Final Transcripts

I have received a few messages from students who just graduated worrying about their final transcripts.  We made all seniors complete a final transcript form along with the page that explained which college you planned on attending.  So, unless you have had a change in your college plans, your final transcript has been sent to your college.  If your college is still saying that they don't have your transcript by this week, then there must be some problem because they should all have them by now.  If your plans have changed or if your college is still indicating that they haven't received your transcript, please contact Mrs. McDaniel at WKHS.  (She works during the summer.)  She will help send another copy of your transcript.

Seriously Impressive!

Did you hear about the incredible experience that Bailey Andrews had last weekend?!?

Let me back up a little and fill you in just in case you hadn't heard...

One of the local radio stations, 92.3 WCOL, was running a contest in conjunction with country music star, Keith Urban, to allow for a local singer to perform a duet during his concert at Buckeye Country Superfest.  Bailey submitted a YouTube video to enter the contest and was selected by the radio station as one of the 5 finalists.  The finalists were then forwarded to Keith Urban and his support staff and they selected Bailey as the winner!

(You can see Bailey's Audition video here.)

As a result, Bailey performed with Keith Urban in front of 40-50,000 people and she was AMAZING!  To me, it was even more meaningful because the concert was on Father's Day - as you may be aware, Bailey's dad died nearly 2 years ago and she told me that she knew her dad would have the best seat in the house.  What a special way to celebrate Father's Day and she was right, he had to have been watching her with such immense love and pride because I know that everyone else was.

Bailey demonstrated a poise, confidence, and courage far beyond what I could ever imagine.  I am so incredibly proud of and impressed by her!

The next time you see Bailey be sure to tell her Congratulations!

E-mail

I realize that many students do not utilize e-mail regularly, however, it is very important to have an e-mail account of your own when it comes to college application time. College applications will ask you for your e-mail address. Often times the colleges will use your e-mail as their way to communicate with you including notifying you of your admissions decision. (This also points out that it is important to regularly check your e-mail.) Some questions to ask yourself, Do you have an account? (If not, you need to create one. There are tons of free choices available - gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc.) Do you have an appropriate account? (In other words, is the name of your account appropriate as the college admissions officers will be seeing the e-mail address when reviewing your application... you don't want it to be "partygirl1" or something like that.) Is it YOUR account? (A lot of times students just rely on their parents e-mail addresses which works a lot in high school, but when you are at the college application point it is important to have your own account as many of the colleges will ask for your address and your parents address.)  Is the account you're planning on using DIFFERENT than your school wscloud account? (This is critical because while your wscloud account is important to be checking for school information, it doesn't allow students to accept e-mails from outside of Worthington schools... which means that this account will NOT work for your college applications.)

In addition to having an e-mail account, it is also important to remember to use proper etiquette when communicating with college representatives via e-mail. For example, when you need to e-mail admissions officers for any reason, as well as any other college representatives (advisor, professor, etc.) that you communicate with, please remember that the way you write your e-mail is a reflection of you. Please do not use text talk, avoid ALL CAPS, be mature, and write it in an official format “Dear _(insert their name with Mr/ Mrs)_, Text of your message, Sincerely, _(insert your name)__”.

Summer Assignment Reminder

I wanted to remind you once again about your summer work.  Hopefully you have started making progress on the work that is expected of you.  It is important to remember that you are responsible for completing all summer work and that it will impact your grade in your class.  Sometimes, in the past, students would procrastinate on completing their summer assignments and then decide at the last minute that they would drop out of the advanced course in favor of the non-advanced version (so, for example, dropping AP US History in favor of regular US History).  If you are planning on switching levels, it is really important that you make that change prior to Monday, June 15th.  If you wait until after June 15th to decide that you want to change levels, you will still be responsible for completing the summer work because even if you change levels your summer assignment is a part of your academic record and so your grades on the summer assignments will go with you to the new class.

Hopefully you are feeling good about your summer assignments and how you are progressing on your summer work.  If you haven't started, please get moving on it!

Scheduling Madness

Late last week the WKHS administration officially "locked" the master schedule into place. What this means is that they have determined where each class will be held during the school day to meet the most student requests possible. They ran through the computer all of the requests and successfully matched on approximately 70% of the schedules.

