Semester Tests

We are in the middle of semester tests and I thought I would let you know how its going.  At the beginning of last year we did away with our attendance incentive and told teachers that they would each be responsible for coming up with a culminating activity, project, or assessment to end their semester.  Our teachers have embraced this and all of our students do a variety of assessments, while still getting exposure to large traditional finals that some of their college courses will culminate with.  I really feel it is a good mix of assessments and brings some closure to what the students have been doing all semester.  In one period on Thursday I went around to classes and these were all of the things I saw.


Students in Public Speaking answer essay questions on their semester test.








Students in Mrs. Lang's class test while their "Heavenly Bars" await them. Mrs. Lang treated them to snacks because of their hard work this semester.

A Spanish student presents an oral presentation for her final project.









Mathematics students take a traditional semester final in Geometry.

Foods students cooked an entire meal as a culminating activity for their class.











In CAD class students designed a home for their final project.







In one of Mr. Franics' other classes students had to identify tools as part of their final test in a previous period.







I'm sure your wondering how the attendance is looking now that we are three semesters removed from the incentive.  For the first semester this year we are at 94%. Lat year we were at 93.9%.  The last year we had the incentive we were at 95.76%.  We knew that there would be some drop off, but it has not been significant.  We still have a small number of students who have serious attendance issues. But the majority of our students might miss a day or two per year more than when we had the incentive.  We still call parents if the student is not here and I have knocked on plenty of doors to see what students are up to.  We want students here and if they are absent without a viable excuse there will be consequences to the student and potentially the parent. 

In summary, I am very happy with our current assessment system and I do not miss the trials and tribulations of the old incentive system.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year.  All of my bothers will be back home for a few days and we are looking forward to spending some great time together.  We will see all students back on January 4th. 

Happy Holidays from the Reckers!

The Home Stretch!

Parents,

We are officially down to crunch time!  This is the last week of the semester.  Tests will be Thursday and Friday.  The schedule will be included at the bottom of this blog post.  Students need to complete the test, project, presentation or other assessment for each class.  Even though they may not be testing during every period, they need to be here.  If they have a study hall or senior release they either need to be out of the building or in the library.  Please encourage your student to STUDY for their tests.  Almost every teacher will have some sort of review or study guide containing the information that will be covered on the tests.  For students to simply not study or study just a little bit for these tests is basically like throwing in the towel.  These tests are like any test and if a student wants to have a chance of doing well, they need to study. Like assignment completion, it really comes down to effort and the choice to do well. 

Speaking of missing assignments, students really need to work this week to make sure they have everything in.  Choosing not to turn in daily assignments or large projects is essentially choosing to earn a poor grade.  For some of our students who do not test well or are otherwise doing poorly, turning in all assignments completed can be a big boost to their grade.  Please encourage your student to speak with their teachers regarding missing assignments.  They will have the Christmas break to get these assignments completed.  However, I would make sure they speak with their teachers before break and explain their intent in completing these assignments.  Grades will be posted on the website the afternoon of January 3rd.

We now have a peer tutoring program set up during our study halls.  Students can sign up to be tutored by another student during their study hall.  There are schedules all around school and students who are interested should see Mrs. Schoenwetter.  Just a review of all of the academic help we have available for students: 

Teachers available in their classrooms - everyday 7:50-3:30
Success Center - 3:30-4:30 every night after school
Library open for quite study - 8 - 3:30 every day
Peer Tutoring - see Mrs. Schoenwetter

Make plans to attend our winter concert which will be Tuesday evening at 7:00 in the high school gym. This will involve our band and chorus and should be a great show!  The band will have a guest performer in one of their songs.  It should be a great evening!

A big Thank you to Miss T and the NHS for their hard work in collecting the Toys for Tots.  Thanks to their efforts and the generosity of our community many children will have a nice Christmas! These are the toys that were delivered!

The FFA did a good job with their fruit sales this winter.  If anyone is still interested in some fruit for the holidays, please contact Mr. Hauge. 

