Friday's Thoughts
January 23, 2015
Thanks for everyone's hard work during the month of January. It has been a great month.
I am so excited for our school to see our graduation rate go up from 80% to 91%. Thanks for finding a way for our many students whose line to graduation might not always be straight. Your creativity and flexibility have made the difference.
Continue to remember that the safety of our school is the lifeblood of our school and community. It is everyone's responsibility to assist with the safe school atmosphere. Be observant and listen to our students. Almost always someone knows before a negative incident takes place. Let's be connected enough with our students that maybe we can head something off before it happens.
Do you have any broken windows in your area. Unclean classroom, little or no communication written about things they need to know in your classroom, long delays in returning work or grades, not starting class on time, not being prepared for class, no energy, too much lecture, too much technology, too much busy work, no relevance.......funny how students notice the broken windows before we do most of the time. People's behavior is affected by their environments. What type of environment are we creating?
Keep your communication alive with your students and parents. Parents want to hear from their teachers and coaches. They don't want to hear from the 2nd or 3rd party. It is important to hear from the leader.
I met with the registrars, counselors, BLT and the AP teachers to discuss ideas for possible 5 period day next school year. Nothing is in stone at this point so keep the discussion alive. Feel free to stop by and let me know your thoughts and suggestions.
The INOW student passwords seems to be going fine. I have not had any negative feedback, only positive.
We will reward our 155 students for perfect attendance for the 2nd 9 weeks on Wednesday, January 28th. I will have Zaxby's and a drink for these students. We will do this from 11:15-11:45.
Jan. 27 Progress reports during 1st
Jan 27 Departmental lunches
Jan. 27 Basketball home vs. Buckhorn
Jan. 28 Perfect attendance celebration 11:15-11:45
Jan 30 Basketball home vs. Grissom
Jan. 31 Football Banquet 6:00 p.m.
Jan. 31 Softball Auction 6:30 p.m.
Feb. 1 Comp Cheer Community Performance 2:30pm
Feb. 1-28 Black History Month Coach Orr leading some activities within our SS department
Feb. 5-9 Comp Cheer to Nationals
Feb. 4 and 6 Girls' basketball area tournament
Feb. 5 and 7 Boys' basketball area tournament
Feb. 4 Staff Meeting after school
Feb. 6 Assembly with Robert Smith- AM Activity Schedule-Teen Culture Specialist
Feb. 7 ACT
Feb. 13 Half-day for students/ PD for staff
Just some FYI........The baseball hitting building is under construction. Soccer has added fields and a new storage/concession building. Engineering academy is getting new laptop computers to run their needed software. This will free up the freshman lab. The softball field looks like a golf course. Go check it out. Coach Creasy has done a great job with the softball complex. It is clean as a whistle with no broken windows anywhere. Still waiting on money to develop dirt area between high school and elementary school. I hope it can give us another practice area for our students. Praying the new capital plan goes through that will add HGHS a new performing arts area with four new classrooms. That will put us right in line with 7A schools in the state.
I was blessed yesterday to get to hear US Army LTG Russel Honore. He is the guy that lead the evacuation of New Orleans after Katrina. He spoke to use about leadership. Really good!!!
Below is a tentative 5 period day schedule for 2015-2016
7:00 Zero Block Begins
8:00 Doors Open
8:20 Dismiss 10-12 to class/End Zero Block/Freshmen to Breakfast
8:30 10-12 Tardy Bell/Dismiss Freshmen to class
8:35 Freshmen Tardy Bell
8:35 – 9:55 First Block (80 minutes)
10:00 – 11:20 Second Block (80 minutes)
11:25 – 1:10 Third Block(105 minutes)
Lunch A 11:25 – 11:50
Lunch B 11:50 – 12:15
Lunch C 12:20 – 12:45
Lunch D 12:50 – 1:10
1:15 – 2:05 Fourth Block(50 minutes)