"What's the best predictor of your grades in college? Not SAT scores, HS GPA, or your study time & habits. It's whether you show up. Attendance is one of the best predictors of academic performance. Same goes for any pursuit. Showing up is the most important part of performing." - Steve Magness

Dear HKMS Families,

Steve Magness is a world class expert on performance.  From NCAA teams to Olympians and athletes from every major professional sports league, he has coached the most elite in the world on how humans can tap into their full potential.  His number one tip for all students, athletes, elite military units, fortune 500 executives is to just show up.  It makes a ton of sense, if you don't practice, or compete how can you improve or measure your progress?  The same, of course, goes for school!  

Since the pandemic chronic absenteeism nation-wide has gone through the roof.  Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing more than 10%  of school (for us, that's 18 days). We also have to consider how many classes a student misses.  For example, a student who is fully absent 10 times and is late for period one 8 times would be chronically absent for that class.   This becomes even more important in high school where "seat time" is calculated and students may not pass a class based on attendance alone.  Check out the article embedded below this message (Chronic Absenteeism Is a Serious Issue: Teachers Weigh In) for more info, trends, and impact of chronic absenteeism. 

Just being here is more than half the battle, and I know for some of you it is a daily battle to get your middle schooler here.  We are here to help!  Our counseling and administration teams are well versed in school avoidance and school refusal.  If you are battling getting moving in the morning with your middle schooler, we do not want you to take this on without any help.  Remember our 3-word mantra this year, NEVER WORRY ALONE. Please reach out to us if this is happening. We need your help to get here on time, and we would love to help you get your child here every single day. 

In the coming weeks we will be sending out some additional information about attendance including a new attendance letter. This letter  will be sent to you every 5 absences reminding you of both the legal requirements for attendance and the benefits of just being here.  

Students were certainly attentive on this very productive five-day week.  I hope you can take a few minutes to attend to this week's newsletter. 

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Steve Clapp, Ed.D.

These pictures show some of the different challenges from the Fraction Operations Escape Room that 6th graders have been tackling in Math Workshop.  Through these activities, students are reviewing adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions and mixed numbers in preparation for an upcoming test. 

These social scientists are Kohooting content studied on Ancient and Modern China.  They have clearly learned a lot as they destroyed Dr. Clapp who came in 15th out of 19 players. 

Mr. Fred Barna, JBHS math teacher, was on site this week to walk students though all the various math and other course options for our rising freshman class.  He also showed the difference between test questions in grade level, advance, and honors classes. His theme, know yourself as a learner, and find balance and flow in your studies and extracurriculars.  Don't take on so much you end up broken.