November 20, 2020

     

Happy Friday! With only two days next week, I won't be putting out a Friday Focus. I will either be recovering from my first attempt to make a Thanksgiving meal or in the hospital for food poisoning. Before you say anything to Kristin, I am the one making the Turkey, I am sure the green bean casserole will be safe. 

Hopefully you had the chance to watch the stream of the play last week. Mrs. Ohrlund and crew put on another fabulous production. 

I know there is lots of frustration on students not doing any work when they are home quarantined or in isolation. The MTSS committee presented me with a couple of plans on how to try and get those students who are behind additional help during the school day. I want to remind you that we do need to take time to build in interventions into our normal class time like last year. Again, you are under no pressure to get to a certain point in the curriculum. It is better to go slow and make sure students understand than to press on when we have kids struggling. Judging by grades alone, we currently (as of 11/17) 84 students failing one or more classes, 47 kids with one or more D-, and 67 kids with one or more Ds. When you take into account duplicate names, we are dealing with 146 individual students earning the grades mentioned. Please take the time to build in your interventions to help these kids learn the material better. 

When we come back after Thanksgiving, we have our extra hour meeting on December 2. I am also going to start getting ready for registration, that we hope to start in January. If you have a new course you would like to propose to me, please get these to me by December 4. I know Mr. Kopperud has also emailed about updating the course description book. If you have not done that, please get that to him ASAP.

With the start of the Winter seasons, please remind students that they need to be wearing masks inside the building before and after practices. Just because classes are not in session, doesn't mean we don't wear our masks. We also need to stay on top of the students in class. I have had to tell several students daily to keep their masks above the nose. This isn't open for debate, if we want to remain in school and not move to a hybrid or remote model, it has to be done.

Just a follow up from last night for those who were unable to attend the staff meeting. Please review the "remote" and "hybrid" plans. I have extra copies in my office, so please stop by and get one. We do not anticipate a move to one of these plans is imminent, but who knows what will happen. On the night of March 13, we thought we would be in school on Monday. Come Sunday night, we were abruptly closed. This time if we go remote, all learning will be required. We will want to make sure we hammer this across to the students. If they choose to not do anything if we go remote, they most likely won't pass their classes. 

We also discussed the contact tracing and the attendance codes in PowerSchool. When we contact trace, we are notifying parents their student has been exposed. We are not putting kids into quarantine if everyone is wearing a masks. We will let the teachers know when we quarantine a student due to a school exposure. If you have not been informed, and you see an 18 code for a student, it is due to an outside exposure. At this time we have not seen any widespread exposures at school. Can I say nobody has gotten it at school, no I can't. But we can account for a large percentage of the students who are out with symptoms. The masks are not perfect, but it will slow down the spread of the virus.

Have a Great Weekend!

Mark

Assistant Principal's Happenings

Tomorrow, we will have our second Student Voice Group.  I will report out what students say in a couple weeks.  The questions Mr. Bork will focus on will be about bullying/discrimination.  I am eager to hear what students have to say and get ideas on how we can consistently address issues when they happen.

Please keep seating charts up to date.  We will create the lists from the information we have and Dr. Iverson will ask you to check if your classes are correct.  If you haven't printed the charts recently we need those as soon as possible, especially if you have a trimester class change.  If you update online that is fine but please include the time frame on there so we know we are looking at the correct locations of students when contact tracing.

Tardies are way down compared to this point last year.  However, if you have a student that is over 10 tardies and disrupts class when they come in please send them my way.  They can work in the office or study hall during that period.  If it continues to be an issue we do have the power to remove them from the class and they would have to retake it to earn the credit.  It isn't a great option but we can do that in extreme cases.

I know everyone is sick of Covid news but Mr. Caswell showed me a good tool that can help show the risk when visiting different locations in the U.S.  As you will see, the Midwest continues to be a hotspot for the current Covid conditions.  Please stay home if you can or use as many precautions as possible if you do travel. Here is the link to help in your decisions: Link

If you missed the meeting, we have extra jean days Monday and Tuesday!

