Dear Parents,
It was good to have so many of you join us for the Back to School
Night on Tuesday evening. I enjoyed meeting with you and sharing some of
the things we are doing to meet your children’s needs and interests. The teachers also appreciated the opportunity to share their approaches to learning. Parents and teachers that I spoke with were in good spirits and optimistic about the coming school year. I know I speak for the faculty when I say that we all
look forward to get to know you and your children better throughout the school
year.
The addition of the Performing Arts Center has been a great boost for our school, but it did pose some new challenges for our Back To School Night. I will be working with the faculty and with the High School PTA representatives to rethink how we do this next year. If you have any ideas in this regard, please let me or your PTA representative know.
The addition of the Performing Arts Center has been a great boost for our school, but it did pose some new challenges for our Back To School Night. I will be working with the faculty and with the High School PTA representatives to rethink how we do this next year. If you have any ideas in this regard, please let me or your PTA representative know.
I had a very pleasant and productive meeting with this year’s High School PTA representatives on
Monday morning. They are Virginie Vlaminck, Dawn Williamson, Susan Scales and
Jyoti Khurana. I am very thankful for their willingness to share their time and
to work with me to ensure that parents have a voice in our school.
This week we had planned a High School Parent Coffee on Wednesday
to help parents learn more about our Week Without Walls and the electronic
resources that the school has made available to students and parents.
Unfortunately I must make an unexpected trip to the U.S. and will not be here
next week. Instead, Mrs. Callaway will conduct a College Application Seminar for all parents of high school
students. This will take on Wednesday,
August 29 at 8:45 in the Black Box Theater. We will hold the Parent Coffee
on September 6.
On Saturday about 30 of our student leaders from the Student
Council and the National Honor Society will be engaged in a Student Leadership Retreat on the
school campus. They will be working on developing their understanding of group
dynamics, honing their public speaking skills, learning how to conduct a
meeting and working with Mr. Hoover to better understand how effective leaders
make decisions and reach agreements that reflect the needs of the community.
At the same time, our IB Diploma candidates will be off campus at
an IB Retreat with Mr.
Robertson-Jones, our IB Coordinator, and a number of our IB teachers. They will
explore the many facets of the IB Diploma Program, including the connections
between the Theory of Knowledge course, Extended Essay and Creativity, Action,
Service components of the program.
We are very excited about the arrival of performing artist Cohdi Harrell this week. Cohdi is the son of
international school teachers and he travels around the world to share his amazing
talents in acrobatic performance with students. Cohdi will be conducting
seminars with our middle and high school students in their theater arts classes
and will culminate his visit with a performance for students in grades 4-12 on
Friday afternoon.
Are you ready to Moodle?
This year we have introduced a new learning management system, formally known
as the NESA virtual School but more popularly known as Moodle pages. These are
essentially web pages that have a common format. Each teacher has a separate
Moodle page for each course he or she teaches. Our students have been using
these pages for a couple of weeks. Now it’s your turn. This week Mr. Kevin
Crouch, our new IT Director, will share the secrets of Moodling at the Parents
Tech Connections on Tuesday at 8:45 a.m. See the sidebar for a link (Information Technology Director) to more
information regarding this meeting
Last, but certainly not least, High School photographs for the Yearbook will be taken on Monday.
Please remind your child to dress appropriately (casual but neat) for the
photos as these will be used for the Yearbook and will become a part of their
memories of their high school years.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any
questions or matters you would like to discuss.
Have a great weekend.
John
McCandless
High
School Principal
