Andrew Addington

In Contemporary World Issues students are solving the problems of the world.  As part of his semester project, Mr. Addington asked students to create an event that will support a charity they believe supports a cause in either their local, national, or global community.  In an effort to improve the quality of our projects this year we added two non-graded reviews, one by a peer and one by a teacher.  For Mr. Addington's teacher review the students submitted their proposals to me for approval or revision.  I enjoyed reading through the proposals and was hopeful we could end the "literacy famine" and address "world hunger" through cupcake sales and canned food drives.  A couple of the proposals needed some work, and I was thankful we had incorporated the checks for quality this year.  Every project can be improved with thoughtful direct feedback, and I was thankful to be included in the process.

Linda Orangkhadivi

In Psychology students had their hands full of brains.  As part of her lesson on the different regions and functions of the brain students were using play-doh to create a model.  Mrs. O was able to borrow a plastic model from Mrs. Hayes, but decided it would be more fun to have students build their own.  This hands-on activity allowed her kinesthetic learners an opportunity to engage their brains in style that is most helpful to them.  The photo below is one my favorites I have taken this year.

Jeff Fouquet
As the reigning Teacher of the Quarter I stopped by his room to see why his students and colleagues selected him for the award.  As part of a writing activity he conducted a three minute timed free writing exercise to allow students to get their ideas down on paper without worrying about spelling, punctuation, or it being "right."  The directions were simple; here is the topic, now write, and write, and write for three minutes, don't let your pencil stop until time is called. Everyone from Plato to Mary Poppins has said the "well begun is half done" and we all know that half the battle of anything is getting started.  This exercised forced students to get a start, knowing that quality comes later, and it worked.  For three minutes students wrote feverishly and pleaded for more time when he asked them to stop.  From their rough draft students picked key words and thoughts they would expand on and you could see quickly how this would lead to final product of quality.  Check out some of these pictures of his students getting a good start.

Marsh Nelson
French IV students were cooking. As part of her emphasis on French Canadian culture students were making split pea soup, poor man's pudding, chicken Dijon, and poutine. Mrs. Nelson is always kind enough to share the leftovers in the teacher's lounge and it a highlight of each spring.

Jill Holder
Freshman were out looking for a scoop. As part of her introductory class she asked students to walk the building and find stories. I was empathetic to the group because I do the same thing each week to write this newsletter so we tipped them off to some graffiti that was just reported in the boys restroom. The boys were giddy and excited to do some investigative journalism to determine the culprits causing the damage. Pictured below is the group on the prowl.

Andrea Eick
At a recent conference Dr. Willard Daggett shared that "Relevance makes rigor possible for most students." To illustrate this he shared a story about his second grade grandson learning physics to help him play football. Dr. Daggett's quote jumped to my frontal lobe when I looked out my window to see students with supersoaker water guns. Rather than draw projectiles on the board and talk about the horizontal and vertical components of force that determine the distance a projectile will travel, Ms. Eick decided to let her students get their hands wet, literally. In this outdoor activity the students graphed the furthest distance traveled by the water based on the number of pumps applied to the supersoaker. This activity made some very rigorous concepts possible for students because they had a relevant reason to learn it.

Chris Wood
Seniors were drawing life lessons from a reading in Mrs. Wood's English class. In less than a class period student's were asked to create an acrostic poem over the word Caedmon to share the life lesson they took from the literature. The quality of the artifacts the students generated and displayed in the hallway outside her room drew my attention during a recent walk of the building. Take a look and see for yourself...

Foreign Language Film Festival
Congratulations to Marsha Nelson and Susan Swabb for a fantastic Foreign Film Festival.  The Spanish films competed in a pool of 45 student produced films at the University of Central Missouri's Fifth Annual Foreign Language Film Festival 2012. They won; Best Spanish Historical / Biographical, Second Place Best Mystery, Spanish level 3, 3rd Place Best Technical Effects, First Place Best Mystery, Spanish level 3, Third Place Best Actress (Spanish- Shelbie Thornton), First Place Best Historical  / Biographical Film, Spanish level 3, Second Place Best Film in Spanish, level 3, First Place Overall Historical / Biographical Film.  The French films competed in a pool of 18 student produced films at the University of Central Missouri's Fifth Annual Foreign Language Film Festival 2012. They won; Second Place Best Actress (French- Adele Herrera), First Place Best Film in French, level 3, Second Place Best Film in French, First Place Best Mystery Overall Film, The French movie- Best French Mystery. 

Coaches Win Awards
Congratulations to Coach Oakes an Coach Jobe! Coach Oakes was chosen GBB WYCO Coach of the Year by KCK Preps Coach Jobe was chosen Wrestling WYCO Coach of the Year by KCK Preps and 4A Wrestling Coach of the Year by the Coaches Association! Great work and congratulations on this well deserved recognition.

