Wisconsin's newest reading law, Act 20, led to an examination of South Milwaukee's curriculum and practices - many of which were already part of the practice of SDSM.

In this episode, Director of Curriculum and Instruction Christie Gajewski discusses new literacy practices this year with elementary teachers and instructional specialists.

Today we’re talking about the district’s new STEM program for elementary students. But in a bigger sense we’re talking about engaging curiosity in a hands-on way to look at something and learn how it works and why – or better yet, to build something and figure out how to make it work.

I’m excited to introduce you to our STEM teachers who are on an exploration of their own – building a new program from the ground up, fueled by the natural curiosity of our youngest students.

In this episode, we meet Mike Arendt, the newly appointed high school principal. We talk about the role of a principal, how he sees students in their path to adulthood, and what plans he has for South Milwaukee High School.

Mike comes to South Milwaukee after the departure of former principal Bryan Terry. He’s spent 17 years in education, has taught social studies, coached football and baseball, and was most recently the principal and athletics and activities director at Racine St. Catherine’s High School. He attended UW Milwaukee for his bachelor's and master's degrees.

The annual Wisconsin State Spanish Pronunciation Contest Championships is becoming a tradition in South Milwaukee. For those not familiar, it’s a contest where students study a bit of text, this year and last year it was a fragment of a poem, and practice pronouncing it exactly correctly.

Today on the podcast we’re going to hear from four students who participated and got a first or second place medal for their mastery of the poem. Then we’ll hear from Cheryl Caruso on three decades of teaching a global language – Spanish – and how during her career language education is taught and how students are different today than before.

An annual tradition is about to happen at Rawson Elementary School, and that’s why third-grade teacher Bill Gaynor has student art collected from the entire year in every corner of his classroom.

Soon that artwork will be gently placed into a box, wrapped with care by students, police officers, firefighters, and other volunteers, and delivered with notes of care and encouragement to area cancer patients urging them to keep their spirits up and fight the Cancer Bully.

On this episode, we’ll hear from Mr. Gaynor about the cancer box project and talk a little bit about his career as an educator and who his students are – a fitting tribute during Teacher Appreciation Week.

With the financial assistance of a grant, and its connections to high learning, the two South Milwaukee High School teachers and their students are teaming up to do real research on microplastics in water.

Today we’re talking about the National Honor Society at the high school and the real commitment that society has to community service.

I think maybe we don’t celebrate enough the community service our students do. Just last week the Lakeview Elementary Student Council donated dozens of toys to an animal shelter and a box of tennis balls to the police department’s K-9 Unit - Rocket, who happily accepted them.

This winter the middle school spent six weeks or more on community service projects to build a sense of community inside the school.

At the high school level, the National Honor Society is one of the main vehicles for students to give back. In honor of the nearly 40 students inducted this week into the society, I thought it would be a good time to shed some light on that group and what they do for the school.

Welcome to the SMWay Podcast, I’m your host, Daniel Bader. Today we’re touching on a hot-button topic in Wisconsin, reading legislation. Specifically, ACT 20, a law passed last summer states that all Wisconsin schools are required to provide science-based early literacy instruction in both universal and intervention settings.

Today we’ll speak with Christie Gajewski, Director of Curriculum and Instruction about what ACT 20 is, what South Milwaukee is doing to follow the law in our schools, and what we can expect.