He has dealt with many obstacles throughout his life, but has persevered.  Slowikowski was a three-time Division I All-American Track and Cross Country runner at Loyola University. He is a member of an illustrious group, one of only a handful of people to run a mile in under four minutes.

In 1990, Slowikowski won a gold medal as a member of the US Track and Field team at the International Competition in London. After his running career ended, he became a professional speaker and empowerment strategist and has been speaking to students all over the country ever since.

Slowikowski made two, one hour presentations to the entire student body. Both presentations were marked by high levels of student engagement and participation.

“I really liked it. It was definitely very entertaining,” said sophomore Curtiss Stewart.

Slowikowski uses a high energy level and a witty sense of humor that kept the crowd laughing and dancing throughout the presentation. Some students, though, questioned what the message was and what point Slowikowski was trying to get across.

“I thought it was entertaining, but the message was a little unclear because he would start a message, then not finish it,” said Senior Jordan Krikie.

The presentation included a lot of dancing and interacting with the audience, with an overall message of achieving your goals and being yourself as the theme. He performed many different comedic skits that were meant to be entertaining as well as inspirational.  The first presentation began with Slowikowski telling an emotional story about his mother and his childhood.  In the second presentation, he re-enacted the experience of breaking the four-minute mile.

“I thought it was inspiring. I learned that no matter what people think, you always have to be yourself,” said sophomore Nora Maye.

This year’s presentation mirrored an all school assembly from last year that featured Navy Seal and author Eric Greitens speaking about his experiences and overcoming obstacles.

Two of the cut clubs, Art Club and Math Club, have now recently restarted thanks to the school board’s decision to allow outside funding. 

Decisions on cuts were initially made by looking at areas where students had exposure to the topic of the club in the everyday curriculum.  If the material was not offered during the school day, the board still wanted to make it available to students by offering it in extracurricular activities. 

PrincipalPam Bylsma said, “Things that were kept were service clubs or opportunities that didn’t exist during the school day.” 

The process involved the school’s entire administrative team.  They knew that each club is important to those who are involved in it, and that no one would be entirely happy with the outcome. 

“I haven’t seen a single student involved in a club that wasn’t a great young man or woman that deserved that club,” said Assistant Principal John Passarella. 

Passarella was asked to reach out to districts around the state to see how they were dealing with budgetary cuts that impacted clubs and their policies on reinstating clubs with outside funding.  At first, he didn’t receive a good response, as no one in RB’s conference accepted outside funding.  

The policy was a time consuming decision for the board as it raised many questions.  How would supporters go about raising funds?  Who could raise funds?  

Eventually, the policy was approved and clubs gained the ability to reinstate themselves by having someone raise the money to support the club.  Any club that was cut could return by receiving outside funding and locating a qualified sponsor.  Outside funding could be from parent donations, businesses, or student fundraising.  According to the RBEA collective bargaining agreement, sponsorships had to be offered internally first, but after that, the job could be offered externally.  After a check for the fundraising is written, a sponsor can then be assigned, go through a criminal background check, and be approved by the board. 

The first club to return in this fashion was Art Club.  A parent donation was made for the same amount of funding that the club had last year.  A sponsor was found and approved by the board and the club was reinstated.  It has recently begun to meet again. 

Last year the art sponsor was RB Fine Arts teacher Suzanne Zimmerman.  This year, the club is being sponsored by Heather Young, an art major and substitute teacher at RB.  Young has many plans for the club this year.  She plans to do painting projects and field trips.  She hopes to have a student art show and drawing projects, invite professional speakers, and much more.  

“Art club is important because it touches on so many different fields and can be connected to students’ everyday life,” she said. 

Young also noted that the club gives students who didn’t have room in their schedules a chance to experience an art class.

Zimmerman said, “I think that it’s important to focus on how awesome Mrs. Young is doing.  She’s a great artist and she knows the department and the students.” 

Math Club has been slower in getting reinstated.  It took a group effort to raise the money for the club.  When the sponsorship was offered internally to RB teachers, none were ready to sponsor the club.  During a Chicago Tribune story on the club, former sponsors commented that they were now involved with other obligations including graduate school and family obligations.  

However, two external sponsors have now been approved by the board after criminal background checks were conducted.  Both sponsors have backgrounds in education and are eager to start.  

Holly Machina taught math for five years, most recently at the Islamic Foundation school in Villa Park, though she’s been on a break raising a family for the last twelve years.  Machina substitute teaches at RB on occasion and heard about the opening through Human Resources secretary Roseanne Marshall.

“Because of competitions,” Machina said, “the club really needs two sponsors.”

The second sponsor, John Henle, retired a year and a half ago from a career of teaching math at Wells Community Academy High School in Chicago. 

“I saw [the opening] in the Chicago Tribune,” he said, “and after vacation I called, thinking someone would have grabbed it.  It’s such a great job.” 

