Honors Diploma

For some students, earning an Honors Diploma is an important goal. I have to be honest, this is not a factor for the colleges because the honors diploma recognition isn't granted until you graduate so colleges are not considering it when making their admissions decisions. The requirements for the honors diploma listed below are established by the state department of education.

To receive an honors diploma you need to fulfill 7 of the following 8 criteria:

- English: 4 units
- Math: 4 units (including Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2 or equivalent and another higher level course or a four-year sequence of courses that contain equivalent content - obviously the names of these courses will be changing with the common core implementation)
- Science: 4 units (including Physics and Chemistry)
- Social Studies: 4 units
- Foreign Language: 3 units (including at least 2 units in each language studied)
- Fine Arts: 1 unit
- Grade Point Average: 3.5 on a 4.0 scale
- ACT/ SAT Score (excluding scores from the writing sections): 27 ACT/ 1210 SAT

One of the areas that I have noticed as a trend of some students falling short of meeting the honors diploma requirements is in science. This is because some students have decided to take a different AP Science course instead of taking physics. The other area where students frequently don't meet the designated standard is with the 4 credits of Social Studies since only 3 credits are required. Don't forget, it would still be possible to earn an honors diploma if you were missing one of these, but you will need to make sure you fulfill all of the remaining criterion.

High Anxiety

It seems to me that many of you are feeling very anxious about picking classes for next year. The number of e-mails and voicemail messages from parents, not to mention all of you who are stopping down to try to see me, provide a pretty solid indication that there is a lot of concern about registering for classes.

Let me try to put your mind at ease on a few issues. Yes, you do need to register online by the end of the day tomorrow, but I will also be double checking all of your classes and meeting with every student individually. We will be able to make any changes that are determined to be necessary at the time of our meeting or throughout the month.

Some people are hoping to set up appointments in addition to the individual meetings. I promise that I am more than happy to meet with you and we will work to find a time that is convenient, but it doesn't need to be before you register online because I can still go into the system and make changes to class requests throughout this month. Please go ahead and register with your best guess on classes that you would like to take and then when we are able to meet if changes are needed I can make them at that time.

I hope that eases your mind a little bit to know that it is not completely locked in stone after you submit your requests online! I am here to help you, but I do beg for you to try to be patient with me because having more than 300 students it is challenging to get to everyone all at the same time.

Finding Balance

Hopefully you are ready to request your classes (or have already done so) online. When you are considering which classes you want to take it is really important to try to find a balance. You want to challenge yourself with courses that will push you and help prepare you for the future. At the same time you want to remember that it is high school and you need to be realistic about your expectations of yourself. There is a balance that should be sought - between too many "easy" classes and too many "hard" classes. You know yourself best and what you can handle so while it is an honor to have every teacher recommend you for AP classes it doesn't mean that it would be the ideal situation to load your schedule with all AP classes. If you are struggling to find that balance, please talk to your parents about the classes you are considering and stop down to see me so that we can discuss it.

Graduation Requirements

When picking out your classes it is helpful to start with the end goal in mind - Graduation! It is important to be aware of the graduation requirements as you plan your course selection.  And if you can't remember what classes you have already completed, please check out your transcript on Infinite Campus - it has now been updated with your 1st semester grades!  (You can find it in the Reports section.)

Here are the academic courses that students must complete toward your graduation requirements:- 4 credits of English (Speech is no longer required to be one of these classes, but it is still an option)
- 4 credits of Math
- 3 credits of Science
- 3 credits of Social Studies (which includes 1/2 a credit of Government)
- 1/2 a credit of Physical Education (2 classes, each worth 1/4 credit)
- 1/2 a credit of Health
- 5 credits of Electives
- All students must have had a year's worth of fine art coursework between grades 7 - 12
- All students must also complete a Financial Literacy course
- 20 total credits

A few notes to help you understand some of the details of these requirements:
-  The senior English classes must meet a combination of Reading and Writing courses.  You can take a year-long class called Contemporary Voices that will meet both the reading and writing requirements or you can select two semester courses to meet the requirement.  The reading classes include Science Fiction, Great Books and African-American Literature.  The writing classes include Senior Composition, Advanced Composition, Creative Writing, Journalism, Advanced Journalism, Speech, Comm Tech, and Advanced Comm Tech.

-  If you plan on utilizing the PE waiver, the 1/2 credit of PE will not be required, but another elective credit in any subject area will be required.