Congratulations to our winter sports teams.  The girls basketball team has played very well all season.  They boys have done a nice job and finished the first semester with a winning record.  Although our wrestlers do not have the largest of numbers, the boys are having a lot of individual success at tournaments and in duals.  The cheerleaders have also been doing a nice job at all of our games.

There are a lot of positive things going on at West Hancock! It has been a very good semester!  From all of us at West Hancock, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Classes will resume on January 4th 2012.


1^ST  SEMESTER TEST SCHEDULE – DECEMBER 22 &23, 2011:

Thursday, December 22, (ODD # PERIODS):

1^ST PERIOD CLASS            8:30    -   9:45

3^RD PERIOD CLASS           9:55    -  11:10

LUNCH AT HIGH SCHOOL          11:10  -  12:00  (YOU MUST SIGN UP WITH PEG)

5^TH PERIOD CLASS            12:10  -   1:25

7^TH PERIOD CLASS            1:35    -   2:50

Friday, December 23, (EVEN # PERIODS):  due to 1 hour early dismissal

2nd PERIOD CLASS           8:30    -   9:45

4^TH PERIOD CLASS            9:50    -   11:05

LUNCH AT HIGH SCHOOL          11:05 – 11:35  (YOU MUST SIGN UP WITH PEG)

6^TH PERIOD CLASS            11:35  -  12:50

8^TH PERIOD CLASS            12:55  -    2:10

All students are responsible to be at their test classroom on time.

Students must stay the entire testing period.

Students can not take a test before the scheduled time and day.

Students may leave the high school building after their last test of the day, during the normal study hall time or during the lunch break.

Students in the building and not taking a test need to report to the library.

If a student is absent on THURSDAY & FRIDAY, they need to see Mr. Recker.

Dress code will be followed during the testing days.

December is here!

Parents,

It is hard to believe but December is here!  Things continue to go fast this year.  If you have not checked your child's grades lately here is your reminder!  Remember semester tests will be before the Christmas break this year.  We are down to three weeks remaining in the semester.  Please have some conversations with your students as we near the end of the semester.  Here is the link for parent access: http://jmc.whancock.org:8080/scripts/JMChs11-12/JMC_CGI_1112.dll?module=Parent

I have a friend named Tom Burger.  We worked together at my last school and he is currently living in West Branch.  He is a certified official for many sports on many levels.  He wrote a column for his local paper and I thought I would share it with you.  His column talks about officials and how they are sometimes treated by fans.  I do not think we have a problem with fan behavior here, but no one is perfect and we can always improve. Sometimes it is good to have a reminder about some of these things. Please take  a minute to read Tom's column.

http://www.westbranchtimes.com/article.php?id=7628


 If any of you have been watching ESPN this week you know that it is Jimmy V cancer research week on their network. Jim Valvano was a very succesful basketball coach and announcer before dying from cancer at a young age. Before he died he was able to create a foundation to continue research for cancer. In his last months he was awarded the Arthur Ashe courage award at the ESPYs and gave a very motivating speech. Each year I watch the speech duirng this week and I thought I would share it with you.  Here is his speech  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuoVM9nm42E

Here is this weeks schedule. Reminder that we do have a 2 hour early out on Wednesday.

Monday – JV Wrestling tourney @ Central Springs – Manly – 5:00
                     9^th B & G BB – FC – H – 6:15

Tuesday – BB Quad @ Garner – 4:00

Wednesday-In service – 2 hour early out

                       
Thursday – 9^th B & G BB – Garner – H – 6:15
                      WR @ Garner – 6:30

Friday – Quad BB @ Osage – 4:00

                 JV WR @ Algona – 5:00

Saturday – WR @ Algona Tournament – 11:00

                    Quad BB – Ventura – H – 1:00

Have a great weeK!

