Everyone has a Story

Hooray!  We made it to Thanksgiving break!

I wanted to express my gratitude to all of my students who allow me to share in your lives in big or small ways.  It means so much that you will allow me to walk beside you during the excitement of celebratory moments or during the tear-filled moments of heartache and disappointment.  By opening up your lives to me, each of you has impacted my life in ways you can't even imagine and I am incredibly thankful.

In a lot of ways, this welcoming into the lives of my students was on display with the recent "Everyone has a Story" project.  You do have stories and it is a privilege when I can know about and share in those experiences with you.  Over the last few weeks 10 students (5 of which were "my" kids) shared their stories not just with me, but with the whole school.  I am so thankful for and impressed by the courage demonstrated by each of them.  A huge thank you to: Joclyn Blake, Jack Begley, Maddie Reeve, Noah Spaulding-Schecter, Grace Karlock, Zach Richardson, Bobby Hilligoss, Harley Davidson, Blair Andrews, and Maxim Estevez-Curtis. 

But I'd also like to remind you that even though your story wasn't shared publicly, it doesn't mean that it is any less important.  You deserve to have people around you to support and care for you every day no matter what you are experiencing.  And it might not be bad things!  You can have wonderful things happening like college acceptances or new boyfriend/ girlfriends in your life which can fill you with excitement and that too deserves to have people care about it just like you are excited and care about it.

Now that we have hit Thanksgiving break and this project is wrapping up, my hope is that you will still try to find the courage to share your own story with me, with other adults you trust, or with the people in your life who mean the most to you.  I also hope that you will always remember the power you have to help make a positive difference in the lives of those around you by listening and caring.  Every day, you make a difference!  I get to see and hear about it from your friends and peers all of the time, but often you don't even realize the impact you are having on those around you.  So let me remind you that you DO make a difference!

Please be careful over this Thanksgiving Break!  If you are traveling, I hope you have a safe trip.  If you are staying in town, I hope you are able to relax some.  No matter what, I hope you will know that I am thankful for you and wishing you the most wonderful Thanksgiving holiday imaginable.

Organization System

I love the sentiment that your head is a good place to have ideas, but not the place to hold ideas and I believe that makes sense. I have been talking with a lot of students lately about the fact that I need to write everything down.  It would be impossible to remember everything that I need to keep track of if I didn't write it all down.

What works for me is making lists.  It doesn't have to be making a list (although I would argue that there is great joy in being able to cross something off once you have accomplished it), but everyone needs some sort of a system to help keep your thoughts organized. It is much more difficult and demanding to try to hold something in your head than it is to refer back to it on paper.  It doesn't require a lot of time, but the payoffs are large as long as you stick with it. 

As you start thinking about the end of the semester, please work on staying focused and organized. What do you need to do to make sure that you end this quarter successfully? What about preparing for exams? There is still time left to make improvements, but you need to start now. If lists are not your way to stay organized, that is OK, but find a system that works and use it.

Figure out what you need to do, gather your materials from the semester and organize them, prepare now so that as you are studying you already have your resources at your fingertips and don't have to waste time searching through everything and above all, organize yourself so that you can apply yourself completely to the end of the semester.

(And, for the record, if your bookbag looks like this one, PLEASE, stop everything now and get organized!)

How was your day?

How was your day?  Was it a good day?  A bad day?  A just ok, blah, day?  How do you know?

Really... how do you know?

What are you looking at within yourself to help define what type of a day you had?  I get it, we often answer without giving a lot of thought to how the day was and that can lead us to lumping together the whole of the day into simple terms - good, fine, bad, hard, ok, etc.

But you are so much more complex than that and so are your days.  There are certainly good moments - perhaps when you got a strong grade on a test and bad moments - like when you spilled food on your pants at lunch.  And yes, some days it feels like everything is going right and your hard work is completely paying off or days when it seems as if nothing you do is good enough and it all just snowballs into a major mess.

