Viking Voyage
November 30, 2022
How to Get Your Second Semester Schedule!
Students’ 2nd semester schedules will be available to view in Parent Portal on Friday, December 2nd after 4:30pm. If you are unable to view your student’s schedule, this may be due to having an outstanding fee that must be paid through Rycor Student Quick Pay prior to the release of the schedule. Please have your student check their schedule carefully so that they follow the correct schedule when we return from Winter Break in January! If you or your student believe there is a scheduling error, please have your student come to the counseling office to pick up a Schedule Correction Form. All forms are due back to the counseling office with a parent/guardian signature by Friday, December 9th.
Fall Final Exam Schedule
Semester Exam Make-Ups
Should your child miss an exam due to illness or extenuating circumstances, please reach out to the teacher and your child's alpha Assistant Principal as soon as you are able to reschedule the exam. Exams can be taken earlier if needed and will be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. If a student misses an exam, they will be expected to take the exam(s) on January 3, 2023 before students return to school.
Melissa Bettge (A - D)
Megan Armstrong (E - K)
Justin Penio (L - Q)
Reuben Davis (R - Z)
Industries Academy Tour at the Collin College Technical Campus
Interested in acquiring knowledge and skills for success in high-wage, high-demand career fields? The Plano ISD Industries Academy is a two-year program open to incoming juniors who would like to pursue a path in career areas such as advanced manufacturing, architecture and construction, and science, technology, engineering, and math. Through Collin College workforce dual credit courses, students will have the opportunity to earn industry-based certifications, acquire skills to meet workforce needs, and become prepared to join tomorrow’s job market. For more information, visit www.pisd.edu/industriesacademy or join a tour of the Collin College Technical Campus on December 1 from 6:30-7:30 p.m at 2550 Bending Branch Way, Allen, TX 75013. Please let us know if you are interested in attending the tour here.
Spring Musical Auditions!
Auditions and Tech Sign-ups for the Vines Spring Musical - The Drowsy Chaperone - are now live!
The Drowsy Chaperone pays tribute to the Jazz-age shows of the 1920s and the power those shows held to transport us into a dazzling fantasy and to lift our spirits in times of sadness. The audience is greeted by the narrator, Man in Chair, sitting on a darkened stage. He is a fan of vintage musicals who seems to be suffering from free-floating depression, and he quickly decides to cheer things up by playing a record of the original cast recording of a (fictional) Broadway musical entitled "The Drowsy Chaperone".
No sooner has the needle touched the record than we, together with the narrator, are transported to a 1928 Broadway theater and into "The Drowsy Chaperone", a play-within-a-play crammed full of every cliché, gag and gimmick from the golden age of musicals.
Auditions will occur after school on Wednesday, December 7th by time slot. Callbacks will take place on Thursday, December 8th from 4:30 to approx. 6:00 PM. Students will need to prepare 2 1-minute contrasting monologues that show off their skills as an actor, along with preparing the first verse and chorus of America the Beautiful to sing acapella. More information and sign-ups can be located by visiting this Google Form: https://forms.gle/vxUfjWF8e39PHCPU7
We're also looking for ALL areas of Tech for the show - Stage Management, Sound, Lights, Set, Paint/Build, Costumes, Hair & Makeup. Crew Signups are live until Friday, December 9th. Sign up here: https://forms.gle/NkadMo489NEqigiX8
Show dates are March 23, 24 and 25
Stop by the Theatre Room (C117) or email Brittany.Wehman@pisd.edu for more information!
Vines Thespian National Qualifiers!
I wanted to share some exciting news with the Vines Fam!
Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to some of the hard work our students have been up to over the last few days at the State Thespian Festival - several of our students competed in performance and tech events, and two of our Sophomores qualified for the National Thespian Festival with their Duet Musical number - Reagan Huffstutler and Jacob Laury!
We also had several former Vikings qualify including June Dalehite, Mirabai Munton, Gretchen Coppedge, Riley Hughes, Avery Newberg, Alina Melcer, Ryan Kimble and Zara Lone. These kids are doing incredible things and representing excellence of not only our school, but our Central Cluster Theater Troupe! We even tied for most entries breaking into Nats! Go Troupe 844!
