Knoch welcomes students, parents for open house
JEFFERSON TWP — The Knoch School District softened the return to school a bit with a combined Welcome Back to School/Open House event on Tuesday, Aug. 22, one day before classes opened for the 2023-24 school year.
On Tuesday evening, each of the four schools in the district held its own open house, where parents and students got to meet their teachers for the upcoming school year. The first two hours were reserved for the elementary and intermediate schools, with the next two reserved for the middle and high schools.
Morgan Callahan, who is entering her fourth year as the learning support teacher at Knoch Intermediate Elementary School, always looks forward to the open house.
“I love seeing the kids, and it's nice this year that it's right before the school year starts. So it just kind of lets them get excited about it and eases their mind a little bit,” Callahan said. “They know where they're going, what their day is going to look like, and they can start off with a little less anxiety.”
The main hub of activity was the Welcome Back event, which took place in Knoch Stadium. Visitors were impressed with the facility — 12-year-old Brody Foraback said his favorite part of the day was “just walking around this stadium and having fun.”
The Welcome Back event is derived from festivities that took place last year when the formerly named South Butler County School District was officially renamed Knoch School District.
Last year, the renaming ceremony was held in the high school’s parking lot, separately from the school open houses. For this year, district superintendent David Foley opted to combine the two events into a super-welcome back.
“We did have the renaming ceremony, and that was down in the parking lot. And we had some more programming stuff ... our band played, and some chorus groups sang,” Foley said. “This year, we just decided to set up some games and some food booths.”
There was no shortage of school clubs and other local organizations setting up shop inside the stadium, using the event as a fundraising opportunity. One of those was Boy Scout Troop 683 of Cabot, which sold pulled pork sandwiches to raise money for a new trailer to haul camping supplies.
Come Wednesday, children in the district will be hitting the books, but on Tuesday, they could play carnival games to raise money for some of the district’s sports teams. The Knoch baseball team gave people three “pitches” to measure how fast they could throw a baseball, and also sold snacks.
“We have to pay for off-season training, and we get the boys their warmup sweatpants and hoodies and hats, and everything for the season,” said Erika Allison, secretary of the Knoch baseball boosters. “The boosters provide dinner for away games, so that the boys have something to eat to and from the games.”
Fundraising is also a big deal for the Knoch boys lacrosse team. In fact, it’s arguably an even bigger deal for them, as they are technically a “club” team, not funded by the school.
“We have to fund ourselves for busing to and from games. We have to pay referees,” said boys lacrosse coach Jake Wood. “So we're just raising money in general to help have a good season this year.
Also setting up at the Welcome Back event was the South Butler Community Library, to promote Knoch’s upcoming Dolly Parton Imagination Library as well as all of the other services provided to students and parents.
“We have all kinds of STEM activities for elementary kids. We run story times three times a week for pre-K children. We do adult programming for parents,” said Michelle Lesniak, director of the library. “We have activities every week of the year for all ages.”
