The General: February 2014 Issue

GOING MULTIMEDIA - 1st TOUCHCAST

Check-out the Youtube Video below or this Touchcast link for this month's edition of The General. Please be nice - this is our first attempt at multimedia principal communication. See the links below to contribute after the video. 

OPERATION EXPLORATION
1. Please click Here to Read The Overview Letter
2. Please click Here to Submit Your Name or Business to Host a Senior!

WRITING POLICY 
1. Click here to review the drafted policy and give feedback. Just hit "insert comment". 

Flying Close in 2014: January Edition of The General

FLYING CLOSE IN 2014
The notion of "flying close to the sun" has been a prominent theme at Thomas Nelson over the past six months. Derived from Seth Godin's Icarus Deception, an inspirational narrative on the importance of thinking anew about the limits that we may put on our potential. According to legend, Icarus was given the power to fly by his father Daedalus but did not heed his father's advice and flew too close to the sun, melting the wax that held his wings on, ending in his eventual fall into the Icarian Sea. From this legend Godin argues, we have been too often encouraged to play it safe and not follow our dreams. 

http://renahedeman.com/

It is my hope that our Generals aggressively pursue their most lucid dreams in the year ahead. It is our work as a school along with you as parents and community members to continue to inspire and connect our Generals with opportunities that allow them to follow those dreams. It is in the daily discipline that we strive to maintain that will afford our students and staff the courage to get outside of our comfort zone and work more passionately towards the dreams and goals we seek. Join me in supporting all of our Generals flying close in 2014.  

PARTNERING WITH PARENTS - Thank you for your feedback!
Learning from and with parents is essential to our ongoing improvement at Thomas Nelson. This survey data will be shared with our staff, SBDM team, and Citizen Advisory to establish meaningful dialogue about what we are doing well and how we can continue to improve our partnership. Both, the positive and critical feedback from the survey will help inspire our work in the months ahead As discussed in December we want to be fully transparent about the parent survey feedback. 

Please click here for a summary of the responses. Parent Survey Data 

GLOWS Include: 
1. Our school community has worked to establish a safe place to learn, a culture of care, and responsibility that provides a strong foundation for us to work from. 96% of parents agree that TNHS is a safe place to learn and grow!
2. This culture of care is founded upon consistently high behavioral expectations for all students. Consistency is caring. 
3. We work to support all students. 94% of parents agree that TNHS believes that their child can be successful!

GROWS Include:
1. Increasing the timeliness of communication in relation to grades and other needed parental supports. 
2. Ensuring that clear communication occurs about the distribution of Interim Assessment Reports. (They will be distributed next week for quarter 2)
3. Continuing to increase transparency around LEADER Prep and the Fusion Youth Service Center.  

The General: December 2013 Edition

PARTNERING WITH PARENTS SURVEY
An important part of our vision at Thomas Nelson is parent and community partnership. To that end, I work with The Citizen Advisory Team each fall to develop a partnering with parents survey. The purpose of the survey is to learn from you and determine how we can continue to grow as a school community in supporting parents. The results of this survey are shared with in the January Edition of The General and TNHS staff members will use the data to set goals for the coming year. Your voice is important to our continued growth! Please take 4 to 5 minutes to complete this survey. 

Click Here - Partnering with Parents Survey to share your voice. 

ACHIEVEMENT WEEK & IA 2 - ON TOP OF THE WORLD
Achievement week will be held from 12.16 to 12.20 culminating in our 2nd Interim Assessment of the year! The theme for this semester's Achievement Week is "I'm on top of the World" denoting the great opportunity that our Generals have in shaping their future story by excelling on both their Final Exams and the Interim Assessments. Join me in celebrating this opportunity for our Generals. 






 PAYING FOR COLLEGE 101

The General: November 2013 Edition

GIVING THANKS - THE POWER OF GRATITUDE

We have much to be thankful for this November at TNHS. Supporting our community members in actively giving gratitude is a part of our school culture vision. Importantly, research on schools shows that taking time for gratitude is correlated with cultural success. Read more here. 

I'm thankful for the continued contributions of students, parents, teachers, and community members in continuing to lay the foundation at Thomas Nelson High School. There are so many of you that have the courage to contribute and make TNHS a great place to be. The most recent contributions from our Project Lift-Off planning team is a great example of courage in our community. 

FUTURE STORIES: COLLEGE APPLICATION MONTH
November marks college application month across the state of Kentucky and at Thomas Nelson High School. To continue aligning our work to the TNHS mission of college, career, and citizenship preparation we are ensuring that all seniors are actively pursuing college and career applications each Friday during LEADER Prep. Aligning with the College Board's recommended best practices of applying to four or more colleges, our seniors are evaluating their options with KHEAA's matching assistant. It's work like this that our college and career LEADERship team continues to learn from in supporting all Generals being prepared for lift-off in May of 2014. 

December 16th - Parent Financial Aid Workshop: Paying for College 101

Paying for College 101 will help high school students and their parents understand the nuts and bolts of the financial aid application process.  Participants will walk through a detailed case study of how a college financial aid package is put together and will learn the methods used to award aid.  Parent and student signups will be available for individual sessions on Thursday, January 9, to complete the FAFSA (Free Application for FederalStudent Aid). More information on how to sign-up will be given at the December 16th workshop. 

