Tag Archives: Palo Duro High School

local news

They marched for a cause that could make history

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They came. They marched. Perhaps they have added even more sizzle to a growing movement among young Americans.

I’m guessing a crowd of about 300 or so Texas Panhandle residents gathered today at Ellwood Park in Amarillo. From the park they marched toward the Potter County Courthouse, where they would bring a message of fear, anger and perhaps a healthy dose of hope to those in power who are willing to listen to their message.

It is this: We are tired of gun violence and we are tired of being afraid in our public schools.

It was a March For Our Lives, carried out by the Texas Panhandle “chapter” of a movement spawned in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School slaughter of 17 students and staffers in Parkland, Fla., on Valentine’s Day. Parkland is the latest in a growing list of American communities scarred by gun violence on a mass-murder scale.

The students there went to Washington today to protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building. They want legislative change. They want stricter gun regulations.

But as the organizers in Amarillo noted today while commencing their march to the County Courthouse, “We are not ‘anti-gun.'” They do not intend to confiscate guns from responsible owners of firearms. They simply want what they call “common sense change” in the nation’s gun laws.

Violeta Prieto was one of the marchers who came to Ellwood Park. She is showing support for her daughter, Carla, one of the Caprock High School honor students who organized the Amarillo march. One of her sons, a middle-school student, said he came to the march “because my mom made me.” He’ll get the message that’s being delivered; of that I am quite sure.

“I am afraid to take my kids to school,” Prieto said. “I cannot know what will happen” any day here children are in school, she said.

“I want more control and I want to end this easy access to guns,” she said.

Prieto is a 1997 graduate of Palo Duro High School, an institution with some gun-violence history of its own. A student at PDHS opened fire in 1992, injuring six fellow students before he was arrested. Prieto said her older sister, who was attending PD, remembers the incident “very well.” The shooting occurred a couple of years before Prieto entered the high school, “but I remember it, too.”

“I support my daughter all the way,” Prieto said. “She is our future. All those kids are our future.”

To be sure, not everyone at the Ellwood Park gathering was singing off the same page in the proverbial hymnal. I chatted briefly with a couple of young men, one of whom was carrying a Confederate flag, the other a “Don’t Tread on Me” banner.

I asked if they were there to “counter protest.” One of the young men, whose name I didn’t get, said: “Oh, no. We’re here for the same reason. We want to end gun violence, too. We just believe there’s another way to do it.”

He said the emphasis should be on ending the bullying, making schools more secure, safer and “enforcing the laws we have already.”

The young men didn’t march with the rest of the crowd. When the marchers started walking away, they went to their vehicles and drove off, presumably to the courthouse — perhaps to listen and make their own statements heard.

My wife and I didn’t stay for the march. I wanted to get a feel for the Ellwood Park crowd’s mood and its sense of hope. I saw a lot of smiles and expressions of guarded optimism that we well might be seeing the dawn of a new era.

Even here. In Amarillo, a community not known as a hotbed for community activism. However, times — and communities — can change.

education news

Teacher of the year now going to teach more teachers

shanna

I have this friend — with whom I used to work in a previous life — who this past year received the highest honor someone in her profession can get.

She was named National Teacher of the Year. Shanna Peeples went to the White House, where she was honored by President Barack Obama, who said many wonderful things about her and the dedication she has demonstrated in educating young people.

Peeples, quite naturally, turned the emphasis on her colleagues who also were gathered on the White House lawn. Shanna accepted the teacher of the year award in their honor, she said.

What makes her such a stellar teacher? Her undying love of the children who learn from her. She teaches English … and until just recently she was teaching students at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo.

Now, though, she’s being promoted.

The Amarillo Independent School District has decided to put her teaching skills to work at a higher level. As Peeples writes about her new assignment: ” … I’ve been trusted with the task that my friend, Jennifer Wilkerson has done so well for our district: Core Curriculum Specialist, ELAR 6-12. For my non-Ed-jargon friends: that’s the responsibility for growing teachers and shaping literacy learning in middle and high school.”

Are we clear? She’s going to teach the teachers how to do their jobs better. At least that’s what I read in what she wrote.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/shanna-peeples/you-cant-burn-the-suit/10209664555035203?utm_content=buffer7daf4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The next thing I want to say might be taken the wrong way. I do not intend at all to sound like a Negative Norm. There’s a certain irony, it seems to me, in taking a teacher who’s just been told she’s the best in the nation at what she does and then assigning her to do something different.

Shanna Peeples certainly doesn’t dismiss the new task she’s been given at Amarillo ISD. Nor do I. Her many friends throughout the Texas Panhandle are proud of her and proud of what she has accomplished in the classroom.

Her emphasis now will be on helping other classroom teachers become the best they can be, which then will enable them to pass on the joy of learning to the young people assembled before them.

As Shanna writes: “God help me, I’m a teacher. As I told a radio interviewer: ‘It’s like Peter Parker being bitten by the radioactive spider. You can’t just quit being a teacher like I say, quit being a deejay or a short order cook at the bowling alley. You’re a teacher for life.’

“Trust me, I’ll have plenty of assignments for other people. This work is big, important work. And it won’t ever be even partway done before I die. But that’s what makes it worth giving my heart to. And my heart is with teachers as much as it is with students. Always and always and always.”
Well said. As always.
national news

A word or two about a favorite teacher

There’s been a lot of talk lately about teachers.

Amarillo is home to the National Teacher of the Year, Shanna Peeples, who teaches English at Palo Duro High School. She makes her community proud. Indeed, her life likely has changed forever … and for the better.

Others have posted messages on social media about their favorite teacher.

I didn’t particularly enjoy school as a kid. I wasn’t a very good student. It’s hard now, so many decades later, to remember precisely why I struggled so much.

