Shine Your Light

My goal every year is to find ways for you, as faculty and staff, to feel a sense of accomplishment and success. We know our purpose as teachers is to help meet students where they are and take them as far as they can go, with the idea of at least one year of growth.  

Growth in education can be difficult to measure unlike the business/private sector.  There are a lot of ways to determine growth in the business world, mostly through analyzing data and profit margins, but in education it is so messy!   While we do look at our quantitative outcomes a lot, in our jobs where we work with human beings and children, our success cannot be analyzed in a typical, business world fashion.  Students grow and mature at different rates, go through bad and good times and to each one, success looks different.  My mom was a kindergarten teacher for many, many years and we would talk about students a lot.  She couldn't BELIEVE the successes of some of our students.  "But when I had them, they couldn't read!"  or "When I had them they cried the first week of school!"  or "When I had them, they couldn't sit still for a second!" she would say over and over.  She would also ALWAYS end with the comment, "That is why you never give up on any of them!"

She is so right.  We are so blessed to have a team of faculty and staff who believe whole heartedly in our students and never give up on them.  All of you go the extra mile everyday.  While sometimes our quantitative measurements like ILEARN, SAT, AP exams, etc. don't always give us the results we hope for (and quite frankly are not good measures of success), we know that the qualitative measurements such as work ethic, kindness, love, community involvement always prevail.  

For me, one of the things that brings me the most joy is looking at our senior class and seeing the success and future goals for each student.  We know how they entered into junior-high (some of them we remember more than others) and to see how far they have come is heartwarming and satisfying. I hope all of you can feel that pride as we say good bye to the Class of 2022.  Below is a link to their class bios that will be shared in the Perry County News.  Take time to read them and their future goals and know that their success is because of you!  The Senior Class Moto is, "Shine Your Light".  Thank you for being a light to all of them.

Senior Bios

Important Information: 

* Senior Walk Through - The Senior Walk-Through will begin around 9:30 a.m. on Monday morning.  Here is the path:  Senior Walk Path:   Start at HS Commons - down high school hall into elementary - go upstairs in 2 story - down back steps through lower elementary - then back up to elementary commons past 5th and 6th grades - back up through high school hall - senior hall is last then out the front doors.  We will stop at the front of the steps for a class picture.   

We will make an announcement when we would like you to ask your students to step in the halls. We will be on the south and north side halls only - so please move everyone down so we can fill them up! This is a fun time for students and faculty/staff. (If you have an extra Kleenex this year, I may need it!!)

* Finals - Remember that final exams will be Monday: 2,4,6 and Tuesday: 1,3,5,7

* Last Teacher Day:  Wednesday, May 25th is the last teacher day.  We will start with a retirement breakfast at 8:00 in the cafeteria.  The rest of the day will be yours to work.  I will send an email with a final list of things to do, but here is a rough draft!  :-)  

      * Grades - Please have grades finalized by the time you leave.  It is important we have grades finished as soon as possible for seniors.  If you have a special circumstance, please let the office know.  Please make sure students do not have incompletes!

      * Dual Credits - Please do not forget to put grades in the Ivy Tech system if you are teaching a dual credit class.  Also, please print a copy of your Ivy Tech grades before hitting submit and hand them into Dana.  This helps ensure our records are accurate on transcripts. 

      * Power Standards - Remember, we would like you to please make a list of your power standards (or reporting topics) and provide a percentage of students who earned a 3 or higher on each reporting topic.  HERE is a link to the document if you want to print one off.  Please do this for each different subject area you teach. 

     * Remember we will be cleaning classrooms, so please leave your room in a way that can be easily moved.  (Desks cleaned off, tables cleared, etc.)   

Graduation:  Graduation is Sunday, May 29th at 2:00 in the high school gym.  We will have a small section reserved for teachers on the south side of the gym by the stage.  It is always great to see teachers there to support students as they end their high school careers.   

Professional Development Dates: (I will email everyone this summer as well)

June 16 - English Team

June 29 - Math Team

June 30 - Science Team

July 27 - Social Studies Team

TBD: CTE Team/ Special Education

August 4 - Back to School Cookout!!