posted Oct 16, 2009 7:59 AM by HSS PTSA Webmaster
[
updated Oct 16, 2009 8:01 AM
]
Dear Hayfield Secondary Families:
As fall gets underway,
we will soon begin our academic achievement celebrations including the
first quarter Honor Roll for high school students and the Honor
breakfasts for middle school teams. I’m very proud
to announce that Hayfield has been notified that two of its students
are currently 2010 National Merit Semi-finalist Scholars, two more are
National Merit Commended Scholars, and yet another achieved National
Hispanic Recognition Scholar status based on prior
PSAT scores. We will celebrate these students at the fall Academic
Awards Program and again at the Senior Awards ceremony later in the
spring. At the time of this writing, we were just concluding the
administration of the Princeton Review (composed of released
PSAT questions) for our ninth-grade students and the PSAT for our tenth
and eleventh-grade students, all in preparation for students who will
take their SAT exams in the spring of their junior year or fall of
their senior year. Students should discuss with
their counselor whether the SAT, ACT, or both exams are appropriate for
their post-Hayfield plans. Contact your child’s counselor for
additional information on these options.
This coming weekend,
the Auto Technology classes will be teaming with our neighbors at the
Hayfield Shopping Center to show-off some pretty neat “wheels.” You
may want to stop by; or, if you are into College
research/selection mode with your student, I recommend you attend the
FCPS College Night which we are hosting on Monday, October 19, starting
at 7 p.m. Over 400 colleges and universities will be represented here
and there will be three college-prep workshops
offered.
If you have not seen the alumni walk located between the football stands and the concession stand, you really should take the walk.
Organized by the Hayfield Athletic Boosters, the alumni walk
currently has many bricks inscribed with past Hayfield alumni and
faculty/staff. If interested, I encourage you to contact the Athletic
Boosters via their webpage at www.HayfieldHawks.com.
A big thank you in advance
goes out to all those students, parents, and staff who will organize
and support next week’s Homecoming festivities. The week-long
celebratory activities, enjoyed by
faculty, students, staff, and community will include hallway
decorations, the traditional pep rally, a parade through the Hayfield
community, a hard-to-be-fought football game against Stuart High
School, and the traditional Homecoming Dance. All of this will
be the backdrop as we welcome our new Director of Student Activities
(DSA), Mr. E.W. Nowland, current DSA of Stuart High School, effective
Monday, October 26. Mr. Steve Kewer will be officially retired on
November 1. Mr. Nowland brings six years of experience
as a sitting FCPS DSA, as well as, experience as a DSA in the Virginia
High School League (VHSL) National District (to which we were assigned
this school year). Please welcome him when you get the chance.
It’s mid-fall again,
so please mark your calendars for the upcoming Touching Base
five-minute mini-conferences scheduled for the morning of Wednesday,
November 11. We will follow the same format as last year
providing opportunities for parents to touch base with
teachers. Mini-conferences will start at 7:30 a.m. in the field house
and middle-school lecture hall. Students will have a shortened day
with bus pick-up times scheduled exactly four hours later
coinciding with the start of school, scheduled at 11:20 a.m.
All the best to you and your families, Go Hawks!
William L. Oehrlein, Ph.D.
Principal william.oehrlein@fcps.edu |
posted Sep 14, 2009 7:58 PM by HSS PTSA Webmaster
[
updated Oct 16, 2009 8:02 AM
]
Welcome to the 2009-10 school year! We began with approximately 910 middle and 1,857 high school students enrolled, opening school with seven middle-school teams and three high-school subschools: Madison Hall (A-F), Lafayette Hall (G-M), and Washington Hall (N-Z). Two changes: Ms. Tracey Blaine is the Madison Hall subschool principal and Ms. Terri Breyman is the Jefferson Hall subschool principal. Student counselor assignments will remain the same. Our primary instructional initiatives will be furthering of eCart implementation across the middle school four-core and selected high school courses, as well as, “AVIDizing” selected instructional programs. We will also continue to refine our use of Blackboard, Kagan, Turning Point, and begin the ASCA counseling model. Our School Improvement Plan this year will be focused on closing the achievement gap that exists in some of our NCLB-AYP student population subgroups in math and English, as well as strengthening our school-wide Positive Behavior Strategies.
In August, I had the pleasure of mailing 295 Perfect SOL certificates to students to recognize their achievements in content knowledge acquisition this past year. Once again, our College Board Advanced Placement (AP) students have done very well. AP course offerings are our signature instructional program. In spring 2009, the percentage of exams on which a score of 3 or higher was obtained (on a scale of 1 – 5) remained steady at 56 percent; however, we administered 73 more exams than in spring of 2008.
Hayfield Career and Technical Education (CTE) course teachers completed an exhausting central audit of their respective programs this past July. The technical education, family and consumer sciences, and cosmetology programs were each rated as “exemplary” in their implementation of instructional rigor, technology, and post-course opportunities. Many of our CTE courses also offer direct post-course career pathways and professional certifications and should be considered when reviewing course elective options for your child.
In other developments, our baseline personnel budget has been reduced by an assistant principal, two administrative assistants, and two custodial positions, and the pupil-teacher ratio allocation of teacher staffing was increased by 0.5 students per class for this year. However, our instructional funds look adequate due to some “belt-tightening” by department chairs last year. We have a new Kiss and Ride procedure in the afternoon. Please pull all the way up in double rows to the yellow-folding sign outside the middle school lecture hall. We will have extra staff on hand as we attempt to keep school traffic out of the thru-lanes on Old Telegraph Road. In the morning, please pull all the way up, single file, to the yellow folding sign in the middle traffic circle.
I recommend glancing at our home page, www.fcps.edu/HayfieldSS/, to note upcoming events, to obtain staff email addresses, and to gather other pertinent information throughout the year. All the best to you and your families as you enjoy the remaining summer days.
Go Hawks!
William L. Oehrlein, Ph.D. |
|
