The RANGER Report smccabe@spencerportschools.org Volume XIII Issue 11 May 10, 2018 Everyday classroom teaching is not what children will remember, but how you made a difference in their lives. Nita Ambani Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system. Sidney Hook Upcoming Events May 7 May 17 AP Exams May 7 May 11 Teacher and School Nurse Appreciation Week Thursday, May 10 Teacher Leader Meeting, 1:00 p.m., Conference Room Thursday, May 10 Boys Varsity Golf Tournament @ Eagle Vale, 3:00 p.m. Thursday, May 10 Unified Basketball vs. Kendall, 4:30 p.m., SHS Thursday, May 10 Varsity Softball @ Churchville, 5:00 p.m. Thursday, May 10 Boys Varsity Lacrosse @ Brighton, 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 11 Varsity Baseball @ Fairport, 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 11 Varsity Softball vs. Rush-Henrietta, 4:30 p.m., SHS Friday, May 11 Girls Varsity Lacrosse @ Penfield, 6:00 p.m. Saturday, May 12 Varsity Track Invitational @ Rush-Henrietta, 10:00 a.m. Saturday, May 12 Boys Varsity Lacrosse @ Irondequoit, 1:00 p.m. Saturday, May 12 Junior Prom, 6:00 p.m., Shadow Lake, Penfield Monday, May 14 Varsity Softball vs. Wayne, 4:30 p.m., SHS Monday, Mays 14 Varsity Baseball vs. Rush-Henrietta, 5:00 p.m., SHS Monday, May 14 Girls Varsity Lacrosse vs. Brighton, 6:15 p.m., Ranger Stadium District Budget Vote, 6:00 a.m. 9:00 p.m. Faculty Meeting, 2:25 p.m. Boys Varsity Golf Tournament @ Deerfield, 3:00 p.m. Boys Varsity Lacrosse vs. Brockport, 4:30 p.m. Boys Varsity Tennis vs. Athena, 4:30 p.m. Unified Basketball vs. Irondequoit, 4:30 p.m., SHS Wednesday, May 16 End of 5-week period for Quarter 4 Wednesday, May 16 Varsity Softball vs. Irondequoit, 5:00 p.m., SHS Wednesday, May 16 Girls Varsity Lacrosse vs. Palmyra-Macedon, 6:15 p.m., Ranger Stadium Thursday, May 17 Boys Varsity Tennis vs. Honeoye Falls-Lima, 4:30 p.m., SHS Thursday, May 17 Varsity Track Counties @ Webster-Thomas, 4:30 p.m. Thursday, May 17 Unified Basketball @ Brockport, 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 18 HS 35-Week Progress Report available via Parent Portal Friday, May 18 School-to-Career Breakfast, 8:00 a.m. Saturday, May 19 Sophomore Dinner Dance, 6:00 p.m., SHS Saturday, May 19 Varsity Track Counties @ SUNY Brockport, 10:00 a.m. Monday, May 21 BPT (STA Only), 2:25 p.m., Conference Room 1
Monday, May 21 Tuesday, May 22 Tuesday, May 22 Thursday, May 24 Monday, May 28 Tuesday, May 29 Wednesday, May 30 Thursday, May 31 Thursday, May 31 Unified Basketball @ Churchville, 4:30 p.m. Department Meetings, 2:25 p.m. Board of Education Meeting, 7:00 p.m., District Office Unified Basketball Culmination Event @ Gates Chili, Time TBD Memorial Day, No School Faculty Meeting, 2:25 p.m., PAC HS Spring Choral Concert, 7:00 p.m., PAC HS Portfolio Art Show, 5:45 p.m., HS Library HS Academic Award Ceremony, 6:30 p.m., PAC **For daily updates on athletic events (including modified and JV sports) please call the Ranger Sports Hot Line at 349-5070. * Student Updates Congratulations to senior Madison Hoadley who was selected as our April Student of the Month for Initiative. 2
Congratulations to seniors Frdos Muthanna and Pavel Galenza who were selected as our May Students of the Month for Integrity. Members of the Service Learning Internship Program volunteered to help at the annual Gala Event at the Plantation Party House. The theme on Friday, April 27, was The Roaring Twenties. Some of the students took the theme to heart and dressed as their best "flappers. The students arrived well before the event started and helped set up for the different fund raising events for the evening. The annual Gala serves as one of the fund raisers for Aurora House which offers it services at no charge. 3
On Saturday morning, April 28, a group of seniors who are members of the Service Learning Internship Program traveled to the lower park at the Seneca Park Zoo to help CURE. CURE is the Childhood Cancer Association, and they were holding the 9th annual 5K Run and Family Fun Walk. The 5K serves as a fundraising activity to help CURE continue its goal of helping families who have children who are battling cancer. The students enjoyed the day until the hard rain came. But even then, they understood the importance of finishing the work at hand. Congratulations to Chris and Elizabeth Ferrari and Abby Spielman for earning the right to compete in the DECA-International Career Development Conference in Atlanta, Georgia! Each represented Spencerport High School in a great manner. Thank you to Thomas Kanaley, who serves as the DECA advisor, for chaperoning this trip. 4