- Bri Wehman
Stuco Blanket Drive
Vines Tutorial Schedule
Admin and Counseling Contact Info
Mrs. Bettge: melissa.bettge@pisd.edu
Mrs. Armstrong: megan.armstrong@pisd.edu
Mr. Davis: reuben.davis@pisd.edu
Mr. Penio: justin.penio@pisd.edu
Maggie Lee (A-B & Newcomer ELL): maggie.lee@pisd.edu
Kiely Baer (C-H & Deaf Ed): kiely.baer@pisd.edu
Demetra Jackson (I-Pa): demetra.jackson@pisd.edu
Teresa Williams (Pb-Z): teresah.williams@pisd.edu
Teacher Spotlight
The Book Blurb
Seafire
Fantasy
After her family is killed by corrupt warlord Aric Athair and his bloodthirsty army of Bullets, Caledonia Styx is left to chart her own course on the dangerous and deadly seas. She captains her ship, the Mors Navis, with a crew of girls and women just like her, who have lost their families and homes because of Aric and his men. The crew has one mission: stay alive, and take down Aric's armed and armored fleet.
But when Caledonia's best friend and second-in-command barely survives an attack thanks to help from a Bullet looking to defect, Caledonia finds herself questioning whether to let him join their crew. Is this boy the key to taking down Aric Athair once and for all . . . or will he threaten everything the women of the Mors Navis have worked for?
Beasts of Prey
Fantasy
Magic doesn't exist in the broken city of Lkossa anymore, especially for girls like sixteen-year-old Koffi. Indentured to the notorious Night Zoo, she cares for its fearsome and magical creatures to pay off her family's debts and secure their eventual freedom. But the night her loved ones' own safety is threatened by the Zoo's cruel master, Koffi unleashes a power she doesn't fully understand--and the consequences are dire.
As the second son of a decorated hero, Ekon is all but destined to become a Son of the Six--an elite warrior--and uphold a family legacy. But on the night of his final rite of passage, a fire upends his plans. In its midst, Ekon not only encounters the Shetani--a vicious monster that has plagued the city and his nightmares for nearly a century— but a curious girl who seems to have the power to ward off the beast. Koffi's power ultimately saves Ekon's life, but his choice to let her flee dooms his hopes of becoming a warrior.
Desperate to redeem himself, Ekon vows to hunt the Shetani down and end its reign of terror, but he can't do it alone. Meanwhile, Koffi believes finding the Shetani and selling it for a profit could be the key to solving her own problems. Koffi and Ekon--each keeping their true motives secret from the other--form a tentative alliance and enter into the unknowns of the Greater Jungle, a world steeped in wild magic and untold dangers. The hunt begins. But it quickly becomes unclear whether they are the hunters or the hunted.
In this much-anticipated series opener, fate binds two Black teenagers together as they strike a dangerous alliance to hunt down the ancient creature menacing their home--and discover much more than they bargained for.
House of Hollow
Fantasy/Horror
Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats.
Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get:
As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children.
The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.
The Beautiful
Fantasy/Historical Fiction
In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans provides her a refuge after she's forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris.
Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent along with six other girls, Celine quickly becomes enamored with the vibrant city from the music to the food to the soirées and—especially—to the danger. She soon becomes embroiled in the city's glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group's leader, the enigmatic Sébastien Saint Germain. When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in the lair of La Cour des Lions, Celine battles her attraction to him and suspicions about Sébastien's guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret.
When more bodies are discovered, each crime more gruesome than the last, Celine and New Orleans become gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the loose—one Celine is sure has set her in his sights . . . and who may even be the young man who has stolen her heart. As the murders continue to go unsolved, Celine takes matters into her own hands and soon uncovers something even more shocking: an age-old feud from the darkest creatures of the underworld reveals a truth about Celine she always suspected simmered just beneath the surface.
At once a sultry romance and a thrilling murder mystery, master storyteller Renée Ahdieh embarks on her most potent fantasy series yet: The Beautiful.