New Beginnings

This week, our last week of the 2016-2017 school year, is an exciting and life changing time for many.  We will be wishing our 2017 graduates and some very special retirees best wishes as they both enter new eras of their lives.  Both groups have tremendously impacted all of us at Perry Central and we wish them both the best.  Just because this phase in their life is over, we know their best is yet to come.  

I would like to take this time to thank Gary Hanan, Becky Genet and Mary Jo Carter for their service to our students and our school community.  Not only have I had the privilege of working with all of them, they also taught/coached/cared for me when I was in school.  Collectively, they have given 98 years to Perry Central.  We will all miss their smiles, jokes, expertise and kindness.  They have all definitely played a large role in each of our lives, and we wish them all of the best.    

I would also like to thank our entire staff for making my first year as principal easy.  I feel so fortune to work with such caring and hard working individuals.  As I thumbed through twitter and Facebook pictures for the year, I was reminded of all of the exciting times and successes we shared, such as our successful PBIS program, Commodore Pride Celebration (it was great!), BPA, FFA and other club successes, athletic team success, being recognized as 1 of 13 Early College High Schools in the state, Governor's Work Ethic Certification, outstanding outcome data and more.  All of these are because of all of the great things you do everyday.  You not only help us be successful in ways that we can measure, but there are immeasurable ways as well.  You have touched so many lives by building relationships, giving hope to students and just being caring individuals.  I could share countless stories of how special students feel when they are in our building and that is also because of all of you.  In my mind, we have had a great year, and I am looking forward to many more.

Thank you for what all of you have done to make Perry Central Jr./Sr. High School a special place.  I hope you all have a safe, relaxing and enjoyable summer. You deserve it!!  

School Notes: 

* Good luck to varsity baseball and softball teams in their sectional play this week!  Also, to our athletes that will be participating in regional track meets!  Go Commodores!!

* Locker Clean-out Schedule:  Monday, 12:05 - 12:25  8th grade clean-out/  Tuesday: 12th Grade - 8:00 - 8:20 a.m./ 11th Grade - 8:25 - 8:45 a.m./ 10th Grade 9:50 - 10:10/ 9th Grade 10:10 - 10:27/  7th Grade 10:35 - 10:55

* Senior Hall Walk - on Thursday at 9:30 a.m., we will start the senior graduation practice with a hall walk.  If your classes are not testing, you are invited to bring your students out into the hall and wish the senior class fair well as they walk the halls for the last time as PC students!  

* Senior Activities: Seniors will spend their last two days of school participating in activities.  On Wednesday, May 24, they will have their senior class trip to Holiday World and on Thursday, May 25th, will be graduation practice.  They will start their practice with a hall parade at 9:30 a.m.  They will end that day at the Leopold Park for pizza.  Seniors are responsible for academic content in your courses before they leave.  If they need to take a final test, please make plans to administer it to them before the last two days of school.

* Final Exams: We will keep the same schedule for final exams.  Finals will be held in periods 2,4,5,6 on Wednesday and 1,3,5,7 on Thursday.  Remember we are blocking periods for finals for every period except 5th period.  For example, on Wednesday, students will only report to periods 2,4,5, and 6.  It is important to keep students busy with educational material all of the way up to the end of the school year!   

* You can find a master calendar in the Teacher Resource Folder on your Google Drive.   

Important Dates: 

Monday, May 22 - Varsity Baseball vs. Heritage Hills 5:00 p.m. Senior Night/ Varsity Girls Softball @ Cedar Crest in Sectional Play at 7:00 p.m.

Tuesday, May 23 - 8th Grade Field Trip/ Locker Clean-Out/ Varsity Girls Track Regional

Wednesday, May 24 - Senior Trip to Holiday World/ Varsity Boys Baseball Sectional @ South Spencer 5:00 p.m. vs. Forest Park/ Final Exam Schedule - 2,4,5,6

Thursday, May 25: Graduation Practice starting at 9:30 a.m. (Senior Walk starting at 9:30)/ Final Exams periods 1,3,5,7/ Boys Varsity Regional Meet

Friday, May 26: Retirement Party @ 8:00 a.m. - Breakfast served by the CTA/ Last Teacher Day!  Grades due by midnight 

Sunday, May 28: Graduation 2:00 p.m.  We hope to see all of you there!!  We will have a section for teachers roped off on the south side of the gym, lower bleachers.  

