Educational standards in Oregon are increasing. The state has adopted the Common Core State Standards as have 44 other states across the country. The common core are adopted standards for instruction in English Language Arts and Math. Teachers, parents and community members have all provided input into the development of the common core standards. This link will take those interested to the common core web site where you can read what the common core state standards are in the two areas listed (http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards). Starting next year, students in grades 3-8 and 11 will be assessed on their understanding of the common core. The assessment that has been selected is the Smarter Balanced Assessment. As in the past, this assessment will chart a students progress in demonstrating their understanding of the common core in grades 3-8. At the 11th grade, students will be expected to demonstrate that they meet the standards in English Language Arts and in math in order to graduate. There are two options for demonstrating this, one is by passing the Smarter Balanced Assessments or they may demonstrate it by passing local assessments in reading, writing and math. These local assessments will be offered numerous times during a high school students career as a part of their classroom work. We are continuing to develop local assessments in reading, writing and math so that our students will have many chances to demonstrate that they have met the standards. Our goal is to have all students meet graduation requirements in reading, writing and math (Oregon calls these the essential skills) by the end of their 11th grade year. Congratulations to our football and volleyball teams! Both finished their league seasons undefeated and football is a perfect 9-0 for the full season. On to the playoffs for these two sports.

We are meeting as a staff to work on a number of things to improve instruction at the high school. We have been meeting to review how to deliver and assess student writing. We will use our late start this Wednesday for our second session of teacher led writing instruction for the staff. We have also reviewed the common core state standards, adopted by Oregon and over 40 other states. These are the standards that will be assessed next school year during state wide assessments. These are higher, more challenging standards for all students. We have had two teachers attend a math workshop at the ESD in order to learn more about how to conduct local math assessments. Local assessments will be one way that students can demonstrate that they have met the math requirement that is now mandatory for graduation from high school. The District Technology Committee is meeting to plan for upgrading technology across the district. This may include recommendations for improvements in terms of computer hardware and wireless technology. It is a busy time as we move forward in this school year.

The first 6-weeks have just been completed. Progress report grades will be mailed home this week. These grades are just that, progress to this point in the semester. There are still 12-weeks left in this semester. Progress report grades are indicators of how the student is doing academically in the class. The semester grade is the critical grade. The semester grade goes on the transcript and becomes a part of the students permanent record. Progress reports do not go on to transcripts. We will be handing out log in information so that students can check their grades online. Parents should have already received that information for checking their students grades. Please encourage your student to be aware of their grades and to work towards high academic achievement. Students continue to demonstrate outstanding behavior in what has become a pretty crowded school with the addition of the middle school students. Our sports teams continue to do well as the days grow shorter and cooler. Hopefully we will see you out supporting our teams.

This will be short school week for students. There is no school both Thursday and Friday (October 10th and 11th). On Thursday teachers will be completing the 6-week progress reports. Those will be mailed home the week of October 14th. Friday is the Statewide Teacher Inservice Day. This is a non-contract day for teachers and it is an opportunity for teachers to attend inservice sessions around the state, however it is not a requirement. Parents should have received a letter in the mail last week that will allow them to view their students grades, attendance and transcripts. The new student information system we are using this year is called Synergy and as in the past there is a parent viewer aspect that allows parents to view grades etc. via the internet. If you have not received the information for logging in and accessing your students account please contact the high school office. We are continuing to experience significant issues regarding our mealtime program across the district. This program is the one that tracks student lunch accounts. It is an automated system that should allow parents to deposit money into their students lunch accounts for the purpose of buying lunch at school. Our technology department is working on fixing this system and hopefully it will be working properly this week. It was a pretty exciting finish to last Friday nights football game in Seaside. An interception of a Seaside pass with 3.4 seconds left in the game was returned for a Banks touchdown. Andrew Santa Maria was the Banks player who made the catch and scored resulting in a 20-14 win for Banks. It was an amazing finish to a game of two evenly matched teams. Banks remains undefeated and highly ranked with three more league games to go.