Ridgeview STEM Junior High School
January 31, 2020
Congrats to our POP Winners!
Megan Ferne: Ms. Ferne is always doing what is best for students and leads with her heart for all kids. She is a leader among staff, passionate about helping anyone she is around and is always a positive influence. It is obvious our students feel fortunate to have her in class. Ms. Ferne has always been a huge supporter of all things Pickerington. She supports students and staff inside or outside of school in multiple ways by going to events or going out of her way to help another staff member. She helps promote positive things that have been going in and outside of the classroom and is a great communicator with parents.
Nancy Butler: Nancy is very dedicated to helping her student, as well as many other students in our building. Nancy worked with many students on our team last year and helped them daily with their work and encouraged other students to work with people they may never have thought of, she helped Dale advocate for himself and helped build peer relationships. Nancy has been with Pickerington Schools for many years and is very dependable. Her own children are graduates of Pickerington and she values the educational process.
REMINDER FROM THE CLINIC
Just a reminder - students who are not feeling well while at school must report to the clinic for evaluation. The nurse or clinic staff will allow students to contact their parents, however, students are not permitted to text or call a parent directly to go home until seen in the clinic. Failure to report to the clinic first may result in the absence being unexcused and/or possible disciplinary action.
PLEASE ALLOW ADDITIONAL TIME TO GET TO SCHOOL
Attendance Information
As we have hit the prime of the cold and flu season, students may become ill and need to be absent from school. Just a friendly reminder to please notify the school as soon as possible if your student will not be in for the day (614-548-1701).
Ohio House Bill 410 has changed the procedure for calculating absences. One major change is that we are required to count the number of hours missed rather than days. As students accumulate hours, various letters will be sent home to notify parents and guardians about the amount of time missed. These notifications are required by Ohio House Bill 410.
A Needs Medical Excuse Warning letter goes out to students who have at least 30 hours of absences, regardless of if they are excused or unexcused.
When a student reaches EITHER 38 hours of absences in a month, or 65 hours for the school year, a Needs Medical Excuse Letter will be sent home. From this point forward, the student will need a doctor's excuse for that absence to be excused.
When the office is not notified that a student is going to be absent, the absence is marked unexcused. As students accrue unexcused absences, there is an Unexcused Absence letter that is sent out. This letter is sent if the student meets any of these criteria: 30 or more consecutive hours of unexcused absences; 42 or more unexcused hours in a month; or 72 or more unexcused hours in a school year. This letter states that an Attendance Intervention Team(AIT) referral may be made in this situation. The goal of the team is to partner with parents and guardians to help encourage more consistent attendance to school from the student.
There have been many questions in regards to Pre-Planned Absences and/or Vacations. Just a reminder that the board follows the Ohio Administrative Code in regards to what it determines is an excusable absence. Unfortunately vacations are not recognized as excused absences. However, if a family vacation / travel cannot take place during the vacation times built into the school calendar, please notify the school office and obtain a Pre-Planned Absence form so that the student may get work from their teachers ahead of time.
If you have questions regarding attendance please reference the Board of Education's attendance policy: https://www.boarddocs.com/oh/plsd/board.nsf/public# Policy number 5200.
Beth Richardson
Lead Assistant Principal
Coming Up at Ridgeview
Feb. 11-Heart Strings Benefit Concert-see details below
Date TBA-7th grade Parent Scheduling-see below for times
Feb. 12-NO SCHOOL-Teacher Professional Development
*Feb. 17-PRESIDENT'S DAY-no school
*(make up day if we have had a snow day)
Feb. 19-8th grade Scheduling-see details below
8th Annual Heart Strings Benefit Concert
- Tuesday, February 11 @ 6:00
- Peace United Methodist Church
- Tickets $10.00 for adults and $8.00 for Senior Citizens and Students 6+
- Tickets available at the door or reserve in advance via email at phscorchboosters@gmail.com
- Proceeds benefit Pickerington Tiger Orchestras
Scheduling Information From Our Counselors
7th grade Parents-Save the Date-Parents Scheduling Night:
DATE TBA (date is being changed due to Heart Strings concert)
Last names A-M: 5:00 - 5:45 PM
Last names N-Z: 6:00 - 6:45 PM
8th grade Parents - Save the Date-Parents Scheduling Night:
February 19th from 6:00-8:00 pm at Pickerington High School Central.
