This is the last school week of the 2014 school year. It will be a busy week as students finish up their studies, wrap up food and money drives for charity, compete in athletic contests and perform at the band and choir concert. The concert will be held on Wednesday night at 7 PM in the high school cafeteria. This is always a wonderful night of music during this Holiday season, hope you can make it. Enjoy the upcoming two week break (December 22 - January 2). I want to wish you and your family a peaceful and restful Holiday season!

We will have the National Honor Society induction event at the school on Thursday morning December 11th. It will begin at 8:30 AM and it will be in the gym. Students who are inducted have met the requirements of membership (3.5 GPA and above, completed the application). All applications were reviewed by a faculty committee and the selections were then made. We will have our winter concert on Wednesday December 17th in the high school cafeteria. It will begin at 7 PM and will include, band, choir and percussion music. It should be a wonderful Holiday event, hope you can attend.

I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving break! We return to school on Monday for a four day student week. It is a grade day on Friday so there is no school for students. On Thursday we will be 12-weeks into this first semester. Progress report grades will be mailed home the week of the 8th-12th. It is critical that students make progress towards graduation. That means passing all of their classes each semester. With just over 12-weeks left in this semester it's a good time to make sure that attention is being paid to grades and the accumulation of credits towards graduation. Making the necessary changes to study habits now in order to pass all classes may be required for some students. We have Supervised after school homework club from 3-4 PM during the school week. Scheduling individual time with classroom teachers is also possible. Please ensure that you are working with your student by having discussions about grades, credits and progress towards graduation.

It's already the Thanksgiving break. The fall has gone fast as we move in to winter soon. This week is very short with two days of school. When we return on Monday December 1st it will be a four day school week. There is no school on Friday December 5th because it is a grade day for teachers. The time between the Thansgiving break and the Holiday break in December will go quickly. Winter sports contests will begin in December and continue over the Holiday break. I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving break spent with family and friends!

This will be another short school week. There is no school on Tuesday due to Veterans Day. Looking ahead for the remainder of the month, we have a full week of school the 17th-21st and then a two day school week the the week of Thanksgiving. This month will go by quickly. There is a break from sports this week also as all fall sports are now finished. Winter sports practices will begin on Monday the 17th. I hope that you had a chance to meet with your students teachers last week during conferences. If you were not able to meet with them please know that you can contact them by appointment, phone or email.

Parent and teacher conferences are this week on Thursday and Friday. The schedule is as follows; Thursday 5-8 PM and Friday 8 AM-12 PM. This is a time for parents and students to come to the school and meet with course instructors to check progress in each course. Teachers will have updated course grades and will be ready to share how students are progressing in the course. Strengths, areas for improvement and concerns both from the parent perspective and from the teacher perspective can be discussed during this time. Please be aware that Thursday night is typically busier than Friday morning. Also, please plan to meet with teachers for no more than 5-7 minutes each. If you need additional time with the teacher, please plan with them for an appointment at another time. Thanks and see you Thursday and or Friday this week.

There have been a couple of interesting education articles in the Oregonian this past week. The most recent one, on Friday I believe, was about possibly requiring students to have a "full load" of classes in high school. It is typically the case that 9th and 10th graders will have full schedules. For 11th and 12th grade students that isn't always the case. The state may move to a point where they link the amount of money a school receives to the "load" of classes that they have on their schedule. And so a senior who takes 4 classes (half time) would be funded by the state at half of the full monetary rate (about $7,000). This is something that we will have to be aware of as the talks at the Oregon Department of Education proceed. This could be a significant change for us in many ways.