Lassiter’s Liberator

The Lassiter’s Liberator!

Week ending March 7, 2008

Greetings friends of Southern Lee High School! Once again, I find myself apologizing for a delay in writing to you through the “Lassiter’s Litany” blog page on www.southernleecavs.com. The culprit? Something called a DISSERTATION! The process of researching, interviewing, reading, and writing is a little more difficult than I imagined, but ONE DAY SOON, it will ALL BE OVER!

It’s been an eventful time on Tramway Road since I last updated the Litany. Let’s see:

On the ACADEMIC FRONT:

Our school was one of over 2,000 schools in North Carolina that administered the North Carolina Writing Test on Tuesday, March 4. As you may know, the writing test is given to students in grades 4, 7, and 10, and is a prompt/response writing exercise that evaluates the student’s style, grammar, and vocabulary. Our school has been faced with, in my opinion, less than satisfactory results on previous years writing tests, and one of the biggest instructional goals we set for this school year was the posting of at least state average (which is 50%) for our grade 10 students on the writing test.

At the beginning of the year, our faculty decided to place more emphasis on writing in all classes, and extending the importance and emphasis on writing to all grade levels, and not just for the sophomores. The rationale was really simple, as each grade level is responsible for producing quality writing in some aspect of their academic pursuits. For example, freshmen and sophomores are subject to the Graduation Project, a multi-faceted project that features a portfolio, a 12-15 page research paper, a work product, and a oral/visual presentation that proves mastery of their specific topic. Current juniors and seniors are taking the SAT and/or the ACT, which are required by most American colleges and universities for admission, and our college-bound seniors are in the midst of writing their college application essays, and the quality of these essays is what will set our graduating seniors apart from their counterparts for those select few admissions slots.

The staff and student body went to work, and we embarked upon a monthly writing campaign called Drop Everything and Write or “DEW.” At first, most of the students disliked the “DEW” assignments, and thought they were, as our teenagers deem something they don’t like, “Lame,” but after some adjustments, we began to write prompts that were of interest and concern to teens such as open letters to their favorite teacher, why schools have to tolerate repeat behavioral offenders and what could be done to make things better, why unlimited and unmonitored internet privileges aren’t available at school, and what are the factors that make so many students cheat to get ahead in school.

By the time March arrived, our sophomores were looking forward to the writing test! Our School Leadership and Improvement Team met, and along with school administration, developed a plan to further motivate our students with some incentives:

On the morning of the writing test, sophomore students would be treated to a free, hot breakfast in our Auxiliary Gym. Rationale: Not every child has access to a good, hot meal in the morning, and this was our way of providing this for every child so that they would have the proper carbohydrate energy to sustain themselves not only during the test for optimum concentration, but throughout the entire day.
We held a sophomore assembly in our Main Gym, where we discussed what the writing test meant not only for them as students, but for our school in terms of the image of our instructional effectiveness. There were lots of great questions asked, ranging from “What will happen if we don’t make a level 3 or 4?” to “If we don’t pass it, will we still be promoted to grade 11?”
We are offering extra credit points to students who earn the level 3 or 4 on the writing test. If a student earns a level 3, he/she may apply 1 extra point to the final semester average of any second semester class they wish. If they earn a level 4, they may apply 2 points.
We are also sponsoring a Sophomore Achievement Block Party for those students who earned a level 3 or 4 in early-June, complete with a “DJ” and a cook-out. This block party will be held in Cavalier Stadium, and will definitely be a celebration!

I am pleased to say that when March 4 came, we tested 96% of students who were identified as 10th graders, and they were a focused bunch! I walked the halls and surveyed the landscape and saw our students working diligently on the prompt. When the session was over, we were delighted to hear all of the positive vibes coming from the kids-“Man, that prompt was EASY!” to “Those corny DEW assignments paid off, ‘cause I was ready to write about that!”

All that is left is to wait. The tests will be read, re-read, and scored. We should have the results back in late-May, and at that time, we will evaluate and report back to you if our instructional initiatives were successful.

We were also very pleased with our annual “Mock United Nations (UN)” event held on Friday, February 29 in our Auxiliary Gym. Mrs. Trisha Furrie, Social Studies Department Chair and her students and colleagues within the department, did an excellent job of transforming our school into a multinational committee dedicated to world peace, economic efficiency, and lower gas prices!

Our Science Department has been, as the kids would say, “THE BOMB” with their work lately. Our Biology, Chemistry, Physical Science, and Physics end-of-course (EOC) scores were all above state average, as were scores in English 9 and Algebra 1. In addition, our Civics and Economics scores were higher than recent SLHS average!

