A Better Student

What is 1 small step that you could take that would help you to be a better student?  Now that we are in the 4th and final quarter of the school year, that is a question I hope you will pause to ask yourself and try to think about what you can either continue doing or start doing differently to finish the year out strong.

The reality is that school is your job and so reflecting on what you're doing and how it is helping to get you to where you want to be is important.  When I think about my students your individual strengths and struggles are so diverse.  Some students struggle to show up to school on time every day while others have great attendance.  Some students pick up on what teachers are saying when they just listen in class, but many others have to take detailed notes and write everything down.  Some students are great about getting work completed on time and turned in fully finished and others are continually confused when teachers ask for assignments to be submitted having never even realized something was assigned.

Today your 3rd quarter grades were do and so you and your parents can all log into Infinite Campus to get an idea of where you stand academically at the half-way point in the semester.  But I really do want you to forget the letter grades for a moment and think about yourself and the efforts and commitment you are showing in your classes. 

Can you do better?  If so, what can you try?  Want me to help hold you accountable, I am happy to if you come and let me know about your goals and plan to improve.  

Are you pleased with how things are going for you in classes?  That's awesome!  Be proud of your success and accomplishments.  Try to think back on what you think has helped you the most to have this success and make sure you consider how you can continue with that moving ahead.  Know that I'm also here to help celebrate those successes with you if you want to share with me what it is that you think has helped you most.

Finishing out this year strong is important and nothing is a lost cause because you still have half of the semester to go.  Use your resources and apply yourself.  You can do this!

Healthy Relationships

Do you know what a healthy relationship looks like?  For a lot of teens, the relationships you see within your own families may include divorces that weren't particularly friendly, the relationships you see among your peers can be filled with as many jealous arguments as happy days, and the relationships you see on TV or through social media is only filled with part of the story.  There are so many times when I have talked with students and they shared reflections about different relationships which have left me thinking, "That's not love."  Because there are a lot of things that love isn't, but it's hard when you're in the midst of a relationship to be able to recognize if your interactions are healthy.

There are lots of reasons why it's hard to identify when you're in the midst of a relationship if it is healthy or not.  In large part, the flood of positive hormones and neurotransmitters make the relationship appealing even when it isn't healthy.  So, what are you supposed to do?  At times, you can trust yourself if you are able to step back and think, "if my friend was going through these same experiences what would I say to him/ her?"  Often times, being able to get feedback from your friends, your family or other trusted adults can be helpful because they are not in the relationship and so they can typically give you honest feedback.  Another aspect that you can watch for is any time you notice that you are talking about your significant other and telling stories about them and that you are trying to make the situation or the story seem better than it really was.  If you feel the need to embellish how good the relationship is it may be a sign that something isn't what it should actually be and that the relationship isn't as good as you deserve.

If you are interested in learning more about healthy relationships as well as teen dating violence to protect yourself or your friends, check out the website, loveisrespect.org which has tons of great information and resources.

For parents, Worthington Schools is joining with other districts throughout central Ohio to partner with OhioHealth SARNCO (Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio) to provide a Webinar Series on Your Child and Healthy Relationships.  This 6 week online series is for parents exploring critical aspects of relationships, offering guidance from experts on how to support and discuss complex but essential relationship topics with your child.  Examples of topics that will be addressed include: Healthy Boundaries, Consent, Social Media & Online Relationships, Healthy Masculinity, Teen Dating, and Bystander Intervention.

The series begins tomorrow night, Wednesday, March 9th and will be from 7-8pm on Wednesdays.  Additional nights include: March 23, April 6, April 20, May 4, and May 25

Here is a link to the handout which includes the link to join the online series.

March Socratic Society

On Friday morning, 33 Kilbourne students were inducted into the Socratic Society. Students are selected for the Socratic Society based upon their display of the Socratic Core Virtues - scholarship, lifelong learning, compassion, integrity, and personal effort. Students are only eligible to receive this award once throughout their entire high school career. 

