Wildcat Press Newsletter
Feb 14, 2021 Vol. 28
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Principal's Message
Hello Wildcat Pride,
Whew! I feel like we are really starting to pick up momentum and get back into the groove here of Mesquite High School. Spirit week this week was a success, culminating with a virtual pep-assembly and music at lunch on Friday. It was fun to see all the students starting to re-engage with one another. We had kids playing football and knocking a volleyball around. We kids dancing socially distanced of course. You saw small groups sitting in circle sharing and laughing. It truly gave me hope that our students are starting to socially and emotionally heal from the Covid 19 hibernation.
4 1/2 week grades posted on Wednesday so please check on your students grades. We are still working to rebound from the hybrid time, unfortunately many students believed that they didn't need to work on the days they were not in school. I also want to encourage you to watch your students if they have on line classes. They need to be putting in an hour a day of work on those classes. We have many kids who are being dropped for non-attendance, because they are not logging in daily and putting in seat time. I realize they may be done with their work, however they still need to be logged in according to the state to get credit.
Looking forward to the next few weeks, be aware that testing season is right around the corner, please encourage your students to give maximum effort.
Have a great week and we love your kids, thanks for sharing them with us!
Rod Huston
Principal
Mesquite High School
@MHSAZ_Principal
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MHS Administrative Team!
Mrs. Marguerite Brown
Assistant Principal
Activities and Clubs
Grade Level: Freshman
Juniors Last Name O-Z
@MHSWildcat_News
Mr. Rudy Alvarado
Assistant Principal
Athletic Director
Grade Level: Sophomores
Juniors Last Name E-N
@MesquiteAthDept
Mrs. Mitzi Escobar
Assistant Principal
Registration & Academics
Grade Level: Seniors
Juniors Last Name A-D
@Mhsescobar
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February Calendar
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Graduation Information
Class of 2021
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Wildcat Activities Announcement
Want to have a fun, socially distant evening watching a few of Mesquites finest compete for the title of Mr. MHS.
Well, you're in luck!!
On Thursday, February 18 at 7 pm Mesquite's nominations for Mr. MHS go head to head in a fierce competition.
If you would like to reserve a seat to please click here.
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Wildcat Counseling
Attention Juniors!
The deadline to apply is March 24th.
ACT TEST - JUNIORS
AP Exam Registration for Spring Semester Classes
For students who are interested in taking AP exams for AP Government and/or AP Economics spring semester classes, the deadline to register for the AP exams is Friday, February 26th. The cost of the AP exam is $99.00. Click here for instructions to register for the AP exam(s).
Students may still register for any other AP exam until February 26th, but there is an additional $40 late fee per exam for first semester and year-long classes.
Taking the Advanced Placement exams is an important part of all AP courses. Mesquite High School desires that all students take AP exams for the AP classes that they have taken. Scoring well on an AP exam can often earn students college credit for their high school class, saving a significant amount on tuition.
Online Classes
If your student is taking an asynchronous online course through Global Academy, they need to be sure to log in to the course EVERY school day and spend at least 30 minutes logged in and working on the course. This is a state requirement for attendance. If they do not log in every school day, Global Academy will drop the course, which can result in having to start a course over from the beginning and/or being put on a waitlist because the class is now full.
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Academic Support
Peer Tutoring
PEER TUTORING is available during both lunches on TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS (10:30-11:00 and 11:55-12:25) in the MHS Career Center. No appointment is needed; come on in!
Attention Seniors!
Assignment Tracker
Click here for an Assignment Tracker to list your missing assignments/quizzes/tests and catch up in your classes (you will need to make a copy of the Assignment Tracker in order to enter your information, or you can print a copy).
Counselor Appointments
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Scholarship Highlight of the Week - Marine Corps Scholarship
The Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation Application for the 2021-22 academic year is now open and will close on March 2, 2021. They are eager to get the word out to as many Marine Corps families as possible. The Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation provides scholarships to eligible children of Marines and Navy Corpsmen, Chaplains, and Religious Program Specialists. These scholarships are for children pursuing a post-secondary education at any accredited school—whether that be a trade school, career training school, community college, or four-year university. All applicants must meet eligibility requirements which can be found at www.mcsf.org/eligibility.
To apply, please visit www.mcsf.org/apply.