We also have recognized Donna Ansted, National Board Certified Biology teacher, as our March 2008 Southern Lee High School Teacher of the Month. Mrs. Ansted will join Julie Randolph (Science), Wendy Bryan (English), Jaci Watson (Health Occupations), Randy Berkland (Computer Engineering Technology), Diane Premo (Algebra), and Robert Scott (Calculus, Statistics, Algebra 2) as candidates for our third Teacher of the Year recipient!

I am so excited about what the rest of our semester has to offer! Progress reports will come home on March 13 and 14, and Spring Break will begin on March 14 when your student comes home! After Spring Break, we will have our mid-term exams, which are benchmark assessments that determine the level of mastery of material by our students. The exams are written by teachers after they have worked together to ensure that they measure what has been taught, and what is prescribed as essential under the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. We firmly believe that as our students continue to focus, our teachers continue to be creative and deliver good instruction, you as parents and friends of Southern Lee send us your students and help them with their assignments when they come home, and I as principal continue to monitor performance and progress of our staff and students, we may have some real reason to celebrate in June!

On the ATHLETIC FRONT:

Winter sports season is over, and spring sports season is in (literal) full swing! Our winter sports programs had A LOT to be proud of:

Men’s basketball: Regular season and conference tournament champions and sectional finalist. Overall record of 26-4, with 2 losses to nationally ranked Greensboro Dudley.
Women’s basketball: After a 0-8 start, the Lady Cavaliers finished 11-15, and earned their second consecutive trip to the state 3A playoffs.
Swimming: Enjoyed their largest participant turnout EVER, with 31 swimmers on the men’s and women’s teams combined. The men’s team won the Cape Fear Valley Conference championship, and several swimmers advanced to state competition.
Indoor Track: In its inaugural season, 4 Cavaliers advanced to the 1A/2A/3A Indoor Championships at UNC-Chapel Hill, with Logan Shearer finishing second in the state in the pole vault and earning All-State honors, and Addison Johnson, Nick Bracken, and Aaron Lassiter competing in the pole vault, shot put, and 300 meter dash, and finishing in the top 20 in the entire state of North Carolina in their respective events!
Wrestling: Won the Cape Fear Valley Conference regular season championship, and sent all 14 starters to the regional wrestling tournament. Of the 14, Miguel Aguirre, Chris Rubinosky, Kenneth Lindsay, and Mike Williams earned a trip to Winston-Salem to compete for a state title. Kenneth Lindsay, in his FIRST YEAR of wrestling, finished fourth in the state to earn All-State honors, and Mike Williams finished second at 152 pounds, falling short of earning another state title in two weight classes! He too was All-State!
Dance Team: Yes, Southern Lee unveiled a dance team under the direction of Shelby McConnell, and they performed very well during halftime of our varsity women’s and men’s basketball games. We are looking forward to auditions this spring for the 2008-09 version of “Glitz and Glamour.”
Athletic Signings: Two Southern Lee football players, wide receiver Aaron Mellette and quarterback Donte Alston, signed athletic scholarships to play college football during the signing period in February! Aaron will don an Elon University Phoenix uniform and catch passes from their All-American quarterback, while Donte will don a North Carolina Central University Eagle uniform and throw passes to a bevy of talented and speedy receivers at the Durham, NC campus! In addition, Samantha Palme will attend Guilford College in Greensboro, NC and will play soccer for the Quakers! These 3 seniors will join class of 2007 Cavaliers Waymon McLean (football at NC Wesleyan) and Juanita Lara (soccer at Greensboro College) as “Cavs Balling in College!”

It’s spring sports season now, and for schedules and rosters of those teams, please visit our website and click under “Athletics” for that information! Here are the sports for you to check out between now and mid-May:

Varsity and JV baseball (varsity baseball is coming off of a state playoff appearance in 07!)
Varsity and JV softball (varsity softball is coming off of a state playoff appearance in 07!)
Varsity and JV girls’ soccer (varsity girls soccer is coming off of a state playoff appearance in 07!)
Men’s and Women’s Track & Field (we have several athletes with state meet potential!)
Men’s Golf (2006 AND 2007 Cape Fear Conference Champions!)
Men’s Tennis (coming off an impressive 2007 campaign!)

Well, that’s about it for now! I am looking forward to doing another installment relatively soon! I have an element of my dissertation due to my committee chair on Friday, March 14, so I will be focused on that, but I will steal a few minutes to say hello over the weekend!

In the meantime, mark Thursday, April 17 on your calendar. This will be our Spring Parent/Community Visitation Day! More on that and other topics in the next and subsequent editions of “The Lassiter’s Litany”

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