By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

Entering his fourth year as principal, Jarad Hardy joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss the summer work put in by staff and to preview goals for the 25-26 academic year at Carbon High.

Opening our conversation, Hardy shared excitement about the return of students from summer vacation: “It’s been great. It’s fun. That’s why you go into this job, into education. You want to be around the kids and help them. And so summer’s relaxing, but it’s always good to get going and have the kids in the building again.”

Although many see summer as the time of year when teachers take a break, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Hardy explained,” Most teachers, they do take some time, and they need it. They’re always thinking about it. They’re up until midnight, ideas come to them, or they’re always thinking in the back of their mind, and they’re working. And you’ll see teachers in the building throughout the summer working and stuff.”

Hardy added,” They work so hard, and they get a lot of credit for what they do. But I just want to echo what most people think. Those teachers work so hard, and they’re great. And they have nothing but the best intentions for the students.”

 Speaking from an administrator’s perspective, Hardy shared what some of the off-season preparation looks like: “So for this year, we’re just prepped to continue our improvement. We had some great gains in our school last year. We had over 60% of the students make a 3.0 or better GPA last year in all four quarters. We want to continue those gains and focus on how we can better serve the kids, and how we can be better as educators and just make it a better overall experience for the kids.”

In the 24-25 school year, CHS claimed the title for the largest increase in Career and Technical Education certifications awarded, with 575 certificates earned, marking a 16% increase. “Those are classes like wood shop, foods, computer classes, business classes, those types of classes. And our kids just knocked out the certifications this year, which is awesome because they can take those certifications and go straight into employment while they’re in high school or shortly after high school,” said Hardy of the accomplishment. “And so it’s just a testament to the teachers’ hard work and the students’ hard work to do that.”

Looking at goals for the academic year, Hardy explained the mindset going into the beginning of the year: “Student-wise, we try and encourage our students to continue to work and try hard. We have our Carbon ROAR, which stands for Respect, Optimism, Ambition, and Resilience. And we want the kids to take that to heart when they’re working in their academics.”

He continued,” Respect those around them, but also have optimism about what they can achieve and the ambition to achieve that. And when things go wrong, and they always do, and you face some challenges, have that resiliency to fight back and get better. And we want to continue to see the students improve. We’ve seen some great academic gains in the last few years, and we want to see them continue to push themselves.”

To help students get out and get involved, Carbon will be hosting a ‘Rush Week’ where students will have the opportunity to explore the many clubs and activities offered at the school. “The clubs will be set up during lunch, and kids can go find out what clubs are available to them, what they do and meet the kids who help run those clubs and see what they do and make more connections … We’re trying to help kids get back in the swing of things and just have some fun and get connected to school again.”

Closing out our conversation, Hardy previewed some of the new faculty at the school. “We’re excited, we have four new teachers in our building. We have McKenzie Schindler and Liz Bryner teaching language arts for us, brand-new this year. We have Brandon Frank coming in to teach health sciences in our CT department. And we have Jordyn Jeffs coming home from Mont Harmon to teach weightlifting and PE. We’re happy to have them and excited about what they’re going to bring to the school. And it’s going to be another great year.”