Unfortunately, it now becomes crazy for the counselors as we go through each of the schedules that didn't match and try to figure out if there is a solution and what possible options we can use to make a schedule fit together. I have already started pouring over schedules, but, unfortunately, still have a long ways to go. Needless to say I have a lot of work to do and will likely have to continue contacting some of you to talk about back up choices based upon the conflicts in your schedule. This is never easy and I know it is disappointing when you don't get all of the classes that you wanted, so I promise that I am doing the best I can to make all of your requests work together.

Meet Lexington

During the summer months it is a time to rejuvenate, relax and refocus.  And yet this summer I decided to take on a new "project."

Meet Lexington.

Lexington (named in honor of the city where I attended college - University of Kentucky) will be called Lexi for short.  She is a miniature goldendoodle puppy.  Right now she is just 4 pounds, but when fully grown she is expected to be about 20 pounds.

I got Lexi this past weekend and since I have never raised a puppy the one thing I can tell you at this point is that caring for a puppy is definitely not relaxing.  LOL.

I had some wonderful helpers in taking care of Lexi this past weekend.  My niece and nephews, Carly, Colton and Brady were able to give Lexi lots of attention which she loved!

So, although I won't be updating my blog as frequently as I do during the school year (at least in part because I will be busy playing with Lexington), I will still get posts up here a few times each month so I hope you will keep checking back.

Diploma Presenter

There are many traditions that I love at Kilbourne, but my favorite, by far, is the fact that students are able to select someone from their educational career (teacher, coach, counselor, etc.) to present them with their diploma during the commencement ceremony.  

I was touched and humbled that 7 of "my" students selected me to be able to share in their graduation ceremony by giving them their diplomas.  (L to R) Front: Miriam Bassani, Hana Estice and Steven Dailey and Back: JC Bartok, Griffin Dahn, Grayson Biglin, and Jonathan Blake. There simply are no words to explain what a huge honor this was for me!

Hana, JC, Miriam, Grayson, Jon, Griffin and Steven  - It is hard to believe that you are no longer "my" students. I have enjoyed being able to get to know you, to listen to your stories, celebrate your successes, and hopefully help when dealing with disappointments. Thank you for making me smile and for letting me share in your lives. I hope you know how much I will miss you! It was my honor to be able to give each of you a hug and offer my congratulations as I presented you with your diploma.  It is a memory I will cherish.  I am so proud of you and cannot wait to see what you accomplish in your futures!

Report Cards and Other School Details

I wanted to remind all students and parents that report cards are not mailed home, but they are available for you to access and print from Infinite Campus.  Additionally, your transcripts have been updated so you can see what that looks like too - including your GPA.

The first session of summer school starts on Monday.  OGT bootcamp also starts on Monday.  If you need to take classes or to retake the OGT, please make sure you are at WKHS at the designated time on Monday!  You also have to sign up for summer school and the OGT bootcamp in advance, so if you haven't already done that, please make sure you register TODAY!  Details about summer school and registration is online at: http://www.worthington.k12.oh.us/domain/180.  As I have mentioned previously, Worthington summer school is free of charge for students who need to make up a class that they have failed - this is a great opportunity to get caught up and you only have to focus on one class at a time.  I really hope you will take advantage of summer school if you need it.

While it is summer vacation, some of you have signed up for classes that include summer assignments.  Please start looking at those assignments, get the books, and plan your summer so that you can get through all of the assignments before school starts back up.  There is a planning calendar along with all of the summer assignments available for you to access on the WKHS Counselor website - www.wkhscounselors.com.  Also, don't forget that the policy about switching out of advanced classes has changed this year - if you are going to change out of a class that has summer assignments, you have until June 15th to notify me of this change.  After June 15th, your summer assignment will be a part of your grade that will move with you to your new class so you will have to do the work even if you are switching classes.

Recent grads, if you applied to your selected college via Common App, I uploaded your final transcript to the college before I left.  If your school isn't a Common App school, Mrs. McDaniel has been working on sending your transcripts to the college you indicated on your mandatory graduation questionnaire form.

Finally Finished!

While it was only a few days longer than all of you, it felt like an eternity. This last week has been so busy and I felt as if I was running in a million different directions trying to get everything wrapped up for the school year. I am happy to say that I am now officially on summer break too! :-) As a result that means I will no longer be able to receive voicemail messages at school until I am back in the building and e-mails will probably take longer to be answered.  However, since I can access e-mails from home, please know that if you need something from me, e-mail is definitely the way to go!  I have several blog postings that I want to get up here soon, but over the summer I will not be updating it as often as I do during the school year.