The Jeffs’ Best Award was created by the Fairbury Public Schools Board of Education to highlight and celebrate the great work of our staff. On behalf of the Board of Education, I would like to congratulate Renee Kettelhut, Chance School Special Education Teacher, as the recipient of the November Jeffs’ Best Award!

These are her nomination statements:
Renee is technically a first year teacher, but walking through her classroom you would never guess that. She is extremely effective at building relationships with students, communicating with parents, and doing everything possible to help students be successful. Starting her teaching career in a behavior program during a pandemic, is hands down the most challenging way to start a teaching career. Her classroom is very student centered. She is persistent in doing what is best for students in an extremely challenging school year. When students or staff encounter problems or barriers, she problem solves quickly, efficiently, and with a professional demeanor. We are extremely lucky to have such a naturally talented educator join our team. She deserves to be recognized for her resiliency and dedication to our students.

She has been one of the most patient people I have ever met especially with working in the chance building where anything can happen at any moment. I appreciate her for always having a positive attitude and always seeing the upside of everything.

Renee is a dedicated and very hard working SPED Teacher. She always gives the kids everything she’s got even when the students are testing her patience to the extreme. She is working hard to complete all of the special education paperwork and requirements, and at times, this can be overwhelming for a first year teacher. She always comes in with a smile and positive attitude which is felt by both the students and other staff. Working at Chance has it’s challenges but Renee is committed to giving these students the best possible chance to succeed. FPS and the students are lucky to have her working at Chance.

Renee is someone who goes above and beyond for her students. She is constantly trying to think of new ways to get students to engage in their learning. Even as a first year teacher she has taken the lead on several projects to promote student success. She is constantly working towards the best solution for any issue that arises and is an amazing asset to our team. We are very fortunate to have such a caring, hard-working person as part of our team and district

Congratulations Renee!

Real Colors

College Management students took the Real Colors assessment this morning. there were 3 Gold students plus myself and 1 Blue in the room. A big thanks to Extension Educator Darci Pesek for the training!

Proprietorships

Learning about the advantages/disadvantages of Proprietorships, Partnerships, and Corporations through a tower building challenge. The partnership won this time! (Mrs. Dux)

Trash Pick Up

Great Day for Highway 136 cleanup! We had 18 FFA members take time out of their busy schedule to come and help! (Mr. Dux)

Planting Trees for Tomorrow

Thank you to the Class of 1965 and George Acker for letting the Fairbury Ag Education students help plant memorial trees and teaching us about the ins and outs of planting trees. (Mr. Thomas Dux)

The Future of FPS Volleyball

4/5 Graders practiced their volleyball skills this week in Ms. Faltin’s PE class! The future looks good! (Ms Ashley Faltin)

Wave Machine

We’re surrounded by waves! Sound and light travel as waves to our ears and eyes. Ocean waves crash onto the beach. Radio waves broadcast music to our cars. We even use waves to cook our food – in microwaves! The students in Mr. Gerth’s class created wave machines to see how all different kinds of waves move! (Mr. Gerths)

Go Fish!

Celebrating and practicing our alphabet while playing “Go Fish” (Mrs. Jodi Veldt)

Raising the Guatemalan Flag in Spanish 2!

Rigoberto, our new student, gifted us his countryś flag to enjoy! (Mrs. Jodi Veldt)

Economic simulation in Intro to Business…lots of interacting and negotiating taking place! (Melissa Dux)

What’s on your plate this semester? Student-Athletes, College SENCAP Classes, Extracurricular activities, and jobs…they juggle it all. (Mrs. Melissa Dux)

7-12 Band and Vocal Music Starting Strong

7-12 Band (Mr. Dusso)
Wow what a great start to the year so far! High school band camp was a huge success with the final performance at the Wilber Czech Days Parade. The 7-12 bands have been hard at work getting ready for Pep Band and Marching season. The HS Band looks to premiere Part one of our World of Warcraft Halftime show at our first home football game Friday September 3rd!!! JH Band has been hard at work learning marching commands and mastering out school song “Colors” to march in the homecoming parade in September!

HS Choir

Great start to the year! We are already making music and singing together very well. We have a couple of students interested in auditioning for the All State Choir and have begun to work on music and techniques to aid them in those auditions. We also have begun to learn a song that we will be performing in honor of our veterans in the community on Veterans Day.

Crimson Elite

Show Choir is Back! Crimson Elite has returned to its roots as a competitive Show Choir. Dance Boot camp is coming up and we will be getting ready to start here in September. The show choir season doesn’t officially start until December, so we will have this first semester to get ourselves familiar with what a show choir is!! This year’s theme?! 80’s!! Are you a 9-12th grader that still would like an opportunity to audition? We will hold a second chance audition, Friday September 3rd at 7:30am in the music room! i hope to see you there!

Organizational Recruitment Party

The organizational recruitment meeting was held on August 23rd at Camp Jefferson. They had a great turn out, good food, and fun times. Everyone was glad they could get together and celebrate the beginning of the school year!

Solo Cup Stack Challenge

7th Grade STEM students kicked off their first week of STEM challenges with a partner, team building activity called the “Solo Cup Stack Challenge”. They were given limited time, specific materials, and the requirement of not being able to touch the cups with anything but the string/rubber bands. They had to work together with their partner(s) to figure out the best strategy to engineer their cup tower the fastest!(Mrs. Carly Winter)

Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun

In Miss Lassek’s 2nd grade classroom, the students heard a new story during the first week of school. Miss Lassek read the story “Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun.” This story outlines the importance of having courage, the importance of embracing our differences and the importance of never giving up. After hearing the story, the students took on a new challenge. The students were required to build the tallest tower in the classroom with only a few supplies. The students were given 20 mini marshmallows, 1 large marshmallow, 20 dry spaghetti noodles, a piece of paper and 5 inches of tape. The important details of the task was that the tower must stand on its own and hold the large marshmallow on the top. The students felt the challenge and difficulty of the task but never gave up! Congratulations to our winner, Carter Petersen for building the tallest tower to support the large marshmallow! (Mrs. Lassek)