The Denair Unified School District will open its doors to parents and the community Thursday, May 4 with open houses at all its campuses as well as academic demonstrations and awards presentations.
“It’s all about exposure, especially for families who haven’t seen us before,” explained Superintendent Terry Metzger. “This is a great place to educate your children.”
Denair Charter Academy will be hosting a BBQ fundraiser to support their extracurricular activities. The BBQ is open to everyone and features a hamburger meal prepared by the DUSD Food Services team. The BBQ will be held at the DECA lunch shelter, behind the District Office.
5-7 p.m. – Classrooms will be open for all parents to meet and talk with teachers and observe various projects.
7 p.m. (in the DHS gym) – Annual awards presentation. More than 150 of the 275 students on campus will be honored. Honor roll awards based on grade-point average will be announced, students receiving scholarships will be recognized and those with perfect attendance will be celebrated.
In Christy North’s mind, her Denair boys volleyball team already is playing with house money. Devoid of expectations, a squad comprised of soccer players coming off back-to-back Section championships in that sport making the playoffs in an entirely new one is stunning … to everyone but themselves.
“They were coming off the playoffs in soccer, so they thought, of course we make the playoffs in volleyball,” North said. “They always thought they could get to that higher level.”
Such will be the case Tuesday night when Denair (6-5 overall, 4-2 in the Southern League) hops on a bus for a two-hour drive to Sacramento to face West Campus (18-13) in the first round of the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV tournament.
To say that the 12th-seeded Coyotes are underdogs against the No. 5 Warriors is a massive understatement. And yet, despite the odds, North said her players – most of whom are brand new to volleyball – refuse to believe they can’t beat anyone in anything.
“They’re never tense. They don’t get down on themselves,” she said. “They’re excited to be in this position, come what may.”
Denair qualified for the playoffs by winning its final match of the regular season against Orestimba last Tuesday. The Coyotes impressed North – who has coached boys and girls teams in Northern and Southern California for decades – with their consistent improvement this season. Skills such as jump serves, blocking, setting and passing were new to almost all of them a few months ago. And now, here they are in the postseason again.
“Here’s the thing: We’ll do what we do,” said North. “We need to go in and have fun, because the more relaxed we are, the better we play. I’m sure West has more experience. Maybe we can surprise them that first set. We’re scrappy and we’re enjoying ourselves and we’re having fun.”
The winner of Tuesday’s match will move on to the quarterfinals Thursday night in the 16-team bracket. Southern League champion Ripon Christian (21-5) is the No. 1 seed.
The boys on Denair’s two-time Sac-Joaquin Section Division VI soccer champions had so much fun competing as a team that even before their season ended in the NorCal playoffs in March, they decided to take up an entirely new sport – volleyball – just so they could stay together.
The athleticism and skill that has served the Coyotes so well on the soccer field the past two years appears to be translating to the court. Despite an entire roster of players brand new to volleyball, Denair will make the playoffs if it can knock off Orestimba at home Tuesday night in its final Southern League match of the regular season.
The quick success comes as a mild surprise to veteran volleyball coach Christy North, but not necessarily to her players, who have won 33 soccer matches playing together the past two seasons.
“Their expectations were always so much higher than mine, because they’re soccer champions,” North admitted. “The best thing about this team is they already were a team. They already trusted each other. They just needed to learn about to play volleyball.”
The idea of the soccer players transitioning to volleyball began with senior Tim Hernandez, the only player with previous volleyball experience. He has taken AP English from North the past two years, which is how he learned she needed players for the boys volleyball team. Hernandez recruited his friend Angel Sanchez, another senior. With the two of them onboard, most of the rest of the soccer team quickly followed their lead.
“I wanted to play volleyball last year, but the other guys wouldn’t commit,” said Hernsandez, who previously had played competitive volleyball in Cambodia, where his father was a pastor for five years. “But our entire soccer group is pretty tight, so when Angel and I committed as seniors, that convinced the others.”
That decision was made earlier this year, well before soccer season had ended.
After she found out the composition of her team, North quickly began arranging drills and lessons to introduce volleyball to boys who may have seen it played on TV, but barely knew the rules or any of the techniques of passing, serving, spiking and blocking.
“I would take the soccer players into the gym in seventh period and show them how to pass and how to serve,” North said. “But I was very careful. I didn’t want to jinx anything or get anyone hurt.”
In fact, the volleyball team’s first match had to be rescheduled because Denair had a NorCal soccer match the night before. The first time the Coyotes stepped on the floor in a real volleyball game was March 6 against Waterford.
“I didn’t know what it would be like,” North admitted. “They were confused with rotations a little, but I had drilled that into them. I didn’t want us to lose points by not being in the right spot. We ended up winning in three sets, but it was kind of chaotic.”
That positive start was followed, not surprisingly, by some growing pains. Still, the Coyotes are 5-5 overall and 3-2 in the Southern League with only Tuesday’s match against Orestimba remaining. Despite its lack of experience, Denair’s players still have enough natural athletic ability that they show measurable progress from practice to practice and game to game.
“We have guys like Angel who is a superior athlete,” North said. “He’s doing jump serves now. So are Tim, Manny (Renteria) and Nico (Zavala).”
