Our girl's basketball team had a tremendous basketball season! We are extremely proud of all the girls who played on our three teams this season. Our Girls 9th Grade A Team, under the leadership of Coach Mings, won the City Championship! Congratulations 9th grade girls! Our 7/8 Grade A Team, under the leadership of Coach Gonser, took 4th place in the City Championship competition. Great job girls! East’s 7/8 Grade B Team, under the leadership of Coach Johnson, had a great season and we are very proud of their accomplishments.

Have you heard your student talking about “Hornet Huddle”? Every day right before 3rd period, we have a 19 minute Hornet Huddle time. During our Hornet Huddle time, we focus on academic preparedness, reading, and building/growing positive relationships between staff and students. Over the next few Hornet Nations Newsletters, we will be going over our daily goals for our Hornet Huddle time (each day has a different focus) so stay tuned for more information regarding Hornet Huddle.

In this month’s newsletter, we wanted to share our overall goal for Hornet Huddle. During our World-Wide Pandemic, positive relationships between school staff and students are critical. Each student needs to have a go to staff member that they feel comfortable and safe to approach with any concern that may come up. The daily Hornet Huddle time is designed to build positive relationships between all students and staff. In August, we gave an anonymous survey to all of our students asking, “Do you know at least one adult at East who you feel comfortable talking to about your problems, concerns, or struggles?” Seventy-five percent of our students said “yes”. Our Hornet Huddle time is the perfect time to always keep building positive relationships between staff and students so when we give the one question survey again in May, the percentage of students having at least one adult as a go to person will be much higher.

To support our schoolwide AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) goals and to continually support college awareness for our students, we will begin having College Awareness Days every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month. On these days, staff and students are encouraged to dress in college wear from a favorite college. We begin this on January 12th!

Every month we focus on a specific Character Trait or Value as we hand out Hornet Cards and nominate Students of the Month. During our first semester, we focused on E.A.S.T. This stands for Excellence, Academics, Success, and Teamwork. Our character trait for January is Respect. We will be sharing through our school announcements what Respect means and looks like. Respect is being friendly, polite, and empathetic. You can show respect by listening actively and considering the points of view of others; acting appropriately in all personal interaction and communication; taking pride in yourself, school, and community; and acknowledging and understanding the opinions and feelings of others.