Durham High School PO Box 300 Durham, CA 95938 530.895.4685 FAX 895.4688 www.durhamunified.org
December/January, 2007/08 …
Issue 4
Principal’s Corner
Paul Arnold
First
Semester report cards will be mailed home January 11.
I hope you have a restful and relaxing holiday, and your child had a good first semester. I feel we have had many positives this school year. Grades are up, student failure rates and discipline issues are way down, and our children seem to be having a great school experience. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, concerns, issues @895-4685 or my email parnold@durhamunified.org. We are here to help and good home to school communication is essential for our mission. Parent involvement is welcomed in our WASC accreditation process and in our School Site Council. PTS serves as our parent advisory group and meets each month.
WASC Update: Our
focus groups have been meeting during minimum days and after school to complete
their tasks. We are currently
finishing up Task 3, the self-study portion where each focus group identifies
findings, strengths, and areas of growth. Our next minimum day to work on this
task is Friday, December 12. Our
timetable to begin Task 4, the school improvement action plan will begin in
January. The WASC visiting
committee will be here four (4) days, beginning Sunday, April 6 and concluding
with their report out in our library on Wednesday, April 9. Thanks to our parents and community
members who have volunteered their time to be part of this process:
Durham Community Forum on Teenage Drinking: There have been a number of concerns expressed about incidents of dangerous behavior associated with increasing alcohol use and abuse among our students on weekends. We invite you to get informed and help us address this issue as a school community by attending a meeting on Thursday, December 13 from 5:30 to 7:00 pm in the DHS library hosted by Durham High staff. This meeting will include a panel of DHS staff to present information about teen drinking, Marian Gage, prevention specialist for BCOE to present strategies to combat teen drinking, and Larry Cole, Butte County Sheriff and Durham DAD to discuss law enforcement response and legal resources.
School Web Site: Mr. Askea is currently updating the school web site durhamunified.org/DHS_SITE/. He is interested in parent input and feedback as to what items you would like to see on the website. Please e-mail me at parnold@ durhamunified.org with any suggestions for our web site, or any other items you would like to discuss.
Counseling Update: Ms. Spaggiari has returned from her medical leave and is excited to be back. And we are excited to have her back. She will resume serving our 9th grade students and serve as our district testing coordinator. Her office hours at DHS are Tuesdays 12:00 to 3:30 and Friday 8:00 to 11:30 or by appointment. She can be reached at 895-4299.
Club Activities: Block D, under the direction of Mr. Wells, will hold their 33rd annual Block D dance on Saturday, January 26. Academic Decathlon, under the direction of Mr. Dungey, is competing in the Butte County championships on Saturday, February 2. CSF will be holding their annual Blood Drive on Monday, January 14 in the DHS library beginning at 8am. In addition, CSF will be taking their annual trip to Ashland, Oregon to see the Shakespearean Theatre Festival on March 6 and 7.
CAHSEE: The California High School Exit Exam will be administered to 10th grade students beginning February 5 - 6. Makeup’s for those who haven’t passed will be Tuesday, March 11 - 12 and May 6-7.
Important Dates: Our band will perform their Winter Concert on Wednesday, December 12 at 6:30. Christmas vacation will begin Wednesday, December 20 with school resuming on Monday, January 8. Final Exams will be given during minimum days on Tuesday, December 18 to Thursday, December 20. School will end at 1:20 during finals and high school students will be able to ride the early bus at 2:40. School resumes on Monday, January 7 and report cards will be sent home on January 11.
Homecoming week will begin Monday, January 28 with our boy’s basketball teams taking on East Nicolaus on Friday, February 1. School Site Council will meet on Thursday, January 31 and Thursday, February 28 at 3:30 in the Library. Our next Minimum Day to work on WASC will be Friday, February 1.
School Holidays: Martin Luther King birthday will be Monday, January 21. Winter Recess for the President’s Day holiday will be from Thursday, February 14 to Monday, February 18.
School Security; Although theft on campus has decreased substantially, we are experiencing an increase in both thefts from backpacks and thefts of backpacks. Please remind your students to secure their personal belongings during PE and keep their backpacks with them or in their lockers. Consider leaving valuables that have no educational purpose at home.
Cell Phones: We are having increasing problems with student cell phone use, primarily making calls during the school day and having phones ring and sending text messages during class time. Please remind you student that cell phones are not to be used on campus anytime during the instructional day, from 8:00 to 3:15, including lunch and break. If students need to communicate with you by cell phone, they may do so in the front office. Students who send text messages during class will receive detention and confiscation for the first offense, and Saturday School detention and confiscation and parent pick up of phone for subsequent offenses.
