Vision Newberg Nation 2015-16 PART II

NHS Principal Mark Risen continues to share many of the reorganization efforts underway for the 2015-16 school year to provide all  students with exemplary educational experiences!.  

NEW COURSES/MORE OPTIONS FOR STUDENTS
In this week’s course guide and forecasting sheets that we handed out this week there are several new courses and opportunities for students to choose from. This is a result of our efforts to reorganize our master schedule into a whole school model. By removing the small school constraints on the master schedule (meaning, dividing up our teachers/courses/departments/students by small school first)and moving to a whole school master scheduling process we have been able to create more flexibility in terms of the courses we can offer, which teachers teach which courses, students ability to access a wider range of teachers and for our curriculum departments to work together in offering a broader range of experiences for our students. We are excited about having this opportunity for our students!

Please read the course guide and the forecasting sheets closely and take full advantage of these new opportunities!

FORECASTING HELP CENTER
In support of our forecasting efforts counselors and administrators will be staffing our first ever “Forecasting Help Center” on Wednesday, March 18, from 5-7pm in the West Commons at NHS. This is your chance to get all of your forecasting questions answered, assistance with completing the forecasting forms or your questions about specific courses answered and explained.

FORECASTING FORMS DUE?
A reminder that all forecasting forms are due by Thursday, March 19! Incoming freshmen can return them to their respective middle school counselors while current NHS students can return them to their advisory teacher!

Please ensure that your forms are returned by March 19 as we will begin inputting the data over spring break!

2015-16’ COUNSELOR ASSIGNEMTS
As a follow up to our announcement last week that our incoming freshmen will be assigned to their counselor based upon the first letter of their last name (A-E = Mr. Baker, F-L = Mrs. Conrad, M-R = Mrs. Eggiman and S-Z = Mr. Monson) we wanted to take a little time this week and explain how next year’s sophomores, juniors and seniors counselors and advisory teachers will be assigned.

Next year’s 10th, 11th and 12th graders will keep their current counselor and will remain with their current counselor until such time as they graduate from NHS.

ADVISORY TEACHER ASSIGNMENTS
Our incoming freshmen will be assigned their advisory teacher based upon the first letter of their last name, just as they are their counselor. We are assigning them their advisory teacher by the first letter of their last name so that the counselor and the advisory teacher can work together in supporting our freshmen next year.

Similarly, next year’s 10th,11th and 12th graders will keep the counselor they currently have this year, as well as their current advisory teacher, which are also paired together in supporting our student’s needs.

We will keep students with their counselor and advisory teacher until such time as they graduate from NHS.

SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER ASSIGNMENTS

Students already enrolled in special education programs here at NHS will retain their current special education teacher, counselor and advisory teacher, again, until such time as they graduate. Meanwhile, the incoming freshmen that are enrolling in special education programs will be assigned their special education teacher by the first letter of their last name (as we are also doing with their counselor and advisory teacher).

PHASE IN/PHASE OUT
In an effort to simplify how counselor, advisory and special education teachers are being assigned suffice it to say that we will be phasing out these assignments by small school and replacing them by first letter of the students last name beginning with the incoming freshmen this fall. Assigning students by small school will phase out graduating class by graduating class over the next four years while each new class of freshmen that arrive will be phased in by assigning them by the first letter of their last name.

WHY THE CHANGE TO FIRST LETTER OF LAST NAME FOR FROSH (or Alpha?)

This change in how we assign students to counselors was necessitated by our efforts to improve our master scheduling process, course offerings and teacher availability to students as was outlined in our article “Changing Needs at NHS” that was published in our December 19 newsletter (available to read by clicking this link:http://www.newberg.k12.or.us/nhs) and reiterated in the “New Courses/More Options For Students” section above.

UPDATED ADVISORY CURRICULUM
We have an Advisory Team here at NHS that leads our advisory curriculum and teachers. Staffed by administrators, counselors and teachers the Advisory Team helps design curriculum, takes care of logistics, and helps support our advisory teachers in support of our students in those classes.

Our Advisory Team is preparing an updated curriculum for all of our Tigers next year, an update that includes our updated freshmen advisory curriculum (as described in last week’s newsletter)  and other updates for all of our students including developing strong academic mindsets.

While the sophomore and junior advisory curriculum will look much the same (although the juniors will start working on their senior projects sooner than they have in the past) our senior advisory curriculum will focus heavily on developing a seamless transition for our seniors and what they plan to do upon their graduation from NHS.