Mr. Recker 

Parent Advisory

We had our parent advisory meeting lasty night.  We had three people show up and we had some good discussions.  I will include the minutes of the meeting here for all parents. 

http://www.whancock.org/teachers/Recker/Web%20Info/Current%20Parent%20Advisory%20Committee%20Minutes.pdf

Hall of Pride Scrimmage

West Hancock hosted the Iowa Hall of Pride Scrimmage with Algona on Saturday November 19th.  Proceeds from the event were donated to The Iowa Hall of Pride, The Britt Food Bank and The Britt Community Holiday Dinner.  In conjunction with the event a cothing drive was held and the clothes were donated to the Kossuth County Care Team. Thank you to all of the participants and patrons for making this a great event!

Students of the Month!

This year we have changed our student of the month program to be more focused on two individual students who are doing great things in and out of the classroom.  I would like to announce the winnners for the months of September and October.

September

Junior - Nathan Aitchison and Freshman - Thomas Nelson

October - Senior Marcy Mayland and Junior - Kevin Tlach

Congratulations!



Happy Thanksgiving!

It is Thanksgiving week! We will have an early dismissal on Wednesday and no school on Thursday and Friday.


We are into the second week of Hex 3. Report cards on line should be updated and if there were any incomplete grades, they should be updated by the end of today. As a reminder, the semester ends before Christmas break and semester tests will be on December 22nd and 23rd.


Congratulations to the football team on a great season. Getting to the state finals was an awesome accomplishment and the boys did great! Congratulations to coach Sanger on his 300th victory. He has had a wonderful career here at West Hancock. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to get to 300 wins. But I'm sure coach would tell you he couldn't have done it without the support of the community and the efforts of many individuals over the years.


We will be having our High School parent advisory meeting on Wednesday November 30th at 5:15 in the high school library. If you have not attended one of these in the past do not be afraid to stop in. We usually have around 5-7 parents but I would be happy to have more. I usually have an update on things going on in the high school and we have time for parent questions and concerns. I will post the minutes from our meeting on one of my blog posts.


This week is the week to give thanks and I would like to share a few things I am thankful for as we continue through the school year:


 I am thankful.....


- we have a large percenatge of our students who are hard working and dedicated to their success in  academics and extra curricular activities


- that we have a good number of students taking classes trhough our academies, on line courses and other means to challenge themselves and earn college credit


- that the one to one computer initiative has been a success at the high school
- we have teachers trying new and different things every day to engage students in the classroom


 - we have such a supportive community at West Hancock for all of our academic and extra curricular activities


 - that our new new staff have transitioned well into our school
- that those peopled who have changed positions in our district have found success in their new positions


- that we will have air conditioning this spring


- that so many people have been happy with our new bathrooms


- and most of all - That the students, staff, parents and community members continue to work very hard to sustain and build an excellent "Learning Community" for resdidents of the West Hancock Community School District!


I could go on and on, but I just wanted to share some of the great things that are happening in our district! Have a great holiday and enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend!

West Hancock vs. Lisbon for the State Championship

Good luck to the Eagle football team as they head to the UNI Dome to play in the state championship game!  Go Eagles!

We hope to have a "Sea of Red" today at the dome.

Eagles are Soaring!

What a week to be an Eagle!  The football team defeated Madrid 48-38 to reach the state finals. The drama department presented Grease on Saturday and Sunday and it was a great show.  We had almost 400 people attend the show.  It was a very exciting weekend!

Thursday was the end of Hex 2.  Report cards will be available on line on Wednesday.  Please remember that the hex grade is just a progress report.  Hex 1 rolls into hex 2 and so on.  Students do have until Thursday to turn in any late work from Hex 2.  Please remind your students of this.  If your son or daughter has an incomplete it is bercause of missing assignments. 

We will be doing an advisory scavenger hunt on Thursday.  Students will be working in groups to find clues and send picture messages back to the facilitators.  This will be agreat chance to build team work, higher order thinking skills, and good rapport in our advisory groups.

We will be having a pep rally at 2:50 for the football team in the high school gym.  That night the football team will eat in the high school lunch room at 5:00.  There will be a community pep rally after the supper at 7:00 in the high school gym.

