Week Ending January 29, 2016

It is fair to say this school year is moving rapidly. I cannot believe last night we were touring 8th graders and possible new students from out of district for our school year 16-17. Multiple teachers and students volunteered their time to showcase our electives and other opportunities at NKHS. Thank you. With the semester at a close we had a large team of department chairs, teachers, guidance counselors and staff pouring over first semester data to look for themes and perhaps identify new patterns that may help us address gaps and plan for allocation of resources for the upcoming year. Finally, meet Whitney. Shown here with Jordan. She is Paula Calitri’s dog and she is getting certified to be a Therapy dog. She has earned her Canine Good Citizen certificate. Paula and I have discussed briefly how schools/colleges (including URI, Salve) are using therapy dogs more and more to help with student difficulties such as anxiety.  Research supports the benefit therapy dogs can offer.  Our hope is that Whitney can help our NKHS students and one day visit district schools, as well. Meeting many of you today at the luncheon was a good start.

Teachers as Learners

Melissa Wetzel and Fran Dempsey visited Summit Schools in California along with other educators from RI. This is the same school that is written about in this article in US News and World Report regarding schools of the future.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/articles/2016-01-19/californias-summit-public-schools-are-the-schools-of-the-future

Students as Learners

Dialogues in Democracy Night was held at North Kingstown High School on January 20, 2016. The purpose of this evening is for North Kingstown High School students to dialogue with community members, elected officials and business leaders about issues facing our communities and possible ways of addressing those needs. Dialogues in Democracy is the culminating event which showcases student work from the entire quarter. In their course, Democracy, the students study government structures, explore competing definitions of democracy, learn how other people act in a democracy, develop methods for

engaging in democratic action, and finally develop a plan for addressing a real community need of their choosing. Local, state, and national government officials participate in the event in January and June.

The the first photo above is of Congressman James Langevin speaking with NKHS Junior Democracy student Jake Shatzer. The photo on the left is NKHS student, Hailey Cedor, presenting to Lt. Governor Daniel McKee during the same Dialogues in Democracy Night.

Health and Wellness

From Karen D’Abrosca

Continuing our discussion on the Process of Change …

Choose a particular word to focus on throughout the year.  If you recall the “Welcome to 2016 FOCUS”, Dr. Mancieri shared her 2016 word  ~  “happiness”!!

Peace, trust, breathe, pause  – choose a word that encapsulates how you’d like to feel.  Remind yourself of that word each day.  Write it where you’ll see it. The Japanese have a word called “KAIZEN”  - the practice of continued improvement.   Kai = change, Zen = good.  Baby steps equal big results!

Clinic News

New Naloxone Law:  Many of you have heard through the media about the increase in opioid related deaths in our state.  Rhode Island ranks #1 in the US per capita in deaths per thousand residents here.  As a result, the Department of Health has begun a campaign to change this.  Many first responders carry the drug, Naloxone (Narcan), to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.  

Last year the General Assembly passed a law to require all secondary nurses to be trained to use Naloxone and have a supply available in their offices.  I have Naloxone in my office if the need arises.  I am planning to host a training event for several of the administrators to learn how to give it.  Please send me an email if any of you are also interested.  It is a mist given through the nostrils and quite easy to give.  

Influenza update: although there have been many students with the stomach virus and colds, according to the CDC the flu is not yet widespread in RI.

Upcoming Events/Important Dates

February 1st -- First day of second semester (Day 2) Begin with advisory
February 1st -- Faculty Meeting, Media Center, 2 pm

February 10th – Semester 1 Report Cards
February 12th -- Professional Development Day, no school for students
February 15th -- Presidents’ Day, no school

Student Services Office

Congratulations to Kris Graham for being nominated for this week's Skipper Pride for Excellence Award by last week's winner Rob Silveira.  From Rob:

"Kris is one of the kindest and most sincere individuals on staff.  If a faculty member has an question and is looking for advice, Kris is always willing to stop what she is doing and lend her support.  I have witnessed Kris calm the most anxious of students down off the proverbial ledge because of some issue they had at home or at school.  Thanks Kris for being one of the shining examples of what makes NKHS great.”