Freshman College Visits
In April each Freshman Tribe, Shawnee and Delaware, teachers, counselors, and administrators coordinated threecollege visits for every freshman. I don't know of another high school that takes every freshman to see a four year college, two year college, and vocational school every year as we have done for the last three. These trips take a lot of planning and preparation with the students, but have gone well every year. These efforts support our goal to be Post-Secondary Minded and give our kids a great picture of what that looks like. Next years seniors will be the first group to take the trips and go through our entire program so I am excited to see the impact this has on our graduation rate and college enrollment. Here are some photos from the visits to KU and KCKCC.

Student Council President Picked for KSHSAA Workshop
Congratulations to Adie Deleon who was notified this week that senior Bre Tendick was selected to be a Junior Counselor at this year's KSHSAA Student Council summer workshop in July. She was one of sixteen students selected from across the state of Kansas. This is a huge honor and speaks highly of Bre's character, leadership capabilities, and the student council program Adie has created. Great work!

In order to better communicate, and facilitate a healthy relationship between school and home, we will have four parent meetings this year. Enclosed are the topics and schedule for each meeting. Please note the meetings are different for each grade level, and specific to the time of year the meeting is held. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Over the summer, USD 204 converted our student data managment system from PowerSchool to Skyward.  This new integrated system will allow us to better coordinate all the services our district provides from grades, attendance, food service, fee payment, and student activities.  Enclosed is an instruction sheet on how to access Skyward.  We will also provide training sessions for parents at Back to School Night, Fall Parent-Teacher Conferences, Spring Parent-Teacher Conferences, and by appointment by contacting our Registrar, Linda Francis. 

Some new features available in Skyward that were not in PowerSchool:

Student information - Confirm all of your contact information is correct, if changes need to be made, click in the upper right hand "Request Change" to electronically submit a request to have your demographic information updated.

Message center - Teachers and staff will be able to send messages to parents about upcoming and assignments and other school events.

Attendance - In addition to being able to view your son/daughter's attendance, you can also excuse your student absences, eliminating the need to call the student in to the nurse or secretary.

Schedule - Review your student's current class schedule.

Food Service - This feature allows you to track your student cafeteria purchases and add money to their account on-line.

Fee Management - Pay and track any fees your student has accrued throughout the school year.

Activities - View a list of activities your student is involved in, with a link to send an email to the staff member in charge, to help create a resume of their high school activities.

In 2007, the Kansas Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free unveiled a new campaign called "Not In Our House," aimed at educating parents, the public and key leaders about reducing access to alcohol by Kansas youth in our homes and our communities.  Kansas Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free tied their campaign to materials that The International Institute for Alcohol Awareness, Scholastic and The Century Council had published in 2006.  This presented an even greater partnership to distribute awareness materials regarding social hosting and underage drinking.      

You may have heard the term, "social hosting," but were unsure of it's meaning.  Social hosting or unlawfully hosting is generally defined as providing and/or serving alcohol to a young person who is under the minimum legal drinking age.  It can take place in a party-like atmosphere or by any adult simply providing alcohol to young people and their peers for them to drink.  It can even extend to parents and homeowners who are not on the premises and/or did not provide the alcohol.

• Social host liability refers to laws that hold non-commercial individuals responsible for underage drinking events on property that they own, lease or otherwise control.
• You may not need to actually serve or provide alcohol to underage guests to violate these laws.
• The penalties for breaking this law include possible jail time, and the potential for criminal or civil lawsuits, as well as public humiliation for breaking the law.
• By violating the law, you are sending every child you know a message that can have risky consequences.

History of the Kansas Social Host Law  - (Social Hosting)

Kansas passed a social host law in 2004, a.k.a. Paul's Law, named for Paul Riggs, a Lenexa teen who was killed while driving home from a friend's party, where he and other teenagers had been drinking.  The friend's parents were home during the party while the teens drank alcohol.  After Paul's death, his mother, Debbie Riggs, attempted to have a social host law passed in the Kansas legislature to protect the youth of the state.

The social host law established a new crime of "unlawfully hosting" where persons under the age of *18 consume alcoholic beverages or cereal malt beverages.  Unlawfully hosting minors consuming alcoholic liquor or cereal malt beverage is now a Class A person misdemeanor, for which there is a minimum fine of $1,000. 

During the 2007 Legislative session, the law was changed to define a minor as "under the age of 21" instead of *18.  A minor in Kansas is defined as under the age of 21.

During the 2009 Legislative session, a bill was passed to add the words "or recklessly" to the phrasing 'Unlawfully hosting minors consuming alcoholic liquor or cereal malt beverage is intentionally or recklessly permitting a person's residence or any land, building, structure or room owned, occupied or procured by such person to be used by an invitee of such person or an invitee of such person's child or ward, in a manner that results in the possession or consumption therein of alcoholic liquor or cereal malt beverages by a minor.'