Talk:West Aurora High School

Principal

It seems an update is needed for the principal, on Mr. Glimco's transfer to a different district. The new principal is Dan Bridges, I believe. 76.223.171.58 17:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

As a student at West I can say for certain that the principal is Dan Bridges.

Alright, I'll make sure it is changed (can't remember seeing if it was changed or not). Thank you for a concensus. And oh yeah, '09! FlyingIsFun1217 14:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC) :)

Update "Roll On..."

As a current member of the WAHS Marching band and Pep band, I love the idea of being able to listen to the school's fight song that somebody placed on here, but my question is: Does anybody have a better quality version of the song that the could place here? This one was very obviously (at least for me, since I've heard it about a million times...) recorded at a football game. If there is any way to record it when we play for the basketball team, it would most definitely have a better quality to it.  :)

Thanks! FlyingIsFun1217

Actually, as stated in the notes, it was taken from a CD of music recorded at Band O Rama in 2005. The recording was provided by Mr. Glimco, and was better than a cassette recording I had from the 2001 Band O Rama (also courtesy Mr. Glimco, which had the usual tape hiss). It would actually be better to probably find some way of digitally recording the band somewhere within the building OTHER than the Gym, which has awful acoustics. --JohnDBuell 01:55, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I cant believe that was from a band-o-rama cd (or was it a cd?). As far as the gym goes, it does have very bad acoustics, but then again, so does the auditorium. I'll see if I cant get a better sounding recording some time. --FlyingIsFun1217

It was off of a CD, but I don't know what methods were used to get it to the CD (i.e. if the original recording device was analog or digital). It could have been an ADD or AAD process. And oddly I was going to suggest a recording out of the auditorium such as is done at the beginning of every school year for "kick off" for the teachers and staff, a couple of days before classes start - but you'd have to get a copy of that video (if there was one this year) from the District's Public Relations department. --JohnDBuell 00:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

No sort of "kick-off" was done this year (that I know of, and believe me, I would). Come time for basketball season when the band practices, I'll see if I can get a recording :)--FlyingIsFun1217

Yes I didn't recall hearing even part of the band there this year, though I wasn't there for the entire ceremony. They HAD been there in past years, go figure. Again though, you might want to use the rehearsal rooms over the Gym, and get a digital stereo recorder from somewhere if you can.... --JohnDBuell 16:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Apparently a friend of mine who is also in the band ordered a CD of some recordings, so I'll see if I can't get that copy. --FlyingIsFun1217 18:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

User Dispute

Alright listen here JohnDBuell, it isn't very nice of you to keep erasing my messages. How would you feel if I erased yours? I bet you'd feel pretty bad. So please, stop erasing my messages. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.79.197.128 (talk • contribs) 21:23, 12 November 2006.

If mine violated policies, someone would be within their rights to delete them. Yours have continually violated WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, and one could argue that you have also violated WP:SOCK due to multiple postings violating the first two policies that in turn come from multiple anonymous accounts, logged by their IP addresses. If you'd like to make contributions to the future, including contributions to actual articles, please make sure you've read over policies and are familiar with them. --JohnDBuell 03:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

motto

As someone who graduated from WAHS less than a year ago, I know for a fact that the motto is not "roll on, you Blackhawks roll." That is the chorus from the school fight song. Likewise, the motto is not "West is best" or "And in Aurora, West is best" because that's what they would end the daily PA announcement with. I am going to have to look this one up or ask a current student, because I honestly can't remember. AscendedAnathema 05:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Quoting Mary Tracey (and the secretary to the last few principals that the building has had should know):

John, I can't really say how "official" 'West is Best' actually is, but I do know that even the district uses it in one form or another.

So I would say that it's the best 'official' 'unofficial' motto that the school has, and stick with it. --JohnDBuell 03:18, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

mascot

The mascot issue: Chief Black Hawk, not the Blackhawks, is the subject of the homecoming story told each year. He is also referred to on the WAHS website as the mascot.

And for a few years they wouldn't tell this at all, and instead used WA-Man and WA-woman. If the chief is the mascot, then why are the teams the "Blackhawks", plural? Provide me a page/link, please. --JohnDBuell 11:39, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You said yourself that they are referring to Chief Blackhawk, "(The school goes by "Blackhawks" but insists it has to do with Chief Blackhawk, not the Blackhawk tribe. Go figure. See the school's page if you don't believe me)" Also, the team name is the Blackhawks, but that doesn't mean that the blackhawks are the mascot? Chief Blackhawk is depicted on the stadium, for goodness sake.

