Early last October, Principal Dr. Kim Presko received the outstanding administrator award by the Missouri Council of Career and Technical Administrators (MCCTA). Presko was recognized for her continued support in both career education and technical education.

Jordan Smith, teacher and adviser of Darkroom Records, worked at Hickman, which contained a recording studio that produced student-written songs and instrumentals, inspiring Smith to bring the idea over to Battle as Darkroom Records East. This recording studio provides internships and a place to record and produce music influencing career education because this grows the people who will go into it if they are exposed to what the process is like.

Smith commented, “She has two hats that she primarily wears. She has her ‘this is the hat I wear while I’m here and interacting with students’, and ‘this is the hat that I wear while interacting with my staff’. She doesn’t keep things from us and I really respect that. It’d be really easy for a person in her position to be really cagey and hold things close to the hip.”

Michael Bostwick spoke about Eureka High School which had a class called the Amped Program, this has students using Algebra I and Production and Design classes produce a t-shirt and sign business. Bostwick recalled Presko bringing it up to take a trip to look into bringing the class here. A majority of the math teachers traveled to Saint Louis to Eureka High School to learn more about it. This class shows the technical side and career side, by opening up job opportunities after graduation like managers, and accounting. The program was successfully brought to Battle and it’s experiencing its first year here.

    “Part of it was that it’s cool to be a part of something new. I wanted to teach high school, I’d been teaching junior high and it was an opportunity to do that and to help a new building develop the culture they would have,” Bostwick said about joining the Battle staff when the new school opened, “A teacher that I respect most that I had worked with several years in Oakland, I asked her if she would teach with Dr. Presko again, and without a breath, she said ‘yes of course,’ and that was another reason I came here to work with Dr. Presko because she had a good reputation for being a good leader.”

      Presko said it’s not all for one, but one for all. She points out that she doesn’t make this school great, the school makes her great by everyone putting in hard work to make it that.

    “They (students, and teachers) are not because of me, they are because of us, and that’s everybody. That’s the students, the teachers, the support staff, our help from other schools. It’s not something one person can have influenced, it’s all of us. I think that’s what makes Battle such a special place, because it’s about everybody working together. My goal is if I left this place should still thrive,” Presko said.