The junior class takes flight!
This year at HS223, juniors who completed the written portion of their English PBAT and both their written and verbal portion of their History PBAT visited iFLY, an indoor skydiving facility, on a full day trip.
HS223 Eagles need to complete Performance Based Assessment Tasks (PBATs) as a graduation requirement. There’s one PBAT per main subject. One for Math, English, Science and History. It’s a long process for students and the trip to iFly was a reward for the juniors who were on track with their PBATs to receive a reward.
“[In the past] there were no real rewards for finishing a PBAT. iFLY was the first time we gave a reward to the 11th grade students to say, “I completed my PBAT”, said Ms. Lynah, 11th grade team leader.
iFLY is an indoor sky diving facility, where students enter a high-speed wind tunnel to simulate them flying.
“iFLY was a fun and crazy experience and the instructor was very cool and kind,” said Laila Macias (Class of 2027).
On top of the fun in the wind tunnel, students that went to iFLY were given a task, which was to build the inside of the building that pushes them up in the tube.
“It was awesome! There was a mini lesson before we flew on how the wind tunnel works. We were given construction paper and some scissors as a prerequisite task to get a better understanding of how the vents work and operate. After that, we got to fly inside the tube,” said Mr. Spodek who chaperoned the trip.
With the success of the iFly trip, HS223 staff can start to consider even trips and opportunities for students that completed their PBATS, or for students that have not completed their PBAT, ways of encouraging them to do so.
“Generally speaking, HS223 wants to incentivize students for their hard work or when they have completed a big goal, such as completing PBAT’s. The trips were decided by student and teacher input,” said Mr. Lincoln, the school principal.
Students are also considering where to head next and what to eat .
“Another trip that we should have is Sky Zone or Area 53. Also, if possible something other than Subway [sandwiches] because we always get Subway and not everybody enjoys Subway,” said Laila.
This is the first year that HS223 had incentives for students, but they don’t want to make it the last. HS223 wants to keep building and finding different ways to commemorate students’ hard work.
“We want to have trips for people that have accomplished their goal and we want to give students an amazing experience that they have access to,” said Mr. Lincoln.