Congratulations Kris, we can't wait to see who you will pick to be next week's winner.

Community

The Clothesline Project (CLP) is a program started on Cape Cod, MA, in 1990 to address the issue of violence against women. It is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt. They then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women. Paula Calitri gathered male and female students over the last week to make a T-shirt design to support this cause. She hung them in the cafeteria where they will stay for the month of February. She received a grant from the Lindsay Ann Burke Foundation to make this possible.

School Culture

Big shout out to Amy Messerlian-Magidin and Sherri Andrews for planning a wonderful end of exam luncheon and activity hour for the staff today. Thank you to Rich Polseno and Matthew Blaser for the musical entertainment; exactly what we needed to provide a great atmosphere in the cafeteria. Additional thanks to the PE department, I saw Kris Graham running around with extra paddles, to set up the table tennis. I hope to have a few pictures in next week’s blog showcasing the matches. Finally, to Leah and Patty for the extra wellness benefit of a zumba or yoga class. Perfect ending to a very busy week.

Videos Worth Watching

As you enter into the second semester whether you are receiving new students or continuing with the same class watching this video can help you help those students who are less likely to volunteer or who may have anxiety. It may help them in their future, as well as, in your class.

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are | Amy Cuddy | TED Talks

Food for Thought

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

~Abraham Lincoln

Open House Tour Pics

World Language Department

Mr. Simmons addressing the tour in the Engineering room

Admirers in the Photography classroom

More to come...

Until next time, Think, Create, Innovate...Denise

Week Ending January 22, 2016

It was the last full week of first semester. The time has flown by. We end our first semester this upcoming week. Good luck as you as you embark on a week full of mid-terms.

Students as Learners

Teachers, students and community members christened the new Conference Room on the first floor as Mr. Garland’s Business Leadership/Entreprenuership students presented their “Shark Tank” type presentations.

Health and Wellness

From Karen D’Abrosca:

Focus on the Process, Not the Results

Still have change on the mind?  Goals like “Lose Weight” and “Get Organized” are broad goals, completely focused on a result with no identification of a process for how to get there.  Be “SMART”  ~  Look at your goals as Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely.

For example, take a goal of “Lose Weight”.  Shift the focus to going for walks or eating healthy salads for lunch rather than a number on the scale.   Pounds may disappear in the process!

“Set thy Heart on upon thy work, but never on its reward”

Upcoming Events/Important Dates
January 26th – School Committee Meeting (Business) 7pm

January 26th – 29th   Midterm Exams

January 28th – 8th grade night, Finance, Pre-engineering/Robotics CTE Open House 6 pm

January 29th -- Teacher lunch, #community

February 5th -- Grades due by the end of the day. Pep Rally; 4th lunch and 5th period.

February 10th – Semester 1 Report Cards

February 12th -- Professional Development Day, no school for students

February 15th -- Presidents’ Day, no school

Student Services Office

Congratulations to Rob Silveira for being nominated for this week's Skipper Pride for Excellence Award by last week's winner Linda Andrew.  From Linda:

"I nominated Rob Silveira to be this week’s recipient of the Skipper Award.

Rob is always willing to help when I ask him for anything.  Many times throughout

the year I need photos of staff, posters, etc., and he always does them for me as soon as he can and never complains. Myself and the rest of the main office staff know we can count on him to

come through “in a pinch” whenever we need help with something such as covering classes,

delivering packages, etc.”

Rob is one of our “go-to” guys at NKHS !"

Congratulations Rob, we can't wait to see who you will pick to be next week's winner.

Community

Best buddies (Sue Graham and Paul Fanning--Advisors) planned an outing to the bowling alley this past weekend. On the right is a picture of the group. Looks like they had a blast.

School Culture

On Friday you may want to come to school in your comfortable clothes. Not only did Sherri and Amy organize a lunch for all of us to break bread together but in addition, Leah LaPorte and Patty Kirwin have offered to host a preview of the wellness classes they are offering to the district next month. During last hour (1-1:30/1:45 pm--your planning time because of Exam week) if you would prefer to take a Zumba class with Leah or a Yoga class (bring your own mat if you would like) with Patti please do. After a long week of midterms it may be just the ticket before you leave for the weekend.

