Logan High School implements new programs to prepare for ACT

Logan High School has started new math remediation classes to help prepare struggling students for the ACT. This change was prompted by Logan City School District’s goal that by 2020 the students will meet or exceed the national percentage of students that meet the four college readiness benchmarks as determined by the ACT. Remediation classes for English will start after winter break.

“There’s the math portion which is the largest portion of the ACT as far as time is concerned and probably the most difficult of the four tests that are given,” said Alma Brown, the academic support coordinator at Logan High. “We want to make sure all of our students have those basic necessary skills to be functional and then some.”

Brown said the classes are still in a pilot stage and if they are a success, they may go further than math and English remediation.

“We have chosen as a school district, we have chosen as a state, to focus on using the ACT as one of the tools in accomplishing what our mandate is as a high school,” Brown said.

Along with remediation classes, Logan High will be switching to the John Baylor Prep test to prepare students for the ACT.

“It’s a little bit more concrete,” said Shane Ogden, principal of Logan High.

The program allows students to watch videos, work in groups and use sample tests to prepare for the ACT.

“That would be a focus for us in January and February,” Ogden said. “If that’s the way the district has set that goal then we need to make sure that we, as each of the buildings in our district, are focusing our efforts towards that.”

Leadership binder to help Wilson Elementary students track growth

Success has been noticed with the implementation of the leadership binder at Wilson Elementary. At the beginning of this school year Wilson created binders for each student to keep track of their progress through the year.

Each child's binder contains mission statements from the school, their teacher and the student. Personal goals are included that each student made with their teacher. Students are then able to track progress being made toward their goals and grade-level achievement.

“We feel really good about where we’re headed,” said Sundee Ware, the principal of Wilson. “Kids know where they’re headed.”

Ware said if a student reaches one of their goals they can receive rewards and set a new goal.

“I’m really proud of my school,” Ware said. “Every kid, no matter who, is going to make gains.”

The binders are part of the school’s Leader in Me program, which is based on Stephen Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” This program encourages students to be leaders and take charge of their own learning experience. This is the second year Leader in Me has been implemented at Wilson.

Ware said she has noticed the benefits that the binders and the Leader in Me program have provided, but she isn’t the only one.

“It helps the kids to know what to reach for,” said Andrea Lindstrom, a first-grade teacher at Wilson. “They know the outcome is up to them.”

Lindstrom said the binders allow students to be aware of their own attitude and actions. This puts the accountability for success on their shoulders. With students keeping track of their own progress allows Lindstrom to see what students may be struggling with.

“We are always looking at our data,” Lindstrom said. “We are constantly readjusting.”

New learning program for Mount Logan Middle School sees results

Mount Logan Middle School has already begun to see the benefits from implementing the professional learning community program at the beginning of the school year. A PLC provides opportunities for teachers to collaborate in groups and learn how to be more successful. This has been emphasized across the district since Frank Schofield became Logan City School District’s superintendent on July 1.

“It has been the most effective way to get students to accomplish great things,” said Paul Wagner, an assistant principal at Mount Logan. “We’re all blown away by how well our teachers have responded and how willing they’ve been to cooperate and to do this. We’re all excited.”

Part of being a professional learning community requires teachers to meet together to discuss four questions. These include what they want the students to learn, how students will know when they’ve learned, what to do if they don’t learn and how to extend their learning if they have already learned the basics.

Tests are created based on those questions to make sure teachers are teaching what is important for that class across the board. These are called common formative assessments.

“When we say common we want not only the questions to be common, but we want to make sure the administration of the quiz is also very common,” said Shane Hutchinson, a seventh-grade science teacher at Mount Logan. “So when we get the data back we can know that it’s because of certain things students got or didn’t get, not the way we were administering the quiz.”

In addition to common formative assessments, the program gives the idea that every student can learn.

“Some people think that there are some students who just can’t learn,” Wagner said. “The magic of this PLC approach is that you just don’t believe it. You don’t believe that a student can’t learn.”

