A lot of changes are in affect this year at Pinnacle Schools, there is no longer early release on Friday afternoons which brings a new A and B schedule for secondary students, the completion of a brand new gymnasium for high school athletics and the addition of new faculty members.
Last year students watched as the construction of their new gymnasium took place just north of the school. The school had hoped that students would be able to utilize the building in time for basketball season last year but construction had some setbacks. It was with great anticipation for the entire school to be able to return from summer break with the completion of their brand new gymnasium. “We final have that open and ready to use. We’ve played a number of different volleyball games in there and it’s just amazing the seats are now comfortable, it’s really nice acoustics and the athletes are really enjoying that space,” stated Elementary Principal, Mark Stuckenschneider better known to the students as “Mr. S.” “We’ll actually be using the older gymnasium for all our middle school athletics and our middle school PE classes, as well as we’ll be using it for our elementary students as well. So we’re definitely going to be using both gymnasiums all the time.”
The new school year has brought in five new faces. “We’re really trying to bulk up the Arts side of our school and we are very fortunate to have a new teacher his name is Eric Sandoval, who teaches dance and theatre and he has a Master’s Degree in the Performing Arts,” stated Mr. S. Also new to secondary grades 6 through 12 is Sean Sasser who will teach Social Studies and Driver’s Ed; Eric Hansen will be the new Boys Baseball and Basketball coach plus will teach a Spanish class; Robert Jones will be teaching mathematics. The only addition to the elementary school is Chelsey Sanchez who is teaching first grade.
There was a lot of consideration that went into eliminating early release Fridays for students. “You know this year we are trying to beef up and work on our instruction time, so we’ve actually made it so we have no early release days. We have full day Fridays, some of the kids are bummed about that but we just wanted to make sure that we took the opportunity to maximize all of the instructional time that we have at the school,” said Mr. S. The benefits of block scheduling for both students and teachers can be broken down into two categories: organization of the school day and delivery of instruction.
To learn more about Pinnacle Schools visit their website at http://www.pcaschool.com/