The Pirate Treasure

Ms. Taylor wanted to challenge her ABU Elementary students with a lesson about the solar system. Students built a model of the solar system out of model magic dough while learning about the different planets. Thank you, Ms. Taylor & ABU Elem Team, for ensuring that all of your students have the opportunity to learn in different ways that best support them.

The PACE Campus celebrates Coach David Quinn for his above and beyond service with the PACE Volunteer Service Projects. Coach Quinn is the lead staff with oversight of the district’s Backpack Food Program. Weekly, this program provides food items to students as referred by the campus counselors.

The holiday break required that almost 400 food bags be completed for distribution. Working with student volunteers, Coach Quinn and his team were able to reach the goal. We celebrate you, Coach Quinn, for all that you do to make Pine Tree PACE an excellent place to serve.

The second semester is underway at PTHS and busy is the key word that administration, teachers, staff and students are feeling right now.

UIL Academics will host its second tournament this weekend at the high school. Over 20 teams from East Texas will send students to PTHS on Friday night and Saturday to compete for medals and plaques. Pine Tree is anticipating to do well in the competition-annually one of the toughest meets to get schools prepared for, not only the upcoming meets, but for district, regionals and state.

Choir and band are also competing for places in state right now. Over 20 choir and band students have traveled to competitions to vie for state placement. So far, the PTHS groups are performing well and sending representatives to the state meet.

Cheerleading is back from Fort Worth and its state competition this past weekend. Taylor Fogle’s girls went up against 50 schools and did well. They did not make the finals but were given glowing remarks by judges and represented Pine Tree well.

Precision will hold its formal this weekend in the Kilgore area. Girls are gearing up for a really great time to celebrate a great year in drill.

Speaking of football, the annual football banquet is scheduled for Monday, January 22 in the junior high cafeteria at 6:30 p.m. Coach Jason Bachman and his staff will celebrate this year’s playoff team and get ready for some of these young men to be honored at athletic signings over the next few weeks. Approximately seven PTHS football players are in line to get college scholarships, led by Dealyn Evans and his signing with Texas A&M.

Soccer and powerlifting are also underway as is basketball season. Track, baseball, softball and golf and tennis are not far from starting creating a wave of activity until May. One Act Play is busy working and will soon have clinics in and around Longview to get ready for their March competition.

And, finally, among all of this is testing. SAT testing will occur on March 6. In just this short space of writing, patrons can see that things are always busy at Pine Tree. Add in classes, school and club activities and jobs after school, students have very little, if any, free time between now and spring break in March.

Pine Tree Middle School is kicking off the new year with more than half our campus involved in UIL events. We have started our after-school and during school practices for 6th grade UIL teams and soon our 5th graders will start during school also. Our students and coaches are working hard to bring home the victory in each event.

Santa visited Pine Tree Middle School before the holiday and brought each student a gift! We are happy to see so many students on his NICE list! Mrs. Jackson’s fifth grade in third period won our December reading challenge by passing the most quizzes in our Whooo’s Reading program. PTMS students have a lot to watch for in the coming months as we move into this next semester. Students will be celebrated at the 2nd 9 weeks’ awards ceremony in late January.

Students and teachers alike are working hard on displays for the district EXPEDITION event on January 18th. We are looking forward to watching many of our students play basketball, volleyball and soccer each Saturday during the upcoming months.

Five students have been nominated as our Pirates of the Month. These students represent Pirate pride daily through their work ethic, stellar manners, positive attitudes, and courteous behaviors toward their teachers and classmates. We are very proud of these amazing students.

First Grade: Aubrey Calderon - Mrs. Rivera’s Class

Second Grade: Kinslee Clampit - Mrs. Berryhill’s Class

Third Grade: Arcadio Bautista - Mrs. Mabe’s Class

Fourth Grade: Kristen Herrera - Mrs. Rickman’s Class

Ellie Airhart - Mrs. Halcumb’s Class

Birch Elementary had the pleasure of honoring Mr. Drew Seidel, PTISD trustee during Board Appreciation Month at the January 8th board meeting. Mr. Seidel is committed to ensuring that Pine Tree ISD is known as a leader in the education community. His kindness is shown in his interactions with our staff, students, and community in everything that he does. We thank Mr. Seidel for his generosity and inspiration!