Wagner said teachers will use other teachers, as well as the resources the school provides, to keep finding ways to help a student in need.

“I’m pretty passionate about this stuff,” Wagner said. “What I got involved in administration for is to kind of deliver this educational vision that every kid can get.”

Hutchinson said he has noticed the influence of the new district emphasis.

“It’s not just that this department’s doing it because they think it’s the right thing to do,” Hutchinson said. “We’re all united in the whole school in doing the same things.”

Schofield said he feels the value of this emphasis is felt across the district.

“Effective teams have always done these things,” Schofield said. “Effective teams in any industry have clear goals for performance. They work collaboratively.”

Schofield said while some may be getting up to speed on the emphasis, it still has been received well.

“If we come together as a team, we can accomplish more and we can reach more students than if we all just try to do this individually,” Schofield said.

Bridger Elementary develops survey to see correlations in new testing system

The goal is simple. Bridger Elementary’s community council wants students reading at home for 20 minutes. Now they need to find out if kids are doing it. The community council has created a survey to find out if students are reading at home.

“We know that reading at home makes a big impact on if they’re reading in their zone of proximal development,” said Jed Grunig, the principal of Bridger. “So it’s just hard enough to challenge them, but not too hard that they can’t be successful independently reading it.”

The survey asks for the students’ grade, amount of days they read at home, the minutes they read each day and if they met their AR, accelerated reading goal. The students AR determines what difficulty of books they should read.

“It’s based on their STAR assessment,” said Carrie Curtis, the literacy coach for Bridger.

STAR used to stand for Standardized Testing for the Assessment of Reading, but has created tests for other subjects. This is the first year Bridger Elementary has given the STAR assessments monthly. It breaks students into four different categories to show them how close to grade level in a certain subject they are.

“With their STAR assessment they take what grade level they are at and how many minutes they are supposed to read each night and then there is a formula that calculates how many points they need for a given amount of time,” Curtis said.

Grunig is interested to see if there are any correlations between reading at home and how students do on their STAR reading assessments.

“It might be good to share with parents too,” Grunig said.

After each STAR test the student is immediately given feedback.

“They’re so excited to take it again to see what they’ve learned in the last month,” Curtis said.

Wilson Elementary hosts “So You Think You Can Dance” celebrities for toy drive

A local toy drive will be boosted by a bit of star power on Friday as “So You Think You Can Dance” celebrities, Kathryn McCormick and Cyrus “Glitch” Spencer come to reward the students. Starting at 1 p.m. it will be held in the Logan High School auditorium accompanied by a career symposium and dance clinic. Wilson Elementary held a similar event last year, but this is the first year the rest of the Logan City School District has been invited to come to the event.

The event was organized by SafTEQ, a company that sells devices to protect and monitor children's online activity. As an incentive to the students at Wilson Elementary, SafTEQ is requiring every student to give a toy at the drive to be able to dance with McCormick and Spencer.

“We try to give out 500 toys,” said Sundee Ware, the principal of Wilson. “They can bring a toy or they can make it. I just think it’s really great.”

Ware said the other schools were invited to join the toy drive, but could choose to do something else.

“We want to get to a bigger goal of toys so we can send them out to charities,” said Paul Singh, a fourth-grade student at Wilson. “If we can get it to a high level then we can do a very good job.”

Singh is a part of a student group that is helping with the toy drive, as well as counting the toys. Singh will also be in charge of Wilson performing moves from the music video “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” at the start of the symposium.

The CEO of SafTEQ, Jeremiah Cox said the career symposium should be impactful for the students that come.

“I’m hoping that we’ll have it full,” Cox said.

Hillcrest Elementary implements new language arts curriculum

Hillcrest Elementary implemented its new language arts program at the beginning of the school year. The curriculum called ReadyGEN allows students to set goals and track their own progress on achieving their objectives.

“We’re really excited about it,” said Eric Markworth, the principal of Hillcrest Elementary. “Sometimes our students come in and they’re behind. We want to expect at least one year's growth from each student.”