Math Club held its first meeting on the morning of Tuesday, January 31^st, in the Lehotsky Room.  The first meeting was well attended by approximately twenty students. 

The club has a lot of preparation to do as competitions start in mid-February.

Recently, the RB Special Olympics team earned recognition by being invited to join Project Unify.  According to the Special Olympics web site, Project Unify is “an education-based project that uses sports and education programs to activate young people to develop school communities where all youth are agents of change.”

RB’s Special Olympics program was added to Project U because of their demonstration of the key characteristics of this national program. Only one other school in Cook County and 16 statewide have so far been adeed to Project Unify. Project Unify was put together to create a school environment of respect and tolerance for all students, especially those with learning disabilities.

As a Project Unify school, RB is sending representatives to a local youth forum, participating in “Spread the Word to End the Word” movements, using the Get Into It Curriculum in health classes to encourage awareness, and hosting a Unified sports activity. This year, the RB Girls Basketball team will scrimmage with the RB Special Olympics basketball team. Because of all of these efforts, RB will be given financial support to purchase resources and materials needed to continue existing programs.

Project Unify is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and works with 42 U.S. State Programs. The project attracts more than 600,000 young people participating in projects in over 1,700 schools.

 “I just thought that it would be a neat way for students to see the initial life stages,” Holt said. He added, “There is also a big connection with environmental studies.”

Trout in particular need to have clean, cold water to live, and there are very few acceptable streams left in Illinois. Because the water in the fish tank has to be equally clean, Holt can incorporate many water quality tests into his classes, as well as discussions about stream ecosystems and people’s impact on their environment.

The trout are part of a program called “Trout in the Classroom.” Working with the organization Trout Unlimited, schools can obtain brown trout eggs from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. They will care for the fish until they are about a fingerling (3 in.) in length, and then the fish will be released into an appropriate stream.

Ironically, brown trout are not originally native to Illinois. The native species is brook trout, but there are virtually none left in Illinois streams. Historically, when the IDNR surveyed Illinois streams, they found plenty of brown trout and no brook trout. Now brown trout are recognized as an Illinois species, and are a part of the Trout Unlimited stocking program.

This is the second year Holt has been a part of this program. Last year, because too much food was put in the tank, a number of the fish died. The rest were released by another school when RB’s SEE Team was not available to participate in the release.

 “Last year we had information that was off just a little bit,” Holt said. This year, however, Holt has the proper instructions and hopes to keep more of the fish alive.

This year, Holt is hoping to take RB students on a field trip to release the trout. “We would like to do a release,” Holt said, “we’re just not sure with AP classes and AP exams around that time.”

Over winter break, Holt and a number of other science teachers will feed the trout.

The project has a positive response from the students involved.

“I think it’s really fantastic because we’re really trying to improve the ecosystem around us,” said senior Tomas Menchaca, who also participated on SEE Team during his freshman year, “It’s good that someone is trying to make an attempt and that’s Mr. Holt.”

Among the animals McInerny brought, was an endangered species of frog from Borneo, recently discovered, which mocked or mimicked other frogs with which it lived in the wild.  Another animal McInerny brought was a Lebanese Tortoise named Romal.  Romal  once broke a woman’s ankle by charging at her. McInerny also brought an alligator snapping turtle. This type of snapping turtle is on the verge of extinction, and is said to have been alive at the same time that dinosaurs were around. An alligator snapping turtle can stay under water for two months without coming up for air.  McInerny also brought along a  Haitian Rhino Iguana.  This iguana is from Haiti and snares its prey by running and knocking out the prey with the crown of its head at a speed of forty miles per hour.  Also endangered, the Haitian Rhino Iguana has teeth like a shark and raptor claws.

This is McInerny’s ninth year visiting RB with his endangered animals. Each year, he brings different animals and the teachers that teach zoology don’t know what he’s bringing so everything is just a surprise. This is a unique experience for the students in zoology because they get to see endangered animals that aren’t really well known to many people.

 Registration for each grade level will last for about eight days and all charge free changes to student’s individual schedules will be available until roughly the end of January. After that period of time, students will have to pay a fee of 25 dollars to make any changes unless it is a schedule conflict, in which case no fee will be administered. 

 One of the main reasons for early registration this year is to provide a better idea of what classes will run next year and what will have to be cut. The administration is planning to have a mid-February board meeting after schedules for students are completed to make all necessary financial decisions. Another reason is to just simply complete the master schedule earlier this year.

 Student counselor Mike Reingruber and Maggie Leiteritz both agreed that early registration doesn’t pose an obstacle for the guidance counselors. They will just get answers sooner than previous years.

 Reingruber said, “We know the students pretty well, and we will take the teacher’s words on recommendations.” The bottom line is that it doesn’t necessarily have an effect on the counselor’s ability to choose the appropriate classes for students. However, this is generally the time seniors are applying for colleges, so many counselors are also writing recommendation letters.

