Dear Parents,
It was great to have the students back on campus this week. There
is a very positive feeling in the air, with friends meeting friends and
teachers meeting students after the summer break. The new facilities have been
received well and the cafeteria is getting a big thumbs up. There is nothing
like good food to keep us all in a good mood. As I walked around today everyone
I spoke with, students and teachers alike, was happy with our first week of the 2012-2013 school year. It's going to be a good one.
For those of you new to these Notes, please be aware that there is
a lot more information just under the surface. To the right, in the sidebar,
are links to communications from the Counselor, the IB and AP Coordinators and
the Athletics Director. The IB and AP Coordinators have provided some of the
results from the exams our students took last spring. I am proud to say that
our students fared very well. Mrs. Callaway has already started providing
information about the college application process and Mr. Dirksen has prepared
information on our upcoming Week Without Walls.
This year I have added a new feature to these Notes, a link to the
various student activities that are taking place in and around the school. Our
students are involved in so much more than their coursework, and many have been
very busy over the summer. This week we have a report from members of our
Operation Smile club who travelled to Washington D.C. with their advisor, Ms.
Vasanthi Thandlam, last week to participate in an international leadership conference.
Form the sound of it, it was an outstanding experience.
Back
to School Night - Each year,
the High School at AISC hosts Back to
School Night near the
beginning of the school year. The purpose of this event is to give you an opportunity to meet your
child’s teachers and learn more about the curriculum for each class. Students are
welcome to attend to help with translation needs.
The schedule for the evening will be a modified version of the daily
schedule at the school. After a brief introduction in the Cafeteria
at 6:00 p.m. you will
follow your child’s schedule and listen to short presentations by the teachers
in their classrooms. Each class period will be 10 minutes long, with 5 minutes
for passing between classes. The full schedule for the evening
will be sent out with the Principal’s Notes next week.
Moodling
- As noted last week, we have made a lot of changes over the summer. One of the
changes is the development of a new online presence for our teachers. We have
adopted the NESA Virtual School, also known as Moodle pages, as a means of
providing information and resources to students via the Internet. It is an
exciting new development. I encourage you to ask your child to show you all of
the features of this resource. In another week or so we will be providing
parents with their own login information and training in how to navigate these
web pages.
Student Handbook Acknowledgement forms should be
returned to the High School Office by Tuesday, August 14 deadline has passed.
The form must have the signatures of the student and a parent or legal
guardian. These forms must be submitted before students will be allowed access
to their online grades. The students are also required to complete a series of
four short tutorials – Responsible Use Agreement, Digital Citizenship, Moodle
and Google – prior to being able to log in to the school’s database.
Schedule
changes - Mrs. Callaway, our new Counselor, has been busy all week
helping new students make necessary schedule changes. These changes may require
that we do some further adjusting of student schedules in order to ensure that
the class sizes are reasonable and balanced. Please bear with us as we work to
optimize the learning environment for each child.
Community Choir - Do you sing? Have you
always wanted to sing? The Choral Music Program of AISCH is calling on
all singers (and inexperienced singers who would like to learn) to join a
community choir scheduled to do its first performance for UN Day in October.
The choir will meet on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30-4:30. The first
meeting will take place on August 21. All adults are welcome.
Speaking English is not necessary. For more information contact:
Diane Pritchett, Choral Music Director. email: pdiane@aisch.org. Phone
extension 2723.
That's all for this week. Have a restful and enjoyable weekend!
John
McCandless
High
School Principal