Ideas from the library/video class/student council

Need a fun challenge to do in your classroom or at home with family for the holidays: Lego Ornament Challenge

Internet problems continue to be a problem, but it's sometimes difficult to know if it's just you or if it's everyone. A website can solve that problem:  downforeveryoneorjustme  Simply type in your URL and it will let you know if you are the only one with that problem! 

Upcoming Activities

Monday, November 23

3:30 pm Varsity/JV Bowling @ Spencer

5:30 pm JV Girl Basketball vs. Spencer

7:00 pm Varsity Girl Basketball vs. Spencer

Tuesday, November 24

1 Hour Early Dismissal

Wednesday-Friday - No School

Monday, November30

3:30 pm Varsity/JV Bowling vs. Sioux City North

6:00 pm Girls Wrestling dual @ Humboldt

6:00 pm Freshmen Girl Basketball vs. Sioux Center

7:15 pm Freshmen Boy Basketball vs. Sioux Center

Tuesday, December 1

3:45 pm JV Girl Basketball @ Unity Christian

5:00 pm JV Boy Basketball @ Unity Christian

6:15 pm Varsity Girl Basketball @ Unity Christian

7:30 pm Varsity Boy Basketball @ Unity Christian

Thursday, December 3

5:30 pm JV/Varsity Wrestling @ Council Bluffs AL

6:00 pm Freshmen Girl Basketball @ SBL

7:15 pm Freshmen Boy Basketball @ SBL

Friday, December 4

4:00 pm Wrestling @ Hinton

4:00 pm JV Girls/Boy Basketball vs. SBL

5:30 pm Varsity Girl Basketball vs. SBL

7:00 pm Varsity Boy Basketball vs. SBL

Monday, December 7

TBD -JV Wrestling @ MOC

Tuesday, December 8

4:00 pm JV Girl/Boy Basketball @ Council Bluffs AL

5:30 pm Varsity Girl Basketball @ Council Bluffs AL

7:00 pm Varsity Boy Basketball @ Council Bluffs AL

Thursday, December 10

3:30 pm JV/Varsity Bowling @ Ida Bowl

4:45 pm JV Girl/Boy Basketball @ Hull Western Christian

6:15 pm Varsity Girl Basketball @ Hull Western Christian

7:45 pm Varsity Boy Basketball @ Hull Western Christian

Friday, December 11

12:30 pm Bowling @ Council Bluffs TJ (Thuderbowl)

4:00 pm JV Boy/Girl Basketball vs. Heelan

5:30 pm Varsity Girl Basketball vs. Heelan

7:00 pm Varsity Boy Basketball vs. Heelan

Saturday, December 12

8:00 am ACT testing

9:00 am Freshmen Girl Basketball @ SC West

10:30 am Freshmen Boy Basketball @ SC West

Monday, December 14

7:30 am HS Holiday Concert

Tuesday, December 15

4:00 pm JV Girl/Boy Basketball @ CB Thomas Jefferson

5:30 pm Varsity Girl Basketball @ CB Thomas Jefferson

5:30 Wrestling @ Akron-Westfield

7:00 pm Varsity Boy Basketball @ CB Thomas Jefferson

Thursday, December 17

1:00 pm Bowling vs. SC East (Rush Lanes)

5:30 pm Wrestling vs. SC North & CB TJ

6:00 pm Freshmen Girl Basketball @ SC North

7:15 pm Freshmen Boy Basketball @ SC North

Friday, December 18

4:00 pm JV Girl/Boy Basketball vs. SC North

5:30 pm Varsity Girl Basketball vs. SC North

7:00 pm Varsity Boy Basketball vs. SC North

Saturday, December 19

TBD Wrestling @ Spencer

Tuesday, December 22

4:30 pm Freshmen Boy Basketball @ Harrisburg, SD

6:00 pm JV Boy Basketball @ Harrisburg, SD

7:30 pm Varsity Boy Basketball @ Harrisburg, SD