Author Archive: Randy Mills

Day 84 January 9, 2023 – Burgers Anyone?

A large part of my experience at Rangeview has involved travel. All over the country and Europe. One of my favorites was traveling to Disneyland with the student leadership group. Disneyland has a wonderful leadership academy and ran a good program that taught the fundamentals of leadership.…

Day 83 January 6, 2022 – My Flag

I am a strong believer in our commitment to diversity at Rangeview. We have been a No Place For Hate designated school by the ADL for many years. One of our added pieces is the Diversity Week we have every year.…

Day 82 January 5, 2022 – Quit Teaching

I am going to recycle a post I did several years ago. It is a post about tragedy but also about why I teach and accept the good and the bad.

We were given the question at an in-service about the day that we wanted to quit teaching.

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Day 81 January 4, 2023 – Flying Cars

The story for today isn’t about my time at Rangeview. It is about my time at Vivian Elementary in Lakewood growing up. As we pass into the year 2023 I am reminded of how far away the year 2000 is. It is as far from my high school graduation as the year 2000 and I remember thinking about how far off that was.…

Week 17 Musical Interlude

As a technology and computer science teacher, this song fits, and if you really listen some of the things have already come to pass. The added bonus is the old movie Metropolis.

 

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Day 80 December 15, 2022 – Winter Break

Last day before break. This is a bittersweet day. I am tired and need the break but I know that after three days I will be chomping at the bit. Vacations are a time to evaluate and prepare. The one lesson I have learned in thirty years is that no matter the planning, there will be things that change it and shuffle things.…

Day 79, December 14, 2022 Airplane Cockpit

This is a thank you and one a secret about our building. In Aurora, we have been lucky with the community passing bonds for school improvements. In my tenure in APS we have passed them all. I will later tell some stories about being on the committees that passed these bonds.…

Day 78, December 13, 2022 Wifi Highjacking

Being a computer teacher has its advantages. I often will get things before anyone else and get to try them out for others. Earlier in the blog, I spoke about the introduction of laptops to our itinerant staff and how we were unprepared for them as a district.…

Day 77, December 12, 2022 My Grade

This is the start of finals week and it is time to let the begging and pleading commence. I like to give production tests where a student creates something. It can be anything from a program, a cybersecurity incident report on an image, or a part and drawing in engineering.…

Day 76 December 9, 2022 Student Assessment

Teachers feel judged daily by students, parents, administrators, district administrators, the state board of education, state legislatures, and society as a whole. Nothing about that system is going to change. Teachers who spend countless hours railing against this are doing themselves and their students a disservice.…

Day 75 December 8, 2022 Power of Music

 
Music is one area that often gets a raw deal in education. I believe that music can tell the story of your life and can be a means of expression for people that are unable to in any other way.
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Day 74 December 7, 2022 – Bromance

Today is the 81st anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing to force the US into the Second World War. With that in mind, I will do my favorite veteran.  This person is not a staff member at Rangeview but was as important a part of my work as most of my faculty colleagues.…

Day 73 December 6, 2022 – Sharpshooter

When I started spending more time in Computer Science I spent a lot of time with another colleague in our department. Tom Fox had a programming background and taught our most advanced courses. I was lucky enough to take several professional development classes using Java when the AP CSA class moved from C++ to Java.…

Day 72 December 5, 2022 Strouse

If I am going to be honest, there is one person that I have spent many hours with that has been a big influence. Tammy Strouse has been a steady force at Rangeview for the entire time I have been there.…

Week 16 Musical Interlude

We seem to hear this from kids daily. The funny thing is that I can say the same about my time in high school.

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Day 71 December 2, 2022 Binaca

Another department member was very influential and generous. Cindy Hope was a character and allowed me to do my first traditional business class with Management and Entrepreneurship. She ran the PACE class which allowed students to get credit for working. It wasn’t just a blow-off where you just had to turn in pay stubs.…

Day 70 December 1, 2022 – Baseball Coach

One of the great pleasures I have had at Rangeview is coaching baseball. There will be many stories later about our baseball escapades. The colleague that I am thankful for is our head coach Mike Hamilton. Our field for the lower levels were separate from the varsity and JV field and we liked it that way.…

Day 69 November 30, 2022 – Bagota Buccaneers

Every now and then you run across a storyteller with exceptional skills. Rob Schurich was one of these in the Business Department when I got to Rangeview. His favorite courses were his law classes and a class he did for Intersession.…

Day 68 November 29, 2022 – Ingrid

We have just completed the Thanksgiving weekend and I will take this time between this and the winter break to be thankful for colleagues. I am a strong advocate of focusing on the students but colleagues build your environment and create or destroy a happy workplace.…

Week 15 Musical Interlude

This is from the movie Fame. If you haven’t seen it please take the time to find it. This song is very emotional for me because this is what I hope every student believes as they leave us and start building their tomorrow.…

Day 67 November 22, 2022 Inclusion

Yesterday I told a story of inspiration from a student at Rangeview. Today I will tell the story of one of my students. We had a wheelchair-bound student with a deteriorating muscular disease. He was interested in art and graphic design.…

Day 66 November 21, 2022 – Inspirational Moment

It is Thanksgiving week and I thought it was time for a couple of inspirational stories. Today and tomorrow will be stories that still bring tears to my eyes because of the inspiring story of students. I remember my first couple of years and some of the kids we had.…

Day 65 November 18, 2022 Bumper Sticker

This is one of my favorite stories. This one is about someone else but is well worth sharing. Different people have different takes on things. I don’t put bumper stickers on my car because I keep those opinions to myself most of the time.…

Day 64 November 17, 2022 Employee 397

Our employee number is used for an immense amount of record keeping. The most telling is when we use it during employee meetings for staff development.  When I give mine I am usually met with: “No honey, the 5 or 6 digit number you use for payroll.”…