The reality is though, I'd love to have you start really paying attention to yourself and noting how you are feeling and how you know that you are feeling that way.  If you are anxious, how do you know that?  Do you get a fluttering in your stomach, tension in your arms, shaking in your legs?  It is the same concept of paying attention to the signals your body sends to you when you are hungry.  You know that you are hungry, but how do you know that?  As the commercials for Snicker's candy bars point out - sometimes we don't realize it and we just get grumpy and mean when we are hungry which is absolutely possible.  That is just another reason why it is important to know and recognize the signs that our body gives us to let us know that we are feeling some way - hungry, tired, angry, sad, happy, anxious, or excited.

If you can start identifying how you feel, then you can identify the why behind it and decide if you want to make choices to build upon those feelings or to make changes to shift away from them.

Additionally, I hope that if you are asked about your day by your parents or teachers or friends or me that you will actually pause for a moment and evaluate your whole day and not just the feeling or sensation that you are experiencing in that moment (although that feeling is valid and important).  There are two key questions I try to keep in mind when planning and reflecting on my days and perhaps they will help you as well...

1. What good do I plan to do today?
2. What good did I accomplish today?

I know that as teenagers sometimes it feels like everything is happening to you, but you have so much power and so much of an ability to make a positive impact and I hope that you harness that power to be intentional about doing good and taking pride as you look back on the good which you accomplished during the day.  The kindness you show others may have taken just a moment, but you may never fully know the impact that it had on someone else's life.

Speaking for myself, I don't know that I am always great about accomplishing as much good as I hope and plan for each day, but I can promise you the desire and drive to continue trying helps motivate me for each new day ahead.

Delaware Area Career Center

Today was a field trip to the Delaware Area Career Center. As a reminder, don't forget that even if attending the career center, WKHS students are always WKHS students. With most programs you will have the option of attending the career center for full days (where you would take your lab coursework which counts as elective credits and your academic courses all at the career center) or for half days (where you only take the lab coursework at the career center and then return to WKHS for the other half of the day for your academic classes). You will graduate from Worthington Kilbourne and continue to participate on our athletic teams - even if you decide that you want to attend the career center for the full day. 

I strongly encourage you to check out the programs because the hands on opportunities to learn something new while also gaining your required elective credits can be a very appealing option! If you didn't have the chance to participate in today's field trip there is a second look day trip on December 12th. There is also an Open House that you and your parents can attend on December 6th.  Any students interested in making this visit should stop by the WKHS Counseling & Career Center to pick up a permission slip from the secretaries. Permission slips must be submitted in advance in order to make arrangements for your visit.

For those of you who participated in the field trip today, don't forget that the application for attending DACC next school year is now open on their website and while the priority deadline isn't until the beginning of January, I strongly suggest that you apply before we all leave for winter break so that all components of your application are able to be completed by me and the school so that your application gets full consideration.

College Recruited Athletics

Yesterday, we celebrated as Amber signed her letter of intent to participate in college athletics.  For those of you who might be planning or hoping to follow that same path to be recruited as varsity athletes in college, there are things you need to know about how your academics will influence your college options.

If you are hoping to be a recruited athlete, it is important to be aware of the restrictions on when athletes can be contacted by coaches as well as when it is acceptable for you to reach out to college coaches.  Additionally, the emphasis on academics is critical and so the NCAA and the NAIA both require student athletes to register to determine their academic/ athletic eligibility.

The website for NCAA Eligibility is: www.eligibilitycenter.org

The website for NAIA Eligibility is: http://www.playnaia.org/

NAIA Requirements:

Must meet 2 out of 3 requirements in addition to graduating from high school

• Minimum GPA of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale
• Minimum test score of 18 composite score on the ACT or 860 on the SAT (excluding writing section) – They do not superscore
• Graduation in the top 50% of your high school class

You must submit test scores directly from the testing agencies.  Their number is 9876.

Students must submit a transcript after graduation.  Only 1 transcript is needed and should be sent after graduation unless you qualify for an “Early Decision.”  To be eligible for an early decision students must have the minimum test scores and have earned at least a 3.0 GPA after junior year or at least a 2.5 GPA after first semester of senior year.  If you will qualify for an early decision, you may send your transcript early and you will receive an eligibility determination before you graduate from high school.

