November 6, 2020

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Happy Friday! I hope everyone has had a good week. Thank you for your patience with the students with the quarantine and those put in isolation. I know it is difficult and frustrating when the student is gone for an extended amount of time and then doesn't do the work while they are gone. It is not ideal to be trying to catch them up while moving the other students forward. I would recommend that those students who do not do the work while they are absent be assigned times to come in before or after school to get caught up. This may help motivate them to do more work if they have to be gone for extended amount of time. Even the students that do the work at home may still have gaps in their learning. Online learning is not the same as learning in class, and we know not every student is going to be successful in this method of learning. Again, I want to stress that you do not have a set point to get to in the curriculum. We can only do so much in the day and in the week. We do not have endless amount of time. That is why it is important to really hit our essential learnings and not feel like we have to get through everything.

One thing to get on your radar are the dates we will give the ISASP in the high school. Originally we were going to give it the week of April 12. Since that falls after prom and we have in-service on Wednesday, we will now give it the week of May 3. The writing test will be on May 4 and the other tests will be on May 6 and 7. These will be done in class using the ISASP Writing and Block Schedules.  This should give us more time with the students. Again, if we take care of the small stuff (our normal classroom learning) the big things will take care of themselves (ISASP).  

Looking ahead to some dates to make sure you have on your calendar. End of the 1st trimester is on November 17. Midterm for 2nd quarter is on November 18. District In-service is on November 11. 
With midterm coming up on November 18, you should be wrapping up PASS plan meetings. Please make sure I get a copy of the PASS plan so I can enter it into my spreadsheet. 

Please remind students that have been quarantined or isolated more than once have the option to take classes as pass/fail. Their parents will need to notify the school by December 21 so we can get that info to you so you can change the grade book grade to a P.

Have a Great Weekend!

Mark

 

Assistant Principal's Happenings

I've heard mixed feedback from students about keeping trash picked up in the parking lot.  Please talk to your advisories about keeping things looking good outside and remind them, Open Lunch is a privilege, not a right.  

Attendance Contracts have been started.  So far we only have 7 students that have missed more than 10 classes unrelated to Covid.  This is far fewer than last year at this point in the semester.  To me, this is due to the fact that students want to be here and understand quarantine or remote learning do not support students as much as being in school. 

Student misbehaviors have been on an uptick the past couple of weeks.  If students are pushing the limits in classes please let me know.  I can help carry out consequences or even just talk to the students that are disrupting the learning in your classes.  Also, starting next week, we will have an aide covering the Commons in the morning and pushing kids out that aren't eating breakfast.  Please be in the hallways as much as possible between classes to help hold students accountable.  And keep students accountable for their masks, I get a lot of emails about specific kids so we can check up on them but if they are a consistent issue please just send them straight to the office.



Ideas from the library/video class/student council

We all know students do not always catch what we say the first time around, especially if we are presenting something as well. Google has added an option in which your real time words are displayed as captions. Here are the instructions: Captions for Google Slides


Upcoming Activities

Saturday, November 7
NWI HS Honor Band Auditions - virtual
Girls Swimming District Meet @ Fort Dodge - Ellie Clark is swimming on the SC team.

Friday, November 13
7:00 pm Fall Play

Saturday, November 14
7:00 pm Fall Play

Thursday, November 19
Picture Retakes

Monday, November 23
3:30 pm Varsity/JV Bowling @ Spencer
5:30 pm JV Girls Basketball vs. Spencer
7:00 pm Varsity Girls 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 Freshmen Girls Basketball vs. Sioux Center
7:15 pm Freshmen Boys Basketball vs. Sioux Center

Tuesday, December 1
3:45 pm JV Girls Basketball @ Unity Christian
5:00 pm JV Boys Basketball @ Unity Christian
6:15 pm Varsity Girls Basketball @ Unity Christian
7:30 pm Varsity Boys Basketball @ Unity Christian

Thursday, December 3
5:30 pm JV/Varsity Wrestling @ Council Bluffs AL
6:00 pm Freshmen Girls Basketball @ SBL
7:15 pm Freshmen Boys Basketball @ SBL

Friday, December 4
4:00 pm JV Girls/Boys Basketball vs. SBL
5:30 pm Varsity Girls Basketball vs. SBL
7:00 pm Varsity Boys Basketball vs. SBL

Monday, December 7
TBD -JV Wrestling @ MOC

Tuesday, December 8
4:00 pm JV Girls/Boys Basketball @ Council Bluffs AL
5:30 pm Varsity Girls Basketball @ Council Bluffs AL
7:00 pm Varsity Boys Basketball @ Council Bluffs AL

Thursday, December 10
3:30 pm JV/Varsity Bowling @ Ida Bowl
4:45 pm JV Girls/Boys Basketball @ Hull Western Christian
6:15 pm Varsity Girls Basketball @ Hull Western Christian
7:45 pm Varsity Boys Basketball @ Hull Western Christian

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