I won’t lay any blame on the teachers from whom I learned about readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmatic.

However, one teacher does stand out in my early years. He was my first male teacher at Harvey W. Scott Elementary School in Portland, Ore. Carl Hendrickson taught sixth-graders.

What do I remember about him? The first memory is that he was damn funny. He made sitting in a classroom enjoyable. He joked with the students, which I don’t recall any of my previous teachers at Harvey Scott school doing.

He had nicknames for his students. What did he call me? Well, he had a variation of my last name that he hung on me. He called me “Ka-knuckles.” He used the name when he called on me to speak to the class; he said it to me privately as he counseled me on my school work.

I took no offense to the name. I kind of considered it a badge of honor to have a goofy name attached to me by a teacher who, if memory serves, was quite popular with all the students who learned from him.

I left Harvey W. Scott school in the spring of 1962 when my parents moved us to a new school district in the suburbs. I was in the seventh grade and I made new friends and got accustomed to a new school system. The Parkrose School District had a junior high school system for seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders and we got to move from class to class, just like the big kids do in high school.

In 1983, after I had started my journalism career, I got a phone call from my fifth-grade shop teacher, John Eide, who wanted me to speak to students at a career day at Harvey W. School Elementary School. I accepted the invitation, got reacquainted with Mr. Eide. We had lunch in the school cafeteria and I discovered that the lunch room smelled exactly the way I remembered it as a boy. I asked Mr. Eide if aany of the teachers who taught me back in the old days were still around.

Why yes, he said. He mentioned Mr. Hendrickson. I went to his classroom and by golly, there he was. His hair had turned snow white. He was near retirement, as I recall. We caught up on where our lives had taken us the past two decades.

And he called me Ka-knuckles.

local news

Teachers: an underappreciated profession

Public school teachers — especially the good ones — need our appreciation and an expression of thanks for all they do to help our children find their way into the world.

One of them today received a high honor, indeed, from her peers. She happens to teach English right here in Amarillo. Many of her students are refugees, whose families have fled repression and deprivation.

Take a bow, Shanna Peeples.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/texas-english-teacher-named-national-teacher-year-30609349

The Council of Chief State School Officers today named Peeples — who teaches at Palo Duro High School — its National Teacher of the Year. She was one of four finalists competing for the job. She’s the first Texan so honored since the late 1950s.

Shanna is a former colleague of mine who’s gone on to enrich many lives along the way. It’s an amazing story, when you consider that becoming an educator was not her first choice of professions. She’s done a lot of things in her life — and working as a journalist was one of them.

She gave up that career several years ago to pursue her real calling, which is to make a serious difference in young people’s lives.

Shanna was asked this morning why she loves teaching and she replied because teaching gives her the chance to “write the last chapter” in young people’s stories.

Public school teachers receive criticism all the time. Too little effort is made to offer high praise to the great work that many teachers do in our communities.

One of them stands as a symbol of educational excellence. She has brought great honor to her state and to her profession.

We’re all proud of Shanna Peeples.

local news

Making the case for public education

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An Amarillo public school teacher has been named one of four finalists for National Teacher of the Year.

Her name is Shanna Peeples, who teaches advanced placement English at Palo Duro High School.

She made an important statement today in accepting the honor of representing Texas at the national competition.

http://agntv.amarillo.com/news/pd-teacher-named-national-teacher-year-finalist

It was a statement honoring public education and the teachers who are entrusted with the task of educating public school students.

Let me reiterate the importance of “public education.” This is the system that is financed by you and me. We pay the freight. We finance this valuable contribution to the state’s future. It is our responsibility to ensure that public education is the best it can be and it produces students who we hope will grow up to the best they can be.

In the interest of full disclosure, I worked with Shanna for a time when we both were employed by the same company, the Amarillo Globe-News. She was a marvelous reporter and writer during her time at the newspaper and she has become — as the honors that have come her way have demonstrated — a tremendous educator.

She represents the very best in all of us, those who proudly support our public schools.

We should be proud of Shanna — and of all the great public educators who work on our behalf.

 

 

local news, State news

Great public school teachers: priceless

Shanna Peeples is a former colleague of mine. She used to bleed printer’s ink, writing — quite well, I should add — for the Amarillo Globe-News.

Shanna gave that career up some years ago to enter another calling, as a public school teacher.

She teaches English these days at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo and this week received the highest honor a secondary teacher can earn: Secondary Teacher of the Year from the Texas Education Agency.

Think about this for a moment.

Texas comprises more than 1,200 independent school districts, and more than 2,000 secondary schools. All told the state employs more than 300,000 teachers in primary and secondary education. They educate 5 million or so children at all levels.

So, the honor that Shanna earned represents something quite special.

First, it honors the great work she does for Palo Duro High students. She is dedicated to their well-being and they are devoted to her, most of whom seek to do their very best to make Ms. Peeples proud of them.

I haven’t had the honor of watching Shanna teach her students. I’ll just accept with gladness and pride in my former colleague that the TEA has honored a great teacher for doing great work in a great school district.

Indeed, honors such as these should be valued by everyone who cherishes public education. Shanna’s work symbolizes the dedication that great teacher devote to their calling every single day.

How do you put a value on that dedication? Precisely how do you measure the good that these teachers bring to the students in their care during the school day?

Good teachers can become role models for the students in their care. Great teachers become embedded in students’ memories forever. We all remember the great teachers we’ve had along the way and whatever positive outcomes develop in our lives, it’s a very good bet indeed that some of the credit belongs to a teacher who steered us in the right direction when we needed a mid-course correction.

You cannot put a price on the value that good educators bring to those who are coming along. Shanna Peeples represents the greatness that exists in our public education system.

From where I stand, the TEA has chosen well and our future is in good hands as long as we keep producing high-quality educators.