Registration fee: $80

NCAA Requirements:

The NCAA requirements are a bit more complex because there are different requirements depending upon which division a student hopes to play in during college.

Please look carefully at what your requirements will be depending on your anticipated division of play.  (Division 3 does not require eligibility approval for participation.)

ACT scores used to determine eligibility are the sum of the individual scores (English, math, reading and science – not composite) and the SAT is the sum of the critical reading and math sections.  Writing scores are not used.  They do superscore (taking highest scores from each area added together rather than just using the highest from 1 testing date.)

You must submit test scores directly from the testing agencies.  Their number is 9999.

One of the key components to understand with NCAA requirements is that they compute your Core GPA instead of looking at your Kilbourne GPA.  Core GPA is made up of just your core classes – English, Math, Science, Social Studies and Foreign Language classes.  Please double check the list of NCAA approved courses on the NCAA website as not all Kilbourne classes in the core areas are NCAA approved.

Registration fee: $80

They will require that you submit your transcript after your junior year and again after you graduate from high school.

Online classes (such as credit recovery) cannot count for core classes.

Attached is the worksheet you can use to calculate your core GPA.  

Division 1:

• 16 core classes
• 4 English
• 3 Math
• 2 Science
• 1 additional credit in either English, Math or Science
• 2 Social Studies
• 4 Additional years of Core Classes (English, Math, Science, Social Studies, or Foreign Language)
• 10 of the 16 core classes must be completed prior to the start of the senior year and 7 of these 10 must be in English, Math and Science.
• The 10 classes completed before the start of senior year are locked in for GPA calculation of core GPA.
• Minimum GPA and minimum test scores based upon sliding scale
• Lowest GPA is 2.3 to fully qualify
• Students with a 2.0 GPA may qualify for an academic redshirt

Division 2:

• 16 core classes
• 3 English
• 2 Math
• 2 Science
• 3 additional credit in either English, Math or Science
• 2 Social Studies
• 4 Additional years of Core Classes (English, Math, Science, Social Studies, or Foreign Language)
• Minimum GPA is 2.0
• Minimum test scores is ACT sum score of 68 or SAT sum score of 820.

If you have questions about college athletic participation, please feel free to see me, your coaches, or Mr. Todd in the athletic office.

Letter of Intent

This afternoon Amber Beals signed her national letter of intent to play volleyball at the University of Michigan. Family members, friends, teammates, and coaches attended the signing ceremony to show their support of Amber and to celebrate this great accomplishment with her. Amber shared some heartfelt remarks and signed the form representing her commitment to play volleyball for Michigan, but this day was more of a celebration of all the years of hard work and dedication that she has invested in volleyball to maximize her abilities. Congratulations Amber! I am so proud of you and wish you nothing but the best at Michigan!

Searching for Careers

Is there a question that instills more paralyzing uncertainty for most high school students than "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  I doubt it.  

The reality is that most high school students are so caught up in the moments of today that it is hard to imagine what you will do for the rest of your lives.  Additionally, you don't always know all of the different types of careers that are out there that you can consider - for many of you, the careers you will some day have may not even exist today.  So, please, don't worry if you have no clue what you'd like to do some day.

However not knowing yet doesn't mean that it isn't important and helpful to start exploring different career fields and considering different jobs that might be a good fit with your strengths, needs, and interests.

Here are 2 great websites with information about different careers that are great places to begin your exploration about career options available:

Occupational Outlook Handbook: The Occupational Outlook Handbook is a nationally recognized source of career information, designed to provide valuable assistance to individuals making decisions about their future work lives. The Handbook is revised every two years.

O*Net (Occupational Information Network): source providing comprehensive information on key attributes and characteristics of workers and occupations. This site also includes a Skills Search section for students to complete as a self-assessment.

Enjoy exploring these different sites and learning about careers and opportunities available in your future!