Greetings,
The new year is here and the beginning of a new semester is right around the corner! With two weeks left before finals, this is an excellent time to refocus and set goals with our students. Goals could include overall academic achievement, academic achievement in specific classes, and completion of make up work within specific timelines. The process of discussing and setting goals may help your student transition back to school coming off of break and feel like they have a game plan leading up to the end of the semester.
On December 4th we held our Future 9th Grade Night. Current 8th graders and families learned about our course offerings and graduation requirements prior to beginning the course selection process for the 2024-25 school year. Last year, our School Counselors were able to meet with each individual student in grades 10 and 11 as a key step in the course selection process. Counselors will hold these meetings again this year prior to and after finals. These individual meetings are pre-scheduled and students have been notified of their time slots via email. Each meeting lasts 15 minutes and allows counselors to meet face to face with each of their students in grades 10 and 11. Students have a chance to discuss and receive guidance on course selection and post secondary planning.
For our current 9th graders, counselors will meet with all English 9 classes. Students will have the opportunity to ask questions about courses, sequences and receive guidance from a School Counselor in their classrooms.
Please take advantage of the opportunity to discuss the options with your student as well as their rationale for selections.
Along with setting goals for finishing the first semester, the beginning of a new semester presents a great opportunity to revisit expectations and review helpful information. As a school, we will be reviewing information we originally shared with students on September 5th in this slidedeck. Our points of emphasis will include our Academic Honesty policy and the need to use a school issued Chromebook as opposed to one’s own device. Using one’s own device circumvents our Go Guardian filter and monitoring system and presents other complications. Please take time to review the information we shared at the start of the year and determine if there are points of emphasis you would like to discuss with your student.
In addition, as we approach the new semester I am resharing our MGHS Grading Practices Guide as well as our MGHS Calendar of Events to help keep you informed and organized.
I hope you are off to a great start to 2024! I look forward to seeing you at events and continuing our partnership in the new year.
Sincerely,
Mitch McGrath
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