According to Susanne Kuresa, the human resource services director of Logan City School District, goals give the students an opportunity to reflect on on what they have to do to achieve their objectives.

“Anytime kids have an awareness of where they are and how they’re doing and what comes next in their achievements, I think that they are better able to participate and take ownership for that learning,” Kuresa said. “I think that’s a great way to include students and to outline where they need to go and how they’re going to get there.”

Markworth said some students might need some extra help and this program allows the school to give more time and intensity to those students.

“They’re making their own personal and own academic goals,” Markworth said. “We feel like it’s challenging kids to think at a higher level than ever before. That’s what we want them to do. We want them to come out college and career ready by the time they graduate from high school. We think that our small piece of that is a really valuable piece.”

Ellis Elementary prepares for revamping of science program

Ellis Elementary has changed their curriculum in preparation for the statewide changes to the science program next school year. Principal Sue Sorenson said that she expects the new core to follow the Next Generation Science Standards, which has been adopted by 26 states.

“We’re trying to use the core we currently have, that the teachers know really well, and trying to incorporate that deeper questioning side to what we already know,” Sorenson said. “So when the new core comes in it won’t be such an adjustment for us. We’re trying to think ahead.”

Sorenson said they might have asked surface questions like, what color the sky is. With the changes, students are encouraged to use high order thinking to answer thought provoking questions.

“My question to them was, ‘I was diagnosed and my doctor said that I could not eat things that had fungi properties. What couldn’t I eat?’” Sorenson said. “So that would be that deeper thinking that they have to go through and think, ‘Well what is it that she couldn’t have?’”

Susanne Kuresa, the human resource services director of Logan City School District said it was smart for Ellis to prepare for the changes.

“Anytime there is a change in curriculum, it is not an overnight implementation or response for that change,” Kuresa said. “Anticipating that, doing some preliminary work and being ahead of that is certainly going to be to their benefit.”

Woodruff Elementary to focus on students affected by mobility rate

Woodruff Elementary has a new goal to provide help to students that move in and out of the elementary’s boundaries. On Nov. 10, Principal Spencer Holmgren provided this among other goals to the Logan City School District. Holmgren plans for the school to get to know the incoming students and where they’re at in their education, as well as helping exiting students be self-sufficient learners.

“Our demographic is around 70 percent low socioeconomic status and about 16-17 percent high mobility, which means that a student could be started at our school and move like four times throughout the year,” Holmgren said.

Holmgren said this can be a huge challenge to education.

“While we’ve got them here, we’ve got to take advantage of that time,” Holmgren said. “The school has to jump on it quick and they have to have something that they can really help that student with during that time, because they’re probably not going to stay.”

Teachers try to help incoming children get in pace with where the class is in its curriculum.

“For incoming students, I seat them next to the kids whom I know will help them with the day to day rules and procedures of our classroom,” said Sally Bair, a fourth-grade teacher at Woodruff. “Students are often disoriented and behind when they have moved from one district, state or school to another. This helps them meet new friends and find someone they are willing to ask questions to as well.”

Bair had an issue in her class last year with an incoming student.

“Last year, I got a kid the day before we started state testing and that student was required to test along with the rest of my class even though I had not taught them anything,” Bair said.

Holmgren said he wants to make sure that these students are given the chance to do well.

“We want to help these kids to not only be able to succeed while they are here, but we want them to become self-motivated learners,” Holmgren said.

Adams Elementary to receive new look in preparation for Leader in Me event

Adams Elementary is getting redesigned following the incorporation of its new Leader in Me program, based on Stephen Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” On Jan. 28 during the last couple hours of school, community members and stakeholders will be invited to see how this program has been integrated into Adams Elementary. This allows students to showcase how they are incorporating the seven habits in their own lives, as well as show the school’s new look.

“The event is designed for parents and the community to learn about the Leader in Me program,” said Cari Bodily, a fifth-grade teacher and part of the school’s Leader in Me program.