Good luck to our football team on Friday.  Kick off is at 2:05.

Weekend Activities

Congratulations to the Eagle football team on their victory over Gehlen!  They will play Madrid on Friday November 11th in the UNI Dome at 1:30.

Good luck to our competition cheerleading squad tomorrow!

My day as a student!

On November 2nd, I headed out into the school to take part in eight classes.  I tried to pick eight different classes based on grade level and subject.  This was a lot of fun and I got a realistic view of how our school functions every day in the most important place - The Classroom.

1st period - Mrs. Lang's government class

Mrs. Lang's students were learning about Gerrymandering. We got up and moved around as she explained how districts could be unfairly and illegally set up to give one group or party an advantage.

They also discussed how Congress is made up and what the powers of Congress are.  The students took notes on their lap tops.

On a side note, Mrs.Lang had the students in Government e mail current legislators and ask some questions.  One student had already received a response and it was from Tom Hancock, the state Senator from my home district. It's a small world!

2nd period - Mr. Francis' Exploring Tech Class

We started this class off with a quiz.  My knowledge of tools is not as good as some of our students. The students seem to do pretty well on this quiz.  Mr. Francis was checking the knowledge the students had of all the different tools.  After the quiz the students began working on their different projects.  See the great pictures below.

3rd period - America At War - Mr. Clark

This is a new class this year and I was excited to see how things were going.  The class began by watching part of film about the Mexican American War.  There was good information about the generals and battles as the United States took on Mexico.  Mr. Clark was able to use his overhead projector and computer to project the film on his overhead screen.  The class then used their lap tops to answer questions about the Mexican American War.  Mr. Clark had loaded the documents to Sharepoint and the students had information sources to draw from in order to answer questions about the film and the war.  Check out these students working together with their laptops.

4th period - English 9 - Mrs. Winter

Mrs. Winter is our new English teacher.  Our freshmen are reading Animal Farm.  I was able to join a group and read Chapter 2 of Animal Farm.  Thanks to Nicole and Logan for allowing me to be in your group! The students worked in small learning groups as they read through the Chapter.  I'm a big fan of Animal Farm, as a history major, the ties to the Russian Revolution are very intriguing.

5th period - Independent Office Projects - Mrs. Kudej

This class was working on a business project in a virtual world.  This was a neat way to work through some of the business concepts they are working through.  Some of the students were working a graphics project for the Quarter final game against Lemars.  This class has done the programs for the whole year.  They have done a great job. Below Lance Hillenga works on his virtual job!

 6th period - American Literature - Miss T.

These students were discussing literary terms realism, regionalism and naturalism and they tied into three stories that they were reading or had read.  The class had great discussion and got into some good higher level thinking.  We also discovered what some of the records were for the coldest temperatures were in the  history of the world.  These students are reading a Jack London story on line in Miss T.s class.

7th period - Physics - Ms. Carlson

Acceleration, Velocity and Distance are all terms that were used in Physics today.  The students are figuring out problems using math and science together.  They seemed to be working well together. I figured out why I was a Social Studies teacher and not a Physics one! The students are working with challenging problems.

8th period - Biology - Mrs. Schoenwetter

The biology students were working on a lab.  They were discussing movement from high concentrations to low concentrations.  They were using the logger pros and computers to chart their results.  The students worked in groups and seemed to be doing well on the lab.

This was a great day!  It was fun to take in a whole day in the classroom and see what great things our teachers and students are doing.  Thanks to all of the teachers and students who made me feel welcome in their classrooms!

Conferences College Fair and Lots of Activities!

Parents,

It is a busy week here in Eagle Country! 

Conferences will be from 4:00 pm - 7:45 pm in the high school on Tuesday and Thursday nights.  Please make an effort to stop in and see your student's teachers!  Our college fair will be on Tuesday from 4:30 - 6:00 pm.  Please see last week's blog post for more information on these two events.

