Weekly Newsletter

Newberg High School Newsletter   
      September 19, 2014

This week in Newberg Nation!

This week at NHS ended with students decked out in their Neon Newberg Nation costume contests, including lunch time activities and a chance to get voted into tonight’s finals at the home football game! Sponsored by NHS ASB, the event is yet another effort by student body leadership to infuse the halls, fields, community and people of Newberg with school spirit! A campaign in which they are doing a great job!

This week also saw our first Booster Club meeting of the year occur in the W. Commons with approximately two dozen boosters in attendance. We wanted to make a quick shout out to all of our boosters for their volunteerism and ongoing support! Yes, Newberg Nation loves you!

A week filled with contests, events, a play and so many more things occurring, Tiger fans are always reminded that a schedule of events is always available at our website, www.newberg.k12.or.us/nhs. And don’t forget our new @NewbergNation twitter feed where you can keep up with the viral trend of 2014, Newberg Nation!

Back To School Night

Come one, come all Newberg Nation families to Back to School Night on Monday, September 22, from 6-7:30 pm. The evening’s events will begin in the commons at 6pm with a brief welcome followed by a visit to your student’s advisory class and the opportunity to visit each of your child’s classes and meet their teachers.

There will also be presentations by administrators and counselors including a question and answer session regarding our potential schedule changes for the 2015-2016 school year, success tips for students, an opportunity to meet our two new Assistant Principals Janay Cookson and Alaina Santana, as well as a presentation by Newberg Nation’s counseling team on college and career readiness!

In addition to having an opportunity to meet your students teachers, visit classrooms, give input on our potential schedules for next year, hear our counselors discuss college/career readiness and meet out new administrators, you will also have the opportunity to purchase Tiger apparel and novelties Monday evening so that you can show your Tiger swagger at all of our events, functions, and while out in our community!

Finally, our small school offices and our Career Center will also be open where you can get a copy of your child’s schedule, you can update your contact information, get information on college and career readiness and activities, while also asking other questions as they pertain your child’s success here at NHS!

We look forward to seeing you on Monday evening!

Communication Tools, Tips & Tricks

In our efforts to communicate effectively we thought we would take a little time this week and share both what communication tools are at your disposal as well as some tips and tricks when trying to communicate with staff here at the school.

First and foremost, your communication is important to us here at NHS! We want to hear your voice, understand your needs/concerns, and be as responsive as possible in our efforts to provide exemplary customer service to you. That said, here are a few modes of communication that you, and we, can utilize in an effort to ensure that information is moving between all of us.

• Our weekly newsletter; NHS produces a weekly newsletter that is sent out on Friday afternoons. The newsletter is sent via ParentLink, distributed via email through our NHS List Serve and is placed on our school website. It contains a variety of information pertinent to the whole school. Should you have a need or desire to have something included in the newsletter please email Tabitha Renne at rennet@newberg.k12.or.us.
• ParentLink: ParentLink is our most recently adopted communication tool that we use to send out information that is typically text based. Announcements, the weekly newsletter and other information, as needed, can be communicated via ParentLink as can information during an emergency. If you are not receiving information via ParentLink please contact your small school office so that we can ensure that you do!
• ParentVUE/StudentVUE:  ParentVUE and StudentVUE are tools we provide for parents and students to access information about their academic schedules, get updates, check grades, etcetera. If you are having connectivity issues with either of these please feel free to contact your small school office for assistance.
• Email: Email is still a great way to share or request information from the NHS staff. At NHS we view the use of email as a tool for sharing information versus a tool in which to have a conversation. We make this delineation between information and conversation due to the difficulty in emoting via email. Nonetheless, please feel free to utilize this tool when seeking information from our staff or in your efforts to share information with us.
• Telephone Call: Telephone calls are a great vehicle for having a conversation that is not too sensitive in nature. There are simply just conversations in which a phone call is the best tool at your disposal. If you feel that you need to have a conversation with an NHS staff member please call your small school office and we will happily get back to you as timely as possible.
• Meeting: The best vehicle for having the most delicate conversations is to simply meet face to face. There are just some conversations that need to occur face to face and the staff at NHS want to make sure that all stakeholders feel supported at all times, so please feel free to utilize this communication tool as well. To schedule a face to face meeting please feel free to either call your small school office or email the staff member you would like to meet with and request a time for a meeting.
• Text A Tip: Text A Tip is a great app that we have been able to acquire in our efforts to keep NHS a safe school. The intended purpose of Text A Tip is to provide a tool by which either emergency or behavioral matters can be immediately shared with administration, or emergency information can be shared with you. An example of how to utilize Text A Tip would be that you were at a school event and witnessed someone doing something illegal. Text A Tip would allow you to immediately text NHS administration with a tip to that effect and provide them with an opportunity to address the matter quickly.