The teachers plan to display the school’s mission statement and are currently deciding what to paint and what quotes should be put on the west entrance and some of the halls.

“Right now we’re in the process of getting paint and things to change up the way our school looks so it can reflect that we’re a leadership school,” said Jordan Anderson, a first-grade teacher, also part of the school’s Leader in Me program.

Anderson said they were changing what the school looks like so it becomes more of a leadership-creative environment.

“More will be decided once we have solidified what exactly is going to be put up,” Anderson said. “We have options that are under debate currently, however, no final decisions have been made.”

Adams Elementary incorporates Leader in Me program

At the beginning of this school year, Adams Elementary began applying the Leader in Me program to its curriculum. It is a Franklin Covey program designed to help children be successful and happy. The school received an $8,000 grant in joining the program. Leader in Me incorporates seven habits from Stephen Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”

“It has been a really fun change, especially because it’s only been a few months since this has really been introduced to the kids,” said Jordan Anderson, a first-grade teacher. “It’s been really fun to see them really grab hold of it and really have a good understanding of the seven habits of what it really means to be a successful person and a happy person.”

Anderson is also the representative for first-graders and kindergartners on the Lighthouse team. This team consists of teachers chosen to represent the different grades in Adams for the Leader in Me program. The meetings are open to any other teacher that would like to come.

Part of the program includes students being in charge of jobs around the classroom and the school. Fifth-grade students are in charge of announcements as well as helping younger students with announcements. Cari Bodily, a fifth-grade teacher and part of the Lighthouse team, gives students jobs that vary from class librarian to supervisor of the class responsibilities.

“I have a student who said, ‘I’m getting bored. I need more to do.’ So we found another job that needed to be done,” said Bodily.

“Even in a first-grade classroom all the children have jobs,” said Anderson. “They may not have a job every day, but they all have had a job.”

During one of the parent nights, the fifth grade was in charge of posters and fliers. One of the students said that the fliers needed to be bilingual. The students then wrote a Spanish version on the other side of the fliers.

“The kids not only thought of it, but they took care it,” said Bodily.

Bodily and Anderson said they have already noticed a difference since the program has been implemented.

“We have noticed in our school that kids have been kinder to each other,” said Bodily.

“It’s been fun to see out on the playground,” said Anderson. “I still have a lot of kids that don’t know how to zip up their coats or tie their shoes. But older kids, even ones that aren’t siblings, will just notice that this kid is really struggling to zip up his coat or tie up his shoe. They’ll just sit down and help them.”

The Fall Harvest Festival holds its first Witches Walk

Today the Fall Harvest Festival had its first Witches Walk. Held at the American West Heritage Center, the event helped create awareness for breast cancer. For the walk, participants dressed up in witch costumes and walked around the festival. Afterwards there was a witch pageant where those who dressed up could receive various awards such as best cackle or best broom.

The main focus of the walk was the service project. Volunteers helped send off comfort kits to breast cancer patients. They put in various items such as headrests, essential oils and socks to provide comfort to the recipient. There was a station where volunteers could write a personal note and put it in a box.

"We're selling shirts to help fund it," said Kelvin Finley, a volunteer who works in the marketing group for Malouf.

Malouf is a business that mainly sells pillows and bedding but also sends comfort kits to breast cancer patients. It went to several businesses, asking for item donations to put in around 1,500 comfort kits that will be sent to breast cancer patients.

"There were a bunch of companies that pitched in," Finley said. "We're kind of the orchestrators and there's a lot of people helping out."

The idea for the walk came from something already in place.

"We used to do what was called, What a Witch Wants, that was in downtown Logan," said Denise Lindsey, a volunteer who helped set up the festival. "The historical center approached me about combining it with their Fall Festival. One of the things I had wanted to do was a witches walk."

Lindsey said they wanted to do something meaningful for the walk.

"Where October is in conjunction with breast cancer awareness, we thought what a great opportunity to bring a little bit of focus to local people who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and the impact that the community has had on them," Lindsey said.

