christmas spirit. The D.J. at the dance played Christmas songs, old songs, and new hip songs.

“The dances at SJHS help support the school with the money the students paid to get in. So everybody should come!” said Sara Ripley, a member of the student council. The people who chaperone the dances are, teachers, parents, and PTA members. Carson Giles said, “ My favorite part of the dance was dancing with the ladies.” 

Christmas time is all about traditions, and one of the traditions held at Springville Junior High School is that the service learning class hosts a Christmas assembly. This year the assembly will be a Christmas Game Show. 

“We’re going to have student council hosting, special judges, and people from the audience all interacting,” Katie Bair, a member of student council explained. “This is going to be a lot more interactive with the audience than usual,” Katie went onto say.

The assembly is full of surprises and lots of contests for the audience to get to be involved in. “Hopefully it will put everyone into a Christmassy mood.” Katie explained.
 

Model UN is working hard to represent our school in the BYU Model United Nations Competition 2009. They are training with parliamentary procedures, speaking techniques, and common courtesy for the Model UN competition. However, to perfect these skills, the Springville Junior High Model UN Team 2009 will also attend the BYU training session.

This year the students of Springville Junior High sold cookie dough as a fundraiser to raise money to help our school look nicer. Students received prizes for selling cookie dough.  If students wanted the big prize then they could sell 20 tubs of cookie dough and be rewarded with a limo ride and lunch.

On December 3, 2009 all the students who sold 20 tubs of cookie dough or more went to The Pizza Factory, the students who sold 24 or more got to bring along a friend of their choice. The students traveled by black Hummer Limousine.