Attendance Policies and Information: As
we go into our spring semester when many student activities are taking place, I
wanted to remind you of our attendance policy for extracurricular
participation. The intent of the
policy is to improve student attendance, work ethics, and achievement.
Students must demonstrate 90% attendance in
school. Those who miss more than
10% of the available school days in any class to the date of the
extracurricular activity will be ineligible to attend that activity. For example, if an activity such as
SCUD or Homecoming were on the 60th day of school, you would be
ineligible to buy tickets and attend or participate in those activities if you
had missed more than 6 days of any class.
If graduation were on the 180th day, you would not be able to
participate if you had missed more than 18 days in any class.
Certain absences do not count for purposes of this
policy. These include absences
which are school related such as field trips or athletics, medical/dental
appointments which are verified, illnesses, injuries, or surgeries which are
medically verified, or absences for which a student has completed the Short
Term Independent program. All other absences including illness, parent
authorized, discipline, or cuts and truancies count toward this policy. Students who have severe, exceptional,
emergency type circumstances may apply for an exception.
Athletics and Coaching Vacancies: We have had increasing difficulty in locating and hiring qualified coaches for some of our athletic teams. If you have interest or expertise in coaching high school interscholastic athletics or know someone who does, you can respond directly to coaching vacancies posted on our district web site at durhamunified.org or submit a resume and letter of interest to our athletic director. We oftentimes bring coaches into our programs to serve as volunteer assistants, while gaining experience to assume a head, jv, or assistant coaching stipend position when it becomes vacant.
We currently have vacancies for the following spring sports coaches: Assistant Softball, JV Softball, JV Baseball, and Assistant Track. Coaches must meet Title 5 requirements and possess current First Aid and CPR cards. These are open until filled. If interested please contact Eileen Brennan at the district office 895-4675 X 221.
Coaching can be a fun, exciting, and rewarding way to work
with our young people; however it can also be a very difficult job, especially
handling player, playing time and parent issues. We ask a tremendous amount from out coaches for very little
remuneration. Please work through
the coach and athletic director to resolve any issues you may have and be sure
to recognize this commitment to your child: this will help us greatly in
retaining qualified coaches as they gain experience.
Counseling
Corner
Jennifer
hightower
CAREER CENTER
UPDATE
SENIORS:
Do you want to find out how you can earn up to $9,700 in free financial aid for college? Then plan on attending a financial aid workshop on January 30th at 6:30 PM in the High school Library. We will go over the FAFSA (the financial aid application form), Cal Grant and the new supplemental Grant information. This is a very informative and helpful meeting. We will also go over the pin application process. It is requested that at least one parent per student attend this very helpful meeting. The FAFSA application deadline is March 3, 2008
Please make sure that if your student applied to a UC or a State campus that they continue to check their E-mail account for e-mails from the various campuses requesting updated information. If you have a filter on your Email account please check your Spam file for college Emails before you delete it. In many cases Email filters are not allowing the Emails from the college campuses to get through and the students are missing important information and updates. Seniors should also be looking into housing options if they are planning on going away to school. Most campuses have limited housing options available on campus.
SCHOLARSHIPS:
Please make sure that you check each College’s web site for scholarship announcements and application due dates. Seniors should be checking the scholarship list every week. It is posted in the Career Center and on the Durham Unified web page www.durhamunified.org under Durham High School and then School Information.
JUNIORS:
Juniors should start thinking about taking the SAT (reasoning test) and SAT II (subject tests). Test Dates and registration dates are as follows:
|
2007-08 |
Test |
U.S. Registration Deadlines* |
International
Registration Deadlines** |
||
|
Regular |
Late |
Early |
Regular |
||
|
January 26, 2008 |
SAT & |
December 26, 2007 |
January 4, 2008 |
December 5, 2007 |
December 26, 2007† |
|
March 1, 2008 |
SAT only |
January 29, 2008 |
February 7, 2008 |
N/A |
N/A† |
|
May 3, 2008 |
SAT & |
April 1, 2008 |
April 10, 2008 |
March 12, 2008 |
April 1, 2008† |
|
June 7, 2008 |
SAT & |
May 6, 2008 |
May 15, 2008 |
April 16, 2008 |
May 6, 2008† |
§
On March 1, only the SAT Reasoning Test™
is offered.
A student planning on applying to a UC campus must chose two subject tests and if one is Math it must be Math II. Engineering and science majors are often required to take the Math II subject test. Check with each campus.
NCAA rules have changed: Starting August 1, 2008, 16 core
courses will be
required for NCAA Division I only and 14 core courses are required in NCAA Division II. This rule applies to any student
first entering any Division I and II college or university on or after August
1, 2008. The core-course requirement does not include Art, PE, Auto, or
Woodshop. Please check the web site for a complete list www.ncaaclearinghouse.net See Mrs. Coutts for more information.