Congratulations to our Cross Country team on their participation in the State Cross Country Meet!  The Wolfpack had a great season! 

Good luck to the football tonight in their quarter final match up with Woodbury Central. Kick off will be at 7:00pm at Bob Sanger Field!

The chorus had their first conert of the year and I thought they did a nice job.  Congratulations to Ms. Wilson and the chorus!

We will have 1 hour early outs on Tuesday and Thursday this week for conferences.  There will be no Success Center on those nights.

Our advisory groups got to watch videos produced by our TAG students last Friday.  The TAG students did a nice job with these videos.
There will be no school on Friday.

Have a great week!

Happy Halloween! (please see the Halloween post for some holiday fun!)

Weekly Schedule

Monday – FB Playoffs 2^nd round – Woodbury Central – H – 7:00 pm

 Tuesday –  1 hour early dismissal – Conferences – 4:00 – 7:45

                      College Fair – 4:30 – 6:00

Wednesday

Thursday – 1 hour early dismissal – Conferences – 4:00 – 7:45

Friday – No School – Comp day

                 Playoff Football – Quarter Finals

Happy Halloween!

 

Happy Halloween from Mrs. Reiter in the LMC!

Happy Halloween from the Recker kids!

45 days into the Semester? Do you know where your student is at?

         It is true, today is our 45th day of the semester.  Half way through the semester, it is hard to believe, but it is reality.  The question I am asking parents is, do you know how your child is doing in school so far.  If you have not asked any questions or checked grades on line yet, now might be a good time.  Report cards were posted on line at the end of Hex 1.  Those students whose parents who we do not have an e mail for, had report cards given to them at school.  If you want a paper copy of the report card shoot Peg an e mail or send a note with your student. 

        As we reach the half way point here are some interesting questions to ask about your relationship with your student and their involvement in school. 

      1. Do I know what classes my student is taking this semester?
      2. Which classes  are going well for them and which ones are a struggle?
      3. Which types of classes is my student interested in and how will that play into
             their future?
      4. How is my child's attendance?  Aside from medical problems has my student
              missed a large number of days?
      5. If my student is a junior or senior have we discussed the future? Career?
              College? Armed Services? Working world?
      6. What can I be doing to help my student be as successful as possible
               in school?

      Conferences are coming up on November 1st and 3rd from 4:00 - 7:45 in the high school.  If you have not had contact with your student's instructors this would be a great time. We are also encouraging parents to meet with their student's advisor at conferences.  The advisor - advisee relationship is an important one and this would be a chance to touch base and see how things are going.  We will be hosting a career fair on Tuesday the 1st from 4-7.  This would be a chance for junior and senior students and parents to learn a lot of information about college opportunities.  Please make plans to attend the conferences and college fair.

      We will host a college planning night on October 25th in the high school at 5:30.  This will be a good chance for juniors, seniors and their parents to learn about financial aid and the FAFSA.  The FAFSA is the "Free application for federal student aid" and required for anyone seeking financial aid for college.  It is important that seniors get this document filled out as soon as they can during their senior year.

     We have had an excellent fall here in all of our activities!  Congratulations to our Volleyball, Football and Cross Country teams as they head into the post season.  The cheerleaders continue to do a nice job at our games and in preparation for competition.  In case you have not heard, GREASE is the word in the high school drama department.  We are very excited to have our first musical in a few years.  The band had a nice showing at Algona Band Days and continues to play for the football games.  Our first choral concert will be Thursday night in Kanawha.  Speech tryouts are taking place this week. 

      On a personal note, Congratulations to my brother Kevin and his new wife Katie.  They were married last weekend.  My brothers and I have spread out to Florida, Wisconsin and Hancock County but we still remain close and have a lot of fun when we get together.  We probably get along a lot better now than we did in high school.  Encourage your students to get along with their siblings and enjoy this time together.  It goes by pretty quickly and soon they will all be grown up.

Have a great weekend!

Mr. Recker



 

Homecoming Week! Under the Sea!

