In the fall of 2011, Mr. Fulbright applied for and won a grant from www.donorschoose.org. He received a classroom set of the book "The Cartoon Introduction to Economics." This fun and innovative resource is now being put to use in Mr. Bagshaw's and Mr. Fulbright's Economics class.

Last semester Mr. Schwarz took T'coy Scrogins and KJ Wheeler to Scranton elementary and Meadows elementary to present to the students information about wind turbines.

T'coy and KJ led the students in several hands-on demonstrations, a powerpoint discussion about wind turbines, and the benefits for the state of Kansas.

The elementary students were also taught how wind turbines produce electricity and were led in a demonstration. T'coy and KJ spoke about Hope Street's wind turbine and did a great job representing our school.

Board members met at Hope Street Academy on Thursday, January 19th. Hope Street students did a great job of speaking about their school experiences to the board. The students presenting were Dakota May, Chico Moreno, and Rhea Glenn.

Students also escorted the board members on a tour of the school before the meeting. The students escorts were Earnest Howard, Marcus Gamez, and Heather Heim.

On Friday, January 13, a group of Hope Street students along with Ms. Slaughter and Ms. Whittaker, attended ‘Stop the Violence Day’ at the Topeka Performing Arts Center. The day of activities, for area students, are coordinated by the Living the Dream, Inc.

Winners for various activities were announced. The activities included art and essay contests for first through 12th grades and a poetry contest for 5th through 12th grades.

Hope Street students belonging to the volunteer group, United Hope, assisted Sheltered Living's Festival of Trees celebration on November 29th, 30th and December 1st and 2nd.

Student's volunteered in a variety of ways: preparing and packaging food to be sold during the festival, setting up and stocking the gift shop of inventory donated to the festival as well as assisting with Candy Cane lane; the arts and craft station for preschooler's that attended the festival. Students served cookies and punch and assisted preschoolers with their art/craft project. Student's were also able to tour the Festival's trees and were amazed at the many different styles and artistic designs of each tree.

Students who participated/volunteered at the Festival this year: Robert Catt, Heather Heim, Brandon Hendricks, Brandon Mitchell, Shelby Monhollan, Denver Pervis, Te'ana Gordon, Selena Servantes, Melissa Lows, Dakota May, Haley Parker, Lindsey Pershall, Ravinder Drapeaux, and Kelsey Silver.

Reality set in Thursday, November 10, as Hope Street students attended Reality U.

Reality U is a financial literacy program that teaches the "realities" of adulthood. Students learn how to manage a checkbook, purchase a car and insurance, and pay off student loans.

Volunteers from the community offered their knowledge and expertise to the students in different areas. Students said they found the program helpful and gave them a taste of 'real life' situations for the future.

Several Hope Street students, their parents, Principal Dale Noll and School Counselor, Terry Toomey attended the Westar Energy Training Center on Tuesday, November 1.

Different training areas gave in-depth information on the varied careers in the energy field, the skills needed for those careers and what was involved in the different positions. A very informative evening!

On October 28, students enrolled in Mrs. Forgey's Ecology class visited the Kanza Prairie north of Hummer Sports Park. This was their last research day.

Students collected grass and forb samples from the research plots. The collected plants will be dried and used for a biomass study of the Kanza Prairie. Results of their prairie research will be compiled by the students in their final research papers.

On October 27, students from Mrs. Forgey's Biology and Ecology classes and Mr. Schwarz's Biology class visited the Baker Wetlands in Lawrence Kansas. They had a great time exploring the wetland ecosystem. Students caught frogs, fish, snakes and crayfish.

They also observed the difference between a newly established wetland ecosystem and an older wetland ecosystem. Dr. Boyd, a former professor at Baker who is the scientist who helped establish the Baker Wetlands, gave a presentation of preserved specimens that are indigenous to the wetlands.

To wrap up the unit on the conservation of energy, students in Mrs. Forgey's Physical Science class constructed roller coasters.

Students then took various measurements to determine potential and kinetic energy of their rollercoaster car as it traveled down the track. Students will compare these measurements to determine if energy was conserved.

On October 13th, several Native American students from Hope Street Academy and Topeka High visited Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. The focus of the visit was to explore the opportunities available in their pre-engineering, science, and geography programs.

Haskell has a full GIS/Geography program and an Environmental Science degree program. As part of this experience, the students learned about some of the classes that focus on building rockets and radio controlled aircraft for remote sensing purposes.

On October 6th, Hope Street Academy took a bus with fifty-two junior and senior students to the College Fair. Students had an opportunity talk with over seventy-five colleges, vocational schools, business schools and armed forces representatives.

Our students collected materials from the schools and businesses of their choice and made important 'first contact' with schools they wanted information about.

Parents and students interested in attending Washburn Institute of Technology next year need to attend the Fall Open House, Oct. 15, there will be free food, instructors and tours available.  Students make better choices in the program they take at WIT when they have been on campus and toured the program.  Oct. 15, between 11 AM and 2 PM.

On September 8 and 23, Mrs. Forgey's Ecology class visited the Kanza Prairie, located north of Hummer Sports Park. On these two days, students participated in many ecology-related activities, including the collection of soil samples, soil moisture and temperature data, insects, and plant specimens. Using field guides and the internet, students later identified the insects in the classroom and created fact sheets about the insects.

Their fact sheets will be shared with other schools in the district to assist other students who visit the prairie for insect identification activities. The soil moisture and temperature data analysis has yet to be completed. The class will return on October 7 to collect more soil samples for a soil analysis lab.

Mrs. Forgey hopes that students are developing a greater appreciation for the prairie ecosystem and its unique inhabitants (plant and animal) and components. This 501 property is unique and rare, and understanding its intricacies is the best way to teach conservation. A short documentary of our activities was filmed on our September 8 visit and can be seen on Topeka Public School's TV Channel 14.

On Tuesday, September 20, eight Hope Street students, accompanied by Mr. Toomey, attended the first Kansas Department of Transportation Construction Career Expo Day at the Expo Center.

The Career Day was sponsored by KDOT in order to introduce students to the construction, highway and building trades.

Students were able to learn about a variety of jobs through simulators and were able to climb into several pieces of large machinery such as back loaders and excavators.

The following students attended: Greg Minson, Tyler Lewis, Tony Tanksley, D’Wan Moss, Matt Burge, Heather Heim, Ravinder Drapeaux, Dakota May.

Our own Chiko Hibino-Moreno was recognized last Thursday, September 1, at the USD 501 Board Meeting.

Chiko attended the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine in San Francisco last July. He learned what skills he will need to follow a possible path in medicine.

To introduce the unit on Linear Functions in Algebra II Semester 1, Mrs. Forgey asked her students to analyze data from the Hope Street Wind Turbine.

Students were given data sets that included wind speed and power output recorded over a 6 hour time span on various dates in May 2011. Using graphing calculators, students learned how to input data and create a scatter plot. Once they had their scatter plots created, students then used the graphs to make conclusions about the data.

Students found that there is a positive correlation between wind speed and power output and that the relationship between these two variables was linear.  This is what we expected; an increase in speed does result in an increase in power.  Students also discussed what their reaction would have been had the data not met the result we expected.  Proposed actions included checking to make sure the wind turbine was functioning properly and checking the computer for malfunctioning software.

School will start for Hope Street Academy students on August 16, 2011. School hours will be 8:00am-3:00pm.

For any questions or concerns, please contact the school at (785)438-4280.