On Friday, May 4, Senior Kyle Hodge presented for his Senior Project. This presentation was a bit different than most since it took place at the WEMOCO Heavy Machinery work yard, which was rather muddy after the recent rain. Kyle researched the evolution of heavy construction machines and their impact and use. His presentation included the use of a John Deere excavator. The graders of his presentation, Class of 2018 Administrator Tim O'Connor and Senior Project Coordinator Doug Hanson, were beyond impressed with Kyle's knowledge and skill of the excavator. Kyle is looking at working in the Alaska oil fields after graduation with his honed machinery skills. Needless to say, the presentation was successful, however Mr. O'Connor's dress shoes did not fare as well. Congratulations to seniors Alexis Dzus and Madison Hoadley who were inducted into the Dennis Pelletier Youth Hall of Fame on May 9. We could not be more proud of both of them. Also pictured is CHS senior Andrew Duffer and congratulations to him as well! 5
On a beautiful spring Rochester day (yes we finally got one!), seniors from Spencerport High School's Service Learning Internship Program (SLIP) volunteered to help prepare the urban community garden. The garden is a joint project between Food-Link and St. Peter's Soup Kitchen. The students spent the day reclaiming the land, cleaning, weeding, raking, shoveling, rebuilding garden beds and rebuilding the rain watering system. New Club Proposals Reminder: any new club proposals are due by May 15. Please send these to Jennifer Placito. Upcoming emergency drills/related topics Moving forward, any drills that are scheduled will be sent out via email to staff by Tim O Connor. As always, please keep all emergency plans in a readily accessible location for both you and a substitute teacher. We are in the process of trying to organize a drill during the summer that will involve the Ogden Police Department, the Monroe County Sheriff s Department, Gates Ambulance, the Spencerport Fire Department, and students who volunteer to participate. When/if we are able to set a date and time, I will let staff know so anyone who is interested/able can volunteer to participate. More updates to follow! No staff member (including administration ) is allowed to park in the reserved visitors spots in the front loop. If special permission is needed to park in one of these spots, please contact me directly. 6
Academic Excellence Week Students who have consistently been on the honor roll and high honor roll will be recognized during our annual Academic Excellence Week starting Monday, May 14. Juniors will be called down on Monday (5/14) & Tuesday (5/15), and seniors will be called down on Wednesday (5/16) & Thursday (5/17). Student names will be announced over the PA during the last five minutes of first block, and those students will then proceed to the waterfall to pick up their bar/letter. Sources of Strength/PBIS Spring Day On May 25, we will have our 2 nd Annual Spring Day co-sponsored by Sources of Strength and PBIS. Last year was a great success in large part to all of the staff who participated and helped to supervise the various activities (so thank you for that!). Below is the schedule we will follow on this day: Schedule - Block 1 7:25 8:20 - Block 2 8:25 9:20 - Block 4 9:25 10:20 - Block 3 Lunch 10:25 10:55 Class 10:25 11:11:20 Class 11:00 11:55 Lunch 11:25 11:55 - Advisement 12:00-12:10 -Event 12:15 2:10 **A lunch schedule for each class during third block will be created and sent to impacted teachers prior to 5/25. ** Please refer to the email sent by Katie Wyant (5/9/18) asking for staff volunteers to help supervise this fun event. Any and all help is greatly appreciated! Testing Tuesday, June 5 Please be aware that we will be giving the Global Regents exam on Tuesday, June 5, in the morning (7:30-11:00). All 10 th grade students will be taking this exam. We will be using the East Gym for the main testing location. Any teachers whose rooms are being impacted have been contacted by Jennifer Placito. More information will be sent out via email as the date gets closer. Senior DWI assembly and Class Elections On Friday, June 1, 2018 we will be conducting the DWI Assembly for the Senior Class and Class Elections for the other three classes. The front loop will be blocked off; so please plan on parking in one of the other parking lots. Students in grades 9-11 are to report directly to their Advisement classroom on Friday morning at 7:25 a.m. Seniors are to report directly to the West Café at 7:25 a.m. Please remind your students throughout the week of the unique schedule. 7