PROJECT LIFT-OFF - YES!

Our project lift-off planning team has taken shape and is being chaired by Rick Greer. Currently, meetings take place on Monday evenings from 6:30 to 7:30. Please see the TNHS Daily Announcements for continued updates concerning project lift-off planning. The answer to how is YES!

January 28th Citizen Advisory - 5:30 -6:30

1. Celebrate Growth - What are we Learning?
A Message from Kid President - Implications on our Work (10 min.)

2. Parent Survey Results (10 min.)

• Glows & Grows

3. Student Survey Results (10 min.)

• Glows & Grows

4. Operation Exploration (30 min.)
     a. What is it?
     b. Planning for Success 
5. Next Meeting

The General: October 2013 Edition

DEAN'S LIST BREAKFAST - A NEW TN TRADITION!

To further celebrate the ACHIEVEMENT of our Generals we are having a fall and spring Dean's List Breakfast. All Generals that achieve a 3.25 GPA in quarter 1 and their parents will be invited to our first ever Dean's list breakfast. First time Dean's list students will receive a G letter and "lamp of knowledge." All student Parents or Grandparents, and students will enjoy breakfast, music, coupled with motivations from College and Career LEADERs Jessica Sekulski and Julia Thomas and other Thomas Nelson LEADERs.  

See the image below for dates and times for each grade level.  

 

GOVERNOR'S SCHOLAR NIGHT 

Is your son or daughter interested in the Governor's Scholar program? Enhance their readiness by attending the Governor's scholar night next Thursday the 24th of October to get an edge on the competition. 

PROJECT LIFT-OFF(Project Grad) UPDATE

Interested parents stay tuned to the TNHS Daily Announcements for more information on Project Lift-off. I will be asking for parent LEADERs interested in chairing the project lift planning team. The majority of students have voted for their preference at both TNHS and NCHS and we should have a clear path by the end of this week. 

FUTURE STORY DAYS

October 4th, the last day of quarter one, not only marked the first house pride rally of the year (Survivor) but it also was our first senior future story day. While the rest of Generals took the quarter 1 interim assessments all of our seniors took part in college and career resume building workshops and met with community business leaders to gain further insight into how to be prepared now for employment beyond high school. Before lunch each senior had a draft of their college and career resume accompanied by next steps on how to continue to build their resume further while in high school. This future story day builds off of the work going on in LEADER Prep classes on a weekly basis.  Through this work we continue to strive towards our mission of college and career readiness for all. 

The first house pride rally promoted the SURVIVOR theme!

The General: September 2013 Issue

Books Change Lives - Creating Independent Readers
There is perhaps no more powerful impact on student engagement and learning than a student's ability to read and makes sense of what they're reading. I see the power of reading in the lives of our Generals on a daily basis. At Thomas Nelson we are blessed with great access to reading material, both print and non-print, and continuously encourage our Generals to read independently. Independent reading is powerful because it gives students CHOICE and allows them to learn from the PERSPECTIVES of others and see the world anew. Additionally, active independent readers are more likely to fulfill our mission of college, career, and citizenship preparation. I found the video below from John Maxwell to provide a meaningful summary of additional benefits of independent reading for parents - it also makes a couple of recommendations for books. 

Project Lift-Off Initial Meeting  -

September 25th (NCHS Media Center)

Mrs. Shelley Hendricks (NCHS Principal) and I will be hosting any interested parent for an initial Project Lift-Off (Project Grad) meeting on Wednesday Sept. 25th from 5:30 to 6:30 in the NCHS media center. If interested please click on the following link to sign-up. Project Lift-Off Interest Form

Senior/Junior Future Story Symposium - October 2nd  - 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
All Junior and Senior Parents and Generals are invited to our first Future Story Symposium of the year. During this time we will be hosting a number of college and career future story partners in the media center, commons area, and college and career cafe. Confirmed participants include: 

Confirmed Participants:

Career/Technical Schools:

• Paul Mitchell School-Louisville

Colleges/Universities:

• ECTC
• • Brescia University
  • Spalding University
  • McKendree University--Radcliff
  • Campbellsville University
  • Lindsey Wilson College
  • Bellarmine University
  • Berea College
  • St. Catharine College

  
  Military:

  • U.S. Army National Guard

  
  Future Story Supports:

  • Balfour
  • KHEAA
  • UPS Metro College Program (JCTC, University of Louisville)

  
  

  
  

Also Invited:

UL

UK

WKU

EKU

Bellarmine

Georgetown

Kentucky Wesleyan

Midway

Morehead State

Murray State

St. Catharine

School of Art @ Spalding University

Thomas More

Union

Asbury

Northern Kentucky

Sullivan University

Sullivan School of Technical Design

Transylvania

Empire Beauty Week

Brown Mackie College

Daymar College

Devry University

Galen College of Nursing

Indiana Wesleyan

Kentucky State

Spencerian

Phoenix

Strayer University

University of the Cumberlands

Army

Navy

Army National Guard

Balfour

 
Upcoming Future Story Events
Paying 101: KHEAA senior/parent workshop presented by Jo Newton: December 16, 6:00 p.m., Media Center

FAFSA 1:1 workshop for senior parents facilitated by Jo Newton: January 9, 5:00-7:00 p.m. (30 minute sessions), Washington House College & Career Center.