GMHS Family Update
November 6, 2020
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Dear GMHS Students and Families,
We know that the increase in COVID19 cases is on everyone's mind. GMHS has had multiple cases within the school in the last two weeks. We continue to do all we can to follow health guidelines to keep our school open. Thank you to our students and staff who are helping us maintain a safe and healthy school environment! Please know that staff desperately want to keep students in school and we want to continue working from the school building.
You most likely know that Jefferson County has moved to the Safer at Home-Level 3 category starting on Monday, 11/9. This means that if we have students or staff who are at school with COVID, we will need to quarantine whole classes and teachers starting Monday vs. the targeted quarantine process we have been following these last few weeks. This could result in greater staffing issues if multiple teachers are quarantined. The school district is having conversations around moving to a full remote environment. The school district will make that call not the school.
In case we find ourselves moving to a full remote environment, the following will apply:
- We will stay on the Hybrid Bell Schedule for synchronous learning Monday through Thursday with asynchronous learning on Friday.
- We are working with teachers to provide more consistency around attendance expectations and procedures. Attendance has and continues to be an issue especially with tracking quarantines through our attendance platform.
- We will continue to create innovative ways to reach out to our students for academic and mental health support. We will be revamping our virtual Ram Time for second semester to provide more academic resources and opportunities for students to engage in the HS experience, post-secondary planning, and Academy opportunities.
- Our in-building construction will be wrapping up in the next several weeks so we will be able to put the building back together from the construction project.
- See information below for how to sign up for our student/family/teacher conference on November 12th between 1:00-7:00 p.m.
- Due to Conferences we will not have Ram Time or Office Hours on Thursday, November 12.
- Please see this weeks' video Principal Report linked above.
Thank you for your continued support!
Go Rams!
Colleen Owens
Principal
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Student/Family/Teacher Conferences
November 12
1:00-7:00 p.m.
Please sign up by Tuesday 11/10/20 at 3pm to secure a time
Questions on how to sign up for a conference? Contact Wendee Vezzetti, Digital Teacher Librarian ([email protected])
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New Tennis Courts and Turf Field |
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Where Old Tennis Courts were are now the New Discus Area |
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- November 11: Veteran's Day Flag Pole Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
- November 12 1:00-7:00 p.m.: Virtual Student/Family/Teacher Conferences.
- November 23-27: Thanksgiving Break
- December 3: GMHS Showcase (for school year 21-22 - current 8th graders and families).
- Week of December 14-17: Last week of semester
- Fri. December 18 & Mon. December 21: Asynchronous end of semester wrap-up and feedback.
- December 22: Finals make-up day (only for students who miss a final).
- December 23-January 6: Winter Break (Students return on January 6, 2021)
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Nicole Collins RN, BSN
Jeffco Public District Registered Nurse
Cell #: (720)618-8490
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Good afternoon GREEN MOUNTAIN FAMILIES!!!
Nurse Nicole here with a few tips for this week. Given that many families in the district are being put on quarantine for either illness or exposures, I thought some guidance may be helpful:)
- If ANYONE in your home is awaiting COVID-19 test results, ALL members of the household are Quarantined until the results come back. Then, if a positive case exists, ALL household members must quarantine for the 14 days determined by the district or your health care provider, regardless if they obtain a negative test result.
- IF YOU ARE ILL WITH ANY OF THESE SYMPTOMS FOR MORE THAN 2 DAYS IN A ROW, WE RECOMMEND YOU GET COVID TESTING:
- We require it for any student with symptoms for more than 2 days prior to returning to school. All test results must be provided to the school nurse, via email if possible.
- IF you get tested with symptoms a rapid test is only accepted by the district if it is positive, if it is negative and symptoms exist you must obtain a PCR COVID-19 test in order to return to school.
- Symptoms to watch for:
- Fever or chills
- Headache (unless migraines are common)
- Runny nose, congestion
- Sore throat
- Cough
- Extreme fatigue
- Diarrhea that is followed by any other symptom
- New loss of taste or smell
- Extreme body ache
- Nausea or vomiting
- IF YOU HAVE BEEN DIRECTLY EXPOSED TO SOMEONE WHO HAS TESTED POSITIVE:
- We recommend you quarantine at home for 14 days, if symptoms arise, please get tested.
- IF YOU HAVE NO SYMPTOMS please DO NOT run out and get tested immediately following exposure, it will be an inaccurate test.
- IF you decide to test following exposure if there are NO SYMPTOMS, the district recommends you wait 5-7 days to get tested. Why? This is because the genetic material required for accurate testing takes time to establish in the body, following transmission.