The center then contacted Malouf to create the service project.

"This is great," Finley said. "There's been cancer patients in my family, including breast cancer patients. So I've seen the struggle that they go through and to be able to provide some comfort, it's pretty awesome. It's a need that's often overlooked."

Lindsey and her family have also been affected by breast cancer.

"My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer," said Lindsey, as tears began to fall down her face. "So this has a lot of personal meaning to me. She's passed away now. The statistics show now that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. That's why I feel so strongly about it."

The Witches Walk was included in the price of the Fall Harvest Festival ticket.

Students donate shoes at Hobbits For Humanity

On Monday, Aggie Sustainability and Aggie Outdoor Volunteers teamed up to hold Hobbits For Humanity. This is the first year these organizations have held this event. A booth was set up on the northeast corner of the quad where students could donate their shoes and then walk around on campus barefoot — like the hobbits did in The Lord of the Rings saga.

“We thought it would apply to the same sort of demographic that might be interested in going around barefoot and doing service,” said Sarah Woodbury, the student director of Aggie Outdoor Volunteers. “Just to try and get a niche of students to be like ‘Oh that’s cool.’”

Students have the opportunity to donate shoes until Friday at the Val R. Christensen Service Center at the Taggart Student Center. The shoes will be delivered Saturday to St. Anne’s Center, a homeless shelter in Ogden.

“We got 41 pairs of shoes so far and people are still bringing them in until Saturday,” Woodbury said. “So far it’s been pretty successful, especially for our first year.’“

Nathan Staker, the student director of Aggie Sustainability, said the event was quick to catch students' eyes.

“I had a few students approach the table where we were set up,” Staker said. “They were asking ‘What is this? What is Hobbits For Humanities?’ So it really sparked an interest with students. They were very curious about what was going on.”

Even though both Woodbury and Staker considered the event successful, there are a few things they are considering changing in the future.

“With more advertising and letting students know that we are hosting the event, I think it would work a bit better than what we had,” Staker said.

“Next time we definitely want to put out yard signs a couple days in advanced because that would have gotten more people to come,” Woodbury said.

The organizations are hoping to make Hobbits For Humanities an event that happens once or twice a year.

“The coolest thing was watching people take shoes off their feet,” Woodbury said. “That was definitely the most rewarding thing for me.”

“It made me appreciate how good I have it, having shoes,” Staker said. “But also what somebody without shoes or who is homeless has to suffer from that day to day. It’s not a fun perspective. It gave me a greater appreciation for what I have and made me want to donate my shoes for that cause.”

Mountain Crest High School enforces its cyberbullying policy

On Spet. 21 Alina Brown, a student from Mountain Crest High School, was bothered by a message displayed on a poster for the school’s homecoming football game. The message read "You play ball like a girl." She took a picture and stated her concerns on Instagram.

Brown received more than 700 responses from friends and classmates. While some comments supported her views, others included negative vulgar language. When administration found out about the poster, it was taken down.

The poster was put up by a female student, referencing the movie "Sandlot."

"I haven't seen the comments or remarks, but I don't doubt that they were inappropriate and we don't condone that in any way," said Kirk McRae, the director of human resources for Cache County School District. "If it crosses the line to threatening or bullying that's when we feel like we need to
take appropriate steps to resolve."

The district's safe school policy states hazing, demeaning or bullying (including cyberbully activity) may be reason to remove a student from school or to be disciplined in some other way.

"We try to be very careful and only monitoring in our sphere of influence," McRae said. "We recognize that social media is a can of worms. Where we can and will take efforts to monitor, is when it either detracts from the educational environment or if there are illegal or threatening comments that affect a student or staff member. That's when we feel we have enough of a nexus to step in and take appropriate actions."

McRae said this policy isn't something new and the school had to enforce this policy on certain students

"We haven't changed polocies, we're just enforcing the polocies that currently in place," McRae said.
"I won't say who or what the response was. This was a case that was elevated to the point of them getting involved."

