Course Adjustment Deadline

This week is the last chance for students to change a class from conventional grading (A, B, C, etc.) to Pass/ Fail grading! The forms are in the counseling center and require a parent signature. If you plan to switch a class to pass/ fail, please be sure to pick up a form and return it before Thursday! (Since we do not have school on Friday.)

March 5th is also the last day that students can drop a class without an F on their transcript. This is only possible if students have above the minimum number of classes required (5 for seniors and 6 for sophomores and juniors). And yes, it is too late to add a class. Sorry.

The Scheduling Process

It has occured to me (through many of your questions) that most students don't really know or understand how the schedule is created. I thought it might be helpful if I give you a quick overview of the scheduling process. (I am saying quick because it is actually boring and is known to cause massive headaches for those trying to put it all together and make it work for every student.)

After all of you entered your registration requests in the computer system, I started the process of meeting with you and reviewing your course selections. I still have between 25 - 30 students across all of the grade levels to meet with in the coming days/ weeks. I would like to thank all of the students who have come to the meetings prepared with your completed forms. I also want to thank all of the juniors and junior parents who made the time to come in and meet with me. I really enjoyed it and have been thrilled with all the "repeat" visits from the junior students since our meetings. All of the course requests need to be finalized, ideally, by the end of next week and officially given to the administration as the "final" registration requests.

I am concerned with how the course selections will play out because of the cuts coming next year. As you may have heard, we are expected to lose 4 teachers. This might not sound like a lot, but when consider that each teacher has 5 classes that means there are 20 sections worth of classes that are not being offered next year that were there this year. Or, to put it another way, that is approximately 500 "seats" that won't be there next year. Why does this matter? Think about when you came in at the beginning of the 1st or 2nd semester asking to make changes to your schedule and how hard it was to find open classes that we could move you into. Now, take away 500 more seats and imagine how hard it will be to make any changes. I am not trying to be full of doom and gloom, but this is simply our reality. It is also why I cannot stress enough the importance of making sure you are confident in your requests.

Once the final requests are submitted by the counselors at the end of the week, the administration (principal and assistant principals) will look at the numbers for all of the courses selected to determine what, if any, courses do not have enough students signed up to be able to offer the class. After they figure this out they will provide that information back to the counselors with a list of students impacted and we will work with those students and their alternates list to find a suitable replacement course.

The administrators will also begin working to determine the total number of sections of each class (for example English 1's) needed to meet the demand. They will then work with computer services to create a schedule that will create the smallest number of conflicts possible. This is a MUCH bigger challenge than most people would imagine. For example, if a class like AP Computer Science is only offered 1 time in the day, then they have to figure out what students want to take that class and try to make sure that the time of day selected to offer the course will not conflict with any other classes - especially any other classes that are only offered once in a day (like Band, Choir, or AP Foreign Languages).

Eventually they will create a schedule and "lock" it in place. When that happens they will then come back to the counselors with a list of all of the kids with conflicts in their schedules. In some cases, we are able to make minor adjustments - move a few classes around and make the schedule work. In other instances, we will have to work with the student to make tough decisions about what classes they do or do not want to take and use the alternates to find other courses that would work and still meet requirements toward graduation.

And that's it - we will ultimately get the schedule set just how we want it and hopefully all of you will pass all of your classes 2nd semester so that we don't have to go back and add anything into your schedule or change classes that you no longer meet the pre-requisites for, but all of those types of changes will happen after the final grades are submitted in June.

I hope that helps you to understand what is going on with the scheduling and registration process. It is a long and tedious process and I appreciate your patience.

PSEO Program

The Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program is an opportunity for high school students to take college courses while still enrolled in high school. There are two alternatives for the PSEO program.

Option A is when students take courses at any college of their choice and pay for the courses on their own (often at a discounted rate) and are able to earn the credit for college credit only.

Option B is available in Central Ohio at Columbus State Community College, the Ohio State University, and Franklin University and is paid for by the school district. Students who participate in this option earn both high school and college credit.

