Steve Butler to head up BW Intermediate School

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

When the new Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School on Cheshire Road was on the draw­ing board it was intended to become a grade seven/eight facil­ity, and the old Baugh­man Street mid­dle school was going to serve stu­dents in grades five and six. The phi­los­o­phy was that serv­ing only two grades in the new mid­dle school would allow ample room for growth in that build­ing, and remov­ing fifth-graders from the dis­tricts three ele­men­tary schools to an inter­me­di­ate build­ing would also pro­vide room for growth in the ele­men­tary buildings.

When the new mid­dle school was ded­i­cated last August, a deci­sion had been made to moth­ball the old mid­dle school, make the new mid­dle school a grade six/seven/eight build­ing and direct the sav­ings towards pro­grams for stu­dents. As that deci­sion was made, Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Super­in­ten­dent Steve Mazzi empha­sized that he was still in favor of the dis­trict open­ing a grade five/six inter­me­di­ate school at the old mid­dle school – when it could be jus­ti­fied financially.

That jus­ti­fi­ca­tion was announced dur­ing the Feb­ru­ary 13 board of edu­ca­tion meet­ing when mem­bers of the board approved a motion to move ahead with open­ing the Baugh­man Street build­ing as a grade five and six inter­me­di­ate school. It was sub­se­quently announced that a famil­iar face would take the helm at the inter­me­di­ate school — Steve But­ler will be the Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School (BWIS) principal.

But­ler first came to Big Wal­nut dur­ing the 1974–75 school year, serv­ing at the then Big Wal­nut Eighth Grade Build­ing at the old Harlem School in Cen­ter Vil­lage. He left the dis­trict and came back in Jan­u­ary of 1984 when there was a grade seven/eight inter­me­di­ate school at the Har­ri­son Street build­ing; and in 1991 But­ler served in the district’s tra­di­tional sixth, sev­enth and eight grade mid­dle school.

But say the name Steve But­ler today and most folks think of Hylen Soud­ers Ele­men­tary School, where But­ler sat in the principal’s chair from 1996 until 2009. After retir­ing from Soud­ers, But­ler served for three years as the school district’s gifted coor­di­na­tor, but he said he’s look­ing for­ward to occu­py­ing a principal’s office again.

“I’m really look­ing for­ward to work­ing with kids on a daily basis again,” But­ler said dur­ing a recent inter­view in his new office at the inter­me­di­ate school. “The class­room is where edu­ca­tion really hap­pens. As admin­is­tra­tors we give teach­ers sup­port, but as a prin­ci­pal you’re right there where it’s happening.”

The Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School Office is located in the old mid­dle school office; the building’s main stu­dent entrance will be the west entrance fac­ing the high school foot­ball sta­dium. Dur­ing a build­ing tour But­ler said fifth grade stu­dents will use the two hall­ways clos­est to the gym­na­sium; sixth grade class­rooms will be in the for­mer south eighth-grade hall.

Dur­ing the June 29 board of edu­ca­tion meet­ing dis­trict assis­tant super­in­ten­dent Gary Bar­ber said the grade five/six build­ing would tran­si­tion between a tra­di­tional ele­men­tary school for­mat with stu­dents in the same class­room all day and a mid­dle school for­mat with stu­dents mov­ing from class to class.

But­ler said inter­me­di­ate school sixth-graders will go from class to class; fifth-graders to some degree.

“Fifth graders will have lan­guage arts and social stud­ies in one class­room, and another teacher for math and sci­ence,” But­ler said. “Sixth graders will have lan­guage arts, math, social stud­ies and sci­ence with dif­fer­ent teach­ers in dif­fer­ent class­rooms. Every­one will have a seven-period day with a one half-hour lunch and one half-hour recess.

“Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School will serve 225 fifth grade stu­dents and 210 sixth-graders,” But­ler con­tin­ued. “There will be eight gen­eral edu­ca­tion teach­ers at each grade level. And fifth graders will be happy – they’ll now have their own hall­way lockers.”

But­ler said school will run from 9:10 a.m. until 4 p.m. to accom­mo­date the district’s new three-tier bus­ing pro­gram. SACC will be offered at BWIS from 7 a.m. until stu­dents are released to classes in the morn­ing, and after school until 6 p.m. (For SACC infor­ma­tion con­tact Child Care Unlim­ited, Inc. at 740–965-5900 or 740–967-8333.)

BWIS will have art, music and phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion on rota­tion, and also oppor­tu­ni­ties dur­ing the day for library and tech­nol­ogy, But­ler said. While there will not be tra­di­tional ele­men­tary school play­ground equip­ment, there will be a bas­ket­ball area, benches and pic­nic tables in the patio area for socialization.

The district’s Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­mic Achieve­ment Angie Pol­lock said she’s also look­ing for­ward to the new inter­me­di­ate school format.

“Aca­d­e­m­i­cally we’re very excited about being able to bring our fifth grade staff to work together under the same roof, and work ver­ti­cally with the sixth grade,” Pol­lock said. “They’ll be able to share ideas and share the work­load, and that trans­lates into more suc­cess­ful students.”

Pol­lock said there will be a focus on tech­nol­ogy at the inter­me­di­ate school with an empha­sis on stu­dents using tech­nol­ogy in their daily work. The entire build­ing will have Wi-Fi, there will be a tablet com­puter lab, and each gen­eral edu­ca­tion room will have a smart board.

But­ler said Chris Epstein will do fifth-grade art at BWIS, Justin Heck will do fifth-grade music and Scotty Hefner will do fifth-grade phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion; Amy Read will do sixth-grade music, Mike Den­ton will do sixth-grade phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion and Barb Porter will do sixth-grade art.

Par­ents of REACH stu­dents who are con­cerned about the their chil­dren mov­ing to the inter­me­di­ate school this year have noth­ing to worry about, But­ler said. Doug Ger­mann will be the Big Wal­nut Ele­men­tary and Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School gifted teacher; Nicole Lein­we­ber will pro­vide gifted ser­vices at Gen­eral Rose­crans Ele­men­tary and Hylen Souders.

“I think of a grade five and six build­ing as giv­ing stu­dents a chance to grow up,” But­ler said. “We want to have an active stu­dent gov­ern­ment, and pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents to do com­mu­nity ser­vice. There are two things I want to work on. The first is good man­ners — being polite, respect­ful and thought­ful; and then I want to empha­size the dif­fer­ence between pride and spirit.

“This is a great com­mu­nity, and we’ve got great kids,” But­ler added. “I’m look­ing for­ward to work­ing with this age group. I’ve always been con­vinced that what you put into them by the age of 13 you get out of them by the age of 23.”

Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School will hold an open house at 4 p.m. on Mon­day, August 20. Addi­tional infor­ma­tion will be posted on the inter­me­di­ate school page of the Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict web­site. To access the inter­me­di­ate school web page go to < bigwalnut.k12.oh.us >, click Schools and click Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School on the drop-down menu.

Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School is located at 105 Baugh­man Street in Sunbury.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jul 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.