Family and consumer sciences instructors and trap team head coach give updates to Mt. Pleasant School Board

MT. PLEASANT - Trap team head coach John Klopfenstein and family and consumer science (FACS) instructors Dawn Bodenham and Marjorie Beckman gave updates and presented to the Mt. Pleasant Community School District Board of Education Monday night, highlighting the strengths of their programs and how students benefit from taking part in their classes and sport.

In his update, Klopfenstien explained the team has existed for 11 years and includes fifth through twelfth graders with 36 students signed up to participate in the competitive shooting sport this year. Students must maintain a C average to participate on the team.

The head coach said the season runs from January through the summer, with the first months dedicated to safety instruction on firearm usage. Klopfenstein added the average cost per student is about $600 a season, which includes practice shells and practice rounds. The student must also provide their own firearm to participate.

'The cost to run a team is $22,000 a year,” Klopfenstein said, which includes rounds purchased for competitions and registration fees.

The coach said the team has generous anonymous donors in the community who often help fund the cost for students who want to participate but cannot afford to.

'It's choices. I tell the kids upfront, if you want to participate that's fine. If you don't' let me know upfront and don't leave me hanging because there's other people counting on you. There's five people on a squad and if one drops out, there's four other people who have to make up the difference. There's a lot more to it - it's building responsibility,” Klopfenstein explained.

Following Klopfenstein, Bodenham, who teaches the FACS classes at the middle school, gave a general overview of her curriculum, which includes sixth-graders learning to sew and seventh and eighth-graders focusing on the culinary part of the program.

'No matter how perfect or not perfect they are, they're really good and they get great confidence in what they're doing,” Bodenham said.

Bodenham also said her classes lend themselves to collaborative work when students who are further ahead in projects help those who are further behind.

'Pretty soon, the room is just helping each other and it works really nicely,” she said.

Her classes also touch on lifelong wellness and what it means to be a good consumer. Various labs the students do include building a day's worth of meals based on various dietary guidelines and understanding how to make healthy foods. The program is meant to teach students how to cook for themselves and their families.

'Gradual release of responsibility is something the district has been focusing on and my classroom lends itself to that. We do a lot of guided instruction, but as we move forward, there's a lot more of me stepping back and them doing more of the work,” she said.

Beckman also spoke on the high school FACS program as well as the childhood development classes that she teaches. Beckman's culinary arts programs also focus on nutrition, in addition to technique and skills in the kitchen. As students move through the program, they begin learning about more managerial tasks including pricing out food items, setting work schedules and managing safety in the kitchen. The high schoolers also participate in cooking competitions held across southeast Iowa.

Beckman explained her class is conducive to helping students build leadership.

'When my Culinary 3 students hit second semester, they're all jazzed so they become the coaches for the competitions. By then, we train them enough to coach the new, younger ones through,” she said.

At the meeting, the board also approved the second reading of School Board Policy Series 200, reviewed the 2020-2021 school year calendar and set a public hearing date for the calendar for Feb. 24 at Van Allen Elementary School at 6 p.m.