Highlands 29, Ryle 14

The Ryle football team traveled to Fort Thomas last night and came away with a tough loss. The team is off next Friday before its home opener with NewCath on September 10th.

Highlands 29, Ryle 14

Highlands wins battle of top Northern Kentucky teams

Tax Hearing on Thursday, Aug. 26th

The Boone County Board of Education will hold a tax hearing on Thursday, August 26th at the Rush Center (Old Florence Elementary) in Florence.

The public hearing will address the board's decision to assess an increase in the property tax rate in support of the Boone County Schools.

While no one wishes to pay additional taxes, this increase must be seen as an investment in our students and our schools.  We have reduced expenses and cut our teaching staff this past year and two years before, without this increase in funding for our school district, the impact on Ryle itself would be very harsh.  Our instructional funding from the school board would most likely be decreased by 25%, which would amount to approximately $50,000, and we would likely have to make additional cuts in our teaching staff.  Reductions in the faculty would lead to larger class sizes and the possible loss of elective programs, such as chorus.

Please attend Thursday's hearing if possible or contact your board representative to let them know you support our schools and our students!

Lady Raider Soccer

The Lady Raider soccer team lost their first match of the season to defending state runner-up Notre Dame Academy. Off to a great start with a 2-1 record, they will look to rebound against Scott tonight.

Revamped Pandas blank Raiders 2-0

Gonzales zeroing in on elusive title

Very nice article in the Enquirer on Gabby Gonzales, a great cross country runner, but more importantly a great student and young lady.

Gonzales zeroing in on elusive title

Raider Football Begins with a Rout

The Raider football team began their season with a 61-7 rout of Covington Catholic at the Crosstown Showdown held at UC's Nippert Stadium.  The game began late and ended late, close to midnight, but was close throughout the first half.  Congratulations to the team for a good start to the season.

Check out these KY Enquirer articles for more:

Raiders aim high behind Mace

Ryle shows no mercy on CovCath 

Kentucky ACT Scores

By Jim Warren - jwarren@herald-leader.com

Juniors in Kentucky's public high schools continue to improve their ACT scores, and more of them are ready to tackle college-level work, but results released Thursday show there's plenty of room for improvement.

The state Department of Education released overall results Thursday from the ACT, which more than 44,000 Kentucky public school juniors took last spring. Juniors in Kentucky's public schools have been required to take the ACT since 2008.

While overall scores in Kentucky have continued to climb since then, the picture remains mixed.

For example, Thursday's results show that 49 percent of Kentucky juniors are ready for college-level work in English composition, based on their 2010 ACT test scores, up from 46 percent of juniors in 2009.

The percentage ready for college math rose from 21 percent in 2009 to 22 percent in 2010. The percentage prepared for college social science rose from 30 percent in 2009 to 35 percent for 2010. And in biology, the percentage of juniors deemed ready for college work fell from 16 percent in 2009 to 15 percent for 2010.

"We are beginning to see the benefits of an early focus on college and career readiness; however, there is much work remaining," Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday said in a prepared statement.

Holliday noted that Senate Bill 1, which the General Assembly passed in 2009, requires Kentucky high schools and colleges to jointly develop strategies for making sure that more Kentucky youngsters are ready for college when they finish high school.

"I feel certain our administrators, teachers, parents and students will rise to the challenge of making ever greater improvements in the future," he said.

According to education officials, benchmark subject scores on the ACT translate to a 75 percent chance that a student will get a C or higher grade on corresponding credit-bearing college courses.

Benchmark ACT scores are 18 or higher for English; 22 or higher for math; 21 or higher for reading; and 24 or higher for science.

The 2010 average ACT scores for Kentucky juniors are 17.8 in English, 18.3 in math, 18.9 in reading and 18.7 in science.

Among African-American juniors in Kentucky, average 2010 scores were 14.4 in English, 16.2 in math, 15.9 in reading and 16.2 in science.

Reach Jim Warren at (859) 231-3255  or 1-800950-6397, Ext. 3255.
Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/08/13/1390011/kentucky-students-do-better-on.html#ixzz0wTseAPWQ

Governor Signs Cell Phone / Text Messaging Bill into Law

Kentucky House Bill 415 has been signed into law by Governor Beshear on April 25th, 2010.

Under the new driving law, drivers under the age of 18 will be prohibited from using a cell phone while driving. Specifically:

"Any person under the age of eighteen (18) who has been issued an instruction permit, intermediate license, or operator's license shall not operate a motor vehicle, motorcycle, or moped that is in motion on the traveled portion of a roadway while using a personal communication device, except to summon medical help or a law enforcement or public safety agency in an emergency situation."

Text Messaging while operating a motor vehicle will be prohibited for all drivers. Specifically:

"No person shall, while operating a motor vehicle that is in motion on the traveled portion of a roadway, write, send, or read text-based communication using a personal communication device to manually communicate with any person using text-based communication, including but not limited to communications referred to as a text message, instant message, or electronic mail."

The fine for a first offense will be $25 and subsequent offenses will cost $50 plus court costs.  There will be warnings issued until January 1st, 2011.

There are exceptions for emergency situations in the case of cell phone use for drivers under the age of 18 and text messaging.

To read the new law, please go to House Bill 415.

Email Address Listings

One of our goals this year is to communicate more effectively with parents through email.  We will be collecting the email addresses of parents wishing to receive messages regarding school news and events.

Be sure to bring your current email addresses to the fee payment/schedule pick-up dates this week.

Parent Portal - Student Information & Grades

The parent portal of Infinite Campus (our school's student information database) will be available for the 2010-11 school year.  For the past year and a half, parents and students have been able to access student information and grades through the student portal.

Each parent or legal guardian of each student will have their own login and password to log onto the parent portal of the Infinite Campus system.  This secure portal will allow parents to see and update all personal data of their students, including addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, grades, and progress reports.

During the fee payment/schedule pick-up dates, parents will be asked to verify their email addresses and family's personal information and will be given an access code to the parent portal.  To ensure the security of the student information available, each parent must pick-up their access code in person.  We will not be able to give out access codes for both mom and dad unless both come personally to the school.  If a parent is not able to attend, their access code will be available for pick-up at any time after the fee payment/schedule pick-up dates.

Bus Transportation

Routing information for school buses will be published in the Boone County Recorder on August 5th. This listing should indicate bus number, pick-up and drop-off times, and bus stop location for all addresses.