May 10, 2019

Happy Friday! A big THANK YOU for all that you do for our students! As we wrap up another week and get closer to our summer break. I want to thank you all for all your hard work. It is not always easy, sometimes we seem to want it more than the students. I have been busy talking with 12 seniors who are at risk of not graduating. When I look at the big picture, many of these students have never really experienced success, and all of them have some type of personal issue they are struggling with. Some of these students may be scared to graduate, because they don't know what is next. I try to reflect on what we could or should do differently to help these lost students. I do feel bad for this kids and think life for them should not be like this at this young of an age. Most of us were lucky growing up having stable homes and parents that pushed us. For many of us, school came easy and we were good at playing the game. For these kids, school has not come easy. As we come to the end of the school year, I hope you take time to reflect on your practice and see if their is anything that could have been done differently to help these students sooner. I don't see this issue going away, but only increasing as we see more and more at risk students enter the high school.

We are down to one day with Seniors, then they take their semester tests. Seniors who do not have to take semester test, will check out on Monday. Please make sure they have turned everything in to you. I have a handful of Seniors that are not in position to graduate yet. For those who find themselves in that position, they will continue to attend class until he/she is passing. Reminder, if you have a senior and they will be testing in the library, I need a copy of the test today with the senior's name, class, and period on it. If I don't have it, then I will assume the senior is taking it with you in class. 

Congrats to Mr. Hallberg, Mr. Ohrlund, and Mr. Ewing on their groups' division 1 ratings last Friday at state large group contest. 

Lunch today will be set up in the Library so you have more room to eat. 5th period study hall will be in the little theater so you won't have to fight with the students. 

This week is also Nurse Appreciation week. I would like to thank Stephanie for all she does for our students and school. Her calm demeanor is very helpful in stressful situations. Again, Thanks Stephanie!

Have a great weekend!
Mark

Students as Leaders

Staff News

Assistant Principal's Happenings

Resources of all kinds - notes from the Librarian

As the school year ends, we have students and teachers moving on to different things beyond LCS. This also means that school email will soon no longer be available to them. I have already sent out instructions to all seniors, but I also know how many do NOT read their emails. If you have/create a personal gmail account it is very easy to transfer your contacts, emails, photos, documents and more from the school email to a new email. 1. Open up both gmail accounts (you can actually have more than one gmail account logged into at the same time; just make sure you have different tabs open so you don't accidentally log out of one -- which often logs you out of all if you using the same browser). 2. Click on the waffle (the 9 dot square) in the upper right hand corner 3. Click on Account (has the circle with your photo or initial above it). 4. the top left hand square of the two columns states Transfer Your Content; click on start transfer. 5. Follow all further instructions. If you need help, please ask! 

Instructional Coach's Technology Tidbits

If you haven't noticed yet, we now have the ability to choose when an email is sent. If you notice there is now a dropdown arrow when you "send" an email. You can now choose a date and time for it to go.

It was announced this week at the Google I/O keynote that it is bringing Live Caption to all videos. When you watch a video, whether it’s on your camera roll, on an app / the web, or even video chats, Google can soon begin adding subtitles to what is being said right underneath. 

Google also recently announced some updates to sheets. They are removing duplicate entries, trimming whitespace, and compatible spreadsheet shortcuts. Click here to learn more.

Did you ever want to send someone a link to a YouTube video and have the video start somewhere other than the beginning? Well, with this website you can easily do just that. youtubetime.com has you input the URL of your YouTube video, the minute and second time of where you want the video to start and then it generates a new URL for you to use. 

Success Center

As we start to think ahead to the 19/20 school year, as a district we will be moving into more data-based decision making.  That will mean that both summative AND formative assessments will be used to create a more relevant picture of where our students are at any given time. Here is a great article on formative assessments, including suggestions for what you can do and how you can use those formative assessments to improve instruction.

Article Worth Reading

Upcoming Activities

Saturday, May 11

TBD - Girls Varsity Tennis @ Regional Team

Wednesday, May 15
TBD - Girls Varsity Tennis @ Individual Regional
6:30 pm Senor Awards Night

Thursday, May 16
Outstanding Performance Showcase @ Ames

Saturday, May 18
TBD Girls Varsity Tennis Regional Team

Sunday, May 19
3:00 pm Commencement

Monday, May 20
5:15 pm JV/Varsity Baseball vs. Sioux City East
5:30 pm JV/Varsity Softball vs. Sioux City East

Tuesday, May 21
5:30 pm JV/Varsity Baseball @ SBL

Wednesday, May 22
5:15 pm JV/Varsity Baseball vs. Sheldon
5:30 pm JV/Varsity Softball vs. Sheldon

Friday, May 24
TBD - Softball Girls Varsity/JV Tournament vs. Bishop Heelan