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!