Staff Report
Horizon High School graduated its largest number of seniors in 2021! Here are seven of the nine graduates!
Written By Horizon High School Staff
Horizon High School has had an amazing year of learning and growth by both students and staff. We started the 2021-2022 school year in person in our brand new space. We are so grateful to have this beautiful space that CG Schmidt built for our Horizon family.
We were able to continue in-person until Christmas when we went to a hybrid model of education, due to a high number of students and a staff member that were sick both with Covid- 19 and with other illnesses. We looked at what was going on in multiple areas and wanted to be responsible to give our students the safest way to be educated.
We have reduced the number of students together in the school at any one time, by breaking up into two separate groups. Group 1 did in person school on Mondays, Wednesdays and every other Friday; and did virtual school from home via Zoom on Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Friday. We have returned to in-person school full-time due to the decrease in coronavirus numbers in Dane County.
For academics: Students requested a class in Psychology. We are working our way through the DSM-5 and talking about mental health, how it is diagnosed, what a diagnosis means, and how do you recover or live with the diagnosis. Areas we have covered are substance abuse, alcohol and marijuana, anxiety, depression and we are starting to cover PTSD.
In English, we started out reading the book Speak, then transitioned to Anya’s Ghost, Pitch Black, The Wolves and now are reading Mexican Gothic.
Horizon High School Staff: Dec’21
Traci Goll - Director, 608-335-0387
Bob Weinswig - Lead teacher
Kim Lohman – Dual Diagnosis Therapist and Teacher
Dave Krych -- Counselor
Darby Buisker- Special Ed Assistant
Dustin Lyons - Special Ed Assistant
Erin KollenBroich - Art Therapist
Suzanne Sweetnam – Office Manager
These books have all elicited great discussion and students have begun to look at themselves and others through different experiences and levels of society. For social studies, we are working on a American History using the Wars as a main focus. We started with what is currently going on in the world and then went back and started with a quick look at the American Revolution and then moved into The Civil War, Reconstruction, and World War 1. We are completing The Roaring Twenties and The Great Depression and are moving into World War 2. The plan is to then move onto the Korean War and Vietnam War, finishing with where we know the world today.
Happy birthday Kim!
For math, we have a very individualized curriculum through the online program Aleks. We have students working on everything from basic math skills through Algebra II with Trigonometry. Our science curriculum is through an online program called Edgenuity. Students work at their own pace using different modalities to learn about biology, earth science and physics. Students also have a writing component every day. This area of study may look at a poem, a speech or a simple writing prompt and students must answer questions that are proposed in a paragraph format.
Other areas of study this year include daily life skills. With our new kitchen, Second Harvest and 3 of their amazing staff members have paired with us. They come weekly and cook meals with our students.
Our student are active participants in the making of the meal and then we all sit down and eat together (socially distancing). This is an experience that is new for many of our students. Some of the meals we have made are Sliders and Milk Shakes, Chicken Marsala, Taco/Nacho plates, Chicken Pot Pies, a huge seafood boil, and Thanksgiving Dinner with a dessert contest .
Quick, what did the lesson plan say about a snake in the classroom!
About half of the Horizon students currently have jobs in the Madison area. We are collaborating intensely with our seniors, to help them transition into the next parts of their young adulthoods. We continue to work with our students to help them gain skills to be employed and active, working members of our community. We have worked on resumes, looking at different careers, attending job fairs, filling out applications, finding and obtaining housing, insurance and being an adult.
As a staff, we continue to work to expand our knowledge and work to have healthy relationship with our students. We have learned more technology and Bob has become very adept at making amazing Gim-Kits for our students to enhance their learning. We also now use a Smartboard in some capacity as a way to teach daily lessons. The staff have become adult peer specialists for Sources of Strength. This is a youth suicide prevention mental health program that focusing on youth learning to advocate for themselves using trusted adults as mentors. We continue to work with community-based programs such as CCS, CCF, DVR and many others to help our student receive the services that they need to start to heal.
We are looking forward to continuing to grow and learn with our students as we continue to evolve and learn what our new normal will be in this ever-changing world of wonder.
Staff Changes:
In 2021, we welcomed Suzanne Sweetnam as Office Manager, Dave Krych as a Counselor and Dustin Lyons as a Special Education Assistant. We also welcome Horizon alumnus Ken Adams to the board!
We said goodbye to Special Education Assistant Zach Lohman and to board member JJ Andrews. We thank them for their service to Horizon.