- IF you have been quarantined, stay home, clean shared surfaces more often, try to limit exposure to others not quarantined in the home, stay active as best you can, eat healthy, drink extra water and try to participate in stress reducing activities like yoga or meditations. Worrying actually affects your immune system's ability to fight illness!
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or follow up. Have a lovely weekend RAM NATION!!!
We are all in this together! Talk to each other, be kind and help others in need if you can.
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Student Academic Assessment |
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PSAT and SAT Results
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9th and 10th Grade: Students who took the practice PSAT on October 14th were handed their results in person this week. Mr. Craig has a copy of the results for the students who are remote; please contact him to arrange to pick them up. If students still have access to the test questions they are encouraged to go back through and see what they missed.
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11th Grade: The PSAT/NMSQT results for students who took the test should be available via your student's College Board account on December 7th. Mr. Craig will eventually get a hard copy of the results and will hand them out in either late December or early January along with the booklets students used to take the test. Students are encouraged to go back through the questions to see what they missed.
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12th Grade: The SAT results for students who took the test should be available via your student's College Board account on November 4th.
- A few testing tips:
- Encourage your students to never leave a multiple choice question blank because they get 1 point for getting it correct, 0 points for getting it wrong, and 0 points for leaving it blank. If they guess they at least have a 25% chance of getting 1 point.
- Answer the fill in the blank questions first because there is no way to just simply guess to get these correct.
- Tell students to focus on the easy questions first. If they are spending too much time on a question they can always skip the question and go back later. This will help them pace through the questions.
Advanced Placement Exams
Due to this year's unusual circumstances, the unused/canceled exam fee won't be applied by the College Board. Since the College Board has decided to not charge the cancellation fee for AP Exams, Mr. Craig has decided to order a test for every student enrolled in an AP Course. This will allow students to decide later on if they want to take the test or not. If they decide to take the test the $95 exam fee will be applied to the student fee. If they decide not to take the test you will not be charged. We will be determining who will and won't be taking the exam later in the Spring and put the fees on student's accounts in late Spring. Please contact Mr. Craig if you have any questions or concerns.
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Counseling & Future Center |
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Applications needed now The CTC youth internship program is in it's 4th year this year. Each year, we ask high school age (15-20 years) youth who live or go to school in Jefferson County to apply and interview for internships. The goal of the internship is to elevate youth voice in our county related to three issues:
- Substance misuse risk or protective factors
- Interpersonal violence social norms
- Hopelessness and anxiety causes and solutions
Youth interns participate in the following ways:
- Meetings and trainings
- Designing & facilitating a youth town hall with activities designed to hear what youth are experiencing and feeling
- Creative outputs to share with community leaders what the youth research interns learned from their peers
We are looking for teams of 3 Jefferson County high schoolers. Applications will close November 2nd, 2020 at midnight. Click this link to learn more.
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The Center on Brain Injury Research and Training (CBIRT)
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Parents Encouraging Parents
PEP Conferences are designed for Colorado parents and professionals of children with disabilities in public school, aged birth to 21. The registration link for the winter PEP Online Academy is now available on SurveyMonkey at the following link for parents and for professionals. Please click on a link to apply!
During the online PEP conference interpretation in Spanish will be available for confirmed participants. We do not provide Zoom training, but we will provide technical assistance during the conference for anyone who has issues with their computer.
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Here is an Article that parents and students may find helpful
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Virtual Future Center Appointments
Services provided through the Future Center include:
*Official Transcripts submitted to colleges or for scholarships
*Unofficial transcripts for student personal use
*Letters of recommendation request forms
Information/postings regarding: ACT or SAT testing;
- college financial aid; scholarship opportunities;
- college summer study opportunities;
- student leadership or volunteer opportunities;
- local employment opportunities
And More..."
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Are you or your student looking for employment?
The following is a resource to any parents/students that need employment services, opportunities and support.
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Click on the above poster to enlarge |
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Click on the above poster to enlarge and register for Town Hall |
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Highly Recommended Opportunity for Parent/Guardians! |
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It's never too late to register, for each session stands on its own. You can pop in and out of this series, and still get a lot of value. Also, all sessions are recorded on FB Live, so you can get caught up by joining our group, Coaching Your Kids.
To register, please email me your first and last name at the email below. The November dates and times are:
- Wednesday, November 11, 7-8pm, via Zoom
- Thursday, November 19, 8-8:30am, via FB Live
Please, watch this brief video about the workshop series:
Thank you, Cullum Walsh, PCC
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Student Support & Technology Update |
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Securly Home App
Jeffco is now providing families with the ability to monitor and control their student’s internet and app activity on district devices at home using the free SecurlyHome app. (Learn more about how to control behavior on your student's Jeffco device on the SecurlyHome App Custom Control page.)