FRESHMAN:
I just finished working with Freshman in their computer class. They took a career assessment test and researched careers and college majors. This information will be used to develop their four-year plan when they meet with Ms. Spaggiari. The freshman that are currently in Health will work with me in January.
ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS AND PARENTS:
The annual Lions club Speakers Contest will be held on February 6, 2008 at 7:00 in the Library. The topic for this years contest is” Immigration-My Solution”. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students. They gain valuable experience and an opportunity to move on to the next level and win cash prizes. This is also a great experience for scholarships.
DON”T FORGET: I still have a wonderful list of students that are willing to do a number of various jobs. This is a great opportunity for these students to be responsible and to gain some work experience. Please contact me at 895-4685 ext 227
COUNSELING CORNER
Butte College Reg-to-Go Program:
All seniors are encouraged to sign up for the Reg-to-Go program. This program allows current seniors to complete all of the components required to register for Butte College during the spring of their senior year. There are three parts to this program. They include a day of Orientation activities at Butte College (March 13th), completion of the Butte College Assessment Test (March 27th), and registration activities with a Butte College Counselor (April 8th & 9th). By participating in this program, our students are given early registration priority for their classes.
Sign-ups start in January with Mrs. Hightower during their Economics class. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Mrs. Hightower at 895-4685 ext 260.
Big Sister Little Sister Program:
I am happy to announce that Durham High School has revived this program. The program gives the opportunity for senior girls to mentor freshman girls in a fun and safe atmosphere. Any senior or freshman girl is welcome to be a part of the program. We have had a few meetings and last weekend had a brunch. Meetings are on the 2nd Tuesday of the month at 1:00. For any further questions please contact Mrs. Hightower.
Health News
Nurse
Alma Hayes
|
|
According to the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, children are two to three times more likely than adults to get sick with the flu and spread it to others. With one fifth of the U.S. population attending or working in schools it is important that the school district and families work together to reduce the transmission of coughs, colds and flu.
Because contagious viruses such as seasonal flu can spread easily in the classroom teachers and health office staff work together to teach and encourage students to frequently wash their hands.
These are tips on keeping your child, your family, and the larger community, healthy.
- Model good health habits for your children and stay healthy yourself by washing hands frequently. This is the number one defense against catching a cold. A 30-second hand scrub with soap and warm running water can rid the skin of 90% of the particles carrying flu and cold viruses.
- If your child has a fever, is coughing frequently, or has a cold with nasal discharge please keep them home from school and let them rest until symptoms improve. This helps prevent spreading the “bug” as well as minimizing their misery. A child should be fever free for 24 hours before returning to school.
- Use a non-aspirin pain reliever (such as Tylenol) to help reduce head and muscle aches. Reye’s Syndrome, a very serious illness is associated with aspirin use for flu and viral infections.
- Tell your children not to share items such as water bottles or drinks.
- Vaccination is the first line of defense. Get your flu shot! Call the Butte County Public Health Dept hotline 1-866-444-2405 for information on flu shot clinics or call your health care provider.
- If someone in your home gets the flu a health care provider can prescribe an antiviral medication that can help prevent other members of the household from catching the flu.
If you or your child becomes ill
with flu, stay home, rest, and drink plenty of fluids. If you have a chronic
disease call your doctor who can prescribe antiviral medication to reduce the
risk of complications. To be effective, antiviral medication must be taken
within 48 hours after flu symptoms begin.
ASBO Lauren
mullarkey
This is the season of giving and Durham High students are certainly doing just that! Last month we held an assembly celebrating volunteerism and donating. Our guest speakers included Bill Such from the Jesus Center, Nancy Jorth from Youth for Change and a group of folks from the Humane Society. We also had several of our students speak about their community service projects, including Chase Lieberum who is collecting bikes to refurbish and give to underprivileged kids, Sarah Murphy and Julia Megibow who are our recycle queens, and Amanda Davis and Elizabeth Freitas who sponsored a wonderful donation drive for our soldiers. Each speaker shared a lot of information about our community and what we can do to make it a better place for many adults, kids and animals. Leadership and ASBO have kicked off several donation drives for these various groups. We are collecting shoes, socks and new underwear, toiletries (shampoo, soap, combs, etc.), and warm coats. The Humane society has a wish list including blankets, dog and cat food, cleaning supplies to name a few. We have posted lists of items for each group in many classrooms as well as collection boxes. Anything you can send in with your student is appreciated. We have a very compassionate student body.
