Proud to be EV... Week 6

Another busy week has passed at English Valleys Junior/Senior High School...

The SIAC meeting took place on Tuesday night. As part of the meeting, Mr. Jensen took the committee on a tour of the new gymnasium area. It was a really neat feeling to know that in just a few months time the project will be complete.

We held a fire drill in our building Tuesday afternoon. With construction taking place, this can be a bit tricky so we made sure that students were aware of the exiting procedures, especially in the areas affected by the construction. The fire drill went smoothly.

We have new wireless infrastructure in the junior/senior high school building! ITS installed the system on Tuesday and Wednesday. The internet is much faster now that this is in place.

I attended the Leadership for Continuous Improvement Series in Cedar Rapids with several of my teachers. Mrs. Andreassen also took a group of her teachers. The junior/senior high school group took part in the Competency Based Education series. We will be attending four more meetings focused on this. This series is hosted by Grant Wood AEA. The secondary building is exploring Competency Based Education/Standards Based Grading and the impact it can have on student achievement. We anticipate moving in this direction at some point in the future. The first meeting focused on introducing what CBE is. There were many schools in attendance for this series. I will explain more about CBE in a future blog post.

On Friday we held our weekly Spirit Assembly. The Community Club explained the upcoming "Zombie Run" that they are hosting for junior/senior high school students.

 Mr. Gordon's 8th grade Advisory group hosted the assembly. They had an egg toss, a Skittle find (students participating had to find a skittle on a plate of whipped cream), and a game of Dodgeball in which students faced the staff.

Looking forward to what next week brings us...

Go Bears!

Homecoming Week...Proud to be EV: Week 5

We had a fantastic, spirit-filled week at English Valleys Junior/Senior High School! Many of the students participated in dress-up days throughout the week. On Wednesday night, the Homecoming Pep Rally took place. This event was well-attended and showcased many fun games.

On Thursday night, several students asked if they could decorate the hallway. I told them absolutely. I offered to supervise them. The end result was definitely something to be proud of. Those girls put a tremendous amount of work into showing pride in our football team. The next morning I made sure to upload the photos of the decorations to Twitter for many to enjoy.

There were so many moments embedded in my mind that I will always cherish. One of these is watching the band play the school song on Friday in the hallway and students and staff clapping along. Priceless.

On Friday, game day, the hallways and classrooms were filled with students and staff wearing blue and gold. At 1:00 p.m. the elementary and secondary students and staff filled up our gymnasium for a homecoming pep rally.

Coach McCulley wished the best of luck to his team as well as our other athletic teams. The cheerleaders led the crowd in cheers.

The 3rd- 6th grade students danced to the "Cha-Cha Slide".

The elementary and secondary teachers competed against each other in a game in which the elementary teachers defeated the secondary teachers. The sounds of the cheers from the elementary students filled the gym!

Mr. Dusdieker and his band played the school song for us. The junior/senior high school students were dismissed at 1:30 to work on floats while the elementary students lined up for the "Hug and High-Five" line with the football players, cheerleaders, and Homecoming Court.

The Homecoming Parade was excellent! I walked behind the band and enjoyed every step I took. I never tire of hearing our school song play. Each grade in 7-12th grade had a float. The Homecoming Court rode in convertibles. The football team rode on the firetruck. The FFA entered a float. The Marengo Hospital showered the crowd with beads and footballs. Every single student in grades 7-12 participated in the parade.  There are many pictures on the English Valleys Bears Fan Page on Facebook. There was such a tremendous amount of pride and spirit this week that one could not help but be part of it.

The Homecoming game was filled with many fans! The Homecoming court was introduced at half-time. Our boys won the game! I will never ever forget the looks on those faces as the raced to ring the Victory Bell. I hope they have many more opportunities to ring that bell.

The Homecoming dance concluded the week. The students were so excited! Listening to them sing "We are the Champions" made me smile. Many times students commented on what a wonderful week they had.

These past few weeks have been wonderful. I truly believe that it will only get better~

There are no words to really describe this week at English Valleys. Just stepping back and observing students and staff taking pride in their district is such an inspiration to me and reminds me of how truly blessed I am to be a part of this district.

Go Bears!

Proud to be EV... Week 4

The last four weeks have really flown by at English Valleys Jr/Sr High School! Students and staff are settling into their daily routines.

We held our first tornado drill of the year last week. Staff and students did a great job with this. On Wednesday and Friday we ran on an advisory schedule both days in order to prepare for Homecoming week. Advisory groups decorated doors for Homecoming so that we are able to enjoy them the entire week, rather than decorating in the middle of Homecoming week.

We hosted our first home high school volleyball game against Montezuma on Thursday night. This was also "Parent's Night".  The coaches and young ladies did a great job and worked hard. It was a pleasure to see many fans in attendance.

On Friday, we had our weekly "Spirit Assembly". Jane Bruns and her Academic Decathlon group hosted it. They played a trivia game that had several categories that included asking questions pertaining to staff. I learned several things from the game they hosted and I look forward to the Homecoming Pep Rally we will be holding this week.

Go Bears!

Proud to be EV... Week 3

It was another great week at English Valleys Junior/Senior High School! The staff and students did not have school Monday in order to enjoy and celebrate Labor day. On Monday night,  the Booster club held an informal meeting in which ideas were presented in order to raise funds, and promote and support our athletics even more. Booster club meetings will be held the third Wednesday of every month with the exception of this month. The Booster club meeting will be held on September 25th due to the pep rally being held on September 18. If you are not a member already, please consider joining and supporting this program.

Attendance. I cannot stress enough the importance of attending school. However, I do understand that people get sick, and other life events happen. We have a policy that if a student has an excused absence, they have two days to make up assignments for full credit. If a parent does not call in the morning to report their student's absence, our building secretary calls home to find out where the student is. Teachers take attendance every period. If the attendance does not come through, she calls the teachers to have them resend it if they haven't already. If a student isn't in class,  I investigate to find out way. The well-being of our students is of high priority.

Grade checks. I conduct grade checks every three weeks. In our Powerschool system, I am able to print the most updated D's, F's, and Incomplete grades. The goal is to not see many of these. This gives me an opportunity to visit with teachers on struggling students, and then I meet with students to find out why grades are suffering. Students have access to Powerschool. In this system they are able to check their attendance and grades 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Parents also have this access. Teachers are encouraged to update grades as often as they can, this way students and parents have the most up to date information.

Spirit Assembly. For the "Spirit Assembly" this week, 20 names from each grade were drawn and students had to spell "Bears" using formations. It was quite entertaining. Jeff Gordon, our Cross Country coach, introduced the team. Denise Wade, our music teacher, led the 7-12 students in learning the school song, if they didn't know it already. It was wonderful to listen to the words of our school song echo throughout the gym and to see the students enjoy singing it. The pep band performs the school song at every Spirit Assembly. They do a fantastic job playing music to the start of the assembly also. We are very lucky to have a great group of performers.

Gym update: the final panel is up! Walk or drive by to check it out when you get a chance~A big thank you to Scott Romine for the pictures~ here is one below with the final panel in place.

At times I will break my blog down into topics, especially as we move forward with initiatives in our building. As always, I am thankful for my staff and students and eagerly await for the next week to arrive~

Go Bears!