LCHS Friday Focus

Happy Friday! I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Enjoy the time off and take the chance to rest and get ready to start the second semester. When we come back on the 3rd, we will have 4 days of regular class and then semester tests. Grades will be due on January 14 at 8:00 am. Beth and Amy will run report cards and get them sent out that day. I will need PASS plan summaries by Monday at 8:00 am also. A student earning a "F" needs to have a PASS plan on file in my office. I have shared a spreadsheet with you that shows all the PASS plans I have.  We have had quite a few students who have missed numerous days, if you are going to give the student an incomplete, please put the due date in the comments on the report card so parents know when the work needs to be made up. Today we have the Children's Theater. We will be dismissing sometime around 1:35 to check-in students. School will be dismissed after the performance. I will see you all on Janua...

Happy Friday! As we grow closer to the holiday season we are also growing closer to the end of the semester. When we come back from break, we will have 4 days of class and then the semester tests days. Please remind students that during break would be a good time to get caught up if they are behind.  The counselors have been busy getting students registered for next school year. Hopefully we will have everyone registered by the end of the semester. I will try to start department meeting then sometime towards the end of January to go over numbers and assignments for next year. I will also take anything you would like me to consider when creating the schedule. Please keep in mind though the priority is to get students into the classes they want. Sometimes it is not possible to grant every request. Scheduling has to be the biggest puzzle ever.  We are also in the process of coming up with a schedule for the ISASP (Iowa Assessments). When I have better idea on what it will l...

Happy Friday! This first semester is quickly winding down. We have 2 weeks before break, then when we come back we have 4 days of class and then semester tests. Semester tests will be on Wednesday and Thursday, with Friday being the make up day. Please refer to the student handbook for the testing schedule.  This week I had the opportunity to listen to a webinar about the new Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress, previously Iowa Assessments. Later this month, they are supposed to have sample questions available. Pearson is also suppose to be having a training session for teachers sometime in the near future. As soon as the date and time is known, I will make that available. These tests will be different from the Iowa Assessments in many ways. Two big ones are: they are not timed and most of the students will be taking them on a computer. Since they are not timed and computers will be used, it will be very difficult to schedule all our students taking them at the same t...

Happy Friday! Midterm was yesterday, the reports will be printed on Monday and then handed out during advisory. Also during advisory, have the students complete the midterm reflection. The shelter drill that was scheduled for Wednesday at 1:10 pm will now be on Thursday, December 6 at the same time.  I have been approached by several people, parents and students, about the retake policy. I have learned a few things from these discussions. The retake policy was put into place with our buildingwide grading policy. In the grading policy, summative assessments account for 85% of the students total grade. So if you only have 4 summative assessments for a quarter, one bad test could doom any student. Because of this,  All summative assessments will allowed to be retaken. You have discretion on if an individual student has abused the retake policy to say no. This means the entire summative assessment and not just parts of it can be retaken. It may mean more work for us, but if yo...

Happy Friday! Since we don't have school next Friday, this will take care of the next couple of weeks. Remember we run the one hour early out schedule on Tuesday. We will have several students missing today for the funeral. Please encourage those attending to come back here afterwards. We don't want them to comeback because of missing class, but for the support that can be offered to them. Being alone after a classmate's funeral will be hard, we can be there for those who need us if they are here.  If you gave summative assessments this week, please note how the students did. Some of them may have not have had their head into the test, as a result, may not have done as well as normal. Please consider reassessing those students, as we want what is best for them.  As I reflect on how this week went, I am left wondering what we could have done differently or better. If you have an idea on how to handle incidents like this, please share them with me. Losing a student nev...