Schools

Editor's note: Nicholas Taylor is a 10th grader at Middleton High School. 

Delegates from the Middleton High School Model United Nations club are back in classes after spending four days with more than 600 students from across the Midwest debating international affairs. 

Twenty MHS students descended on Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., on April 11-14 to participate in the Northwestern University Model UN conference. Model UN conferences allow students to take on the role of international diplomats for the purpose of collaborating with others, learning about foreign relations, and attempting to solve the problems of the world.

“The best part of the conference was working with other delegates and sharing different ideas,” sophomore Joey Duff said.

A record 13 MHS students qualified for next month’s DECA International Career Development Conference at the end of April in Anaheim, Calif.

Bob Hutchison said it was the most students the school has qualified for the international conference since he took over the DECA program at MHS in 2001.

Meanwhile, Madeline Guyette was elected to serve as vice president of chapter development for Wisconsin DECA for the 2013-2014 school year. Her duties include providing resources to help chapters from around the state become strong DECA chapters. She is the second state officer MHS has had under Hutchison.

“I believe Madeline will do an excellent job as the Vice-President of Chapter Development for Wisconsin DECA,'' Hutchison said. “She is a major reason why Middleton DECA has grown to be the chapter it is today.”

Middleton High School has one of the premier athletic programs in the state. The Cardinal Booster Club aims to keep it that way, no matter how tight the school district’s budgets get.

Mardi Gras, the booster club’s annual fundraiser, will take place Saturday from 8 p.m. until midnight at the Marriott, 1313 John Q. Hammons Dr., Middleton.

Anjie Harris-Ostrem, one of the event’s organizers, said Mardi Gras serves as both a festive respite from the long winter and an essential yearly fundraiser for 28 different Middleton High School athletic teams.

Two years ago the booster club donated $114,000 to MHS programs, but that number was down to $110,000 last year. MHS athletic director Bob Joers said his department’s annual budget remains flat from year to year. As a result, the booster club’s role is growing increasingly important.

The Middleton-Cross Plains Area Board of Education on Monday night voted unanimously to move ahead with plans to expand Sunset Ridge Elementary.

The current estimated cost for the project is about $1.39 million, but the  figure won’t firm up until construction bids come back to the school board for review in the spring.

The proposal, which is intended to alleviate overcrowding, calls for a total of four new classrooms, including one for art, one for music, and two for core curriculum.

While a successful referendum in 2012 allows the district to exceed levy limits and spend just under $60 million to expand and upgrade Kromrey Middle School in the City of Middleton and Glacier Creek Middle School in the Village of Cross Plains, the Sunset Ridge project in the Town of Middleton will come out of the district’s existing fund balance.

Members of Middleton High School’s Key Club on Monday night appeared before the Middleton-Cross Plains Area Board of Education, laying out their ambitious plans to host a Relay for Life event from 6 p.m. April 20 to 6 a.m. April 21.

For some local students, the toughest question they’ll ever face isn’t on a test, and it doesn’t come from a teacher. It comes in the form of a single word, followed by a colon and a daunting blank space, on an enrollment application.

Nearly 500 Middleton High School seniors will learn about the dangers of texting and driving and be encouraged to sign a pledge to never text behind the wheel during an event at the school on Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 8:40 a.m.

Middleton High School is teaming up with AT&T, AAA and the Wisconsin State Patrol in a public awareness campaign to urge the school’s students, and all Wisconsin drivers, that text messages can – and should – wait until after driving.

The school assembly will feature AAA’s distracted driving simulator, where seniors will have the chance to experience firsthand the dangers of texting and driving.  Students will also be shown an AT&T documentary called “The Last Text” that shares real stories about lives altered by someone’s decision to text and drive.

Two young brothers took home silver and gold from a recent spelling bee in the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District (MCPASD).

Colin Butler, an eighth-grader at Glacier Creek, won the District Spelling Bee, which took place at the Performing Arts Center.

More than 100 students competed in the bee, which lasted approximately three hours. The event is organized by the MCPASD advanced learning team. It is open to all elementary and middle school students in the district.

“We have some great spellers,” said Ruth Bachmeier, who attended most of the event and works in the district’s communications department.

The championship became a family affair as Graham Butler, Colin’s younger brother who is a fifth-grader at West Middleton, earned second place. Anders Burck, a sixth-grader at Kromrey, took third.

It was a record-setting day for the MHS DECA students at the District 3 Conference on Saturday, Jan. 12 in Sun Prairie.

Seventeen MHS students were named series champions, DECA adviser Bob Hutchison said. For comparison, five students were series champions a year ago. In all, 38 MHS students competed.

The students performed role plays based on scenarios they would encounter if they had a job in marketing. The students also took multiple choice tests to measure their knowledge on marketing and economic concepts.

Students won medals based on their performance on the tests and role plays. The judges gave medals to the top two students in each role play, while medals were given to the top 20 percent on tests.

The MHS series champions were:

When a lion cub stalks a fallen tree branch, it’s actually honing skills it will need to become an efficacious hunter. When two puppies wrestle, they are developing a physical vocabulary that will allow them to successfully interact in an adult canine hierarchy.