LCHS Friday Focus

Happy Friday! Congrats on making through the first day of school.  I look forward to this time of year, it gets a little boring around here in July. It is nice to hear about all the exciting things everyone did over the summer. It is also exciting to get all the students back and meet our new ones.  I just want to take a moment to go over some of the reminders that we skimmed over at the staff meeting on Monday. Don't forget grades need to be updated every Monday at 8:30 am for the previous week. Obviously if you gave a large project, I don't expect you to spend all weekend grading them so the grades can be updated. But timely feedback is important for student learning. You should also make sure you update the assignment page on the website. This needs to be done Friday before you leave for the weekend.  This year Neal and I are going to try to get into more classrooms for walk-throughs. We are going to be looking for the APL strategies being used, mainly objectiv...

Happy Friday! Next week really gets busy for us in the office as Beth and Amy work on the final senior awards, Neal is making sure all the seniors have their time made up, and I am getting ready for the graduation ceremony. Seniors last day of class is Monday. If you want Mr. Martin to administer your senior semester tests, please get him the materials by Monday so he is ready for them. Make sure you put the student's name on the test. So when I ask Mr. Martin who has not taken their test yet, he will be able to tell me. Most seniors will have their testing done on Tuesday; those that have more than 4 classes may take some on Wednesday morning. The Senior Awards night is Wednesday at 6:30 pm in the competition gym. Finally, senior breakfast is at 9:00 am on Thursday, followed by practice at 10:00 am.  Next week Wednesday we have our final district in-service of the year. We will meet in the Library to go over our Iowa Assessment data. I will send out the sheet I want each gr...

Happy Friday! Only 2 more editions of the Friday Focus left to write. As we wrap up teacher appreciation week, I would like to thank everyone again for what you do and sacrifice for the students in the Le Mars School District. The success of our students and school are due to the great staff we have in the district.  Lunch will be provided in the lounge today. The menu is pulled pork, baked beans, chips, dessert, and water/pop.  We have our last extra hour meeting next week. Please continue to work on the Iowa Core work your group has done all year. During our district in-service on May 17, your group will look at the Iowa Assessment data and fill out the form identifying our strengths and weaknesses. If your department has an assessment, please use that assessment, all other areas please use the reading data. Once you are done looking at your assessment data, use the reminder of the time to wrap up your curriculum work for the school year. Make sure you make a no...

Happy Friday! We made it to another weekend. As we get closer to the end of the school year, students will begin to test our patience. Remember to take a deep breath before reacting to something. We do not want to get into arguments or power struggles with students, especially if their is an audience. In these instances nobody wins. Just a friendly reminder that contracts are due on Monday for teachers and May 8 for support staff. I will still collect contracts in my office. Please just place them in the basket on my desk. Wednesday night was the annual Foundation Banquet. We had one high school staff member recognized for 25 years of service. Thank you to Brian Orban for your years of service and hard work to help educate the youth of Le Mars! Also, the Employees of the month were recognized again. They were September - Rhonda Beach, October - Mike Weaver, January - Amy Davis & Beth Collins, and February - Jill Brown. Mr. Utesch will be having a junior class meeti...

Happy Friday! I hope everyone had a good break and came back ready to make that final push. Today is midterm for the 4th quarter. Beth and Amy will get these sent off. Please take the time to contact parents of the students who you have set up PASS Plans for if the student is not meeting their end of the deal. The more we communicate with parents of these students, the better off they will be in the long run.  Local Assessments will be next week in Junior English and Math classes. On Tuesday, we will have the random testing done for the Health and Social Studies during 1st and 2nd period in the Library.  Hopefully everyone had the chance to complete the TLC surveys that Rachael Harris sent out for the TLC committee. This info is important in helping the committee to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. If you didn't fill out these surveys please take the time to do so. Also, you were sent a link for a parent involvement survey. Please make sure you have comple...