An announcement will be made to direct students to the following locations: Freshmen East Gym Sophomores PAC Juniors West Cafeteria Seniors Will meet in the West Cafeteria and then will be directed to the front of the school for DWI Assembly During the underclassmen assemblies, students who are running for class office will be given the opportunity to deliver their speeches. Following the candidates presentations, each of the respective classes will return to their Advisement classrooms to vote. Ballots for voting will be provided to each Advisement teacher the week of the event. The senior DWI Assembly may take longer than the allotted 40 minutes. If necessary, an announcement will be made informing teachers that seniors have been dismissed to first block. Modified Schedule for June 1 Period Time Length Advisement 7:25-8:05 40 minutes 1 8:10-9:20 70 minutes 2 (return to normal schedule) 9:25-10:45 Announcements 80 minutes 3 10:50-12:45 115 minutes 4 12:50-2:10 80 minutes Activity Period 2:20-2:50 30 minutes NOTE: All advisement teachers are expected to assist with supervising their advisement class. Also, if the weather does not cooperate this event will occur on Monday June 4, 2018. Academic Awards Ceremony Our annual Academic Awards Ceremony will take place on Thursday, May 31. All teachers and staff are invited to attend. It is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of hundreds of our students. The evening starts at 6:00 p.m. with musical performances by some of our wonderful ensembles directed by John Viavattine with the awards portion of the evening beginning right at 6:30. Attention all 9 th, 10 th and 11 th grade advisement teachers: From the Counseling Department: Career Interest Survey (Explorer s Survey) Students face many difficult challenges regarding career decisions. The Explorer program gives students an opportunity to sample careers they are interested in. During the week of May 14, advisement teachers will be administering the Explorer s Survey. This is a great opportunity for all our students. We currently have over 60 students who participate in an Explorer program. 8
Ninth, 10 th and 11 th grade advisement teachers should have received the surveys in their mailboxes on Wednesday, May 9. There will be instructions included in your packet. Please have all advisement students take the survey. This should take a maximum of ten minutes to complete. All surveys will need to be returned to the counseling office no later than Friday, May 18. Thank you in advance for your assistance. Upcoming Faculty Meetings: 5/15: Like our faculty meeting on 11/28, the plan for this meeting is to continue to support professional collaboration amongst teachers. There will be no formal faculty meeting. Rather teachers can choose to visit a colleague s classroom for an informal observation of best practices, or they can choose to meet with a colleague during a free block, activity period, etc., to discuss best practices as they relate to digital conversion, grading practices, etc. There will be no homework or summary that needs to be turned into me. Again, the purpose is to simply support professional collaboration. BPT received great feedback the last time we did this so we wanted to offer this opportunity once again. Teachers are simply responsible for reaching out to colleagues to arrange a classroom visit or a time to sit and talk at some point during the week of 5/14. We would encourage you to branch out and reach out to colleagues outside of your department (but again, this is up to you). If you have any questions, please either see me or a member of BPT. 5/29: As we reviewed our emergency plans/procedures with the Ogden Police Department and the Sherriff s Department, they shared with us a professional development opportunity that other local schools have participated in. It is called Stop the Bleed. This training discusses basic first aid techniques staff members could use in an emergency situation. It is taught by Bill Hallinan, Trauma Program Manager, Kessler Trauma Center, University of Rochester, and some of his colleagues. It will be an hour long training in the PAC and ALL staff are invited to attend. 6/5: Final faculty meeting of the year. Final exam updates and retirement celebration with cake! This year we only have one retiree, Judy Demchock, who has worked in the Cafeteria since 1979! Save the dates! Friday May 11: Pizza in both faculty lounges at 10:30 a.m. for teacher/staff appreciation Tuesday May 15: Lugia s ice-cream truck courtesy of Student Government for teacher/staff appreciation. An announcement will be made when the truck arrives after school. Please refer to Jackie Nentarz s email sent on 5/9/18 which discusses the health and wellness activities that are scheduled after school as well. Friday, June 1: Annual BPT/staff appreciation kick ball event with incredible barbecue provided by Brian Buckner. It will start right at 2:20 p.m. on the field nearest the Auxiliary Gym. 9
