LHS Monday Memo
Week of 2/3-2/7
Good evening LHS family,
Students begin course scheduling this week. Course request sheets should be given out to students during advisory on Tuesday - they will be distributed Monday. These sheets will be used for student to plan their courses for next year plus we expect parents to review them with their child and sign them. Counselors will be visiting advisories to inform students about the process, as well as answer questions.
Superintendent Boyd will be in the house Monday, tomorrow afternoon to discuss the Strategic Planning process and is interested to hear your feedback. I hope you will be able to attend!
Incoming 8th graders will be visiting from the middle schools during one hour sessions Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We have current students participating and we really appreciate you allowing them to take part in these events.
As a reminder, a team of eight (Jeff Gwiazda, Robin Desmond, Elaine Santelmann, Michael Lovato, Linus Guillory, Melissa Newell, Phala Chea, Abbie Anderson) from central office will be joining department chairs and deans to participate in Instructional Rounds on Thursday. We will especially focus on the areas we've identified in our Turnaround Plan this year including; use of learning objectives, lesson structure (launch, explore, summary), formative assessments and student engagement. Each classroom visit will be approximately 20 mins. We plan to share a summary of what we observed.
On Tuesday evening there will be a LHS School Building Project Information Session at 6:00-7:00pm where the project team will share details on the phasing aspects of the project and how each incoming class of students will be affected. This should be a very informative session for all interested parents, students and staff.
New school stream posting - all interested teachers, please apply and inform your department chair
Three teachers per session: 1 Humanities, 1 Science, 1 Math
Math, ELA or Social Studies educators needed to teach after-school Credit Recovery sessions. Sessions in each core subject will be offered during Spring 2020. Teachers will prepare and run 6 hours of credit recovery sessions per cycle.
Department Chairs will create and grade all assignments
Career Day 1/28
Special thanks to Aaron Ribaudo-Smith and his collaboration with Project Learn to bring 58 career speakers to our students last week. Over 1,365 students were impacted, 65 classes participated. It was a great Lowell High School day which we hope to continue and grow for next year! Thanks Aaron and Project Learn!
Mock Trial 1/31
The members of the Defense Team included lawyers Stacia Lally, Nathalie Kim, Protitee Paromita, Katherine Aristizabal, Jheovanie Mikouanya and Emme Prum along with witnesses Amariah Amarantes, Kevin Truong, Andy Zheng. Nice work all!
Central Mass Show Choir Festival - Saturday, 2/1
Soundsations
Gold Medal
Best Show Design
Best vocals
Best Choreography
Best Band
Grand Champions!!!!! WOW!!!
Sound Impressions
Spirit Award (Awarded to the nicest, most respectful group of students) So awesome to hear this!
Silver Medal
2nd Runner Up
Important notes:
- Thank you for addressing food sales either to students, or by students during the school day. If clubs and activities need to raise money, items can only be sold before or after school. If you have any questions about this, please see me.
- Reminder: If you have copy machine concerns, please make sure these have been communicated through your house office and then onto Judy Geoffroy. If we don't know about it, we can attempt to get it fixed.
What's ahead:
Feb 3
Superintendent Strategic Planning Meeting after school - LT
Feb. 4, 5, 6
8th grade students will be coming to visit the Freshman Academy each morning
Feb. 4
Winter Concert 7:00pm Auditorium
Feb. 4
LHS School Building Project Information Session 6-7pm LT
Feb. 5 & 6
MCAS Biology re-test
Feb. 6
Instructional Rounds 11-2pm
Feb. 7
Honors Scholarship Applications Due
2020-2021 Course Scheduling Timeline
1/6
Teachers will begin to complete student course recommendations for the next school year✅
1/24
Teachers will complete student course recommendations ✅
2/3 - NOW
Student on-line request window opens (course planning worksheets will be given to all students through advisory),
2/7
Student on-line request window closes (course planning worksheets require parent signature), students will use the worksheets to complete required on-line requests,
2/10
Guidance will begin to review course requests and hold student group meetings,
3/20
Guidance review of student schedules and group meetings finished,
4/3
The magic of scheduling teachers, classrooms, courses, and students begins.
School Improvement Plan - Turnaround work
New Lowell High School Facebook Account
What the Tech!
from Malinda:
It is important that you do not use your exchange mail account as a storage space. Mailbox size is limited and once it is full, you will no longer be able to send or receive emails. In addition, keeping too many emails in your inbox makes it difficult to scroll or search when using the webmail app. Webmail will not load the contents of your entire mailbox. As you scroll down it triggers the app to load more mail which causes the list to jump.
It is much easier to move items out of your mailbox as you read them, than it is to go back days, weeks, or months later. The best place to store important emails and attachments is your Google drive. If you are set up properly, this process is quick and seamless. Another option is to set up saved searches in the mail archiver, which is a backup of your entire mailbox since the day your account was open. The archiver has improved greatly since its inception, making it a fantastic resource for searching old mail.
Would you like to learn more about anything mentioned above? Enter a help desk request for Technology Training/ITS or email helpdesk@lowell.k12.ma.us and I will set up a tutoring session with you.
Note: ACCESS is almost done so I will be able to get back to my favorite part of my job, helping all of you integrate technology to make your jobs more efficient. I apologize to anyone who has been waiting for a response to their tickets. I will be diving back into help desk requests this week!
I hope your week is goes exceptionally well,
Head of Lowell High School
Email: mbusteed@lowell.k12.ma.us
Website: lhs.lowell.k12.ma.us
Location: 50 Father Morissette Boulevard, Lowell, MA, USA
Phone: (978)937-8900
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lpsdlhs
Twitter: @lowellhighHOS