Please plan to attend this event so that you may better understand the scheduling process for high school. Students will receive instruction on Feb. 13th in class. After both parents and students understand the process, you will have until Feb 28th to enter schedule requests into Infinite Campus. This is all paperless so it is helpful to attend the meeting.
The NEW GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS FOR THE CLASS OF 2023 ARE ATTACHED BELOW.
Global Scholars Pathway at PH
Global Scholars Pathway at PHSC
The course series provides hands-on experiences, simulations, and practical examples and
strategies for global studies and cultural competence. Students will gain a deeper
understanding of and define intercultural competence, explore the "other" and the value of
varied perspectives throughout their school communities, gain insights into cultural nuances
and effective interaction with local-global cultures, and develop a skills toolkit to leverage the
global landscape of their classrooms and school communities to enrich all students'
experiences. For more information, check out this VIDEO!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0wnC7Z6Jxo
Both Pickerington high schools North and Central will be offering the new Global Scholars
Diploma program that aligns with the new State of Ohio honors diploma requirements, which
require a portfolio and field experience. The new Global Scholars Diploma Program will help
to fulfill these two new honors diploma requirements, offer an opportunity to earn a half credit
of flex credit per year, and also provide the student with an integrated global curriculum over
three years.
This sounds really cool! How do I apply?!!!!
You can apply through the link in the course registration guide or at this
https://forms.gle/qMbFzZksHRA44UbE6
Sports Information
Spring Sports are Right Around the Corner!
- Physicals: Make sure your athlete has a current physical on file / turn in a completed physical packet in order to try out.
- Parent's Spring Sports Meeting: February 27th, 6pm @ PHS Central's Gym
- Mandatory Drug Test (if not tested Fall/Winter): March 4th, 2:30 pm @ RV Locker Rooms
- Spring Pay 2 Play: first payment due Friday, March 13th
Spring Softball Open Gyms:
- Sundays, 10 - 11:30, PHS-C Field House
- 1/19, 2/2 and 2/16
- TRYOUTS: week of February 24th
Interested in Girls Lacrosse?
- Stop by the Athletic Office and sign up with Mrs. Holley.
Track Informational Meeting
- Monday, March 2 from 5:00-6:30 p.m. in Ridgeview's cafeteria
Baseball Tryouts
- Baseball tryouts will start on March 2 through March 6th at Ridgeview
- 4:30-6:00 pm at Ridgeview
- Please bring indoor shoes and glove
Check the 8 to 18/Ridgeview website for all updated sports information, dates, cancellations, drug testing times, schedules and forms.
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PTO News
Looking for Service Hours?
The PTO will be opening our school store to the PYAA Basketball games and we need lots of help to cover each Saturday through Feb. 29. We have done this the last couple of years and it has gone over well with those attending the games. If you have a student that needs volunteer hours, we will sign off on those hours for them when they volunteer. Please keep in mind, we require a parent or adult to be with the student throughout the entire shift. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Jennifer Sander ~ jennsanderpto@gmail.com or 937-694-0987 Thank you for your support of the PTO.
Sign Up https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508094EADAA2CA02-pyaa
PTO School Store Volunteers Needed
The PTO is still looking for a volunteer or two for the school store. We have a shift on Thursday morning from 6:50-7:10am and a shift on the 3rd Friday of each month from 10:00am-1:20pm. If you are interested in volunteering during any of these shifts, please contact Jennifer Sander at jennsanderpto@gmail.com We’d be thrilled to have you!