There are a lot of details involved in participating in the PSEO program and it is not meant to replace or substitute for coursework available at the high school, but rather to enhance the educational opportunities available. Students must complete the paperwork by March 30th to indicate their intent to participate in the PSEO program in the following school year.

In order to explain all of the details of the program and to provide you with the forms necessary, all students and parents interested in participating in this program should attend the PSEO Information night on Thursday, March 4th at 7:30pm in the WKHS auditorium.

Impressive Students

I am consistently amazed by the students at Kilbourne frequently and several of "my" students have recently achieved some very impressive awards and recognitions...

- Keeler Callahan is the only student from WKHS who qualified for the state competition in swimming this coming weekend. Keeler qualified to swim the 200 freestyle event. Good Luck Keeler!

- Hunter Atha recently won the OCC-Central division title in diving and he also qualified for the state competition in diving for this week. Congratulations Hunter and good luck at states!

- Heather Boortz was reconized with an individual award as the best attorney for her participation on the Mock Trial Team and she will compete with the team this week for the regional competition. Way to go Heather!

- Katy Deibel is the district All-Around Champion in gymnastics. Congratulations Katy!

I am proud of you all! Thank you for representing Kilbourne so well in every way.

I'm sure I don't need to mention this, but don't forget that tomorrow is a late-start day and you don't have to start 1st period until 9:10am. I don't think most of you have any problems remembering when you get to sleep in... :-)

Senioritis

I can't even begin to count the number of seniors who have stopped in and mentioned that they are dealing with "senioritis." And, even some juniors are already saying that they feel like they have senioritis in advance. While I understand that it can be hard to maintain your focus and pay attention to the details that are necessary to earn apply yourself in classes after you have been accepted to college, the reality is that it is still VERY important! You have heard it from me and yet many of you are still letting things slide... so perhaps the information shared in these articles will help enhance your sense of motivation on the importance of not giving in to senioritis.

A Dean of Admissions wrote this article about senioritis.

As we have discussed before, colleges have the right to revoke admissions decisions for any students whose grades and courses were not consistent with what they had previously expected from the student based upon their history at the time of application. This article addresses colleges revoking admissions decisions.

Please continue to work hard in classes and remember that interim reports are just about 2 weeks away.

Yale Admissions Video

In keeping with the song/ dance feel from yesterday's musical, I thought I would share the Yale admisions video that is on YouTube and is also linked to this article which explains why it was created. I think it is darling. If, in addition to listening to what they are saying (and singing) you also look at the background, you can see a lot of Yale’s campus. The one advantage of the video over an actual campus tour (at least when I was there on a visit) is that they allow you to see the inside of the residential college including the dorm room and eating areas. On the tour they simply take you into the courtyard and talk about all those features. The other big difference is they show a VERY small group of people gathered for an information session and tour – I can assure you that when I was there last year during spring break, the tour was ENORMOUS so you couldn’t always hear the tour guide who was sharing information about the school. It will be interesting to see if other colleges now work to find creative approaches to showcasing their schools in the future.

The Boy Friend

Tonight I went to the opening night of Kilbourne's musical, The Boy Friend. It was incredibly well done and everyone did a fantastic job! I cannot imagine how stressful the snow days made it for all of the individuals involved in putting on the musical, but it never appeared that way as the entire show came off impressively. There is one more night for the musical and I cannot encourage you enough to try to attend Saturday night's performance. The talent, enthusiasm, and dedication that each of the individuals involved in the musical is beyond my ability to describe in words.

A special congratulations to "my" students who participated in the musical. David Busch stole the show for me when he appeared on stage in his messenger-boy costume and started tap dancing. Gina Badillo, Josh Cook, Isabel Andrews, Jessica Blake, and Holly Klepek also had on-stage roles that included singing and dancing. Matthew Cooperman, Austin Dickey, and Kaytee Ambrozich contributed their time, talents, and gifts to the production as members of the orchestra. And, the entire show is impacted significantly by those who take on the very important behind-the-scenes, crew roles which included: Jey Bukkapatnam, Krystin Burgess, and Kyle Calcote.

The musical was very well done and an enjoyable evening!