So let's review: We will have a yummy lunch planned for us, during which Rich Polseno and Matt Blaser will provide music, Julie Maguire and the PE department will bring a few table tennis tables for those with a competitive edge and I hear maybe even an “open mic” for a few laughs. If you did not plan on the catered lunch please join us with your lunch so you can still be in on the fun.

Collectively we make NKHS a better place to work.

From the Deans

Please encourage your students to lock all of their belongings during the school day and extracurricular activities, every student is provided with a lock and a locker.  We have received complaints about phones and other personal items being stolen from backpacks and purses.  Although we would like to think that all of our students are honest, sometimes that is not always the case.

Videos Worth Watching

Tara Harrington sent this YouTube video. She gave her level two ceramics class an option to create a video to show proficiency. While we usually see our COM students making videos, it is nice to see other courses use this media.

Additionally, our senior senator from RI, Jack Reed, has sent this message through email. You may have already seen it. If not, it is worth the two minutes as it affects our students going on to higher ed.

Articles Worth Reading

Friday morning, a group of teachers and administrators will be looking at data from our students--those that may be at-risk from a number of different data points: attendance, STAR data, PARCC data, and first quarter grades to name a few categories. Before we get together, I will ask them to read this one page article to ground our work before we begin. I am sharing the article with you because you will also have the opportunity to look at the data at Monday’s faculty meeting with Barbara and perhaps this can help your frame of reference.

http://learningforward.org/docs/learning-principal/lpf12-brown.pdf?sfvrsn=0

Food for Thought

“Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

~Vince Lombardi

Until next time, Think, Create, Innovate...Denise

Week Ending January 15, 2016

Happy Birthday Dr. King

Teachers as Learners

The 2016 Rhode Island Financial Capability Conference will be held on Saturday, January 23, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at Rhode Island College, Alger Hall.

Joy Tavano will present in two sessions. One on How to Promote Business Education in your school along with some other RI Business Educator board members, and another with Pat Page from East Greenwich on Tech Tools for your Classroom - namely Google Forms and Shared Calendars. For a link to register or learn more about it https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2016-ri-financial-capability-conference-tickets-20101807046

Students as Learners

From Emily Zilly:

Suzanne Mancini (mother of Juliana and Griffin) is a fashion design professor at RISD, who uses a version of CAD in her classes. She came and presented to both CAD classes, discussing various projects she has worked on for clothing companies (Nike, Levi, Burton, etc). She went over the process it takes to get an idea into a design, with collaboration from a drawing to a computer design, then into a prototype and eventually into the stores. Suzanne then fielded an unbelievable amount of questions from the classes and even stayed later to talk with some of them individually...she was amazing!

From Ruthann Baker:

NKHS German students worked hard, on 21 different committees, as well as on their own presentations, to make our Semester Karneval Celebration fun for everyone. Class performances were energized, well executed, and very well received.

Photos feature our 2 Gebäcklauf (cake walk) winners, Maddi Holden and Elsa (Liz) Rodriguez-pictured right, as well as our crowned Prinzenpaar, (2016 Karneval Prince and Princess), chosen for their spirit, Nachtigal (Ashley) Baierlein and (Billy) Wilhelm Cross-pictured below.

Health and Wellness

I am sharing this email from Deb Gardiner if you have not seen it because it includes three of our colleagues from the high school--Karen, Leah, and Patty, who will be teaching the first session of the yoga and zumba classes. If you are thinking about switching it up for your new year’s exercise routine here is a perfect way to do it while supporting our teachers.

From Debbie Gardiner:

I am really excited to tell you that a wellness committee has been formed by North Kingstown School Department Employees and The Trust (our insurance consultant).  This committee has been working on and will continue to work on wellness classes that we will offer to all NKSD staff because your Health Matters.  We have used the recent wellness survey results to create classes that staff said they would be interested in, i.e. exercise, healthy meals, stress management and stretching.  I would like to say a big thank you to Patti Kirwan, Leah Laporte and Karen D’Abrosca (teachers in the system) who are volunteering their time to teach the 1st classes.  All classes are free.  Reserve your spot online at 

http://goo.gl/2oXmON

Upcoming Events/Important Dates

January 18th – No classes – MLK Day

January 20th – Dialogue & Democracy Night 6:30

January 26th – School Committee Meeting (Business) 7pm

January 26th – 29th   Midterm Exams

January 28th – 8th grade night, Finance, Pre-engineering/Robotics CTE Open House 6 pm