         Welcome to Homecoming week at West Hancock High School!  It should be a great week filled with school spirit, fun and hopefully some great victories!  One of the things I am most proud of our students for, is their positive behavior during homecoming.  We have great spirit and lots of fun, but we do not cross the line.  Many schools have problems with vandalism and bad behavior during homecoming week.  That has never been the case at West Hancock. I am confident we will have a great week!

         We finished the majority of MAP testing last week.  Thanks to our teachers and students for all of their efforts and cooperation.  It went fairly smoothly and I was happy with most of the results.  We will be completing make ups this week with Mrs. Johnson in the library. 

          As we get further into the school year there should be more scores published.  Please make sure you are checking into JMC online access so there are not any surprises at the six week mark.  If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact the instructor for your childs course.  With e mail access, parent / teacher contact should be seamless.

          Last Friday during advisory we watched a John Cougar Mellencamp video called "Walk Tall."  The video dealt with stereotypes and prejudice.  After the video we discussed in small groups the meaning of the video and how some of the prejudices play parts in our lives today.  I will not get into details, because I would like you to watch the video for yourself.  Please discuss your thoughts with your son or daughter.  We felt it was a very powerful message.  Thanks to Mr. Francis for bringing this to our advisories. 
         
Walk Tall - Advisory video 9-16-11

 
      Ms. Shelby Wilson is our new chorus teacher and drama director.  This fall we will be presenting Grease.  I am very excited about the idea of a musical at WHHS.  We have not had one in my five years here.  It should be an excellent opportunity for our students.  Some of you may be surprised to know, but I was in four different theatrical productions in high school.  I had some great times in drama and Grease should be a lot of fun.  When my wife was at Waukon High School she was an assistant director and they did Grease, it was awesome!  Encourage your students to get involved.

      Have a great week and we will see you at all the activities this week!

Mr.Recker



This week will be very busy.  The schedule will be as follows:


Sunday - Powder Puff - He Man - We moved the girls inside and had them play VB because of the 
                                                        weather.  It was a fun kick off to our week!

Monday -   XC @ Humboldt - 4:15
                  JV FB @ Clarion - 6:30
                  VB @ Ventura with NK
                   School Board - 7:00 - Kanawha

Tuesday - VB - Osage - H - 6:00

Wednesday

Thursday - XC @ Mason City - 4:30
                   Homecoming Coronation - 7:30

Friday - FB - North Iowa - 7:00
              
Saturday - Dance - 8:00 - 11:00

Map Testing Week!

Parents,

This week we will be MAP testing.  Mr. Kronemann sent out a letter with details, so I will not get into that.  Please encourage your students to do their best on these tests.  In the HS we will be testing with the student's first period teacher.  We will run a one hour late start schedule each day.  Seniors need to report at 9:33 each day.  Wednesday will be a 2 hour early out schedule so there will not be any MAP testing. Seniors need to report at regular times.

Things have continued to go well in the high school as we enter our fourth full week of class.  Just a reminder the following options are available for your student to get extra help in any of their classes:

Success Center - 3:30 - 4:30 every night

Teacher help - 7:50 - 8:30 or 3:12 - 3:30 (at a minimum) students should make appts. with teachers
                         during these times.

Peer tutoring that will be set up through our advisory program.

Parents also have on line access to all student scores through JMC. 

Homecoming will be next week. We will begin the festivities on Sunday.  It will be a great week!

The weather has been very nice lately. Fall is my favorite season!  Have a great week!


Mr. Recker

Weekly schedule

Monday -  MAP testing - 1 hour late start

                 JV Football at BK - 6:30

Tuesday -  MAP testing - 1 hour late start
                 VB @ BK - 6:00

Wednesday - In - service -1:12 dismissal

Thursday - MAP testing - 1 hour late start
                   XC - CLear Lake - 4:15
                   VB - Lake Mills - H - 6:00

Friday -  MAP testing - 1 hour late start
              FB @ Marcus Meridan Cleghorn (school in Marcus) - 7:00

Sunday - Powder Puff Football - He Man VB 2:30





                  


  

Do the right thing!