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CHROMEBOOK & TECH TROUBLESHOOTING:
If your student is having tech issues, please try a couple of common troubleshooting tricks before calling the district's family/student IT department (303) 982-3438.
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Logins:
- Use a Chrome browser and make sure you re logged-in with your School Google account (not a personal account)
- Use the log-in "Sign in with Google" button whenever it is presented
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For other district applications (like www.Jeffco.Schoology.com), use your school ID only (not full email) and school password
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Restart: Shutdown your computer; wait 10 seconds before restarting
- Please restart Chromebooks and computers at least two or more times a week,
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Update: make sure your Chrome browser is updated
- Update the Operating System on a Chromebook
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History: Clear your cache/history to "All time"
- Clear Browsing Data & Chrome Cache
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Extensions: Clear out your extensions
- There are a lot of extensions and games students add that mess with features on your device. So, we need you to clear out anything that isn't school-used.
- Clearing Cache, Extensions and Apps on a Chrome Device
After doing that, if you are still experiencing wonky issues, then call the district's family/student IT line at (303) 982-3438. If it is determined that you need to send it in for repair (district/school devices only, not personal), then we will issue you a loaner device at GMHS. Let me Ms. Vezzetti know how it goes!
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Thousands of eBooks now available!
GMHS is now connected with the eBooks and audiobooks from Jefferson County Public Libraries (JCPL). These titles are blended into our GMHS online library catalog, Destiny Discover. Please see the attached slide-videos to learn how to login, search, and use reading tools all online from your Chromebooks!
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Yes, you can still checkout hard-copy physical books
If students like reading hard-copy physical books, they can still check them out through placing "holds". We'll pull them off the shelves and have them available for students to pick up at the circulation desk.
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Next Virtual Meeting:
Monday, November 9
@ 6:20 p.m.
Reach out to Lisa Lord, PTA President to receive the meeting link. ([email protected]).
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“A Sincere Thank You”
to those who donated to our PTA PPE Fundraiser :
GMHS Families
GMHS Boy’s Lacrosse
GMHS Football
GMHS Volleyball
GMHS Cheer
APEX Trucking
Blackjack Pizza
Also a shout-out to all the GMHS Parents and to Hello Coffee for your donations to our Staff Grab-n-Go Breakfast!
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PTA's role is vital now more than ever in connecting parents, teachers, and administrators, and supporting critical school needs. We want as many families to join PTA as possible, because we can do more together than apart!
Click here GMHS PTA to sign up for the 2020/2021 school year. Once you hit SUBMIT, you will be taken to a page with a "BUY NOW" button where you can pay your $20 membership dues.
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GMHS has ongoing fundraisers
that cost you nothing if you are already shopping at
Amazon, King Soopers or American Furniture!
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AMAZON SMILE - If you are an Amazon Shopper, you can login to Amazon Smile and pick a charity. A percentage of your purchases will go directly to that non-profit. GMHS has a few groups that you can pick from:
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Green Mountain High School Foundation (goes directly to classroom needs)
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Green Mountain High School PTA (For staff hospitality/teacher-of-the month/student scholarships)
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KING SOOPERS - If you shop at King Soopers, all you have to do is link your loyalty rewards card (or phone number) to a charity you want. I have included instructions on how to do this! Once it is set up, every time you shop at Kings, punch in your phone number or swipe your loyalty card, a percentage of your purchase will automatically be donated to your non-profit of choice. GMHS has several groups that you can choose from - here is how they are listed in the King Soopers Community Rewards program:
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GMHS Afterprom (This event keeps our students/community safe the evening of Prom)
- Green Mountain High School Band Boosters
- Green Mountain High School Cheer
- Green Mountain High School Choir
- Green Mountain High School FFA
- Green Mountain High School Football
- Green Mountain High School HOSA
- Green Mountain High School Theatre Boosters
- GMHS Girls Soccer Boosters
- GMHS Boys' Lacrosse Booster Club
- GMHS Girl's Lacrosse Boosters
- GMHS Volleyball Boosters
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AMERICAN FURNITURE - If you make a purchase mention our high school or Promo code SCHOOL, ID: GMHS95 at check-out!
Thank you for your support of RAMNATION!
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Communication with GMHS
- Main Office: 303-982-9500
Technology Questions:
Counselor Contact Information
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