This coming Wednesday is the PSAT or Practice SAT that we administer to students. The PSAT provides data to students and the school with regard to students’ abilities in the areas of Verbal Reasoning and Math. For 9th grade students, the PSAT is a benchmark test. All students will be taking the test under normal conditions without accommodations.
Students in grades 10 and 11 who have CollegeBoard approved accommodations will take the test with such accommodations. 11th grade students who are US citizens will take the test to qualify for the National Merit Scholarship Program. For more information about the NMSQT program, click here.
Parents, please take note that transportation in the afternoon will only run at 12pm after the PSAT has ended. Students who are taking the PSAT with accommodations will need to provide their own transportation home. Busses will run the morning of the 16th.
Seeing that we will only have 3 days of classes next week, we have created a 3 day schedule where all 7 periods will meet each day at the same time. Lunch will be moved back to 11:45am instead of 12:30 that week to mitigate the lunch traffic of having 700 students eating at the same time.
The schedule has been sent out to students already in their Daily Bulletin.
It’s hard to believe that the first half of the semester ended on Friday, October 11th. This coming Friday, we will release report cards to give you a glimpse into your child’s performance so far this semester. This grade is only a point in time where your child is academically. The grade will more than likely adjust as soon as a new assessment is graded and inputted into the grade book. Grades in the High School are cumulative and assess what a student knows and is able to do.
You will also notice a new format to the report card as students will have their Approaches to Learning mark for the first quarter. These marks are based on evidence of the three standards we have for students in their approach to their learning. While our goal is for each student to reach Mastery by the time they finish high school, we do not expect many students to necessarily be hitting that mark at this point in time.
Teachers are writing comments within the Approaches to Learning mark to help guide students and parents on what they need to work on to improve their Approaches to Learning mark. Remember that this mark is not an average, it is measured as a growth over time. By the end of the semester, we would hope to see each student grow in their approach to learning in their classes.