Happy Labor Day weekend!  I hope you all had a great, restful weekend.  I was able to catch the UNI ISU football game in Ames.  While the Cyclones were able to steal one from my Panthers, it was a great game.  Former Eagle Dan Kruger did a nice job for the Panthers.

Things in the high school continue to go well.  We will begin our third full week on Tuesday.  Grade books are starting to have some scores in them and you can see how your son or daughter is progressing with our on line access.  Success Center is up and going. I have had some students in and made some phone calls.  Please remember that this is available each night from 3:30 to 4:30.

If any of you caught Coach Sanger's speech at the scrimmage, he mentioned Coach Ed Thomas from Aplington Parkersburg and his advice to "Do the right thing!"  I had the pleasure of having Coach Thomas as one of my instructors when I received my coaching endorsement in college.  As a football coach, I attended several clinics where Coach Thomas spoke.  He has been very influential to me.  This week I read his biography,  The Sacred Acre, which  outlines Coach Thomas' life while going through the details of the tornado in Parkersburg, the rebuilding process and Coach Thomas' unfortunate death.  Weaved through the book are lessons and quotes from a great man, who was more than a football coach.  Although I was pretty familiar with the story, this book really made me think about the things that are important.  Coach Thomas was a teacher, a mentor, an inspiration and a man of God, while also having some pretty good success as a football coach.  He saw himself as someone who was preparing his students and players to be good parents, husbands and wives and citizens, while learning about social studies and football.  He regularly said "If all I taught you was how to block and tackle, then I have failed you as a coach."

Our job at West Hancock is to prepare our students to be the best people they can be when they leave our school.  In academics, extra curricular activities and personal relationship skills, we are preparing them to be successful citizens in all areas of their lives.  Together with parents, the community and the students themselves, we are trying to get better every day.  This is a team effort and we all need to work together.  One of Coach Thomas's simple pieces of advice was to "Do the right thing."  We all hopefully know the difference between right and wrong. They key is making the right choice.  This is something we want all of our students to know.  This year our theme is simple "There are two things you can control every day - your attitude and your effort!"  These things are choices - I hope we can get as many of our students and staff as possible to choose to have great attitudes and give extra effort.  If we can do that, we will be successful. 

The Sacred Acre is available through several book stores. I would encourage anyone to read it.  It is very interesting and has some great life lessons. I purchased my personal copy on Amazon. I have also purchased a copy of The Sacred Acre for the school, which our family will donate to the library at West Hancock.  Please encourage your child to check it out.  It is an easy read and very powerful.

Laptop Covers - We handed out laptop covers this week.  If students showed us that they had a cover or bag we did not issue them one.  Everyone else received a cover.  Please know that whether it is your cover, our cover or no cover; the student is still responsible for the computer.

Advisory update - This week we discussed peer tutoring.  We are looking at piloting a peer tutor program at West Hancock.  Students were given sheets with two sides.  One side was an application to be a peer tutor.  The other side was an application to get help from a tutor.  Students also put study hall times or times they could be involved.  If students are interested, we will match up tutors with students desiring tutoring.  Teachers are always available for help, we just felt this might be another avenue to get help for those wanting extra help.  Please speak with your child about this.  The applications are due back on Friday.

Have a great week!

Schedule for the week:

Monday - Labor Day - No School

Tuesday - XC @ BK - 4:15
                 JV FB - H - Garner Hayfield - 6:30
                 VB - H - Garner Hayfield - 6:00

Wednesday - Athletic Booster Club Meeting - 5:30

Thursday - VB - Newman - H - 6:00

Friday - FB - Gehlen - H - 7:00
 

New School Year!

Parents and students,

Welcome back to the 2011-2012 school year.  It is a very exciting new year and we are well under way.  We have many new things at WHHS this year.

This is my blog and I plan to update date it at least once a week. 

