Annex Charter holds open house for parents, students

 The purpose was to invite parents to the school, located at 402 Annex Road, giving them the opportunity to see first-hand what the students have been working on in class.

Some of the projects involved using potatoes to make LED lights light up and robots built by students who raced and battled against each other while parents watched the small, four-wheeled bots zoom across the floor.

 Other kids performed a small play while some showed off their diorama of the solar system.

 “We have a couple parent-involvement events every year,” said sixth and seventh grade teacher Joe Burris. “We have a math night and reading night, as well as a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) event in June. Our charter committee suggested that we do some kind of project or science fair, to bring parents in, with the thinking that more parents will come in to see their students’ work. They want to see what their kids have been doing, so we looked for an open night to do that.”

 Sam Biddinger and MJ Roukema were part of a team that constructed one of the robots that were demonstrated on Thursday. They were made using similar VEX Robotics components as the Weiser High School robotics team, according to Burris.

 “Mr. (Jon) Lundberg even loaned us some chargers for our batteries,” he said. “There is a team from Weiser that is going to the worlds in Dallas next week. My hope is that what we are doing here will give them a little taste for it; that using some of this equipment will spark some interest and lead to them participating at the high school level.”

 Lundberg is the Weiser High School robotics team advisor. He will be accompanying his students to the 2023 VEX Robotics World Championship to be held in Dallas, beginning April 25.

 Annex kids have participated in the WHS robotics program in the past.

 “It took us about a week to build it,” said Sam, showing the Signal American how the robot works.

 “The VEX key is what connects it all to be able to connect to the remote, to be able to connect it to the computer, if we need it to,” explained MJ. “We’ll soon be able to program it to the computer to be autonomous. We’ll be learning that for the rest of the year, I think.”

 Annex School Superintendent and Principal, Steve Bishop, said the charter school has a committee that, among things, makes suggestions for the school, which ultimately led to Thursday’s Open House. The school actively includes parents in its curriculum guidance.

 “We have a charter, which, by law, has to be made up of 51 percent teachers and then, because we are such a small school, we have two parents,” he said. “One of the parents suggested that we do this. It’s also an opportunity for the kids to show off some of the things they’ve been doing. Since COVID, this will be our third event where parents can come in to see what we are doing. Every class has done something a little bit different. There are a lot of things they put together for this.” Bishop said it is important to hold such events and that the school specifically wants to engage with parents in these types of settings.

 “We really try; part of it is because we are kind of unique in that we don’t have a community, perse,” he said. “There aren’t any stores here and we have a lot of kids here because it is a charter school and some of them don’t live in our attendance area. That’s one of the reasons we try to get everyone together, because it’s a pretty diverse group. We have kids that are living in Ontario right now. Parents bring them to a community bus stop there, and they are brought clear over here.”

 Annex Charter School will once again be holding its STEAM summer program in June.

 “We have an artist in-residence coming the second week and a fiddler that we scheduled so that he could be here for Fiddle Week the following week,” Burris said.

 More information about the June STEAM summer program will be provided as more information becomes available.