Ben Peck grew up in the small town of Hope, and attended Hope K-12 School which means that Ben spent most of his time in school with a wide variety of students ranging in age from kindergarten through high school. Not a normal high school for most young people! But for Ben, that was just kind of how it was to grow up in a small town of about 150 people on an outside edge of the Kenai Peninsula, and about 90 miles from Anchorage!
Ben did not let being from a small town and a small school stop him from getting the most out of his education and reaching his educational dreams. His GPA is 3.84, and received four scholarship awards: the UAA Scholarship, the Governor’s Scholarship, the Hope PTO Scholarship, and the Kenai Borough Employee Association Scholarship!
Ben started the first debate team for Hope School, and they placed second in the Nikiski High School Debate in February 2017, and ended up going to the State Debate and Forensic 2017 Competition for the first time ever! A small two-man team heading off to state, where they had to prove to the lady at the front desk that they had a right to be there, while she looked and looked for their name on the roster, for a little, not yet known team from tiny Hope, Alaska. They spent two-weeks working every night prepping for that state debate in the shop at the school with their debate coach (Ben’s mother) in order to get the opportunity to go, and then receive special permission from ASAA to attend, because, as a Hope teacher says, “Well, our school is so tiny, we were almost not allowed to send a team! Benjamin made it all happen.”
Ben will head out of Hope to attend the University of Alaska, Anchorage, in the fall. He is planning to major in creative writing and journalism. He enjoys writing and wants to travel, loves history, and the outdoors.
Ben is just a remarkable young man. We are going to miss him around here, but know he will do well. He is smart, bright, and ready to take on the world. Hope School website
Kenai Peninsula Borough School District www.KPBSD.org
“In November I spent the day with the Governor of Alaska, Bill Walker. I was able to do this as part of his program that donates a day of shadowing the Governor to nonprofits around Alaska. My specific opportunity was thanks to Hope local resident, Jim Skogstad, who attended The Basics auction where he won this auction item. When I first heard about it I had no idea what to expect, nonetheless, I was looking forward to spending the day in the life of Alaska’s highest ranking political figure. My day started promptly at 8:00 a.m., and went nonstop with only one break for lunch until 4:30 p.m. In this amount of time I was able to experience the busyness and diversity of just one of the countless days in the Governor’s life.” – Liam Bureau, Hope School
A freshman at Hope School, Liam did his background work on Governor Walker before heading into Anchorage to spend the day, and was ready to ask some questions of the Governor. He said he enjoyed learning that Governor Walker was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, and that he too attended a relative small school (Valdez). Liam has attended Hope School since he was in second grade.
Story contributed by Liam Bureau, and Patty Truesdell, Hope School teacher Suggest or contribute a story online link: http://bit.ly/SuggestKPBSDstory
Patti Truesdell – Hope School
2016 BP Teacher of Excellence
Patti Truesdell, Hope School 2016 BP Teacher of Excellence
“This year’s nominees were again, an excellent representation of our staff as a whole,” said Sean Dusek, superintendent. “They are humble, hard-working and student-centered. I was particularly impressed with how all of the finalists have gone the extra mile for their students and make sure every student they work with know that they are loved.”
Patti, or “Mrs. T” as the kids call her, is a reading, language arts and history teacher for Kindergarten through 12th grade at Hope School. She has been a teacher for 13 years, all in Alaska, after a 23-year career in healthcare.
“I believe I was inspired to teach by having had good teachers when I was in public school as a child,” said Patti Truesdell. “I was the kind of child that teachers liked. I was quiet and bookish. My parents divorced when I was in sixth grade, and that was the year we had Mr. Holte. He made sixth grade so much fun! The weird thing I remember is that he had these big, heavy braces on his legs, and he walked really stooped over. He wore those old man pants with the big creases in them. But we did not care about his braces or his pants or his limp. He made every day so much fun. That was the year we wrote plays, directed them, had a class newspaper and I was Dear Patty (that was before I changed the “y” to an “i” to get more personality like Teen Magazine suggested I do). I even remember wearing a potato costume sometime that year! Whatever we suggested, Mr. Holte would laugh and tell us, that was a great idea, let’s do it! He just made everything fun. We never thought of him as old, or crippled—he was our teacher and we loved him. That is the kind of teacher I always wanted to be. Years later, I feel the same way when I am in a classroom. My students do not see me as an old 64 year old teacher who has to take off her glasses to read. I don’t feel old when I am with them, I am just Ms. T. They trust me and know that I love them. School should be a safe place for students—it was for me when I was little and that is what I want for my students. School should be a safe place for students to learn and for teachers to teach. Everyone once in a while, I just marvel at how much fun I have each and every day in a classroom and I think, “Wow! … This teaching is so much fun!” I never saw Mr. Holte again after I left sixth grade, I hope he had a good life and knows what a great teacher I always thought he was.”