Is it a Snow Day? How to Find Out:
There's no need to call school. See below:
Phone and email alerts
Pickerington Schools will announce emergency closing and delay information through pre-recorded telephone calls to current parents/guardians telephone numbers on file with the district.
The district also sends email messages about any delays or closures via this notification system.
It is important to keep student contact information and contact preferences current by logging into the Infinite Campus Parent Portal and updating your contact information.
District website and social media
Information about school closures or delays will be posted on the home page of the district’s website, on our Facebook page, and on Twitter.
Television and Radio Stations
Pickerington Schools shares any school delay or closure information with local television and radio stations. However, we recommend that parents and students confirm any closure information received from media outlets on the district’s social media sites or website.
Each local television station offers a school closing/delays text message program that sends closure/delay information directly to your phone.
Yearbook Orders
#RidgeviewRestart expectations have been initiated:
- All students will have a sheet of 12 passes they can use for student-initiated requests. The student pass sheet will be for all classes and will be used in six-week time frames. After six weeks, students will receive another sheet with 12 new passes. All student pass sheets will have the students names printed on them already. An example of a student initiated request would be to go get a drink of water or to go to their locker for forgotten homework. Students need to make sure they place their sheets in a safe spot and they do not lose them (Suggestion: in their Chromebook Case). When students request to leave class the teacher will initial their sheet in pen. Once all 12 are used up, there will be no more student-initiated requests for that six weeks. All other passes will be teacher initiated (I.E. - Send to the nurse if ill).
- 10 and 10 rule: No student initiated hall passes will be given in the first and last ten minutes of each class. Again, we value class time and we want each student to know what is going to take place each period so they can be successful in understanding the class expectations for the day. We also value the start of class and we want students to be in class on time. Our goal is to decrease class tardies, class cuts and hallway disturbances.
- The schedule will now have a bell ring at 7:00 am releasing students waiting in the cafeteria to their PAW time. A warning bell will ring at 7:10 am and a tardy bell will ring at 7:15 am. All students need to be in their PAW time class at 7:15 am. Students who are not in class at 7:15 am will be marked tardy unexcused to school. After the tardy bell students not in PAW should report directly to the office to check in.
- During lunch and E/I changes, we will introduce a tardy bell to indicate students who are late to their lunch and or E/I class (This is in between periods 4A/4B, 5A/5B, and 6A/6B). Students need to prepare and plan ahead by gathering the materials they need to take with them so that they can get to all their scheduled courses on time, including lunch. Again, we value the time students have in class and want to make sure they are successful. During this switch we are going to allow students to walk either way in the hallway. There are only a couple of teams in the halls at this time (Again, this is only between periods 4A/4B, 5A/5B, and 6A/6B). We are also going to stress hall behavior during this time so that the volume in the halls does not disturb other classes taking place.
- Lastly, you may start to hear about the R-factor and how students can be disciplined in their mindset by positively responding to events in their lives--hopefully, producing a more positive outcome. Some of you may have already heard E + R = O (Events + Response = Outcomes). This terminology is going to be used more frequently so we can help guide students with their decision making process. Especially with how they are responding to negative events or scenarios in their lives (Example - drama amongst friends).
The staff has covered the new expectations with the students in their PAW times and classes. Mrs. Richardson and Mr. Koch addressed the students to inform them of the expectations moving forward during a team meeting. As a staff, we will also make videos for our morning announcements modeling the expectations for the students. Please help make the #Ridgeviewrestart a success by emphasizing the above expectations at home with your student. We will introduce a couple more expectations as the year continues. We do not want to overwhelm the students to start off the second half of the year so we will be implementing a phase or two at a time. If you have any questions please feel free to contact the administration.
Ridgeview Values
Ridgeview STEM Junior High School
Email: eric_koch@plsd.us
Website: pickerington.k12.oh.us
Location: 130 Hill Road South, Pickerington, OH, USA
Phone: 614-548-1700
Facebook: facebook.com/RidgeviewStem
Twitter: @RidgeviewPLSD