We also have a very fun student body. Our Leadership group is working on several holiday events. On December 20th we are having a holiday dance, the Candy Cane Affair. It will go from 8:00 to 11:00 and will cost $5.00 with snacks being provided. Yearbook staff will be there taking individual pictures of students for a small charge. Should be lots of fun! We are also planning a Holiday Fun Day for the elementary students on December 15 from 12:00 to 5:00. We charge $10 per student and provide activities such as cookie decorating, paper crafts, a movie and games. The kids of all ages enjoy this event and we make money for ASBO! If you have an elementary school student or know of one who would like to attend, please call me to reserve a space.
Our fabulous school newspaper, The Loft, which started this year, will come out again before the break. If you have not seen a copy yet, be sure to ask your student to see one. Our terrific editors Brita Voris and Cristina Upton have been doing a great job collecting articles, artwork, comics and advice columns from their fellow students.
Because we want everyone to have a healthy and safe holiday break, we are holding an informational parent meeting about Teens and Alcohol on December 13th at 5:30 in our library. We will have guest speakers as well as a representative from the Sheriffs Department to talk about how to know where your kids really are, what you can do to help deter teen drinking and the legal ramifications. Please plan to join us for this important event. It takes a community to raise kids! Also along these lines, the Safe and Sober Grad night meeting will be Monday, December 17th at 6:00 also in the library. Senior Parents PLEASE SHOW UP!
We all know once we come back from break the rest of the year will fly by, so get ready. We will start the year with a Teen Safety assembly put on by the Sheriffs Department, the Blood Drive, and Homecoming. More info on these events will follow.
Our Leadership group wishes all of you a happy holiday season and remembers those not as fortunate! See you next year. Please feel free to call or e-mail with any suggestions, questions or just say “hi:”
Lauren Mullarkey
Activities Director
Matt Mullarkey President
Chase Lieberum Vice President
Cristina Upton Secretary
Laura Henman Treasurer
Christy Creamer-Conley Activities
Brittany Watte Activities
Brita Voris Publicity
Taylor Bradley Sound Engineer
Julia Megibow Sound Engineer
Megan Godsil Clubs Coordinator
Amanda German Special Events
Richard Galvin Special Events
Sarah Murphy First Lady and Recycle Queen
Dates To
Remember DEC/JAN 2007/08
|
DATE |
TEAM |
OPPONENT |
PLACE |
SQUAD |
TIME |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dec.11 |
Soccer |
Live Oak |
Live Oak |
|
3:30 |
|
Dec. 11 |
Boys Basketball |
Lassen |
Lassen |
V &
JV |
5:30/7:30 |
|
Dec 12-15 |
Girls
Basketball |
Orland
Tourney |
Orland |
V &
JV |
TBA |
|
Dec.13 |
Soccer |
Rio Vista |
Rio Vista |
|
3:30 |
|
Dec 13-15 |
Boys
Basketball |
Raczniak
Tourney |
Colusa |
V &
JV |
TBA |
|
Dec. 15 |
Wrestling |
Durham JV
Tourney |
Durham |
JV |
9:00 AM |
|
Dec. 17 |
Safe
& Sober Grad mtg |
|
|
|
6:00 PM |
|
Dec. 18 |
Soccer |
Central
Valley |
Durham |
|
3:30 |
|
Dec. 18 |
Girls
Basketball |
Gridley |
Durham |
V &
JV |
5:30/7:30 |
|
Dec. 19 |
Boys
Basketball |
Colfax |
Durham |
V &
JV |
5:30/7:30 |
|
Dec. 19 |
Wrestling |
Chico
High |
Chico |
V &
JV |
6:00 PM |
|
Dec.20 |
Holiday
Dance |
|
|
|
8:00-11:00 |
|
Dec 28-29 |
Wrestling |
The Bash |
Lemoore |
Varsity |
9:00 AM |
|
Jan. 3 |
Soccer |
Orland |
Orland |
|
3:30 |
|
Jan. 3-5 |
Girls
Basketball |
Enterprise
Tourney |
Redding |
V &
JV |
TBA |
|
Jan 3-5 |
Boys
Basketball |
Div. IV
Shootout |
Corning |
V &
JV |
TBA |
|
Jan 4-5 |
Wrestling |
Nor-Cal
Champ. |
Anderson |
Varsity |
!2:00 pm |
|
Jan. 5 |
Wrestling |
Live Oak
Tourney |
Gridley |
V &
JV |
9:00 AM |
|
Jan. 8 |
Soccer |
Biggs |
Durham |
|
3:30 |
|
Jan. 8 |
Boys
Basketball |
Lassen |
Durham |
V &
JV |
5:30/7:30 |
|
Jan. 9 |
Wrestling |
Live Oak |
Durham |
V &
JV |
6:00 PM |
|
Jan. 10 |
Soccer |
Willows |
Durham |
|
3:30 |