Over the next few months, parents will decide where to enroll their children for the ’23-’24 school year.
Bellefontaine City Schools is asking Why BCS?
Bellefontaine grad (2011) Lawrence Miller shares his story.
We’re entering a world where technology is becoming more advanced by the day. You see electric cars driving on the road, smart devices in houses, and virtual reality games being available. The world has entered a “Tech Boom” and it’s only going to get more “techy.” So I ask myself, “Why would I want to send my kids to BCS?” Well, the answer is clear – BCS understands that Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (“STEM”) is becoming more prevalent by the year and BCS has prepared our students for this!
As children enter middle school, they begin thinking of their dream careers. I’ve sat in a middle school classroom and have heard 6th, 7th, and 8th graders tell me that they want to become a doctor, an engineer, a salesperson, etc. in the future. Bellefontaine Middle School does an amazing job of opening the door to STEM fields that encourage the interests of students. Bellefontaine has an after-school club that focuses on learning math. Students get to play math games, understand the geometries that appear in our everyday world, and can ask any math question they could ever think of! MATHCOUNTS is offered at our middle school. There is NO fee to join this club. Where’s the next closest school district to offer the national MATHCOUNTS program? Lima Shawnee Middle School. You can take advantage of this amazing math opportunity for your children when they are at an age where they start thinking about their future.
Let’s face it – math is a fundamental building block that all future STEM students must know. Some students will enter a future career solely in math but the majority of the time, they will enter a STEM career where they must overcome problems with constraints. How does BCS answer this issue? Welcome to the world of Robotics. Robotics is an after-school club where middle school and high school students work together in small groups to build a robot that has certain tasks it must complete with limited resources. Bellefontaine will go to several competitions throughout the year to battle other schools in a showdown of Robots! Students in this Robotics Club get to work with mechanical designs, electrical motors, and programming. In this club, you apply what you have learned from your math and science classes and your intuition.
This is a hands-on club where you get to see your ideas succeed and fail. When your ideas fail, you get to analyze why they failed and then redesign the robot based on your findings – these are totally real world applications!
Those two clubs are excellent examples of some after-school resources that your children can take advantage of. BCS recognizes that not all students can attend after-school clubs because of different time commitments they have and that’s why BCS has developed classes during the school day that can advance their STEM knowledge as well. In a world that is becoming more “smart,” programming skills have become increasingly desirable. At the high school level, you can learn the basics of computer programming. Students learn how to write a basic program and understand different syntaxes used in programming. This is a class that I’m especially jealous of since I didn’t have this option during my years at BHS. I love the fact that BCS now has the resources to stay current and competitive with respect to the needs and desires of current and future job requirements.
The world continues to get smarter every day. Again I ask myself: Why BCS? Because BCS has the resources to stay competitive in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. MATHCOUNTS, Robotics, and programming classes at this critical age of a child’s educational exploration will open their mind to the next innovation that will change the world forever. Our children’s generation will experience the age of autonomy and AI (artificial intelligence). Our generation saw the autonomous Roomba Vacuum as one of the first smart devices. Our children have seen SpaceX autonomously land a rocket on the earth. Digital orders can be predetermined based on buying habits and we can unlock devices with the scan of a face. What’s next? That’s for our children to figure out with the foundation BCS gives them. Go Chiefs!
If you would like to learn more about enrolling your children at BCS, contact the board office at 937-593-9060.
Kindergarten screening will be held at Bellefontaine Elementary School on May 22nd-25th.
Photo: Lawrence Miller