Nina Scholars Scholarship Opportunity
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ARIZONA COLLEGE CONSORTIUM VIRTUAL COLLEGE FAIR
Thursday, February 18, 2021
8:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Check out this college fair!! Go online and register. There are over 30 different colleges.
Achieving a College Education
Earning College Credit in High School
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Message from our Athletic Director
Spring Season
March 1st is the start to our Spring season! In order to participate in tryouts, students need to be cleared in Register My Athlete prior to tryouts. In order to be cleared for tryouts, we need a physical as well as a certificate of completion for the Brainbook course uploaded into www.registermyathlete.com. For links to physical forms and brainbook, click HERE. If there are any questions about the requirements, please have your student swing by the athletics office and we'd love to help them out.
If you visit www.mesquitewildcats.com you can find coach contact information if you have particular questions about their program. Simply click on Spring Sports, choose your sport and you'll be able to find an email address for our head coaches. Thank you!
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Black History Month
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 - 2000)
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Health Office Hotspot
HEALTH OFFICE HOTSPOT - AH AH AH CHOO!
Allergies, flu, Covid ... they all seem to have the same symptoms and can be difficult to determine the difference. Below is a simple chart to help determine what your child may be experiencing. As you can see, there are many of the SAME symptoms. If your child has seasonal allergies, please make sure he/she is taking their medication like they need to so symptoms are reduced. If the symptoms do not improve, or there are new symptoms that arise, we ask that you keep your student home from school and seek the proper treatment and follow up with your medical provider. As always, we want ALL of our students to be in class and on campus. You can help achieve this goal by keeping your student home when not feeling well. If you have any questions, we are here to help.
A healthy WILDCAT is a happy WILDCAT! GO CATS GO!!!!
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SAFETY AND SECURITY
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WILDCAT WELLNESS
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Mrs. Mims is a Licensed Master Social Worker and the School Mental Health Counselor here at Mesquite High School. She is responsible for providing individual and group mental health counseling support which is skills based activities and social-emotional learning support, and at times might include crisis prevention and intervention.
These Mental Health Counselor and Social Work Support Services are FREE and offered in hopes of assisting students become resilient, successful learners and gain positive personal and social competencies. Mrs. Mims can also help provide families support by connecting them with resources in the community such as outside therapies, local food pantries, housing assistance, and more.
If you’d like to learn more about how Mrs. Mims can help support our wildcats and their families during the school year, check on her google page here: https://sites.google.com/gilbertschools.net/megan-mims-lmsw-cctp/home or email her at Megan.Mims@gilbertschools.net if you have questions or concerns!
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Resilient AZ Crisis Counseling Program
Assists individuals recovering from the psychological effects of the coronavirus pandemic, through outreach, emotional support, and educational services. All services are free and confidential. For individual/family services, 480.736.4978 or email CCReferrals@lafrontera-empact.org, and for group services contact 480.694.4436 or email Krylyn.Peters@lafrontera-empact.org
The program is federally funded through FEMA and SAMHSA, with the goal of providing emotional support, education, and outreach to Arizonans dealing with the psychological impact of the pandemic.
As part of that goal they are offering monthly workshops and groups through the end of May 2021. We also provide individual services. Of particular interest to the people you work with, we have the following scheduled:
- Parenting Skills Group (4-week group in February)
- Tips to Handle Pandemic Stress Workshops (English version 2/25/21 and Spanish version 2/16/21)
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MHS Book Nook
If you are unable to get into BUZZ or Rapid Identity, please try to update your Chromebook, restart and then attempt to log in. You MUST log in through Rapid Identity to BUZZ.
DO NOT GOOGLE Rapid Identity! You will not get to where you are supposed to be.
Updating the Chrome OS on the student and teacher Chromebooks is CRUCIAL to everything working. Here are some simple steps.
Login to your Chromebook
Click on your icon/picture (lower right hand corner)
Choose Settings
Find "About Chrome OS" at the top of the page and click on it.
Click on Check for and apply settings and allow it to go from 0% to 100% and then the Restart button appears.
Restart ChromeBook and everything should be updated.
Restart your Chromebook often to allow AUTOMATIC updates to take effect.
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About MHS
Email: mhsinfo@gilbertschools.net
Website: https://www.gilbertschools.net/mesquitehigh
Location: 500 South McQueen Gilbert, AZ 85233
Phone: 480-632-4750
Twitter: @MHSWildcat_News