To this end our senior advisory curriculum will focus more on our senior’s access to post-secondary education and career opportunities, more awareness of the options available to them after high school as well as strategies, tricks, tips and suggestions of how to navigate the senior year and how to create pathway to that effect. It is our hope that our seniors, and their families find this update very beneficial.

COLLABORATION BETWEEN MIDDLE, HIGH AND POST-SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Last week’s newsletter talked about the increased collaboration efforts that are underway to help our incoming freshmen transition to NHS much more smoothly. This week we would like to share that we are also working hard to help our seniors transition to their post-high school endeavors more seamlessly as well.

As part of our updated advisory curriculum we will be placing great emphasis on partnering with all of our post-secondary providers for our students. With more access to college and career recruiters, more information available, and increased supports implemented to help our seniors find their pathway and connect to it, we are excited about helping redefine how supported our seniors feel in their final year in the Newberg School District.

REGISTRATION AND FROSH ORIENTATION: SAVE THE DATES!!!!
Our last newsletter included information about the dates we have set aside for fall registration. Tuesday, September 1, our incoming freshmen will register in the morning and stay for frosh orientation that afternoon. The afternoon of September 1st our seniors will register. The morning of September 2nd our juniors will register followed by the sophomores that afternoon.

We wanted to share this week that our registration process will include an opportunity for all students and their parents to get a first glimpse of how we have re-organized NHS in an effort to provide exemplary service. We will have students begin their registration process on the south side of the school at the four glass doors that enter into the commons. There will be check in tables where students and their families will check in and receive their registration materials, a packet that will include a registration checklist as students and families tour the school getting pictures taken, schedules handed out to student, and even schedule changes made during the registration process.

It is our goal to have a registration process where all of our students and their family needs are met prior to the first day of school so that once we begin classes we can focus on academics!

WE NEED STUDENTS TO CARRY ID CARDS
Along with updating our registration process next year we are also going to ask for your assistance in helping us ensure that all students have an ID card on them at all times. We will issue all students an ID card at registration when their pictures are taken. Having students keep their ID card on them is one of our efforts to further promote a safe campus environment. Meanwhile, having students keep their ID cards on them will also help us speed up some of our processes, such as taking attendance, which we hope to do electronically by ID card next year.

95% OR BETTER ATTENDANCE MATTERS!
Speaking of attendance NHS will be striving next year to ensure that we maintain a 95% or higher school wide attendance rate. Studies show that if a student is in class 95% or more of the time there is a 95% chance they will pass all of their classes! To this end we will be asking students and parents to utilize our pre-arranged absence process in the event you know of an absence ahead of time, and when absent, to clear that absence the same day if at all possible.

Knowing how important great attendance is to being a successful student NHS will also be following up on attendance matters much sooner and more efficiently beginning in the fall.

INTERVAL PROGRESS REPORTS
While attendance is certainly a key variable when it comes to determining if a student will be successful in a class or not, keeping track of ones grades and remaining updated on progress in classes is equally, if not more, important. In an effort to support our students and their parents monitoring of their grades NHS will be implementing an Interval Progress Report (IPR) beginning in the fall. We are currently in the process of seeing if our technology will also allow us to include attendance and behavioral feedback to students and parents as well as part of the IPR’s. Stay tuned!

NEWBERG NATION ’15-‘16
One of the new programs we will roll out in the fall in support of our Newberg Nation efforts is something we call “PBIS,” which stands for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support! We will be unveiling a very positive recognition campaign and are currently forming our PBIS Team that will lead these efforts. It the task of this team to find any way and every way possible to celebrate all the great things that not only our students are doing, but also that are staff, parents and community members are doing in contributing to help make NHS the greatest school in the land!

We will celebrate anything and everything! From a link located on our website to accessing our Facebook page or using our Newberg Nation Twitter access, or our ability to have all of our staff have an email link on their desktops, we will celebrate everything and anything positive happening across Newberg Nation! You simply need to go to any of those nomination links/forms and send them our way! We will do the rest!

From random acts of kindness to academic and co-curricular achievements, improved student behavior or exceptional efforts and volunteerism that occurs in any regard, we will be looking for anything and everyone to celebrate in our own Newberg Nation way; a.k.a. when someone does something special we refer to them affectionately as a Flying Tiger!

Stay tuned Tigers, more to come and the nomination links will go live this fall!

NEXT WEEKS EDITION OF “This Week In Newberg Nation?”
We will talk about our other efforts to help improve our:

Curriculum, instruction and student achievement.
School culture, student/parent involvement and engagement next year.
Student support systems and structures for next year.