Unified Basketball Update The Unified Basketball Season is underway! Come out for a Home Game in the East Gym and support your Rangers! Or catch us on the road at an away game! HOME: Thursday May 10 th @ 4:30 vs. Hilton/Kendall HOME: Tuesday May 15 th @ 4:30 vs. West Irondequoit AWAY: Thursday May 17 th @ 4:30 at Brockport AWAY: Tuesday May 22 nd @ 4:30 at Churchville-Chili Away: Thursday May 24 th - Culminating Event at Gates Chili High School (Time TBD) Locker Clean Out Day: from Tim O Connor and Tamara VanLoo Each year we take the opportunity to have students clean out their lockers. This practice has helped tremendously with our summer cleaning and the process that we follow when returning books. We will conduct this clean out on two different days during Advisement only. On Wednesday, June 6, all seniors and juniors students will clean out their lockers in the 100, 300 and 500 hallways. On Thursday, June 7, freshmen and sophomores will clean out their lockers in the 200 and 400 halls. Each day at the end of first period, we will announce that students are to report Advisement for attendance and then go to their lockers. Advisement teachers will assist in the halls when their students are scheduled to complete this task. Any teachers that do not have an Advisement are asked to offer support during these days. The Environmental Club will be stationed within each hallway to collect gently used school supplies and will be donating these items to students in Costa Rica. Please advise students to donate these items at any of the designated tables. On Friday, June 8, we will inform students that all lockers will be cabled at the conclusion of the day, and no one will have access until July, 2018. The administrative team appreciates any and all assistance that our staff can offer students in identifying new or gently used items that can be donated. Student Attendance Update Over the last few days you may have noticed that some new attendance codes are appearing in student attendance. If not, the next time you look you will find that the Tardy and Dismissal Codes we have been using (TE, TU, DE and DU) are no longer being used. In the attendance from 5/3/18 forward, we have added some clarification detail to our Tardy and Early Dismissal codes. The code now includes whether the student was absent from class for the majority of the period or present in class for the majority of the period. The following are the code definitions. TEab: Tardy Excused, Absent for majority of period, TEpr: Tardy Excused, Present for majority of period, TUab: Tardy Unexcused, Absent for majority of period, TUpr: Tardy Unexcused, Present for majority of period, DEab: Dismissed Excused, Absent for majority of period, DEpr: Dismissed Excused, Present for majority of period, DUab: Dismissed Unexcused, Absent for majority of period, DUpr: Dismissed Unexcused, Present for majority of period. Please feel free to call Tricia Phelps (ext. 5159) if you have any questions. 10
Principal s Message Well we finally have made it to Spring (in terms of weather )! I greatly appreciate everyone s hard work with our students as we begin the final few weeks of the school year. I will send a RANGER Report out at the end of this month which will highlight year end procedures (teacher checkout, etc.) and also talk about our instructional focus for next year. Obviously two keys areas for us will be technology integration and the continuation of our discussion on grading philosophy and best practices. But more on that next RANGER Report! Please remember the due date for the Professional Development Proposal Form for our April 12, 2019, Conference Day is May 11. Forms should be submitted to Office of Learning and Professional Development by tomorrow, May 11, 2018. I think this is a wonderful opportunity to be able to learn from each other and I look forward to being able to attend some of these workshop! I hope each of you has a great rest of the week. If you have any questions or concerns, as always, please feel free to see me at any time. All the best! Sean 11