1. The lap tops have been pretty good so far. We are still working out the bugs.  Please be patient with us as we figure out the best way to utilize these tools for your child's education. We are very excited about how these have already changed how teachers are teaching and students are learning.

2. The Geo Thermal heating and cooling is working very well.  There are some things we will be working out with this also. But I was very happy to have our new system in place at the beginning of last week.  While it was very hot outside, our students and staff were quite comfortable inside.

3. The bathrooms in the main lobby are done and are very nice.  We put all new partitions and mirrors in along with tile and paint.  There are also baby changing stations for our guests at evening activities.

4. Mrs. Winter and Ms. Wilson have gotten off to good starts in our English and Music programs.  I feel they will be great additions to our staff.

Feel free to stop in and check out our new things when you have some free time.  We always encourage visitors. Just check in with Peg at the office.  If I am available I will give you a personal tour.

With the new laptops we will really be expanding our use of Sharepoint in the high school.  If you do not know what Sharepoint is, I encourageyou to ask your son or daughter.  They can show you and explain how it is being used in their classrooms.  All lesson plans will now be on Sharepoint.

So far things have gone very smoothly at the high school.  Just a couple of quick reminders for parents as we start the school year.

1. If your son or daughter will be absent from school please let Peg at the office know as soon as you can.  E mail works great for Peg, so do not be afraid to use that.  If you do not contact us, we will contact you.  Remember our attendance policy no longer effects semester testing, but we do want every student here every day.  If they are not here we need to know that you excused them.  As parents it is your responsibility to make sure they are in school if at all possible. 

2.  If a student is in an activity and they miss one period or more (half of first period counts as a period) they will not be allowed to practice or perform in their activity.  Pre-approval is fine for the following: medical appointments, legal obligations, funerals, obtaining a drivers license, college visits and things at the discretion of the principal.  Please remember that we need to know about these things before school starts.  E mail would be fine for pre approval as well.  Just know that you are not approved until Peg or I responds to your e mail.

 3. Please keep track of lunch accounts. Peg tries to keep students aware of where they are at but remember you can access that information on JMC and also pay online through our pay-schools link.  Any questions contact Peg at the office.

4. JMC grade books should be starting to have some scores.  Please use this tool to check your student's progress through the semester.  We do not anyone to be surprised in December.

5. Yes I said December.  With our new calendar we will wrap up the semester tests before Christmas break. 

Academic Letters

We have began an academic lettering program here at West Hancock.  Any student who maintains a 3.5 GPA for the year will receive a letter for the year.  This will look like an activity letter but include the inscribed word "academics".  We handed our first ones out Friday at our pep rally based on last years grades.  As students become 2,3 or 4 time letter winners we will have a pin for each year they can add to the letter.  We feel this is just another way to honor our high achieving students.

Advisory Update

For our first activity we had 40 minutes of time to get reacquainted and meet new people.  We did a couple of group activities and discussed many new school policies.  It was a nice beginning to our advisory year. This Friday we met and discussed goals for our academic year.  Each student got to see their transcript and was to think about how they can improve this year.  Don't be afraid to contact your student's advisor to check in on how things are going with them.  Coaches Bob Dodge and John Paulus will be joining our male group of advisors.  This will help our numbers be a little more manageable of the boys end of things.


For those of you who made it to the football game Friday night (judging by the crowd I would say that was most of you!) you saw a great display of our community support and school spirit.  It was also a heck of a game.  Let's keep up the support as we get into Volleyball and Cross Country seasons and our fine arts groups begin their performances.

This weeks calendar:

Monday - JV FB - Newman - H - 6:30

Tuesday -XC @ Newman - 4: 30
                VB @ Forest City - 6:00

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday -  1 hour early out
               V FB @ Lake Mills - 7:00

Weekend - Draft horse show

Monday - No school - Labor Day parade @ Kanawha - WHHS Marching band

Tuesday - XC @ BK - 4:15
                 VB - GH - H - 6:00
                  JV FBGH - H - 6:30