Liberty Family Note
January 2018
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
Scott
Scott Kibby
Principal
Liberty High School
Iowa City Community School District
Liberty High School
Email: kibby.scott@iowacityschools.org
Website: https://www.iowacityschools.org/LibertyHS
Location: 1400 South Dubuque Street, North Liberty, IA, United States
Phone: 319-688-1350
Twitter: @LibertyHS_Kibby
Liberty's First State Championship
The Journalism Department needs your help
1) They need Senior photos by February 26th.
2) They are short homecoming dance photos. If you have candids from the event and/or coronation photos we'd love to get your photos. The yearbook staff was present but our software company did an update and some photos were lost, including those from homecoming. Thank you for your help
You can submit them electronically at oleson.ashley@iowacityschools.org
Finally, congratulations to Ms Oleson and her staff on the production of Liberty's first newspaper, "The Live Wire". Copies were distributed at school in mid-December and we hope your student brought one home to share with the family.
School Driving Permits
Liberty adds another new teacher
Parent Teacher Conferences are coming
PSTO has asked that I share the following link in their work to provide the teachers with a meal on this night. Thank you in advance for your help. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080a45a5a82fa6f85-teacherstaff
MLK Focus Day
Each school has the autonomy to design the day as they wish. At Liberty we have a lot of things going on during the day. Some highlights include but aren't limited to:
*Every student will hear Keynote Speaker, Patti Miller, who will share her experiences as a Freedom Rider in the 1960's.
Students will have choice in what we call Ed-Camp sessions in the general categories of:
1) College connections (3 choices)
2) Discussion based topics (15 choices)
3) Film and Media topics (5 choices)
4) Fine Arts and Active movement (6 choices)
5) Literature and Poetry (2 choices)
6) Service and Community Engagement (7 choices)
In the coming days your student will be getting a detailed description of all the sessions and an opportunity to choose the specific sessions they'd like to attend. Please have your students watch their school district e-mail accounts for this information.
The day is coming fast! Its a week away and so students will need to act quickly to sign-up for the sessions of their choosing. We look forward to beginning this tradition at Liberty.
Culture and Climate
1) Reduced class sizes with the addition of more teaching staff. We added .2 in Art, .8 in Social Studies, 1.0 in Math, .6 in English, .8 in Science and 1.0 in special education.
2) We've added office staff in an attendance secretary, a dean of students and a hall monitor since October 1
3) My Instructional Leadership team was meeting bi-weekly and we now meet weekly. Our focus is on instruction and learning. The three study nights we've had in the evenings is an initiative from ILT. The next STUDY NIGHT is Tuesday January 23rd from 4:15-5:30.
4) A subset of our staff is receiving Implicit Bias training from West Wind Education. The goal is for this core group to be the next wave of trainers for the rest of the staff.
5) Equal Opportunity Schools is working with Liberty and other IC schools to increase course enrollment in AP courses across all demographics. Student's took a survey in the fall and we have those profile cards now and we will be using them to connect with students and their interests.
6) We have begun a Diversity Speaker Series for students. We've had 3 speakers to date and Mr Stacey Walker will be visiting us in January.
7) We've held class meetings with all Liberty students focusing on growing toward High School maturity, our new cell phone policy, our increased attention to attendance and simply being kinder to one another.
8) I continue to seek professional guidance. Mrs Jen Lindaman was a huge help for me in planning for Liberty as she opened Ankeny Centennial. Now that Liberty is opened I've transitioned my mentoring focus from building and filling it with stuff to living in Liberty with students and staff. To that end, district mentor Ben Mosher meets with me monthly and I have begun a new relationship that I'm very excited about with Jimmy Casas. Jimmy was the former principal at Bettendorf High School, is currently a national speaker and writes educational books around culture and climate. He has already visited Liberty once and will continue to mentor me on this journey.
I believe strongly that if the Adults in the building are committed to learning and growth that it has a huge benefit for the school as a whole. I've always been one to soak up more information, but additionally, I'm trying to model being a life long learner.
9) Student planners are coming soon to help with organization.
10) Staff and students continue to emphasize the positive as well.
a) Every locker had a positive post it note placed on it in the fall.
b) We had positive messaging on a weekend Sidewalk Chalk it day.
c) We have sent over 1000 positive postcards out.
d) 318 positive candycane grams were distributed by Best Buddies.
e) The PBIS team gave every staff member coupons in the last week of classes and gave them to students caught doing the "right" things. Students could redeem those for various food or clothing items.
We know that improving climate is an on-going process and we are committed to that work.
Exploring AP and College Credit Options
On Tuesday, January 9th we will be at Northwest Junior High in the Auditorium at 6pm
and
On Thursday, January 11th we will be here at Liberty in our Auditorium at 6pm
Please mark your calendars for one of the two dates so that we can give you more information about what is available to Liberty students academically in these programs.
A Year of Firsts
We had our first victories in Wrestling, Boys Basketball and Girls Basketball.
We held our first winter concerts in Band, Orchestra, Vocal Music and Show Choir.
We have talented kids spread throughout so many activities and clubs at Liberty and I love watching them perform and compete.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the great job our cheerleaders are doing supporting our teams and competing as well. And don't forget that even though Liberty doesn't have its own teams in bowling and swimming we have many talented students in these coop programs at West and City. These athletes are actually very close to their championship seasons at the end of January. So, we wish them well as they work toward their peak performance seasons