Happy New Year!
Post date: Jan 04, 2021 6:12:49 PM
Hello Tigers,
Welcome back, I hope that your winter break was great and that you are well-rested and healthy as you enter the New Year. This year is much different in many ways, including the fact that our 1st semester extends into January. We have a busy couple of weeks and we want to encourage you to work closely with your students to ensure that all missing work is caught up and turned in ASAP. Teachers will be doing special referrals this week for our Special Referral Day on Friday, January 15th. Students who have a referral are required to come on that day, students who would like to continue to extend their learning and potentially raise their grade are also welcome on that day but are not required. If your student is referred you will get a referral notice in the mail towards the end of this week or early next week. Students are able to take care of that immediately which would then allow them to not be required to attend on Friday the 15th. Please remember that high school requires students earn 25 credits and in a variety of areas and departments thus students with incompletes at the end of the semester will still be required to finish what they started!
We will be hosting our first PIE meeting tomorrow at 12pm in the LVHS Popo Agie Room. Remember that you can also get onto this virtually with the following:
Brad Neuendorf is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: LVHS PIE Meeting
Time: Jan 5, 2021 12:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.
Monthly: https://us04web.zoom.us/meeting/upcoceCprTMvHtE9a4dGUEra7X8BCxRuP3sX/ics?icsToken=98tyKu6rqz0jG9edtR2CR7YqGY_oXevztlxYgrd4xR6xBwdmRxH3YdoaEJFnIs3g
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/73569138545?pwd=Wm9pbVhCMklZUWc2SFVXanhIL1Jmdz09
Meeting ID: 735 6913 8545
Passcode: 8dQpPK
I know that as we said goodbye to 2020 there was much relief to letting go of what has been a rough year in many ways. However, I would like to take a few minutes to celebrate some of what was good in 2020 for the Lander Valley High Tigers! It started in the beginning of 2019 when LVHS was named a Model Professional Learning Community by Solution Tree. Our students, staff, and parents had worked really hard, for many years, implementing the changes necessary to guarantee high levels of learning for all students and this distinction validated the work of so many and the incredible achievements we have witnessed lately. That distinction also made us eligible to apply for the greatest award given to a Professional Learning Community, The DuFour Award. In early January 2020 we were notified that we were one of three finalists in the entire country for that great honor. Although we did not win the award, our school was recognized at The Summit on Professional Learning Communities in Phoenix.
As the year progressed LVHS was notified that it had THREE National Merit Finalists as part of their Class of 2020. Having just one finalists is a huge honor, so were ecstatic to have three of the top 1% of students in the nation based on their performance on the SAT score be Tigers! After several years of building our AP Computer Science class, LVHS was also proudly recognized with the College Board AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award. We were one of just 639 schools out of 20,000 that offer AP courses to receive the award which recognizes the success of our female students in that class, with over half of the students taking class being female, and most importantly 85% of those females earned a 3 or better on the exam. Speaking of AP, our students continue to push themselves to extraordinary levels as we gave 206 AP Exams to 116 students and impressively 54% of our those tests scored at 3 or higher. This is 52 more tests than given the year prior and a 10 percent increase in success rate. For comparison, 5 years ago we gave 21 tests to 19 students and only 36 percent of those tests scores at 3 or higher. In addition the class of 2020 continues our five year trend of increasing the percentage of students in their class who earned a 3 or better on an AP exam. In 2015 we had less than 1% make that mark, however in 2020 over 25% of the graduating class was successful on the very high level rigor of an AP Course and exam. This success has also led to a continual increase in our students earning AP Scholar, Scholar with Honor, and Scholar with Distinction. This past year 14 students were named as one of those, with three of our students earning the scholar with distinction, the highest award given.
Our boys swim team continued their dominant run in the state winning their 24th consecutive swim championship where they also won 75% of the events and broke state records in three of them. Our boys and girls Nordic Ski teams followed up that performance with second place trophies for each of them after a great season. Our Boys Cross Country Team also won the State Championship this fall, earning that program it's first banner since 2007. Our volleyball team also earned fourth place at state which was the first hardware the volleyball team has brought home from state since 2010. We also had numerous individual accolades for our students in various extracurricular activities as they continually impress us with their work ethic and determination to continually get better.
Despite the hardships that were created by the spring COVID shutdown, our school again showed its resilience when we went virtual from March until the end of the year. Through feedback from our parents, students and staff we continually revised our Virtual Learning Plan and eventually were able to keep things as close to normal as possible for our students. In just a couple weeks the state will reveal our graduation rate for the Class of 2020 and I think this whole community will be impressed and proud of these students and staff for the incredible success we were able to have, despite the crazy circumstances. Being in quarantine definitely did not stop this class for preparing for their post-secondary plans either, as the class of 2020 secured more scholarships than any class in history! As we began this year our teacher, staff, students and parents again worked together to provide live classes for over 500 students while also providing virtual and/or blended classes for an additional 50 students due to the pandemic. What many thought was impossible months ago has just been a different way of doing business these past couple of months. Although we look forward to the days ahead where we can get back to doing school the way that we know best, we also realize that this time has allowed us to grow in many ways and believe that we have capitalized in the moment to be better for tomorrow.
We are truly grateful and blessed to have the patience, support, understanding, and engagement from our parents, community, students, and staff that have made this whole thing come together. I know that each day I am grateful for the team I belong to and the way we are able to support our students to ensure we are meeting the needs of Every Student, Every Day! Let's make the most of our moments again in 2021 and I think that success will continue to follow the students of LVHS!