Day 63 November 16, 2022 Cops, Robbers, & Idiots

I mentioned that I would go back to elementary now and then. Today is about a robbery down the street from Montview. The store was held up at gunpoint and the robber headed toward Montview. This was in the days before lockdowns and duck and cover, He crashed his car about a block from Montview and jumped out of his car, and ran toward our building.…

Day 62 November 15, 2022 Error Message

Derek was one of my favorite students when I first started at Rangeview. I worked with him in Theatre and had him in web design class. Derek had a sense of humor that matched mine. We were working on a project to create a website for a resort and had to have pages that covered the full gambit of a resort.…

Week 13 Musical Interlude

Here is what we try to do as teachers. Take students to heights where they can see all of the possibilities. My favorite line is about chasing their dreams across the star.…

Day 61 November 14, 2022 Campfires in Cyberspace

A teacher has a lot of choice in their environment. I did cause a little problem my first couple of years when I moved my room. The class was all in rows with the computer facing the front of the room.…

Day 60 November 11, 2022 After High School

I had an experience today that is special and I wanted to share it while I had it fresh in my mind. I believe that our job carries students into their lives and considers their dreams and aspirations. The last week or two are always my favorite.…

Day 59 November 10, 2022 Fuzzy Dice

One of the joys of teaching high school is the fun of putting students into real world settings. I got my first lesson when I had the Management & Entrepreneurship class. A third quarter assignment was to go through the process of creating a business.…

Day 58 November 9, 2022 Intersession

Intersession! This was one of the greatest ideas we ever had at Rangeview. Our principal felt that we needed something to spice things up a bit. It was also at a time when the first semester ended in January. It was a strange three weeks.…

Day 57 November 8, 2022 Wiring Techniques

Building improvements and retrofits are common in schools. Over the years we have had several additions and some remodeling. The two biggest have been additions and wiring retrofits. The wiring is the most important to me as a computer and business teacher.…

Day 56 November 7, 2022 Balloons & Golf Balls

One of the joys of working at Rangeview was the Business Department team. Cindy, Rob, Tom, and Ingrid were a joy to work with. We had fun and still were leaders in the building. None of us took ourselves too seriously and enjoyed the relationships with the students.…

Week 12 Musical Interlude

I imagine this song with my teaching. As I envision retiring I can imagine a teacher version of this song.

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Day 55 November 4, 2022 Near-Sighted

I have been near-sighted for as long as I can remember. It was discovered in junior high school by a wonderful English teacher. John Glover discovered that when I sit in the back I just goofed off and was a class clown.…

Day 54 November 3, 2022 First Day at RHS

Starting at Rangeview was a new start and a new challenge. I was working with a new staff and learning new systems. The first thing I discovered was that a staff of almost 150 is very different from an elementary school.…

Day 53 November 2, 2022 Interview

Yesterday I talked about meeting Marc Stine at my Aunt Dorothy’s funeral and the winding way I put in for a transfer. Today is about the interview process. I had mentioned to my principal at Montview that I might not even get an interview.…

Day 52 November 1, 2022 High School?

I am moving into high school. I will still do an elementary story now and then but it is time to transfer to Rangeview High School. I will be using my experience in several areas as the basis for these stories.…

Week 11 Musical Interlude

Some good old Folk music. It is a part of my war protest music and is a very fun song with a serious message. It sometimes gets lost on people who don’t understand satire but I hope you enjoy it.…

Day 51 October 31, 2022 Frog Fiasco

I have a few thoughts on teaching elementary that I want to share. This is my last post for my elementary years and I still have a ton of stories. I want to say that teaching for nine years in elementary was the best prelude to teaching high school.…

Day 50 October 28, 2022 Technology Leader

Accomplishments are important and I am a believer that if my accomplishments help others, I have been successful. In the mid-90s we were writing out report cards for every student. Your hands would cramp up and trying to find ways to say things briefly became an art.…

Day 49 – October 27, 2022 Sharing Ideas

Today I landed in Orlando, Florida getting ready to present at the PLTW Summit for the next three days. I have been to many conferences in the last 30 years. This weekend will be the last one as an APS teacher.…

Day 48 – October 26, 2022 Financial Fiduciary

I am a big fan of planning. There exists a group of people that spend money like there is no end and that they will always have money. The other piece is that people often look at the new shiny toy and feel the need to have it.…

Day 47 – October 25, 2022 Early Adopter

Microworlds and Logo programming was my first step into programming with kids. I was doing this with students in the third, fourth, and fifth grades at Montview. As I compare to students coming into my class today, those elementary kids were miles ahead of the high school kids I see now.…

Day 46 October 24, 2022 Breaking Up A Meeting

Welcome back from Fall Break.

Today is one of the ways to break up a staff meeting. Any teacher who has been to a staff meeting understands. Unfortunately, they can’t be leveled like we are asked to do in our classrooms.…

Day 45 – October 13, 2022 Sheltered English

I think every child ought to visit Disneyland. It really is the happiest place on earth. I have many stories about Disneyland and they will come up when I transition to high school. My first time at Disneyland was as a teacher at Montivew.…

Day 44 – October 12, 2022 Mentors

Teaching has given me the good fortune to meet many influential teachers over the last few years. One of my favorites was meeting and talking to Donald Graves. Donald Graves was a leader in the reforming of writing. His books stand out as beacons of light as a way to instruct young writers.…

Day 43 – October 11, 2022 Interview Intervention

It is not what you know but who you know. This will be a repeating theme in my story. On September 6 or Day 18, I spoke about getting hired. This is about the interview before getting hired. The first time I encountered this was while getting hired at Montview.…