21st Century Learning

What does it mean to have a classroom that is equip with the tools that learners need in the 21st Century?  That seems to be the question that all of us are trying to answer as we are embracing this information rich world.  We know that the old days of straight rows and teachers being the "sage on the stage" are obsolete as all of our classrooms are striving to help students be prepared for the needs of our modern society.  When our students leave Perry Central, we need them to be innovators, effective in the workplace, great communicators, team oriented and life long learners.  21st Century learning is not new to Perry Central as we have embraced full-day internship programs, Early College High School, problem and passion based learning along with 1:1 technology all of the way down to kindergarten. 

As we wrap up another school year, I cannot help but continue to look for ways to better prepare our students.  Mary Roberson is always talking about how we can shift from teaching in silos of math, science, English and social studies to a vision of creating integrated curriculum and student directed learning environments.  Sometimes, even though we have a vision for what 21st Century learning should be, it is hard to find a model that can help us bring these dreams to reality.  That is how I have felt, until Tara Bishop shared this article about Apollo School in York, Pennsylvania. 

Apollo School is actually a cohort of students within Central York High School.  These students do not pick up and move on after first period, as they are engaged in a deep learning, self-paced environment where social studies, English and art standards are all embraced at the same time through inquiry-based learning. Central York High School also offers tracks of traditional and on-line learning creating a smorgasbord of opportunities that meets the needs for ALL of their students.    

I have shared this article with a few of you already, but I believe it is a vision that we should all share.  21st Century Learning should be about choice, creativity, and life long learning and that can happen in many different ways under one roof.  I hope you take time to read this article.  I believe with your leadership and commitment to education that Perry Central can too, be a model for change and a true definition of what 21st Century Learning should look like.        

You can find the article here.     

School Notes: 

*Congratulations to our English teachers and students for the outstanding performance they had in the Southern Hill Writing Contest.  There were around 30 student recognized for their writing pieces and all of the winners, except one, were from Perry Central!  Great Job!

* Last Faculty Meeting of the year - Tuesday, May 16th  7:20 a.m. in the high school library.  A light breakfast will be served. 

* Perry Central will have 53 students earn the Governor's Work Ethic Certification this year.  This is a very rigorous certification and we are very proud of our students.  We will have a short ceremony for them on Tuesday, May 16th at the beginning of third period.  Luke Bawel, Vice President of Jasper Engines, will be here to present students with their certifications.  

* On Friday, May 19th, there will be a remembrance ceremony for Tyler Zoglman at 6:30 in the bottom entrance of the high school gym.  All seniors along with faculty and staff are invited to attend this ceremony.  Tyler was a member of the Class of 2017.    

* Scholarship Banquet will be Wednesday, May 17th.  Lou Ann's daughter, Emily will be our guest speaker.

* Senior Activities: Seniors will spend their last two days of school participating in activities.  On Wednesday, May 24, they will have their senior class trip to Holiday World and on Thursday, May 25th, will be graduation practice.  They will start their practice with a hall parade at 9:30 a.m.  They will end that day at the Leopold Park for pizza.  Seniors are responsible for academic content in your courses before they leave.  If they need to take a final test, please make plans to administer it to them before the last two days of school.

* Final Exams: We will keep the same schedule for final exams.  Finals will be held in periods 2,4,5,6 on Wednesday and 1,3,5,7 on Thursday.  Remember we are blocking periods for finals for every period except 5th period.  For example, on Wednesday, students will only report to periods 2,4,5, and 6.  It is important to keep students busy with educational material all of the way up to the end of the school year!   

* You can find a master calendar in the Teacher Resource Folder on your Google Drive.   

Important Dates: 

Monday, May 15: English ECA Testing 9:00 a.m. (students who need to test are aware of the schedule.)/ Varsity Baseball @ Tell City 5:00 p.m/ Varsity Softball @ Orleans 5:00 p.m.