-  A year equivalency of fine art is required between grades 7 - 12.  This means that, for example, students who took a semester of art in middle school will need 1 more semester of art during high school to fulfill this requirement.  Fine art classes include art, music, or theater classes.  Also, for what it is worth, students who take classes at the DACC or are in the PLTW program are exempt from the fine art graduation requirement.

-  The Financial Literacy course requirement can be met through a variety of different classes in different areas.  Personal Financial Management (business class), Financial Algebra (math class), and Economics & Financial Literacy and the IB History classes (social studies classes) all meet this requirement.  Current juniors (soon to be seniors) who took US History during their Sophomore Year have already fulfilled this requirement as a component of your US History class.

No School

As everyone probably already knows, we do not have school tomorrow due to the extreme cold.  I'm excited about the fact that school has already been called off so that we can sleep in without setting an alarm.  Probably even more exciting is that we can stay inside where it is warm!  :-)

The bad news about tomorrow's cancellation is that the junior meetings which were scheduled for tomorrow will now be rescheduled.  I have sent e-mails to all of the families who had signed up for meetings tomorrow with alternative dates. Please check your e-mail if this impacts you.

Curriculum night has been rescheduled for Thursday night.  Unfortunately I will not be able to attend because I am taking a counseling ethics course that meets Thursday evening.  One of the nice aspects about curriculum night is that there is a great deal of flexibility in the evening with the opportunity to move through and hear different presentations that appeal to you.  If you have questions about particular classes or course sequences, this is a great night to be able to get your questions answered.  And, while you are in the building perhaps you will want to check out the Wrestling match or the Theater production in the BlackBox as both of those events will also be taking place on Thursday night.

The online registration is open.  Just a quick reminder based upon a couple of questions I received today:
- You will not need to click any buttons to "submit" your selections - they will be saved automatically as you make your selections.
- Academic prep and options are only able to be selected once even if you want it for the whole year.  This is an issue with the way the computer reads the classes, but I will be able to fix it when I review your classes.  Just make sure you let me know when we are meeting.
- During our designated meeting time, you will need to bring in your course selection sheet (with all of your teacher recommendations signed and your parent's signature) along with the printout of the courses that you requested using the Infinite Campus system (also signed by your parent).

As more questions come in over the next few days I will probably have more updates to pass along.  Don't hesitate to let me know if you come across any issues or concerns.

Reminders about Registration

Don't forget, tomorrow the online registration system will open and all Kilbourne students will have one week
to submit your course requests using the online system.  As mentioned last week, you will log into Infinite Campus in order to select your classes and your selections will be saved automatically.

Don't forget, when you are signing up for classes you should be thinking about your total number of classes for each semester (freshmen and sophomores should be signing up for at least 6 classes each semester and juniors should sign up to take at least 5 classes during each semester of your senior year.)  That would equal 24 units in the online system.  Hopefully the "units" vs. "credits" system won't be too confusing.  Make sure you select alternates that you like.  If for some reason you didn't select enough classes, when we meet I will look at that and we can move some of your alternates up to your regular requests at that time.

Also, tomorrow night is Curriculum Night.  I know that the temperatures are expected to fall rapidly tomorrow night, but at least for now the hope is that we will still be able to get Curriculum night in as scheduled.  Should the weather prohibit Curriculum night from continuing as scheduled, a district e-mail blast will be sent and I will also try to get a post on here announcing the cancellation.

There shouldn't be any problems with the online system since this is the 2nd year we have used it, but if you have any problems, please be sure to stop and see me or e-mail me so that I can try to figure it out.

Junior Students and Parents

Juniors, are you excited? Finally, a post that is completely about you! :-) Each year as we begin the process for registering for next year's classes, I offer up the opportunity to meet for a 30 minute time block with every junior student and his/ her parents, if the parents are interested in joining us. I have set aside several days for these individual junior meetings - Tuesday, January 28th (7:30am-7:30pm), Monday, February 3rd - a late start day so plan times accordingly- (9:00am - 4:30pm), Thursday, February 6th (3:30pm - 9:00pm) and Friday, February 7th (9:00am - 7:00pm). They will be hectic days with back-to-back meetings, but I love the chance to meet with you and your parents to talk about the classes you have selected for your senior year and what your plans are for life after high school. I sent an e-mail out to your parents early this week, so talk it over with them and pick out a date and time that will work well with your schedule so that we can set up a meeting time.  If I haven't heard back from your family about setting up a meeting, I will assign you a time for us to meet.  Don't forget, please make sure you complete your online registration before our meeting!