TAKS time!
Intermediate schools ready for test
By Nathan Straus News Reporter

A Brownsboro Intermediate School teacher tosses a t-shirt at a crowd of excited students. This was part of a TAKS rally to relax students for the TAKS tests. TAKS time!

Brownsboro Intermediate School held its rally for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills tests Friday, April 25. The rally, which saw every student and many parents pack into the BIS gym, was an hour-long event designed to pump students up for the tests. Chandler Intermediate School also put on a show for kids during the week.

Kay Robertson, BIS teacher, said the school had a band set up for the rally.

Brian Penny, a BIS parent active in the district, played guitar.

"Each grade level is performing, " Robertson said.

The sixth grade students assisted in the musical portion of the rally with the sixth grade band. The fifth graders conducted a skit and performed a line dance. The fourth graders performed a "We're all in This Together" dance.

The sixth grade also put Principal Jennifer Settle into a game show called "Are you smarter than a sixth grader".

Chandler Intermediate students witnessed this butterfly come to life from the form of a pupa.

Settle won "$1 million".

During the event, Taylor Poe, a fifth grade gymnast, performed a tumbling routine for the gathered crowd.

After this, the sixth grade girls' cheerleader group danced for the audience.

Some kids even had goodies handed to them. There was a snack bag giveaway and a T-shirt toss where lucky students received shirts thrown to them.

The last event of the rally was the sixth grade boys' basketball shoot competition, where students tried to score points to stay in the competition.

Robertson said the TAKS tests will challenge students on reading, math and science.

The first two days of testing were April 29 and 30. The last day is May 1.

"I think they're pumped and ready," Robertson said. "This is a good release for them, it eases the tension."

Chandler took a different approach to help kids mentally prepare for the tests.

Angela Peyton, fifth grade science teacher, wrote in an email message she brought a Monarch Butterfly in its pupa stage to the school so the kids could watch it emerge as an adult.

"Students viewed metamorphosis firsthand," Peyton wrote.

The goal of this event was to encourage students to emerge for TAKS day as well, so their knowledge of the material would show.