With this specific incident, McRae said the school handled the situation appropriately and has reached out to the Brown family.

"The school administration has worked very hard to understand their concerns and resolve those," McRae said. "We want every student to feel comfortable, safe and welcome there."

Mountain Crest High also has programs in place to help prevent bullying.

"One of the big things that we’re working on right now, every week during our home study time, we have a little video," said Craig Bracken, a counselor at Mountain Crest High School. "We call it the inside out program. With each week there is a different video with a different topic. This is week seven, so we’ve been doing this since the start of school. We would show them that clip and then we have them fill out a survey. They don’t need to put their name on it. What it's supposed to do is to help students to get the viewpoint of others, learn why it's important to respect and why it's important to not bully. "

In the counseling office, they take the surveys to collect data from them and tailor in interventions more specific for their school and students’ needs.

"So we have data from what the kids have told us and then we can use that data to help kids," Bracken said. "So this is what we’re doing as a school wide program to help with cyber-bullying, with bullying, with respect, with making Mountain Crest have a good atmosphere and good environment."

Logan High School incorporates new computers

Logan High School has received 1,600 MacBooks in a pilot program to integrate computers into its classes.

The school began handing out the laptops last month. Every student is expected to receive one — and some teachers have already begun to use the computers in their classrooms, giving students assignments to research, write papers and send documents to their teachers.

“I’m new to the school this year,” said Tracy Cummins, a language arts teacher. “I come from a place where all of our students had either a desktop or access to a laptop there at school. So, my curriculum has always included computers.”

Because Cummins is used to computers in there classes, she already has set guidelines her students have to follow.

“I have a very strict supervision and time limits,” Cummins said. “They have three minutes to do this particular thing. I walk around the room as much as I can. The desks are setup so if I’m on this side of the room or that side of the room, I can see what is on their computers, which they don’t like. I have had two that I’ve had to confiscate because they chose to be doing Skype during my class.”

David Henderson, a creative writing and English teacher, has found the computers to be helpful in finding out which students are distracted.

“What I find amusing is it’s putting their mind on a computer screen,” Henderson said. “I know when they’re daydreaming, because they’re off playing video games. It actually helps keep them focused on what they need to be doing, because it’s easy to tell when they’re not on task.”

Henderson has found that smaller devices, like phones or iPods, are more distracting than the computers.

When it comes to class work Henderson has noticed some difference in the students’ behavior.

“It’s incredibly hard sometimes to get a student to break out a notebook and a pencil,” Henderson said. “You never have a problem with them getting out a computer.”

Henderson said the impact of the computers likely wouldn’t be know this year.

“Next year is going to be the year to watch to see if it’s really going to be successful or not,” he said.
“By then we’ll have our basic experiences down and know what we can do with these things.”

Mary Morgan, a teacher in the Special Education department, has noticed how her students have been affected by the new computers.

“It does give them more opportunity to have access right there,” Morgan said. “If they want to write a story or check their grades without having to go onto another computer or wait for somebody to be done. It’s more convenient and I’ve seen more willingness to do work because they can get their materials right from it.”

Morgan has also noticed that the computers have made it easier for the students as well as for herself.

“In my support class I have them fill out a tracker form, tell me their grades, assignments and everything,” Morgan said. “It’s just so much paper. So now I’m doing a Google Doc and it’s easier for them to just to do it on the computer and then send it right to me so I have it right then.”

Morgan is not the only one noticing a difference with the Special Education students.

“I have several of Mary’s students in my classes,” Cummins said. “They are finding it’s easier for them to remain organized.”

Cummins has also had several years of experience working with special education students.

"The computers," Cummins said, are “another tool for them. They are learning those coping skills so that they can find their avenues of success. Students across the board in our general education classes, they still have to learn about tools and the value of tools where our SPED kids recognize the value of tools right away because they have always needed them.”

To help pay for the computers, the Governor’s Office of Economic Development is giving $1.2 million to match the expected expenditures for Logan City School District.