 The administration is still working on the minimum and maximum amount of people that will be assigned for each class. The board recently approved a policy that a class must have 20 students to enroll or else get a special wavier from the board. PE classes could be as large as sixty students and a social studies classroom could enroll up to 35 students. These numbers aren’t set in stone, this is just a rough idea of the maximum students that will be assigned to each class. 

 Leiteritz said that class size will absolutely affect the student’s learning ability, as well as teachers’ class management. The more student’s in each class, the harder it is to keep control of the students. 

 The rush to register and enrollment minimums has also put the pressure on elective classes. The sponsor for Rouser, Cherise Lopez, said that it hasn’t positively or negatively affected Rouser enrollment. It actually helped them plan ahead for promoting the class to other students by having them type out what they were going to say and helped them organize a better game plan then previous years. 

Union President Dave Monti said, “As with last year’s offer, the RBEA leadership felt it was necessary to try and be a part of the solution in terms of the district’s current financial situation. As everyone knows, a large group of intelligent and dedicated people with varied experiences and backgrounds can come up with many possible solutions to a problem. The entire membership overwhelmingly supported the leadership’s idea to open discussions about next year’s salary schedule and the future.”

Specific decisions about the negotiations have not yet been made, and as there are no solid details.  Neither the board nor the RBEA made public comment regarding what would or would not be negotiated.

“Initial plans and ideas should come from the Board’s negotiations team as they are the ones that set the budget within which the District must fiscally operate. When the discussions begin and they share their ideas with us, hopefully a course of action that is mutually beneficial and acceptable to both the District and the RBEA will be reached,” said Monti.

In a previous interview with the Clarion, Monti indicated that the RBEA leadership had been meeting on a monthly basis with Superintendent Kevin Skinkis and School Board President Sinde in what both sides referred to as “communications meetings.”

In a joint press release, Skinkis and Sinde confirmed that the RBEA’s action followed several months of preliminary negotiations.

Skinkis and Sinde also stated that these discussions do not obligate either the Board of the Union to modify the contract.

As a next step, Sinde will recommend to the Board at the December 13th meeting that they authorize the meeting approved by RBEA.

 According to Assistant Principal Tim Scanlon, part of the reason for the change was Day of Service’s success. There was too much demand from the community for a single day.

 In addition, the school board had made some financial cuts that made it much more difficult for a Day of Service to be organized. Social studies teacher Angela Ziola lost a release period related to Character Counts which she had used in previous years for a variety of activities, including coordinating the Day of Service. She also lost the stipend for her assistant SA sponsor, John Fields, who had helped coordinate the Day of Service. Finally, most of the secretarial support that had organized the Day of Service wasn’t available.

 “We didn’t have all the necessary infrastructure,” said Scanlon.

 So was the Month of Service a success?

 Last year, over 500 students, staff, and parents participated in the Day of Service. This year, however, the students found opportunities on their own, and the school couldn’t keep track of who volunteered.

 “Not a lot of groups talked about [keeping track],” said Social Studies teacher Angela Ziola.

 “I missed the Day of Service,” said Scanlon. “The sense of team effort can’t be replicated without doing it as a Day of Service.” However, he added, “There’s something very limiting about having a Day of Service.” He felt like some people would do the Day of Service and feel like they were then done giving back for the year. “I think the Month of Service was very successful,” he said.

 “I missed the energy on that day and how there was always such a large amount of students, staff, and parents,” said Ziola.

 Sophomore Laura Pellizzari participated in the Day of Service last year and had a great time on the workday. “It was an all-around good experience!” she said. “We cut down and burned buckthorn and invasive species in the zoo woods. It was tons of fun and afterwards we all got our t-shirts and food.” 

 Despite her good experience, Pellizarri did not participate in Month of Service this year. “I kind of forgot about it,” she said. “I had heard about it, but I never really found out any information. Last year it seems it was made much easier to do something for the community.”

 On the other hand, Sophomore Brazil Lewis-Boursaw did not participate in the Day of Service last year, because she was more focused on getting used to the school. This year, she did participate in Eco Club’s October workday. “It was really fun and I’m happy I got to do it because I didn’t do it last year and I wanted to be more involved,” she said.

 Lewis-Boursaw prefers the Month of Service to the Day of Service. “It gives you more of a chance,” she said. “You have more options, and it’s more help, too.”

When asked about plans for next year, Scanlon said, “I would love to have a Day of Service and a Month of Service… To incorporate the Day of Service into the Month of Service.”

Ziola was not as optimistic. “I don’t know how we can do a Day of Service with the cuts,” she said, but added, “I think a month could work, just not one single day.”

Clarion was present to compile a slideshow of some of the clubs and their members.