October 22, 2021

  

Happy Friday! I hope everyone had a great week. I think this week, more than any other week so far this year, the students have been a little wound up. I don't know if it was the full moon or the change in the weather, but they were a little more crazier than normal. I know have talked with a few teachers this week and understand the behaviors are getting to us. I have found myself more impatient when dealing with the students. I need to remind myself that I need to try and get to the root cause of the issue/behavior. Many times this has nothing to do with what we are doing here, but what is going on outside of our walls. As our demographics continue to change, we need to keep this in mind. We have more non-traditional families than we have had in the past. Unfortunately, I have also seen an increase in the number of parents that throw in the towel when their student gets into high school. Continue to be patient, and remember the students are not scheming on how to make life hard on you. 

Just a reminder that grades need to be up to date on Monday by 8:00 am for quarter 1 grades. If you have a student that makes something up after that time, you will need to send an email to Mr. Formanek or myself. 

This is also the time that I start getting ready for registration. I do want to have any new class proposals to me by November 23. The form can be found on my website. The plan is to start the registration process in January. We will have our 8th grade career day sometime that month. I will need to finalize that with Mr. Shanks. Last year we did not do this because of Covid, so it will be nice to do this again. I will still have the goal to have registration completed by mid February and a class schedule by mid April. This will give Judd and Melissa time to go through student schedules.

We do have another extra hour meeting on Wednesday. CIA will send out the agenda. Tuesday, Judd, Melissa, and I will be out of the building attending a Future Ready Iowa Workshop. 

Enjoy your weekend!

Mark

Assistant Principal's Happenings

It has been a busy week.  I agree with Dr. Iverson's first paragraph on student behavior.  We are starting to see kids get more comfortable with high school and are noticing the behavior upticks.  I know I have written about this a lot but we need to make sure we have teachers in their duty spots before and after school.  The morning locations do last longer and I will remedy this in the future by having teachers sign up for some of each.  I do not want to do that now due to some teachers already having many of their duties completed for the year.  Please be in the halls as well.  I have received far fewer concerns about the halls this year and I do think this is because we have staff visible.  Going along with this, the vandalism in the bathroom has become less frequent but is still occurring a couple days a week.  Please make sure we continue having students sign out to the bathroom in case we are able to narrow down a time frame.

We have been able to remove many students that moved as we receive the transfer requests.  Attendance has been improving over the past couple of weeks but I am getting a lot of students that are tardy instead of truant.  Please count those as tardies.  I was able to get to about half of the tardies for the 1st quarter earlier this week and will get to the rest tomorrow for their detentions.  

I had a good conversation with a group of Sophomores serving some time for tardies about cell phones after school.  They all agreed teachers have been stricter about them this year but also appreciated the fact we were not keeping them overnight but instead having them turn in their phones.  One of the offenders that had his second offense even discussed how much that was a pain it was to hand in the phone for a week.  He did not want to get that third offense which would mean he would turn in his phone for a month.  Hopefully, he remembers that in the coming months!

Have a great weekend!

Upcoming Activities

Friday, October 22

Music Booster Soup and Pie Supper

4:15 pm Freshmen Football vs. Fort Dodge

7:00 pm Varsity Football vs. Fort Dodge

Halftime - Mass Band Show

Tuesday, October 26

7:30 pm MS/HS Orchestra Concert

Thursday, October 28

5:00 pm Large Group and IE Speech Kickoff event - HS Commons

7:30 pm High School Vocal Concert @ MS Auditorium

Friday, October 29

7:00 am LeadDog

7:30 pm Indoor Marching Band Concert - Competition Gym

Saturday, November 6

NWI HS Honor Band Auditions

2:00 pm Fall Play Dress Rehearsal

Wednesday, November 10

7:00 am LeadDog

2 hour early out

Thursday, November 11

7:00 pm Fall Play

Friday, November 12

7:00 pm Fall Play

Saturday, November 13

7:00 pm Fall Play

Wednesday, November 17

Opus Honor Choir - Ames

Thursday, November 18

All State Music - Ames

Friday, November 19

All State Music - Ames

Saturday, November 20

All State Music Festival - Ames

7:00 am LeadDog

Monday, November 22

5:30 pm Girls JV Basketball @ Spencer

7:00 pm Girls Varsity Basketball @ Spencer

Monday, November 29

1:00 pm JV/Varsity Bowling @ Plaza Bowl - Sioux City

6:00 pm Girls Wrestling Dual vs Humbolt

6:30 pm Boys Freshman Basketball @ Sioux Center

Tuesday, November 30

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

5:30 pm Girl Varsity Basketball vs. Unity

7:00 pm Boy Varsity Basketball vs. Unity

Thursday, December 2

5:30 pm JV/Varsity Wrestling vs. Heelan and C.B. A.L.

Friday, December 3

4:00 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball @ SBL

4:30 pm JV/Varsity Wrestling @ Hinton

5:30 pm Varsity Girl Basketball @ SBL

7:00 pm Varsity Boy Basketball @ SBL

Saturday, December 4

TBD - Boys Freshmen Basketball @ SBL

NWI Honor Orchestra Auditions

Monday, December 6

4:45 pm JV Wrestling @ MOC

Tuesday, December 7

4:00 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball vs. C.B. A.L.

5:30 pm Girl Varsity Basketball vs. C.B. A.L.

7:00 pm Boy Varsity Basketball vs. C.B. A.L.

Thursday, December 9

3:30 pm Bowling vs. OABCIG

4:00 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball vs. Western Christian

5:30 pm Girl Varsity Basketball vs. Western Christian

7:00 pm Boy Varsity Basketball vs. Western Chritsian

Friday, December 10

12:30 pm Bowling @ Thunderbowl vs. C.B. T.J.

1:00 pm Wrestling @ Mid-American Center Council Bluffs

4:00 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball @ Heelan

5:30 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ Heelan

7:00 pm Boy Varsity Basketball @ Heelan

Saturday, December 11

9:00 am Boy Freshmen Basketball vs. Sioux City West

10:00 am Wrestling @ Mid-American Center - Council Bluffs

Monday, December 13

7:30 pm HS Holiday Concert - MS Auditorium

Tuesday, December 14

4:00 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball @ C.B. T.J.

5:30 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ C.B. T.J.

5:30 pm Wrestling vs. Akron Westfield, Western Christian, & MVAOCOU

7:00 pm Boy Varsity Basketball @ C.B. T.J.

Thursday, December 16

3:30 pm Bowling vs. Sioux City East

5:30 Wrestling @ Sioux City North

6:00 pm Boy Freshmen Basketball vs. Sioux City North

Friday, December 17

Day 1 Semester Tests

4:00 pm Boy/Girl JV Basketball @ Sioux City North

5:30 pm Girl Varsity Basketball @ Sioux City North

7:00 pm Boy Varsity Basketball @ Sioux City North

6:30 pm Madrigal Dinner

Saturday, December 18

TBD - Girl Varsity Basketball @ USD

9:00 am Boy Freshmen Basketball @ Heelan

10:00 am Wrestling @ Spencer

6:30 pm Madrigal Dinner

Monday, December 20

Day 2 Semester Tests

Tuesday, December 21

Semester Test Make Up Day

2:30 pm Dismissal

4:00 pm Boy Freshmen Basketball vs. Harrisburg, SD

5:30 pm Boy JV Basketball vs. Harrisburg, SD

7:00 pm Boy Varsity Basketball vs. Harrisburg, SD