Utah State's Human Library to come to Logan public Library

The Human Library is being held Wednesday to Saturday. It will give visitors a chance to have a conversation with an individual, which will have a story prepared, similar to a book. This is the first year the event was held at the Logan public library on Saturday.

“People have wanted to come, but it’s hard to get up here,” said Anne Hedrich, the librarian in charge of the Human Library. “They have to figure out transportation and everything. So if we can get it off campus and where people can have parking, then that’s really good. We’re excited.”

Hedrich said at first the Human Library seems like an odd concept.

“It’s so un-technological,” Hedrich said. “It’s just sitting down with a person and just talking with them and people who do it find out it’s a real joy. We don’t get a chance to do that as much, especially longer in-depth and really thoughtful conversations where you’re both searching to understand something and explore it.”

Jason Porter is one of the "books" that shared his story. He was sexually and physically abused from the ages of six to 16.

“There was absolutely nothing I could have done," Porter said. "In my situation if I would have come forward, I wouldn’t have been believed."

Porter said the reason he shares his story is to help those that might be going through something similar.

“My aunt sexually abused me and my stepdad would physically abuse me,” Porter said. “Once you get the mentality of being pushed down it was easier for them to be like, ‘Oh this isn’t a problem.’ My aunt started about when I was six, so way too young for me to know what’s going on.”

Aggie Blue Bikes gets a remodel

On Friday, Aggie Blue Bikes celebrated its 10th anniversary. For the occasion, it received a remodel. The shop was closed for bike operations and open to the public for people to take a look at the facilities and ask questions.

Stephanie Tomlin, the Aggie Blue Bikes program coordinator, said the remodel is finished as of Friday. They now have additional floor space, five tool boards and four mechanic benches.

“So we’re essentially doubling our operations,” Tomlin said.

Tomlin said the money that paid for the remodel came from a congestion mitigation air quality grant, which is federal money that’s available through the local CMPO, or the Cache Metropolitan Planning Organization. They applied for the grant to expand their operations, received it and finalized the grant in about 2014.

“Since then, I’ve been working on getting it to the local level,” Tomlin said.

“The space is awesome,"  said Erica Stephens, a student at USU. "There’s more space and space efficiency."

Stephen’s husband was a bike mechanic at Aggie Blue Bikes for some time. They would bring their bikes in to work on them.

“We rebuilt my mom’s bike together. So we have been associated with Aggie Blue Bikes for the past five, six years,” Stephens said.

“It’s supporting the bike community as a whole," Stephens said. "I can’t believe how many Aggie Blue Bikes I see out on the road and in town. It’s promoting more sustainable ways of transportation through Logan especially for students. Either you can pay a lot of money for a parking pass or you can be healthy and ride your bike to school."

Utah State's spirit squad maintains mascot's identity

In today's society where almost everyone has a camera in their pocket, Utah State University's spirit squad is taking stronger precautions to keep the identity of the school's mascot, Big Blue, a secret. The squad has to be careful that Big Blue isn't seen while in mid-costume.

"He can’t even be remotely caught with anything of his uniform removed or else it could be attached somehow to his identity and put up on social media," said Nicole Troumbley, the spirit squad coach.

There are at least two people with Big Blue at all times to make sure his identity is safe when he needs to remove his head to stay hydrated or go to a local event.

"We have to careful if any part of his gear is off," said Rachael Fox, a member of the spirit squad. "It's a really big deal that his identity is confidential, because keeping the secret is where the magic is for Big Blue."

Fox is asked about the identity of Big Blue every day.

"It depends if there's a game or if we're around school, but on average I get asked about it three to five times a day," Fox said.

With the previous two Big Blues graduating in spring 2015, there has been speculation as to the new identity of the mascot.

“The more careful we are about keeping his identity a secret, the more people ask and the more people want to know," Troumbley said. "We can kind of tell how well we are doing with keeping his identity a secret based on how many people ask.”