By Travis Anderson | N-O-W District Administrator
Hello from the hallways at Brookwood! It has been a fantastic start to the 2024-2025 school year, and it’s hard to believe that the first quarter of the school year is already complete!
Our students and staff did an exceptional job over the past nine weeks, and everyone is working hard to continually represent Brookwood positively. I want to personally thank our students, staff, volunteers, parents, school board members, and the entire N-O-W community for making our first quarter go extremely well! Don’t forget to check out our Norwalk-Ontario-Wilton School District Facebook page, where we post pictures, videos, student and staff recognitions, general school updates, and much more! When you see these posts on our media outlets, I think you will agree that we have a lot of amazing things happening at Brookwood! There are a ton of highlights to share just from the first quarter, and I’m excited to share them with you, so let’s get to it!
Our fine arts department represented Brookwood very well when the students traveled to Eau Claire Regis High School to compete in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Speech and Dramatic Arts One-Act Theater Festival. They did extremely well and were selected to advance to the sectional event in early November.
The students involved in the Brookwood Fine Arts program also put on a theatrical performance for the entire student body as well as a separate performance for our community the following weekend. Their performance was excellent to say the least!
Our Brookwood Marching Falcons band also premiered a performance at halftime of the homecoming game this year titled, “Friday Night Lights,” and it didn’t disappoint! The Marching Falcons did a great job performing four different tunes and incorporated choreographed movement as well into the performance. We are very proud of our fine arts program at Brookwood, and any time you have the opportunity to check out a performance at Brookwood, I would highly recommend it!
Our elementary school students are doing really great things and learning a lot! Take just one trip through the elementary hallways, and you’ll be amazed at the great learning experiences taking place. To give just a few examples, our gifted and talented program implemented a new technological library resource lookup program that is now being used in the library; fifth grade students created a slideshow using various technologies that can be seen in the hallway during parent-teacher conferences, which are coming up; and our fifth grade also performed at the Performing Arts Show recently.
Our second graders created a class store where they can earn “classroom money” by finishing homework, modeling positive behaviors, etc., in an effort to then apply real-life money skills, and our third graders read a classic literacy tale and completed a fun culminating project that involved creativity, art, and literacy activities.
Across the entire elementary school, our students and staff are extremely busy fully implementing a new reading program, which is taking our literacy instruction to new heights! It’s a lot of work for students and staff, but they are doing great. It’s sure been busy in the elementary school, and there’s simply no way to highlight all the amazing things going on in the elementary school in just one article!
The junior/senior high school is extremely busy as well learning at very high levels in the classrooms and beyond. We can all be proud of all of the organizations and activities our junior/senior high school students are a part of. Their days are jam packed with learning. Along with all of the daily academic work they are doing in the classrooms, our junior/senior high school students continue to expand their learning at every chance they get.
Just a few examples of that are the following: our FFA students recently attended the National FFA Convention and World Dairy Expo, students attended the Wisconsin Education Fair and Career Expo, students serve on various leadership teams, and an extremely high percentage of our students are involved in cocurricular activities.
Our students represented Brookwood very well this past quarter during all of the fall athletic seasons as well, with many of our student-athletes receiving all-conference recognitions in all fall sports and even a few participants represented Brookwood at the state cross-country meet. You might have even seen our cheerleading squad bringing out some new skills with tosses and stunts as they get the crowds fired up to cheer on the Falcons! Our junior and senior high school continues to recognize our students of the week and artists of the month, so look for those posted on our district Facebook page as well.
We have a few exciting new programs being implemented this year as well. One of them is called “The Falcon Insider.” This program includes a video of students and staff highlighting and informing viewers of the great things that are going on at Brookwood. Check out the latest videos on our district website and the Norwalk-Ontario-Wilton School District Facebook page! We also started an “Excellence in Education” program this year where any staff member can be nominated for the great work they are doing, and then that staff member is recognized in front of students by receiving a certificate of their excellent work.
If you are interested in nominating a staff member for their great work, please contact the school for a nomination form or print one off our website. Forms can be found on our website under the tab labeled “For Parents.” Both programs continue to inform and highlight our great school. Check them out!
If you have been to the school, attending activities or just passing by, it’s obvious there is a lot of construction taking place on the school grounds. Our referendum construction projects continue to take shape and will continue into the fall of 2025. The new elementary school playground is open for business and is a big hit! As heard from many students their first day on the playground, they repeatedly said, “This is SO COOL!”
We held three ribbon cuttings on the same day for various age groups to open the new playground, and the kids absolutely LOVE IT! This new space is a great place for our students to not only have fun, but to learn so many skills that transition right back into the classroom, such as developing large and fine motor skills, being respectful to others, following rules, cooperating with others, communicating with peers, learning how to be patient and share, and so much more! It was exciting to see all of the smiles and excitement in that new area!
In terms of the other construction projects around the school grounds, an anticipated completion date is set for late July/early August in the summer of 2025 for all of the building project additions in the front of the school, as well as all of the interior classroom remodeling and the final parking lot reconfiguration. The auditorium and technical education spaces are set for potential completion in November/December 2025 as well.
One thing we have really focused on through our renovations is reusing materials as much as possible. If you have been to the new track, football field, and physical education area, you will notice the concrete “Brookwood” sign placed on the concrete pillars that was installed recently. You may remember this sign, as it was the original sign above the former elementary school entrance, and it looks great in its new space!
With the new addition to the front of the school, we also had to remove several trees from that space to make room for the new addition. Instead of just destroying these usable trees, the logs were sawed into usable lumber, and our technical education classes will use the lumber for some of their in-class building projects.
A lot has been completed, but there’s still a lot of work ahead of us. The upgrades that are already finished are GREAT for kids, and the renovations that are set for completion will be amazing for our students and community for generations!
It’s been a great first quarter and don’t forget to stay in touch with us here at Brookwood. There are amazing things happening at our school, and we are all proud to be in Falcon Country!