Tuesday, May 16: 7:20 a.m. Faculty Meeting HS Library/ Work Ethic Celebration 9:40 - 10:05 a.m./ 7th Grade Field Trip to Perry County Fairgrounds/ AP Pizza Party during 1st WIN/ Girls Track Sectional @ Perry Central

 

Wednesday, May 17: Varsity Baseball @ Springs Valley 4:00 p.m./ Scholarship Banquet 6:00 p.m./ Junior High Top 10 Pizza Party during WIN/Lunch

Thursday, May 18:  Academic Team Pizza Party during WIN/Lunch/ Boys Track Sectional @ Perry Central/ Varsity Golf @ Springs Valley 4:30/ Varsity Softball @ South Spencer 5:00 p.m.

Friday, May 19:  Commodore Pride Celebration periods 5-7/ Tyler Zoglman Dedication 6:30 p.m. lower gym entrance/ Varsity Baseball @ Forest Park 5:30 p.m./ Varsity Softball @ NE Dubois 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, May 20: Unified Track Sectional @ Central High School

Wednesday, May 24: Senior Class Trip to Holiday World/ Final Exams periods 2,4,5,6

Thursday, May 25: Graduation Practice starting at 9:30 a.m./ Final Exams periods 1,3,5,7

The Art of Curation

In the world of 1:1 computers, cell phones, ipads, etc., we are all a finger tip away from a plethora of information. Tony Wagner reminds us of this in his quote to the right when he talks about how free and available information is.  Even the good textbooks do not even shake a stick at the wealth of rigorous information that is readily available for our consumption.  When I think about how I would maximize these resources for students, I myself get a bit overwhelmed!    Jennifer Gonzalez's blog, To Boost Higher-Order Thinking, Try Curation, talks about ways to engage students into their own curation of information. She links these ideas to higher-order thinking skills that are needed in this 21st Century economy.  You can find the article here.  It is an empowering article and for me, provided several models that I could use in the classroom.  Hope you enjoy it!

School Notes: 

* Academic Awards Night will be this Wednesday, May 10th at 6:30 p.m. in the high school gym.  A BIG THANK YOU to Sheila and Janet for helping organize the event.  Please let us know if you have any questions.

* Tuesday, May 9th, several students will be recognized at the Southern Hills Writing Awards Banquet.  Thank you to Abbie Brockman, Amy Rasche, Jennifer Ball, and Lisa Lutgring for preparing our students so well!

* This Friday, May 12th is a busy day!  We will have several students participating as graduates in the Ivy Tech Graduation Ceremony at the Ford Center.  It is also the FFA Banquet, Coffee and Conversations @ the Pour Haus and Mary Jo Carter's Retirement Party!  It will be a great Friday!!

* Scholarship Banquet will be Wednesday, May 17th.  Lou Ann's daughter, Emily will be our guest speaker.

* Senior Activities: Seniors will spend their last two days of school participating in activities.  On Wednesday, May 24, they will have their senior class trip to Holiday World and on Thursday, May 25th, will be graduation practice.  They will start their practice with a hall parade at 9:30 a.m.  They will end that day at the Leopold Park for pizza.  Seniors are responsible for academic content in your courses before they leave.  If they need to take a final test, please make plans to administer it to them before the last two days of school.

* Final Exams: We will keep the same schedule for final exams.  Finals will be held in periods 2,4,5,6 on Wednesday and 1,3,5,7 on Thursday.  Remember we are blocking periods for finals for every period except 5th period.  For example, on Wednesday, students will only report to periods 2,4,5, and 6.  It is important to keep students busy with educational material all of the way up to the end of the school year!   

* You can find a master calendar in the Teacher Resource Folder on your Google Drive.   

Important Dates: 

* Monday, May 8 - Varsity Baseball and Varsity Softball @ Home vs. Crawford County 4:30 p.m.

* Tuesday, May 9 - Southern Hills Writing Awards Ceremony, St. Paul's Church/ Physical Night/ Varsity Softball @ Home vs. Wood Memorial 5:30 p.m.

* Wednesday, May 10 - Academic Awards Night @ 6:30 p.m./ Captain's Club Top 10 Banquet grades 9-11 @ 5:30 p.m.

* Thursday, May 11 - Boys and Girls Varsity Track and Varsity Softball @ Mitchell 5:00 p.m./ Varsity Golf @ Christmas Lake 4:30 p.m.

* Friday, May 12 - FFA Banquet 6:00 p.m./ Ivy Tech Graduation Ceremony, Ford Center/ Coffee and Conversations @ Pour Haus