February 10th – Semester 1 Report Cards

February 12th -- Professional Development Day, no school for students

February 15th -- Presidents’ Day, no school

Student Services Office

Congratulations to Linda Andrew, she was nominated for this week's Skipper Pride for Excellence Award.  Nominated by Heather Lebel, Linda was chosen because of her diligent efforts with helping the class advisors.  If you have ever been a class advisor, there are lots of moving parts and come junior and senior year, Linda is your savior.  I am sure many of us share in Heather's appreciation of Linda's dedication and endless passion to our school community.  We look forward to hearing who Linda will choose as next week's recipient.

Community

The Jazz Combo will be performing at the Grand Opening of the new Job Lot at 11 AM on Feb. 6th.

Please set that morning aside as it will be great publicity for our music program. There will be members of the town council there as well as other town officials.

Members of the Fiddler cast will also be there singing between 10:30 and 11 AM. We will have a table set up and advertise our musical and our music department.

Martin Luther King Day of Service - Sunday Soup Kitchen event. Students from the Interact Club and Leadership Academy Sunday, January 17, 2016

On January 28th, from 6:00 - 7:30 pm NKHS will open it’s doors to welcome all 8th grade students and their parents from public, private and parochial schools to see our school and learn about our programs. New this year will be the opportunity for students, who would like to transfer from their home district to North Kingstown, to study Pre-engineering/Robotics or Business/Finance. There will be tours of the building highlighting these programs and our fantastic comprehensive high school programs. If you are interested in being a part of this night, meeting parents, touring students, or attending with your children if you live in another district, please email me.  

School Culture

For the Friday of exam week, the school culture committee has been behind the scenes planning a great luncheon break for anyone from the school who would like to be a part of it.  Amy and Sherri sent out a one question form (Yes or No) to see if you will be attending. This will help with ordering food. Take a moment to enjoy your colleagues before correcting your exam.  #adult_PBIS!

From Ms. Mason's recommendation letter:

Matthew has been a student of mine in two different courses to include Advanced Honors United States History II and History Through Film here at North Kingstown High School during his junior year of studies. He has also been the president of my Junior States of America (JSA) Club since 2013. During the course of the past several years, Matthew has more than made a distinct impression on me. Matthew was an absolute dream student from day one and one that teachers relish working with over the course of an entire school year and also career. When teachers say there are certain students in their all-time top ten list that they will remember not five but twenty five years from now, Matthew falls into that category. Matthew possesses all the wonderful qualities teachers hope will be embodied in each of their students when they first walk in the door in September.

From Ms. Mason after the award:

Thank you for visiting The Bunker today to

deliver student Matthew Vergun's Shining Star Award. He was very surprised and most appreciative.

The rest of the 34 Junior States of America (JSA) students were also thrilled to see so many of their Administrators here and visiting them during our club meeting. They all heartily congratulated Matthew after you all left. It is so important to support our students and acknowledge them. This award is an excellent idea and as I told Matthew this afternoon, the bar has now been set high for the next recipient.

As Winston Churchill once said, "We make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give." I am so proud to be a product of Forest Park, DMS, & NKHS, and now am lucky enough to teach History here to future generations. Matthew has spoken to me about his desire to become perhaps a high school English teacher. Perhaps one day we will see him in these very halls.

Videos Worth Watching

Cindy Zito sent this link to me last March with this message:

With all of the crazy stuff, as educators, we have to deal with, it would be so nice to try and adopt this philosophy --- from the book The Nurture Effect....

the theme of this piece --- to tell our students that we care about them, even when they are making us crazy...

At his time of year sometimes we need a boost. Perhaps this video from Cindy will give you just that. We are not promoting purchasing this book. The trailer is a nice reminder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhV5Ag4bCuI

Food for Thought

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question: What are you doing for others?”

~Dr. Martin Luther King, jr

Until next time, Think, Create, Innovate...Denise