Back to School

It's a school night!  :-)

Can you believe summer is over?  Tonight is a school night which means you are going to have to try to go to bed at a decent time so that you can function during the day tomorrow.  I hope you enjoyed your last day of summer vacation and are getting excited about coming back to school. I am looking forward to seeing everyone again!

Today we had a great day welcoming the freshmen students to Kilbourne. I was so impressed with the Link Leaders who made the day fun, meaningful and welcoming to the 9th graders. Thank you Link Leaders for your service and commitment. I was proud of how you demonstrated your leadership and set the standards for what can be expected at the high school. You set a great example for the Class of 2030 of what it means to be a part of our Pack. 

We're looking forward to seeing you all in the morning.  Sleep well!

CC+ Reminders

We wanted to remind you that although the WKHS classes will all start this week, any of your CC+ classes that are not taught by a Kilbourne teacher have a later start date. This can get confusing at times which is why we attached a yellow information sheet to the schedules of all students enrolled in a Columbus State CC+ class. If you are taking Comp 1, Psychology, or Ethics at Kilbourne, those CSCC classes are taught by a CSCC professor. You will be on the same timeline for the semester as CSCC so your classes won't begin until August 31st. So that means you do not have to come to class for those specific classes until the week of the 31st.

In addition to the start date being different, we wanted to remind you that you have to have completed all of your Workday steps. Your class(es) will show up in Blackboard ahead of your start day.

Please note that if you are taking a COTC CC+ class, those courses (Pre Calculus and Calculus) are taught by our WKHS teachers and the academic calendar is the same as Kilbourne so you will start classes this week like everyone else.

Read the information sheet that was attached to your schedule and let me know if you have any questions!

Prepare for Success

This week we will start a new school year and it is important to put yourself in the best position possible to be successful.

The first step is to set your goals for the year. What are you hoping to accomplish? What do you need to do to reach these goals? It is often easier to dream big and, quite honestly, most of you could achieve any goal that you set your mind to, but it will take dedication and commitment.

Many of you are also out searching for new school supplies. As you buy your folders, binders, and notebooks, pause for a moment to think about what organization system tends to work best for you. Are you a "stuffer" who just stuffs papers into whatever happens to be available? If so, folders are probably best for you. If you are the type of person who wants to be able to combine notes from class with notes that you take from the book, you might gravitate toward a binder with loose-leaf paper rather than a spiral notebook. Whatever system you select, make sure it is one that will work for YOU.

Preparing for success is probably most closely connected to having an organization system for tracking your assignments. Perhaps you bought a planner or maybe you're hoping to use an app. It doesn't matter to me what type of an organization system you have selected, but it is essential that you pick something and commit yourself to using it.

This will be a great year! We hope you are looking forward to getting started (even though it means that summer is over and early mornings are beginning) and if you need help with setting reasonable goals or with organization, please don't hesitate to stop in and see us.

Reminders

Tomorrow (Monday, August 17th) is the first day back to school for students attending the Delaware Area Career Center. For DACC students, the bus will transport you from WKHS to DACC and back, but you will need to find your own transportation between home and Kilbourne. The bus up to DACC will leave WKHS in the morning at 7:15am. We hope you have a great first day at the Career Center!

Additionally, a reminder to seniors that tomorrow at 1:30pm is the second Common App 101 Workshop. We will meet in Room 201. Please be sure to bring your Chromebook or a laptop with you because you will work on your actual Common App while we are meeting.

Common App 101 Reminder

Seniors, just a quick reminder that tomorrow at 10:30am is our first Common App 101 Workshop. If you have signed up to attend, please be sure to bring your laptop or chromebook with you because you will be working on your actual Common App application during the time together. We will be holding this work session in Room 201 and look forward to seeing you tomorrow!

New Names and Faces

Kilbourne was filled with a buzz of energy, excitement, and nerves today as everyone came through to pick up their schedules. Don't forget, there are 2 more days for schedule pick up this week... Wednesday afternoon from 12:30-3:30 and Thursday evening from 5-8pm.

As you see your schedules and/ or as you walk through the building you may see that there are many new names and faces this year at WKHS. We encourage you to welcome and say hi to the following new staff members:

We will have 3 new security monitors: Mr. Benver, Mr. Schreiber, and Mr. Turnbull.

Mrs. Bowman (Math)

Mr. Zarycki (Math)

Mr. Timms (Special Ed)

Ms. Bush (Health/ PE)

Ms. Glitsch (Tech)

Mr. Sullivan (Orchestra)

Science has a bunch of new staff including: Mr. Larson, Ms. Starr, Mr. Joyce, and Ms. Lavelle

Ms. Coleman (EL)

Although they are not new to WKHS, we have a few staff members shifting positions - Mr. Berens will now be in the Art Department and Mrs. Taylor will be in the English Department

We have 3 new Administrative Assistants taking over for secretaries that retired including: Mrs. Stead, Mrs. Kehlmeier, and Mrs. Moneypenny.

Mrs. Dyer is a new Assistant Principal. She will partner with Mr. Alexander on the top part of the alphabet (A-K). Mrs. Leiding and Mrs. Travis will now share the bottom part of the alphabet (L-Z).

And then there were a few weddings over the summer and so Ms. Johnson is now Mrs. Maddock and Ms. Hunt is now Mrs. Gorski.

What hasn't changed? That everyone at WKHS is excited to work with the students and to have a successful year ahead. So even if you're uncertain when you see that your schedule features names of people you don't know yet, please know that it will be great!

Schedule Changes

 

Every year the week between schedule pick up days to the first days of the school year are filled with students asking about making changes to their schedules. We are happy to try to help facilitate schedule change requests, but we need to make sure you know a few things...

1. We are not authorized to make any teacher changes.  Sorry.  We can't move you from one teacher to another teacher's class. We know that you all have favorite teachers from previous years or teachers that our siblings had that you hoped to have too. We get it, but the administration works really hard to balance all schedules with timing and course sections and they don't want us to undermine that work by making things unbalanced. 

2. We cannot overload classes. If a class is full, there is no way for us to add you into the class. Think about it, you know how packed many of the classes are and how many desks are in the room. Each teacher and each period can only have so many students.

3. You need to have your graduation requirement classes. Obviously a big end goal of your classes is to graduate and so those take priority over every other request.

4. If the classes you have requested is only offered during 1st or 8th period then we cannot give you 1st or 8th period off. We're sorry. We know a lot of juniors and seniors hope for late arrival or early release, but the only way the master schedule works when the administrators build it is for classes to be spread across all 8 periods. They focus on eliminating as many conflicts as possible and so that sometimes means a class that is only offered once per day ends up being in 1st or 8th period.

5. We know a lot of times the hopes and expectations you had aren't in alignment with what the reality is when you first see your schedule. Pause and give yourself a little bit of time to process through it. It can be hard when you think that you're the only one in a particular lunch (we promise you're not) or that you don't have any classes with your friends. Every year we end up encouraging kids to just go to class and give it a try and see who else is in their classes and they realize that a friend they had classes with a year or two ago is also in that class and they are given the chance to rekindle the friendship again. Just don't panic when you see your schedule.

6. If you want to change levels from AP/ IB/ Honors classes that had summer work to other classes without summer work, remember you are still responsible for completing those summer assignments and the grade will go with you into the new class. (So if you're doing all of that work for the class, are you sure you really don't want to just stick with the class you had requested a few months ago?)

7. If you want to request a schedule change, stop and see us after you pick up your schedule - we will be in our offices during the schedule pick up times and are happy to meet with you. Come see us!