The improvement was noticeable in Thursday night’s match against SL champion Ripon Christian, a school known for its dominance in volleyball. The Coyotes lost 3-0, but North saw signs her players could compete against a more talented team.
“The difference in speed is extraordinary between RC and us,” she said. “All their players play club volleyball. Still, we had some great moments. So we’re confident going into our match against Orestimba.”
No matter how the rest of this season plays out, North knows she has enough players already committed to field a team next year. That’s a change from 2020, when the season was wiped out by the COVID pandemic after just two matches, and the next two years, when there was no boys team.
This year’s team features five juniors, two sophomores, a freshman and just three seniors – all of whom are gaining valuable experience.
“Every single day that you see them play, you see them progress,” North said.
Hernandez believes playing volleyball has allowed him and his teammates to continue to enjoy their special bond.
“We just had to learn the fundamentals, like passing and hitting,” he said. “Mostly, we wanted to have fun. We’re a championship team and we hoped that would carry over to volleyball. We just like being together. Even the bus rides in volleyball are fun, just like in soccer.”
The petting zoo full of adorable young animals may have drawn the most oohs and aahs Thursday as Denair High School celebrated Ag Day, but there were plenty of other ag-related industries and potential career paths on display.
The annual event is intended to shine a light on the importance of agribusiness and all its facets in the community. It provides an opportunity for local businesses to educate students of all ages about the kinds of things produced and the many different kinds of local jobs that exist to support ag. It also is a chance for high school students to learn more about ag-related careers and for younger students to be exposed to what happens on the high school campus.
“It is an opportunity to expose the entire district to ag,” explained Holli Jacobsen, an ag teacher at Denair High and the event’s organizer.
Students from the other nearby Denair campuses – Denair Elementary Charter Academy, Denair Middle School and Denair Charter Academy – rotated to the grassy area behind the high school throughout the day. Music was playing as Denair High’s coyote mascot and another student dressed as the Easter Bunny kept everyone entertained while posing for photos with students on a beautiful, cloudless spring day.
The younger students arrived first one class at a time. Many were naturally drawn to the petting zoo, where young goats, calves, pigs and chickens were available to touch and see close up. Nearby were larger horses and show pigs as well as a dog that is part of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department K-9 Unit.
There also were three specific educational components to the event for elementary students.
Members of the high school’s Hispanic Youth Leadership Council (HYLC) presented a lesson in Spanish about almond trees to students who are in DECA’s dual-language immersion program.
High school FFA volunteers led a session on pigs and ear notching.
Another group showed youngsters how butter is made and gave them samples of local cheeses to taste.
There was plenty else to see among the 18 vendors, ranging from tractors to pickup trucks and large diesel semis to a local feed store, a farm credit agency, a farm irrigation company, an animal genetics business, a pallet company and many others. A few non-ag outfits also were present. In addition, there were representatives from a number of Denair High clubs and organizations offering information to middle school students.
The middle school and high school students also enjoyed a barbecue lunch prepared by the school district’s food services staff.
Across the country, March is Developmental Disability Awareness Month. It is an effort to raise awareness about inclusion and address the barriers people with developmental disabilities face to ensure everyone has equal access to opportunities in all aspects of life.
At Denair High School, a series of lunchtime activities last week gave students a closer glimpse into some of the challenges faced by their peers who are part of the special education program on campus.
For instance, on one day, students were asked to put marshmallows in their mouths, then try to talk to a friend. That was to give them a sense of what some of the non-verbal special ed students experience when trying to communicate.
Another challenge was attempting to pick up pennies or pencils off the ground wearing snow gloves. That was an effort to mimic the difficulties faced by those whose fine motor skills are compromised.
A third activity was to tape a yardstick to a student’s leg, then try to navigate stairs or sit down in a chair to better understand what students with physical disabilities go through each day.
There also were dress up themes throughout the week involving clothes, hats and sunglasses to celebrate diversity, acceptance, sensory sensitivities and the passion autistic students often feel for specific topics.
“The goal for the activities was to help other students see through the lens of some of their peers on campus that may deal with certain things they have never had to experience,” said Destiny Silva, who coordinates the Cup of Kindness Coffee Cart run by special ed students and also serves as their job skills coach.
Denair Superintendent Terry Metzger praised Denair High’s commitment to involving special education students in campus activities.
“The DHS staff, particularly those who work in the Project Life program, are champions for all students,” Metzger said. “Disability Awareness Month is a way for them to showcase what they do all year — help students embrace the things that make each person unique.”
Throughout last week’s various activities, Silva said she was reminded of the “amazing” campus culture of inclusiveness that already exists at Denair High, where special ed students routinely interact with their peers and staff.
“We have one of the most inclusive school districts I’ve seen,” she said. “We want everyone to recognize that inclusion is intentional. It is about identifying and removing barriers so that everyone can participate to the best of their ability.”
Still, Silva said that “we can always do more. We can always do better.”
“We will know ‘inclusive’ education has really become embedded in our school culture when the term becomes obsolete,” she said.
One idea for the future that Silva would like to promote is doing a weekly or monthly buddy partnership in which special ed students are paired with other Denair students.
“Whether that is our students having lunch with their high school buddy, doing an art project together to bond or playing games at lunch one day a week, I think that would be very beneficial and just one more step toward inclusion,” she said.