Look, general practice is to use the team name for the mascot. The principal greets students with "Good Morning, Blackhawks." Batavia's page is the Bulldogs, despite the fact that they too, have a costume. The University of Illinois lists the Fighting Illini, NOT Chief Illiniwek (who it sounds like will be retired after this year anyway). Purdue University lists Boilermakers, NOT the Boilermaker Special, the official University Mascot NOR Purdue Pete, the official Mascot of Purdue Athletics. Compare this to any other high school page ANYWHERE on Wikipedia. The TEAM name is used, NOT the name of ONE SYMBOL. Leave it. --JohnDBuell 13:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Skip it. Have it both ways. What a stupid thing to have an edit war over. --JohnDBuell 13:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Official district websites

The whois information is out of date, as Paul Byrd is no longer with the West Aurora public schools, but the official domains are sd129.org, d129.org, sd129.net (not in use) and d129.net (redirects to sd129.org). westaurorabaseball.com is only semi-official. It was registered by and run by one of the coaches, and it is currently linked from the official pages by the district's webmaster, but one of the district's plans is to move all athletics and activities onto their own pages on the official district website. I think it's overkill to add links to individual sports teams or activities, when they aren't that hard to find in their respective categories on the master website. --JohnDBuell 04:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

2nd High School to do Miss Saigon in Illinois...

...after Whitney Young Magnet High School, Chicago (CPS District #299). For proof, see [1] and click on the What's New or Gallery pages. Sorry if I burst any bubbles, but I'd told Donna the rights were available and WY was doing it already.... --JohnDBuell 14:04, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know who the vandal is, but I had a conversation about this with Donna Letzter, and she and I agreed that the current phrasing in the article (that WAHS is the first to perform the musical, fully staged) is correct, technically. It cannot be denied that WY performed music from the show in concert, their own website (linked above) says as much. --JohnDBuell 14:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Enrolment

The Enrolment at West as of the 06 - 07 yearbook is 3,303 not 3,292. The yearbook does, however, say that there were 1,042 Freshman, 819 Sophmores, 657 Juniors, and 640 Seniors. Those numbers add up to 3,158. Those numbers may both be inaccurate because when I learned my class rank I was ranked out of 1,072 Freshman not 1,042. The best estimate that I can give is probably about 3,300. The incoming freshman class is huge so it may even be more than that.

What Not To Include

I just went through and deleted any students and/or staff. Please read WP:SCH#WNTI, which is a part of the WikiSchools Project that deals specifically with what not to include in school articles. Students and staff are not to be mentioned, unless they are somehow noteworthy for something beyond just being a student or staff member (the subject of significant coverage in third party sources). Hapy editing! LonelyBeacon (talk) 22:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Links to sd129.org

There was a robocall placed today to all residents of the West Aurora School District, informing them that sd129.org has been revamped, and is going to be relaunched over this weekend. That probably breaks a LOT of links to the official district website. Someone will likely want to go through the article and either see if they've been archived through something like the Wayback Machine, or if the same information has a new location on the new district website. --JohnDBuell (talk) 01:12, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

What an encyclopedia is and isnt.

An encyclopedia by defininition is two things: Tertiary and neutral. It appears over time some have developed the notion that this article is for the promotion of the school. It is not. The edits Grayfall made today were approopriate, but not drastic enough. JohnDBuell refering to prior edits as vandalism was highly WP:UNCIVIL and indicative of an attitude of WP:OWN. This article is nothing resembling neutral and very little of it is tertiary. This will begin to change and soon. Please if you wish to edit this page make yourself aware of the policies on verifiability, burden, the BRD edit model and the school article guidelines. Thank you. John from Idegon (talk) 23:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. I was mainly alarmed by the use of the term vandalism. The original edits (made by an admin, no less) were reasonable and fairly tame compared to what's called for. I retained a bit about the mascot controversy, since it seemed like something that could plausibly have sources. This Highbeam article might be one of them, but I don't have access to it. Lacking sources, its removal seems entirely justified. I think the music file is a nice touch, and it seems to me to be on the same scale as photos or logos or whatever. It appears to be having copyright problems, though, and again, I can see a strong case for its removal, so I'm not fighting to keep it in. Grayfell (talk) 00:12, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

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