With winter weather upon us, our Clippers keep moving forward. Last week during the Staff Development Day, teachers from across the District started their day engaged with a presentation from 15 of our upperclassmen. These students shared their stories of how they developed the skills tied to the Portrait of a Graduate from across their schooling. This was an inspiring way for our teachers to start their day, and I’d like to commend the following students on their presentation:

• Lucy Cameron, Caden Eiserman, Claire Fehlner, Nora Geerlings, Zoe Kakuba, Pirya Kaur, Sofie LaFranchise, Rourke Lee, Sasha Leydon, Fiona Marino, Bridgette Mellet, Sean Miles, Michelle Seznec, Jack Sherman, and Nolan Smith for taking time to prepare and present.

Engaging students with skills connected to the Portrait of A Graduate is a main focus of our School Improvement Plan. Over the course of this school year, teachers are working to make skills taught in class more explicit to students while also helping them monitor their growth. The course spotlight at the bottom of tonight’s message highlights an example of how this is happening in Grade 9 ELA classes.

Along with efforts to actualize the Portrait of a Graduate be sure to see below for other updates around:

• End of Semester Week Schedule Reminder
• School Council – Jan 9 Meeting Summary
• College and Career Center – Weekly Tips for Parents and Students
• Good Luck – Musicians and Real-World Design Team
• Congratulations to Mock Trial
• Activities and Athletics Updates
• Course Spotlight – Freshman Literature & Composition

Have a great night and Go Clippers!

As with prior years, our students will participate in the End of Semester Week during which they will wrap-up their first semester coursework. To accommodate for assessments and/or other course activities happening during this week, students will have an early release schedule all four days. Please see this link for the schedule. Also note that bus pick-up Jan. 23-26 will be at 12:45 PM.

The main focus of the meeting centered around a budget update which included the Peterson School Vocational Program proposal, school improvement planning, and preparing to review and update the student handbook. See the link above for more detailed information.

Follow the College and Career Center at nhs_college_and_career_center for brief college and career “tips of the week” recorded by Mr. Aaron Ribaudo-Smith. Here is last week’s quick tip.

College and Career Center Event Reminders

• Thursday, January 25 - 6:00 to 8:00 PM Newburyport High School will host the Greater Essex County College Planning Night on Thursday, Jan 25th from 6-8:00 PM in the auditorium. You are invited to attend our Greater Essex County College Planning Night. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION. This is a great event for junior families; however, we encourage families from grade 9 and 10 to attend as well.

• Tuesday, March 5 - 1:30 to 2:30 PM Newburyport High School will host the seminar, Future Pathways: Alternatives to Success Without a College Degree. This will be a good event for families to attend if you have a student interested in learning about other options for after high school beyond high school.

Good luck to the Real-World Design Team. They recently submitted their paper for this year’s challenge which involved designing a technological solution to increase efficiency and safety for firefighters engaged with wildfires. Their idea involved “a multi-function unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that provides wildfire monitoring and mitigation in pre-fire, active-fire, and post-fire scenarios.” To learn more about their idea and thinking take some time to read their proposal.

This weekend three NHS musicians, Cedar Schumacher, Josh Burrell, and Evan Lagueux will audition for the Massachusetts All State jazz band, band, and chorus. It is rare, indeed, that multiple students earn a spot to audition with the best of the entire state. NHS is very proud of these students in earning the privilege of this audition. Good luck to all three.

The NHS Mock Trial Team had its first meet yesterday and they started off the season with a win. The Mock Trial program is run by the Massachusetts Bar Association and provides high school students with the opportunity to “test their skills as lawyers and witnesses in a simulated courtroom competition.” Under the tutelage of their advisor, Ms. Martin and their attorney coach, Damien Turco, students learn about the American judicial system and practice the skills used by attorneys in the courtroom. Congrats to the following team members on their win: Ashagre Baisley Christian Brown, Isla DeVivo, Thomas Gordon, Jacob Hoffman, Devin Jackson, Logan McKnight, Tom Mettling, Nadia Toth.

GETTING INVOLVED

NHS has many after school extra-curricular opportunities for students. Here is a link that highlights various clubs and organizations students can become a part of.

ATHLETICS UPDATE

Along with our student activities, our winter sports teams are halfway through their seasons. Like the fall, our teams are performing well and are likely to extend their seasons into the tournament. Congrats to Girls Hockey on a great win this week against Marblehead. Now that there is snow on the ground, our ski team also competed strong this week. Girls and Boys Basketball, Boys Hockey, Girls and Boys Swim, Girls and Boys Track, and our wrestlers all continue to rack up wins.

In this year’s Freshmen Literature course, students have learned to develop an electronic portfolio for the purposes of reflecting on their reading and writing. This allows them to see and also communicate how their critical thinking and writing skills improve across the school year. Using evidence from their own work, students articulate their improvement against the ELA standards taught in the course.

Having had the opportunity to talk with students regarding their portfolios, it is very cool to hear them explain how a newer piece of their writing is stronger than one from earlier in the year.