This Monday was Yuma School District One’s first day of classes. As the largest elementary district in both Yuma and La Paz, District One serves over 8,000 students. Nearly a thousand of those students attend Castle Dome Middle School, where we dropped in to check out how kids, relatives and teachers were feeling.
Here’s what they had to say.
Students and Relatives
Abel Zamora, 6th grade
Feeling: “A little nervous because it's a new school and a bunch of new people.”
Andres Mendez, 7th grade
Feeling: “Not so great ... 'cause I don't really want to come to school.”
Looking forward to: “Wrestling.”
Octavio Lopez Jr., 7th grade
Feeling: “Not good at all. I'm really nervous. It feels weird because I know no one here, and that's what I was telling him [his dad] about. It's like everyone knew me over there. It's like even, even though you [his dad] were telling me it’s a clean record or whatever. But it's still weird.”
Octavio Lopez Sr., father
Feeling: “I'm happy. I'm excited for him, even though he's not, you know, really. Like I said, it's a clean slate. You know, you're going to be able to make new friends here and do a lot of new things that he wasn't doing over there, so, and any of the problems that he had too, whether it was fights with people, you know, problems in school; he gets a clean slate.”
Marissa Vizcarra, 8th grade
Feeling: “I felt kind of nervous when I first walked into the school but not as much anymore, I guess. (“and now that you’ve had your first class?”) I felt much better. It was, it was okay. We didn't really do much except, like, answer some questions about, like, our summer.”
Jae Vizcarra, Marissa’s oldest sibling
About Marissa’s feelings: “I think she was really excited. She woke up early, 6:30 – she has to get the bus at 7:58, so I was like, I would never; I could never do that. And then she's also feeling very anxious, of course, it’s the first day of school in a new school. She used to go to Gila Vista. She’s now at Castle Dome. So she doesn’t really know anybody here, but she's kind of a social butterfly so I think she'll be fine. She knows how to find her crowd pretty easily.
Feeling: I'm excited for her. Even though it's like a new school, I think I think she'll do good here.
Teachers
Deb Wiles, 6th grade science
Feeling: “It's super exciting ‘cause what's not exciting about, you know, new clothes and, you know, your backpack and meeting new friends? But we get nervous, too. There's so much unknown that we get a little scared and nervous, and our summer’s coming to an end, too, so. But it's really fun whenever the kids are excited; it's really, really exciting. We also don't sleep, you know, the night before. So exciting.”
Most looking forward to: “This will be my fourth year, I guess, teaching science. So I think just kind of all the new stuff, you know, that kind of comes out. We do some segments called ‘Nerdy News’ every day, and Nerdy News just kind of always evolves and changes based on what this group of kids is interested in. So I'm kind of intrigued about what's gonna spark their curiosity.”
Does it get old? “No, this is my 16th year. This is only my 16th year. Yeah, no, not at all. ‘Cause science is always changing. Get that new batch of kids and no, super fun.”
How did the kids seem today? “This group of kiddos seems a little more nervous than maybe years past, but they're just typical sixth graders. They're just like, kind of like, every year. They look like a fun bunch, though.”
Kenneth Posselt, 6th grade math
How did the kids seem today? “They seem to me pretty much, like, they’re always shy on the first day, but they seem pretty comfortable and confident, and that's good to see.”
Feeling: “I feel really good about this first day, this group of kids, and I'm most excited to see what their levels are at right now and how they're going to grow throughout the year.”
Favorite thing about teaching math: “My favorite part about teaching math is that, like, moment where the kids figure it out. That moment right where they're struggling, struggling, struggling, and then they finally figure it out and like, ‘Oh my gosh, I get it!’ It's my favorite moment.”
Francesca Damico, 6th grade English
Feeling: "I feel very excited. It's great to see all the new faces here today, and I think all the kids are really excited as well. So I think it's great to be here today."
Looking forward to: "We use the Benchmark curriculum and it's a really fun, interactive curriculum, so there is a lot that we go through throughout the year, and I think it's going to be really engaging and exciting for the kids."
Hopes for the year: "I just hope that the kids enjoy coming to class. I hope they learn a lot and have fun doing it."
How did the kids seem today? “Yeah, coming to middle school for the first time, they definitely are a little nervous, but we took a tour of the school this morning and I think they are really excited, especially for some of those elective classes which they haven't gotten to take before. And some of them have never switched classes throughout the day before, so I think they're also excited to take that step up into middle school.”
Principal Kevin Gettings
How is everyone feeling today?
“They're excited. They're getting a little tour of the campus. They're nervous, but yet they still are excited about what, you know, middle school has to offer. So I know it's exciting when you see them walking in with their families. And I was just talking to our MFLC [Military and Family Life Counselor], which is our military counselor, and we were looking at the kids saying how much they're going to change over the next eight months. You know, they'll grow up, they'll get taller. They'll learn the school, you know, just such a process takes place that first year here.”
What are you looking forward to this year?
"One of the things that I’m most proud of here at Castle Dome is we try to offer lots of electives in the trades, so around CTE type classes – that’s what we call them at the high school level – but we try to give them a taste of it here.
"Like we brought back this year industrial arts so the kids can actually – we have a new teacher. We lost that program for a year, and we also brought back culinary arts, or FACS [Family and Consumer Science] is more of a traditional name in the middle school. So just to get those students a taste and get them interested in something that, you know, maybe could springboard them in high school to want to have a career in, you know, cooking or woodworking or those type of things.
“So we try to offer that variety, and that's probably what I'm most proud of is we offer a variety of electives. We have a unified class where students can work with, you know, our ESS [Exceptional Student Services] students and, you know, they compete in the Special Olympics during the school year.
“We just offer, you know, lots and lots of things that kids can, you know, I call it getting a taste of so when they get to high school, that may be a pathway they choose to take because, you know, ‘I tried that in middle school and I really enjoyed it.’ And we offer art, Art I and II. We have STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math] classes. We have STEM I and II. They do a lot with drones. So that's exciting for me every year to see, and we have some outstanding teachers teaching in those areas, very highly educated in their field and just doing some extraordinary things.”