Several Birch Pirates had the opportunity to visit the game room due to their hard work and effort on their last CBA. Hard work deserves great rewards and our Birch administrators recognize that! These students loved spending time with the famous Papa Pate and enjoying games and activities that provoked happiness and laughter. At Birch, we work hard AND play hard!

On our first week back from the break, Ms. Gonzalez’s class started off learning different counting strategies in math. They have learned about count and scoot, count and touch, and count and check. The students use different manipulatives to practice each and get better at counting!

Before our break, Mrs. Anderson’s class put their math skills to use by following a recipe to make Grinch stew for our Grinch feast. After adding all the ingredients for our recipe, the students enjoyed getting to sit and enjoy it the stew with the entire school!

The Three Little Bears Theatre was incredibly entertaining, and we extend our gratitude to our dedicated Administrative team, Dr. Mullins, Mr. Eggerman, Mr. Clugston, and Dr. Baxter for graciously portraying the characters.

January 11

PTA meeting

5:45 @ Primary cafeteria

January 15

MLK Holiday-No School

January 18

EXPEDITION 2024

6-8 PM @ Maude Cobb Convention Center

January 19

Class Pictures

8:00 am- 9:00 am

January 22

Music Informance

9:00 Dyer

10:00 Kraus

11:00 Brutchin

January 23

Music Informance

9:00 Young

10:00 Hall

11:00 Crockett

January 24

Music Informance

9:00 Thompson

11:00 Stroman

January 25

Music Informance

9:00 Hill

1:00 Bozarth

11:00 Pruitt

End of Year

Our students were able to enjoy each other one last time in 2023 during their Christmas parties. They ate, played, and laughed together. Not only did they do enjoy this time, our amazing librarian, Mrs. Ray, gave our students a Christmas gift, a book of their own!

Game Room

Nothing like celebrating our students when we return from Christmas break. This past Monday, our students celebrated their hard work at the game room. On Friday, January 5, Principal Melanie Keoun announced the game room winners. January 8th was game day. All grade levels received some time with a friend that they had chosen to go with them to the game room. Students had a blast playing with their electronics, video games, and all types of board games. Way to work hard at the Pack!

Pine Tree Junior High was proud to honor our incredible librarian Ms. Francetta McGowan at the January 8th PTISD Board Meeting with the district Above & Beyond award. Ms. McGowan consistently goes above and beyond for our students and campus and makes our library an interesting and fun place to be on our campus. We appreciate all of your hard work, Ms. McGowan. Thank you for all you do at PTJH!

On Saturday, January 6th, 2024, our boys and girls basketball teams were each on the road at different tournaments. While all teams had successes, PTJH is proud to highlight our 7th grade girls B-team for coming in 2nd place overall in their tournament. Coached by first year coach Melvin Stafford, this group of young ladies stood out above the rest of the teams with their sportsmanship and teamwork.

Great job ladies and Coach Stafford!

This tournament came just two days after an impressive showing at Mt. Pleasant Junior High in which our 7th and 8th B teams came away victorious. Go Pirates!

Our students and teachers are excited to welcome a new collection of books to our library for 2024! Our students enjoyed a New Book Party in the PTJH library on Monday, January 8, 2024. We’re looking forward to diving into these new books as the spring semester unfolds!

The UIL Debate team sent its three Congressional debaters to Austin January 8th for the UIL State contest that will take place in the Texas Legislative Chamber over the next three days. The team, coached by Alyx Dickson, consists of senior Travis Johnson and juniors Aiden McQueary and Ryan Alonso.

The UIL Journalism team captured the first place team award in the recent Texas Tech UIL virtual meet. The Texas Tech Communications Department awarded junior Jennifer Chen a scholarship for being the tournament’s top journalism student. Other winners are Rachel Malloy, Tristan Guire, Liv Brannon, and Lucia McCree. The team is led by Melissa Wright.

The PTHS UIL Academic team will welcome 20 schools as they host their second tournament of the year on January 12th and 13th. The team expects more than 1000 entries for this tournament.