September 2023 News
Elkhorn High School
From the Desk of Mark Schroeder, Principal
Parents and Guardians of EHS Students,
I hope that your students and families are now starting to feel settled back into the routine of a school year. From my office, the year has started extremely well, and I believe this trend will continue. I am proud of our students, our parents, and our community for the continued support of our teachers, coaches, and sponsors. It is evident our students want to be here and I know much of this is driven by tremendous support at home. On behalf of our team, thank you for your continued support as we continue in our efforts to provide the highest quality education in the state!
My theme with our staff this year is a focus on teacher and student efficacy. I want my teachers to know that their skill can make all the difference for a struggling student. Equally important: I want our students to believe in their own ability to succeed in rigorous courses as well as in life when they leave our halls. There are a number of methods we employ to ensure this is happening at EHS. We look weekly, sometimes daily, at student data to ensure our curriculum is appropriately challenging and meeting the needs of our students. Annually, we eagerly await the ACT Report and the Advanced Placement (AP) scores that are released in late summer to early fall. These measures are not the only feedback we study, but we believe these are important indicators in judging the effectiveness of our academic programs at the high school and are meaningful to our students.
We are waiting on full ACT Reports as of the moment I type this, and when the Graduating Class of 2023 Report is released, I will be sure to discuss this in a future newsletter. I am confident that our most recent graduates will again prove the level of preparedness EHS has consistently historically produced.
Below I have listed our full work of AP Course offerings. Our goal is to do what other schools refuse to do - to blow the doors open to Honors and AP Coursework. Far too many schools put limits on what courses students can take because of the title of a class, which we refuse to do. Our goal is to push all students into four years of core and as many rigorous courses as possible. Certainly, EHS prides itself on strong ACT results but what is more important to me is the product that ACT score brings with it: open doors after high school. We know more than 90% of our graduates plan to attend a post-secondary institution - and I believe we have an obligation to make them ready to succeed at the next level.
AP Course Offerings:
AP Science Courses AP Math Courses AP English Courses AP Social Science Courses AP World Language Courses AP Biology AP Calculus AB AP English Language and Composition AP World History AP Spanish Language and Culture AP Chemistry AP Calculus BC AP English Literature and Composition AP US History AP French Language and Culture AP Physics 1 AP Statistics AP Psychology AP Japanese Language and Culture AP Computer Science A AP US Government and Politics
AP Courses are designed to give students college level experiences while in the supportive environment of high school and research clearly supports students taking the most appropriately rigorous courses in high school to prepare for college. In essence, one of EHS’s goals is for students to not only gain admittance into college, but to achieve at high levels once there. We believe there is a substantial difference between being college eligible and college ready!
Notes and Reminders:
-Picture retake day for LifeTouch - anyone who needs a retake or did not take one at the Back to School event - is Tuesday 9/19. Seniors, please take a picture for both Powerschool and student records.
-Homecoming Week:
-Will be held the week of 9/18-9/23.
-The EHS Homecoming Dance will be held from 8pm-11pm at EHS (indoors) on Saturday 9/23.
-Any student looking to bring an outside date will need to complete the Outside Date Form (will be mailed as we get closer to the Homecoming date) by Thursday 9/21 - returned to Mr. Givens. More information to come on this.
Career Awareness message from Mrs. Buurman:
Annually EHS strives to have students ready for life after high school and we aim to have all kids college ready, even if they ultimately choose a different path. In recent years, Elkhorn has enhanced our Career Awareness Program and I'd like to share with parents what our students recently discussed in Teacher Advisor Period. Please see the message and video below from Ms. Buurman, EPS Career Awareness Coordinator.
We figure out what our favorite foods are by experiencing them. The best way to figure out if we'll enjoy a career is also by experiencing it! To help your daughter/son make better informed decisions about their future, check-out this VIDEO to learn more about the opportunities your daughter/son has to explore careers while in high school!
Please contact Ms. Buurman (dbuurman@epsne.org) or your student's guidance counselor with any questions.
Upcoming Dates to Know:
-M 9/4: No School - Labor Day
-T 9/19: Picture Retake Day at EHS
-S 9/23: EHS Homecoming 8-11pm (more info to come)
-T/W 9/26-27: 2:20 Dismissal - Parent Teacher Conferences
-Th/F 9/28-29: No School
Thank you, we are off to a great start, and I hope you have a happy Labor Day Weekend!
Mr. Schroeder
District Reminders from Elkhorn Public Schools
TeamMates of Elkhorn: Call for Mentors
TeamMates mentors spend 30 minutes a week leaving a positive impact that lasts a lifetime. Please consider volunteering your time to meet the growing need for mentors across our District. Apply now by clicking here!
TeamMates and Runza Day! .
Text "Yes" to 67587 for timely notices of important information.
GUARDIAN EMAIL SUMMARIES (Google Classroom Notifications)
As a guardian, you can get email summaries about your student’s activity in Classroom. Email summaries do not include grades. For grades, ask your student or contact the teacher.
In email summaries, you can review:
Missing work—Work not turned in when the summary was sent
Upcoming work—Work that’s due today and tomorrow (for daily emails) or that’s due in the upcoming week (for weekly emails)
Class activities—Announcements, assignments, and questions recently posted by teachers
If there’s no activity to report or if a teacher turns off email notifications, you might not get an email summary.
Get email summaries
To get weekly email summaries of your student’s work, you must accept an email invitation. You can unsubscribe from summaries or remove yourself as a guardian at any time. NOTE: You can choose to receive daily email notifications if you sign in with an existing Google Account.
You’ll receive an invitation email if at least one of your students' teachers has enabled the Guardian Summary feature.
NOTE: Guardian email addresses come from PowerSchool. If you would like to change where these emails are sent you must contact the building to have your email address changed in PowerSchool. A guardian email change in PowerSchool will also change the email in School Messenger.
Click ACCEPT from within the email.
You will be directed to a webpage with a message to ACCEPT that looks like the following.
Take special notice of the email address displayed before clicking ACCEPT. The address may not match the original email you used in step 2 above. This is because you are logged into a Google Chrome browser with the account displaying in the above message.
TO FIX THIS: Open a new Chrome browser in guest mode or use a different browser (Edge, Safari, Firefox) and start the process over. You can NOT use a student Chromebook as it will add the students email address to receive summaries. If you did the above steps and it prompts you to log in, to a Google account or get a message that says “Invitation Invalid” complete this form and we will send you a new invite.
Click ACCEPT to confirm.
When you accept an invitation, your student will get an email confirmation (6-12 Grade only).
Click here for additional resources.