School resumes this week after a long Thanksgiving break. We have a grade Dy on Friday December 4th. This is will mark the 12-week point in this first semester. Students will not be in school on December 4th. The National Honor Society induction will be coming up in December. This will be a morning event held in the gymnasium. Students and parents will be notified of who is being inducted prior to the event so all may attend. We are working on possibly altering our bell schedule starting next fall. The reason for a possible change is to be able to allocate some time during the school day for students to be able to access any teacher for roughly 30 minutes twice a week. This is so that students can take re-tests, or get additional help from teachers. There will be more to. One on this after the first of the year. Winter sports contests start this week.

This is the last week of school prior to a one week break. There will be no school from November 23rd-27th. Four of the days that week are non-contract and non-paid days for all school staff. When we return from the Thanksgiving break there will be three weeks of school and the longer Holiday break of two weeks. 12-week progress reports will be mailed home the second week in December. Congratulations to our football team as they defeated Mazama 28-21 yesterday afternoon. It was a hard fought game between two very good teams. Banks will play next on Saturday November 12st at 3:30 PM at Hillsboro Stadium. We will be playing Cascade.

This past week was College Application Week at the high school. All week long senior students had the opportunity to attend presentations that helped theM look into their future and what they might do after high school. There were sessions on college, trades and the work force and the military. Students signed up for what they wanted to attend. Whitney Scott, our new counselor organized the event. It was very well received and students and parents voiced their appreciation for having it. Congratulations to the volleyball team. They won the state 4A volleyball title on Saturday night. They defeated Sisters in three close games. This is their first state title. The football team defeated Baker on Saturday. They will now play Mazama next Saturday. Time and location have not been set yet.

Parent conferences will be November 4th and 5th from 4:30-8 PM. Parents are encouraged to come to the high school to meet with teachers and discuss their students progress in courses. Teachers will be available during this time to meet. The front office will have copies of transcripts, current grades and a map for parents who need them. Hope to see you this week. There is no school on Friday November 6th. We also have College Application Week November 2nd-5th. This is the week when our seniors can attend sessions on applying to college, applying to trade schools, military options, being informed about sports in college etc. We will have sessions throughout the four days that seniors can attend if interested. The focus is on getting students started on their next step after graduation from high school. It's our first time doing this and Whitney Scott, our new counselor, has brought this program to the high school. It is a great opportunity for our students!

At the high school, we are moving towards a standards based education approach to instruction. In a standards based system teachers identify course standards from either the common core or from the Oregon Department of Education content standards and teach to those standards in each course. They identify the "priority standards", those that are most critical to know and develop lessons around those standards. Students will be expected to demonstrate that they know and understand identified standards, usually by some form of a classroom assessment. In this system, students are typically allowed multiple opportunities to demonstrate their understanding and so re-testing is allowed. The key piece before their is a re-test is that the student will need to increase their understanding of the content. Additional time spent on learning content will be necessary for students wanting to take a re-take. Tests will typically represent 60-70% of the course grade, with homework representing a much smaller portion of the grade. Extra credit is no longer an option in SBE classrooms. In addition, students may receive two grades in each course, an academic grade (tests, quizzes, homework) and a behavior grade (attendance, behavior in class, tardiness with submitting work etc.). We are working, as a staff on implementing this system, a common one in many high schools across the state and nation. In short, we move from a system of accumulating points in a course for extra-credit, tests taken once, homework etc to one where tests become the primary indicator of learning.

The weather has turned and it feels more like fall now. In some ways the rain and clouds bring familiarity to the time of year. The upcoming week at the high school will be busy with classes and sporting events. There are a few issues looming on the horizon for schools in Oregon. One is the new ruling on instructional hours. The state passed some legislation that will require schools to offer a minimum number of instructional hours at different grade levels. For the high school the number of hours is 990. We must look at this closely for next year, which is when it begins to impact us. The other issue is the mascot issue. We are working with ODE and local tribal councils to see if it might be possible to keep our mascot. We need to know definitively very soon as changing the mascot is a process and it brings with it financial costs in making the change. I have been very impressed with our students through the fall. We have a wonderful group of young people in the school now and they all seem to be working towards meeting graduation requirements, which have increased in difficulty in the last few years. Our sports teams are doing very well, as they have in each of the past three years that I have been serving as the principal. We are closing in on the time of year where playoffs and state competitions begin. I believe that there may be a number of our teams moving on to post season play, a great accomplishment! Please do not hesitate to contact me either by email or phone should you have any questions about anything here or outside of this post. Have a great week!

These are the last few days of high school for our senior students who are graduating. It's a busy time spent with friends and family as they prepare for graduation on Friday. The weather for Friday looks good so we are planning an outside graduation on the football field. It will begin at 7 PM that evening. Students will need to be present at 6:00 PM that night. Baccalaureate will be on Wednesday night at 7 PM at the Dayspring church in Banks. Family, friends and staff are welcome at this event. And then of course seniors last school day is Wednesday. What a fun and exciting week ahead!