12 of "my" students were among those honored. They are (alphabetically): Jamal Addison, Kya Angle, Olivia Asman, Aneissa Bettinger, Stella Bixler, Asude Budak, Brenna Burrell, Hadley Byard, Ava Casper Welty, Emma Chambers, Joey Cottrill and Pamela Da Silva Reis.  Congratulations to each of you! I am proud of you!

End of 3rd Quarter

Hooray!  We made it to the end of the 3rd quarter.  We are now 3/4 of the way through the school year which, at least for me, seems unbelievable.  I feel like the year was just getting started and the reality is that you are now in the final stretch.  Enjoy the long weekend - you deserve it as I know these last few weeks have felt very stressful for so many of you.

Thank you notes

Seniors, I am adding something to your "To Do List."  For many of you, the college application process included asking teachers for their help.  You might have needed them to write recommendation letters on your behalf.  You may have asked them to review your essay drafts.  Or perhaps you had a teacher that was particularly encouraging and supportive to you when you were stressed or feeling overwhelmed about your applications.

It is important to pause and thank these teachers for the positive difference they have made in your life.  Taking a moment to put your appreciation into words and making sure they know you are grateful is important and it is something your teachers will remember and it will mean a lot to them.  So, while I feel bad about adding more to your list of things to do, this is an important one that will make a difference in the lives of your teachers.

YouScience

Tomorrow kicks off the WKHS Career Club and I hope you are planning to attend.  But even if it doesn't work for your schedule, you can start exploring careers that would possibly fit for you.  YouScience is a great assessment tool that lets you learn more about yourself while also highlighting careers that would be a good potential fit.

YouScience is a measure of aptitudes.  Aptitudes are your natural abilities to do things.  It is not about saying you are good at math or science - it is more about the specific strengths that cross over to various subject areas.

When you take this assessment it is all online so you can do it from any computer or chromebook.  The entire process from start to finish is 1 hour and 15 minutes, but you can split it up over however many settings that works best for you.  The assessment consistents of a variety of different small computer challenges.  Each of these challenges is timed and you just do the best you can on each one of them.  When you start any of those timed tests, you have to finish that piece before you could stop and save to return later.

I took the assessment and was fascinated by how many pieces it was able to say about me just from doing these fun tests.  At the end, about 1 day later, you will receive an email with links to your results.  There were 3 main things I liked best about the results.  1, there is a multi-page personal summary that can be downloaded that talked about things that are easier or harder for you based upon your results.  2, there is a discussion summary guide which is a great resource to help you for use in recommendation letters, resumes and college essays.  3, the career specific information is interesting.  I really liked that the career information could be divided out so that you could look at it based upon which careers fit for people with your aptitudes, for careers with your interests, or for careers that overlap well with your aptitudes and interests.

If you are interested in taking the assessment (or if any of your friends want to do so), please stop and see me or Mrs. Dominach (counseling center secretary) so that we can give you an access code.  You will then use that to create an account for free.  It is important to note that you will not be able to use your wscloud email account because you won't be able to receive your emails from YouScience with your results.

Columbus State Community College

Are you planning on attending Columbus State Community College next year after you graduate? This is a great option for a lot of students because it allows students to transition from the high school to college expectations in typically smaller classes and for a fraction of the cost. Students attending CSCC have much later deadlines for admission and so it can be easy to procrastinate on completing the application. It is an easy, online application and will not take you long to complete it so I would like to encourage you to apply sometime in this coming week.  Hop online and give the application a try and then if you have any questions, stop by to see me and I will help answer them for you.

If you are already taking classes through CSCC with College Credit Plus, you do not need to complete an application, but you do have some other steps that you still need to go through in order to make sure that CSCC knows you intend to enroll with them after graduation.  Here is a link to that information and it also features information about a scholarship that current CC+ students can be eligible to receive through CSCC.  (The scholarship information on the website is for last year's graduates, but hopefully it will still apply for your graduating year as well.)