May 22 - Spring Service Day

Cleaning up Clark Park (down by the dam)

Many, many thanks to NHS students and Moira, Rebecca, Lindsey, Kate and other adults who stepped in at times to help with organizing Service Day & Spring Fling. I appreciate all of your flexibility and understanding of the importance of giving students opportunities to lead events, make some mistakes, and learn along the way. The students involved demonstrated a ton of skills connected to Construct, Act, Express. We've served them well over 4 years. We had a great day, Thanks!

LAST CHAPEL UPDATE: 

In the future, our school community (staff & students), will need to consider how we showcase student learning in a PBL system. As our new system develops, more students will be demonstrating higher and more diverse levels of learning and achievement. How do we capture & share this with our larger community? What opportunities can we create to share student experiences, skills, and differences? Do we have more exhibitions and/or different ones? Lots to think about.....

.... For now, later this week, you will receive a memo from Janet about Last Chapel (LC). As you consider your awards and recipients please consider the following:
   - In my opinion, honoring more is better than honoring the same student multiple times
   - LC is a time to recognize individual accomplishments for students that stood out
   - The focus is on individuals or small groups of students, not programs
   - Emphasis on demonstrated skills and attributes for award winners is ideal. "The following student       demonstrated...."
   - We want to emphasize what stood out and why it matters. Why did you notice?
   - Brevity is appreciated where possible, departments should try to limit themselves to 4 min. or less
   - Make a request to your students who are receiving awards to be present at Last Chapel
   - If recognizing more than 3 students at one time, it is appropriate to ask the audience to hold applause until all names have been read: 'the following students are recognized for....please hold your applause until all students are named...'
   - We are representing our school, district, and LSSU, not just our individual programs.
   - LC is a time for us to be professional, positive, and proud.
   - Please wear the Maroon, class of 2017 t-shirt to represent and support them. 

Just having a laugh. 

Final's Week Reminder:
On June 13th, Tuesday or Finals Week, current 8th graders will visit you in your classroom to share their PLP with you. Please be prepared for this visit. It should take less than a 1/2 hour and is a great time for you to get to know them. On Friday, June 16th , we all welcome the 8th graders to HS at the conclusion of their Last Chapel. Phil will lead the presentation, you just need to be there from roughly 11-11:35/40. And, check last week's notes and BP notes for Finals expectations.


This week's Link: Killing Traditional Transcripts  This is a very interesting article partly about a group of '100 Elite HS's' in the US who are moving to transform their transcripts - kind like us. I like this summary of positives and concerns. My only complaint is they somehow left Peoples Academy off the list of Elite Schools?!

Calendar

Check out the artist!

5/22 - Best Practice: Scholarly Habits

                   BEST PRACTICE AGENDA
5/23 - Community Meeting, no TA
5/26 - 10am: Memorial Day Observance
5/26-27 - Final PA Drama Club Performances
6/1 - Senior Trip
6/13 - 8th graders visit TA at 1pm
6/15 - Last Chapel & Graduation
6/15 - Project Grad 
6/16 - all staff to ML Last Chapel at 11am
6/16 - Last day of School
6/19-22 - Curriculum Camp Rocks!!




Upcoming TA

TUESDAY                                                              FRIDAY                          
5/23 - Community Meeting                              5/26 - No TA - Mem Day Observ
5/30 - Last week of TA - FREE                           6/2 - FREE - LAST TA
                        ** Yearbook Dedication somewhere in here....****
6/6 - No TA                                                             6/9 - NO TA


School Happenings: 

....at the Manor

Getting the garden out back ready for growing season! We've got a farm to school program rolling.....!!!

Meals on Wheels Prep

Planting Trees at Oxbow.

Rapping PA style. 

Adding color to the back 40. 

More Clark Park clean up in action....these boys stepped it up!

Working through '12 Angry Men' in (th Eng. 

Looks like Montreal was fun. 

'Gelling' - not your average nail polish

Celebrations

Way to go Lesley and congratulations to the Science Olympiad team who received a $1000 grant from North Country. The grant will help fund the team's work, registration fees, etc. Lesley wrote the grant and also worked with area schools and Castleton State to start an Olympiad competition for Vermont  school's next year.

The PA Band made the 'Brattleboro Reformer' (the local Brat paper)!!