Principal’s Page
By Jeff Reaburn
Congratulations to Mr. Soldan, Mr. Dougall, and the Panther boys’ hockey team, who won the WOSSAA championship last week and are now bound for Ottawa next week to compete at OFSAA, the provincial championships. The Panthers defeated Glencoe Secondary 5-2 and F E Madill 1-0 to advance to the provincial championship tournament. The coaches reported that the boys represented us very well both on and off the ice, and I know that the students and staff will be wishing them well and following their progress closely at OFSAA.
Congratulations also to Mr. Moore, Mr. Weston, Ms. Milner, and the bands for their excellent performances at the Musicfest Regionals in London. The Wind Ensemble, Intermediate Concert Band and Senior Concert Band all achieved a Silver standard, while the Percussion Ensemble achieved Gold. The Wind Ensemble, Senior Concert Band, and Percussion Ensemble have all been invited to participate in Musicfest Nationals in May. The Jazz Band will compete this week as their opportunity was postponed by a snowstorm.
I would like to especially recognize the achievement of Carly Schroeder, who has been selected to perform with the National Concert Band, which has students from all across Canada who are chosen by audition. Carly was chosen from a pool of hundreds of applicants to fill one of only two available spots in her section of the band. This is indeed a great honour and we should all be very proud of Carly. Congratulations Carly on this tremendous achievement.
This week we have two significant events: the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test and Parent-Teacher Interviews, both of which happen on Thursday. The OSSLT is a huge logistical challenge and requires the use of many staff members and numerous rooms in the school. As a result, we will be altering our schedule on Thursday. Students in Grade 10 and those who are re-writing the literacy test will do so on Thursday morning in classrooms on the second floor. While they are writing the test, Grade 9 students will be engaged in a practice literacy test in classrooms on the first floor.
Students in Grade 11 and 12 have been given the opportunity to take one of several certification courses for the morning. They signed up for these previously and we have spent considerable time and money organizing these courses on a variety of topics.
This certification program is costing us several thousand dollars and so it is critical that students who signed up for certification show up for the course.
Because of all these activities, we will not be running any regular classes on Thursday morning; however, we will be running the two regular afternoon classes, which will be shortened by only five minutes each in order to give us time to set up for parent-teacher interviews. All students are expected to attend the two afternoon classes on Thursday.
Parent-Teacher interviews will be held in the cafeteria and small gym from 3:30 to 5:00 and 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Interim reports were mailed out last Wednesday and Thursday and hopefully parents will have received them in time to have students set up interviews.
A short newsletter accompanied the report and on the bottom was a brief form for arranging interviews. Parents are asked to have their son or daughter take this form to school and arrange interview times with the teachers. Interviews can be arranged on Thursday as well: we will have student secretaries in the front hall and they will have the teachers’ interview schedules to assist parents in finding available interview times.