Welcome to Baird ISD, home of the Bears. Thank you for taking the time to find out more about our school and the many excellent programs we have available for our students. Baird ISD is a wonderful place to educate a child. This environment is made possible by the tremendous parent and community support for our schools, as well as by a hardworking and dedicated staff.

On Thursday April 12th the Spanish 3 class at Baird High School, consisting of Cheyenna Grissom, Brenna Coffman, Hanna Owens, Jacklyn Brasuell, Amber Collins, Taylor Harris, Davis Camacho, Candis Gilley, Letty Hernandez, Kallie Pruett, Rachel and Alex Villareal, Espie Portillo and Justina Brasuell participated in the KC3 international videoconferencing competition. KC3 stands for Kids Creating Community Content. Baird competed as a first year participant and will find out if they placed or even won the competition on Friday May 11th.

The students put weeks of time and work into providing an educational lesson on the cultural tradition of “Dia de los Muertos” or Day of the Dead. This lesson was taught on May 12th to a small group of middle school students in Montana. While the Montana students were participating and interacting live with the Spanish 3 students at Baird an additional recording of the lesson was being made to later be viewed by the panel of judges.

After many successful practice sessions prior to the big day the students knew they were ready. They had history, photos, culture, a self choreographed dance with costumes and the traditional “altar” in the classroom to explain to the students. Saving the best for last, “La Danza de los Viejitos”, or the dance of the Little Old Men, the students were relieved to have the presentation almost over. All was going great and then one of the students noticed a small fire on the altar. I was in charge of the camera at this point and had not noticed the fire until it began to spread across the front of the altar and down to the floor. The girls continued to dance as Brenna saved the sombrero from the flames with her cane. Smoke and ashes began to spread as I and several others attempted to put the fire out with bottled water; all the while the girls continued to dance until the end of the music.

Needless to say our middle school audience in Montana found all of this very exciting. They said they had seen the dance performed before but never was it quite as exciting as our performance! The Baird 3 Spanish students learned on Friday May 11th that they were the FIRST place winners in the High School competition for new schools competing. Congratulations Baird High School.