Patti is one of only two teachers at Hope School. That means she has to wear a lot of hats. Moment to moment, she has shift, going from how to count in kindergarten to “How to Kill a Mockingbird” in high school.
The community of Hope is fewer than 200 people. So teaching in such a small school brings with it an enormous advantage–Patti is able to devote lots of personal attention to students. And, then, because she is with them year after year for so long, she knows better than anyone what their trouble areas are and what their potential is. She states, “My teaching style is to work with students as individuals and get them actively involved in their own learning. If a student is having trouble in one area, we come up with a plan together to improve it. Then we get it done.”
Patti works to engage parents, and the parents have responded to her approach–which is evidenced by the school’s increase in census where it had been decreasing before she arrived. That’s part of the impact a teacher can have on a small community. And Patti loves teaching at Hope. Even though she lives in Soldotna, she commutes to school, renting a room in Hope during the week.
Here’s one example she gives of the difference between a large school and her beloved little school in Hope: “I have a little girl in sixth grade whom I’ve been teaching since kindergarten. She has always struggled in math and reading. But I’ve known her for a long time now and I knew she had strengths in certain areas. She was gifted in art and could do puzzles better than anyone else in class. We got her some special services help, and continued to work with her every day. When I got her winter benchmark test scores back this year, she was reading at her grade level for the first time. I pulled her outside the classroom and told her. She was so proud! We stepped back into the classroom and told the other students, and they gave her a standing ovation. That is what a small school is like. Everyone cheered for this young lady, and when we’re reading in class, when she has trouble, they help her.”
Under Patricia, students become family. A mother of four adult children and 12 grandchildren, Patricia finds time to take her kids to Anchorage and other communities for additional education experiences, conduct cooking class in the evening, tutor after school, and volunteer for American Lung Association and Tobacco Alliance. She even promotes recovery and prevention programs for addicts.
This is what a former student wrote about Patricia: “Every child who has contact with her comes away feeling loved and valued. She empowers and aides them in making their ideas become reality. Her mentoring and caring helped to change my life.”
Congratulations, Patricia Truesdell, BP Teacher of Excellence.
What does Hope have to do with owls, bugs, and superheroes? Well, these topics meant money in the bank for some students at Hope School. “Bug” – Liam Bureau First place photo, Ididacontest
This year, students in Hope tried their hand at a new venture by competing in the state Ididacontest sponsored by the Alaska Society for Technology in Education, an organization that promotes and supports the use of technology in education throughout Alaska. The Ididacontest is broken into many different categories, including photos, tunes, documentaries, movies, podcasts, aps, and ebooks. Each category has sub categories and involves grades K-12 and adults. All works must be original works by students and copyright free.
Hope students hopped onboard back in October and began planning their strategies for making entries to this competition. Some tried their hand at writing books, others scoured hundreds of photographs for just the right choice, while others began devising a way to work with film. In the end, Hope students submitted over a dozen entries to the Ididacontest in several different categories.
Following their hard work, Hope brought home three prizes, raking in $200 in cash donated by Ididacontest sponsors. Ryker Skaaren and Wesli Dykstra won first place for their documentary, “Your First Step to Learning About Alaska’s Owls”, Liam Bureau took home first place for his photo, “Bug”, and Murphy Dykstra and Ryker Skaaren landed third place for their ebook, “Murphy and Ryder’s Book of Poems”. So, yes, right now, bugs, owls, and superheroes are quite popular in the Hope area.
If you would like to view these winning entries and others from around the state, visit www.ididacontest.org.
Story contributed by Terri Carter
