Busy Week Coming! - Preparing for 2017-2018

The upcoming week of January 30th to February 4th will be a very busy one for students and staff alike as we work to plan and prepare for 2017-2018.  Every week we send out a quick message through Infinite Campus to provide a summary of the upcoming events and some items of importance to the entire school community.  However, we wanted to provide additional details to this week and next Monday as it is an extremely important week in terms of planning for everyone.

The scheduling process is one of the most important processes for our students and our school in general.  Students make choices based on what they think will be best for them and their future goals and careful consideration should be given to the recommendations of teachers and parents.  Students must also challenge themselves by taking classes that make them think, grow, and work hard.  Our brains are like any other muscle in that we must exercise them and work them to make them stronger.  Recent research in neuroscience shows that our brains constantly grow and adapt and that experiences in our youth can have a great impact on the rest of our lives.  A simple but not new example of this is the process of reading to our children when they are young.  This process develops their hearing, speaking, and language and vocabulary development - the more they hear they more their neural pathways for language and communication grow and strengthen.  Just as important are the experiences our students have in their teenage years.  So decisions on whether to take classes in the world languages, the arts and humanities, and other diverse areas are very important as well.

Last spring we put together a group to re-evaluate our guidance and advisement process that includes class scheduling and planning for college/work/military.  After a lot of researching, looking at other models, and gathering feedback from parents, we have made some changes to our program.  One is the addition of a College & Career Pathway Coach (with the assistance of our school district), another is a much deeper emphasis on the Individual Learning Plan (or ILP through Career Cruising) and also holding a transition meeting for our seniors in February to assist them with their transition to college, the workforce or the military.  So the meeting that parents and students (grades 9-12) attend on February 6th will be different from previous years.

Our Guidance & Advisement meetings on February 6th will focus on the important question: Where are our students on their path to go to COLLEGE, enter the WORKFORCE, or enter the MILITARY?
At the meetings we will discuss the student's goals, progress toward those goals, and the next steps needed including the alignment of next year's class schedule to the student's goals.  This process may yield some very tough conversations - for example what if a student wishes to enter the medical field and go to college and their current grades and ACT (or CERT) scores do not support that goal?  Well, the discussion then will have to be about what changes the student must make (study habits, class schedule, work ethic, getting assistance, changing career goals, etc.) in order to reach that goal or maybe that goal needs to be adjusted.

Your student's RAP teacher should be contacting you this week to set up a time to meet on Monday, February 6th during our teachers' work hours from 7:30 am to 2:45 pm.

Here is some detailed information about the upcoming week:

Sunday, Jan. 29th:  Last day for students to select their elective classes in the Student Portal of Infinite Campus.  Teachers have already selected the students' required classes such as English and Math.

Monday, Jan. 30th:  In RAP class, students will be given a printed copy of the schedule request that includes their required classes and elective classes.  Students will need to gather recommendations from teachers for ELECTIVE honors or AP classes, for example Spanish 2 Honors or AP Physics.  Classes that are REQUIRED do not need signatures as teachers have made their recommendations through Infinite Campus, for example English 1 teachers have already recommended students for English 2 Honors, so a signature is not needed.

Tuesday, Jan. 31st:  Student should check their RAP schedule for workshops and make choices based on their needs.

Wednesday, February 1st:  Students will report to their Monday RAP class so their teacher may assist them and answer any questions about the scheduling process.

Thursday, February 2nd:  Student should check their RAP schedule for workshops and make choices based on their needs.

Friday, February 3rd:  Students will report to their Monday RAP class so their teacher may assist them and answer any questions about the scheduling process.  Teachers will collect the students' completed schedule request form.

Monday, February 6th:  Student and parents will meet with their RAP teacher to discuss where they are on their path to college/career/military, review information from the students' ILP, finalize the schedule request and check for its alignment to the students' goals, discuss next steps.