Episode Details

Beckham:
With the Juniper tree, we want it to grow and become strong. So with the students and adults here, we want them to grow their minds and become strong too.

Victoria:
I think that Juniper Elementary should be a place that we can feel safe at and not be judged.

Caitlin:
The students are the roots and love is the water in the watering can. We can come together to make a beautiful tree.

Shem:
The teachers are the branches of Juniper.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Juniper Elementary students are hoping new traditions of kindness and caring take root at their brand new school. They recently planted a new tree outside to represent their hopes and dreams.

On this episode of the Supercast, we join Juniper students, staff and parents for a tree planting ceremony. It was the planting of not just any tree but a juniper, a type of tree best known for its strength and ability to grow almost anywhere in any conditions.

We're out in front of Juniper Elementary as students head to their buses, their rides home and it's an exciting time. The school year has just started and we're here with Principal Kaleb Yates. How are things going so far with one month down?

Kaleb Yates:
It's going great really. We have great students, good teachers, and today's our PTA carnival so we've got a lot of great parents that want to help out.

Anthony Godfrey:
I did see the huge inflatable saber-toothed tiger and thought something is afoot, something's happening. Tell us for those who are not familiar what the unique design is here at Juniper Elementary.

Kaleb Yates:
Yeah, the thing that is unique about our school is we're 4th, 5th, and 6th grade and we share the same boundary with Ridge View Elementary. It's unique that we have the older students here and it's unique that we share families and are still trying to keep our community together and provide what we can for our families. Give them a good experience.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's unique for us not only to have a school that has grades 4, 5, and 6 only but also to have a growing population at one of our elementaries and simply decide we're going to keep that same boundary just to add another school into the mix so that we can manage the numbers. You know you talk about keeping the community together, yes that means that now students are at elementary 1, elementary 2, middle school, and then high school but it also means the boundary is the same so you're not saying goodbye to friends in the same way that you might have to if there were a boundary change.

Kaleb Yates:
Yeah, we have a shuttle service that goes back and forth between the two schools which has been great. It's been a good experience for kids to be able to meet up in one spot. Parents don't have to shuffle over to find their kids. So that's been good.

Then the other nice thing is that we've been able to, we've had a lot of concerns that happened prior to the school being finished and parents have been happy. We've had a lot of positive comments about how things are running and we're only dealing with about 540 kids here instead of 1300 kids is what it used to be.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right, 1300 at one elementary school. I think we decided that was maybe a 4A high school, ma