The final communication suggestion we here at NHS would like to share is that we need to ensure that we have your most up to date contact information in our systems as this will enable us to communicate with you. If you would please go into your ParentVUE and review and update your emergency contact information as needed we would appreciate it. While ParentVUE will allow you to update your telephone numbers it will not allow you to change who we can contact in the event we need to reach you and you are not available. If you feel the need to update whom else we can contact please call your small school office and we can update that information for you at that time! Thank you!

News From the NHS Career Center:

HPr3, a healthcare professional preparation program, will begin meeting again starting Wednesday, Sept. 24th from 2:45 to 3:45pm in room F101.  For more information please stop by the College and Career Center.

Seniors: If you are planning on taking the school-day SAT on Oct. 15th please make sure you register online no later than October 1st! If you have questions please see your senior advisor, stop by the College and Career Center, and please make sure you pay for your SAT exam by seeing Sue in the Bookkeepers Office.

For more detailed information about all of the exams and activities offered on this day, please go to:http://www.newberg.k12.or.us/nhs/n-h-s-exam-day-october-15-2014
 

Academic Support Sessions:

Students needing additional academic support can come to the following after school sessions beginning next week:
Wednesdays: 2:45 - 4:00 Mrs. Atkinson’s room A101 (Math Support)
Thursdays: 2:45 - 4:00 Mrs. Light room E109 (English Support)
Please note:
Students need to arrive no later than 3:00 pm to be admitted, and students need to stay the duration of the session to receive a bus pass home.

NHS Code Club- Monday’s 3:00-4:00 Room C106- Mahony

Anyone can code computers! Computer science is the art of blending human ideas, creativity and digital tools to increase our power. Computer scientist’s work in so many different areas:  writing apps for phones, curing diseases, creating animated movies, working on social media, building robots that explore other planets and so much more.

Join us Mondays to begin learning coding in a fun easy environment. All participants can work at their own pace, individually or in groups and will have help and guidance along the way! Come join the fun! ALL schools welcome!

Student Conferences:

There will be a change in conferences this year. Parent/Teacher conferences will look a bit different this year. In order to offer parents more evening time to connect with our teaching staff, we will be available Wednesday Oct. 29th from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm. We will also be available Thursday Oct. 30th from 12:00 to 3:00 pm and again from 4:00 to 8:00 pm. Students will have class on the 29th but will not be in session on Thursday the 30th and Friday the 31st. We hope this change will lead to more conversations between you and our staff.

Upcoming Events:

Monday September 29th: Staff in Service, NO SCHOOL
Friday October 10th : Statewide in-service, NO SCHOOL
Friday October 17th: Homecoming Game vs. Canby at 7:00 pm
Saturday October 18th: Homecoming Dance (semi formal), Commons 8:00-10:30 PM
Wednesday October 29th: Parent/Teacher Conferences, 4:00 – 8:00 PM
Thursday October 30th: Parent/Teacher Conferences, 12:00-3:00 PM and 4:00-8:00 PM, NO SCHOOL for students
Friday October 31st: NO SCHOOL for students