Lassiter’s Liberator

Lassiter’s Liberator

Week beginning April 14, 2008

Greetings, friends of Southern Lee High School!

Here we are in mid-April! Seems like just yesterday that we were kicking off our 2007-08 school year, and I write to you this week as we kick off the FINAL grading period of the academic year! With this, I am pleased to announce that we will convene an Advisory session on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 for the purpose of distributing report cards to all of our students at 9:41 a.m.!

When we distribute report cards, the Homeroom Advisors will also chat with students about the significance of the final grading period as well as working with them to enhance communication and rapport with their teachers to foster continued positive working relationships as we end the year. Further, structured after-school extra help sessions will be available in the following subjects beginning Monday, April 28, 2008:

Advanced Math, Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Biology, Civics and Economics, Chemistry, Geometry, English 9, English 12, Physical Science, United States History and additional courses that, if deemed necessary for promotion or graduation, will be offered to place students in a favorable position to be promoted or be eligible for graduation.

This after-school program joins our Saturday Nova Net Academy as remedial/enrichment efforts to help to place our students in favorable positions. I have received social studies information, and will work with the assistant principals and department chairs to establish the tutorial program. Please advise students that we hope to begin the structured after school help on April 28, 2008-May 30, 2008 (dates could be extended and could even include some Saturdays pending availability of instructors and funding).

Last week was a rather routine one for us until Friday at 10:00 a.m. A student reported finding a note in the restroom along the 200 hall that claimed that there was a bomb in our building. I conferred with school and district administrative personnel, and after consulting with law enforcement personnel, the building was vacated and searched. No bomb was found, and all students were back in the building and on normal operating schedule at 11:30 a.m. We drafted a letter of advisement to all parents in English and Spanish that went home with students on Friday. If you did not receive your letter, and wish to speak with me, please do not hesitate to telephone, visit, or e-mail me.

Southern Lee has had some really outstanding accomplishments this year, athletically, academically, and professionally among its staff. I am pleased to announce that our 2008 Teacher of the Year has been selected in the person of Mr. Robert Scott, math teacher extraordinaire! Mr. Scott was selected as a Teacher of the Month, and was selected by his peers as our Teacher of the Year! We surprised Mr. Scott with balloons, a certificate, and a delicious cake in his classroom on March 28, 2008, and he moves on to district competition. Should he be named the 2008 Lee County Schools Teacher of the Year, he will be the recipient of a car (for one year free use) and move on to compete on the statewide level!

On a personal note, I have had a blast serving the children of Lee County with you since 2005. A new opportunity awaits with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, full of excitement and a degree of uncertainty. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Gary Jackson as your interim principal effective Monday, April 28, 2008 as the district helps to ease in a new permanent principal into our school, perhaps as early as June 1.

Cavalier Words of the Day!

I think y’all know that I’ve always viewed effective communication and an expansive, yet fluid vocabulary as essential ingredients for student, personal, and professional success. Here are this week’s words:

Monday: Lethargic

Tuesday: Inundate

Wednesday: Imbrue

Thursday: Gerrymander

Friday: Enumerate

Please challenge your student to define these words and use them in context! Again, knowledge and elocution is power!

Okay, that’s all for now! I will probably do another entry at the end of this week, summarizing the “goings-on” at Southern Lee! Until then, you know you’re welcome in the school for an impromptu visit. Just come by the main office, ask for me, and I’ll sign you in and get that visitor’s pass to you and we can walk and talk!

HDL

Lassiter’s Liberator!
Week of April 7, 2008

Well, well, well! Here we are on this beautiful second week of April, and guess what? This week, April 7-11, represents the beginning of the final grading period here at Southern Lee High School! We have had a pretty good year thus far along several fronts, those being academically, athletically, facilities-wise, and for innovation.

Here’s what I mean:

Academically, our students and staff really dedicated themselves toward improving our testing composites as measured by the North Carolina student accountability testing program. We have hovered around the 60% proficiency mark for the past three years, and we as a school set some instructional goals for ourselves prior to the 2007-08 school year to break this trend. At the end of the first semester, our EOC proficiency mark was 63.1% (unofficial), and our VOCAT proficiency mark was 70.1% (official).

The teachers, student body, and staff worked very hard during the first semester, and everyone is working hard to do well on the forthcoming exams coming up in June! With this, our staff will plan our after-school extra help sessions designed to ready our students for success. During our April 8, 2008 faculty and staff meeting, SLHS staff will discuss and hopefully approve an after-school extra help session schedule.

Athletically, Southern Lee has had (and is having) a banner year. Our fall and winter sports teams did very well, and our spring sports teams are very competitive. Our baseball team is in first place in the Cape Fear Valley Conference. Our softball team is in first place in the conference. Our men’s tennis team is in third place, and our women’s soccer team is tied for first place in the league. And not to be outdone, our two-time, back to back men’s golf team is in sole possession of first place in the league, and “on par” to win their third consecutive league championship!

Southern Lee is also in the midst of planning for a Ninth grade Academy, designed to help incoming freshmen make the transition from middle school to high school a little smoother. The academy concept, as designed and researched by SLHS staff, will feature the transformation of the 600 hall into the 9th grade center, with the four “core” courses offered there-Algebra 1, English 9, World History, and Earth/Environmental Science. Additionally, the freshmen will have their own lunch period, which allows them to be with their age and grade-appropriate peers while they become acclimated and accustomed to high school academics and routines.

We need your continued support, visits, and well-wishes as we embark upon this final leg of our journey that is the 2007-08 school year. We will contact you VERY SHORTLY about opportunities to serve as test proctors, volunteers, and motivators during the final weeks of our school year, as we will have 1, 182 students to test, prepare for promotion (or perhaps summer school), and graduation.

Until next time,

HDL

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”

HDL

Lassiter’s Liberator!
Week Beginning February 11, 2008

Hello, friends of Southern Lee High School! I am pleased to announce that the second semester of our academic year is moving along quite nicely and smoothly. It’s hard to believe that our year is moving so fast, as I was commenting to one of our assistant superintendents that we’ve officially entered what
I like to call “Banquet Season,” which usually signifies that the proverbial “end is near!” I will write a little about the Southern Lee High School Sound Machine’s annual banquet held on February 5, and some individual and team accomplishments a little later on!

Perhaps the biggest thing I would like for you to take away from this Liberator is for you to be ready to hold out your hand on Friday, February 15, 2008, as your student will bring home their first round of progress reports for the third grading period! We have a program at Southern Lee that requires us to periodically assess and frequently monitor the progress of our students. The frequent monitoring piece requires us to send home progress report every three weeks to you, and return these signed the teacher. These come out at week 3, week 6, and the periodic assessing piece kicks in at Week 9 with the Mid-Term Exams, which are cumulative in nature and cover everything that was taught from day 1 to day 45 (and they count for 2 test grades!).

The second big thing we would like for you to take from this edition of the Liberator is our plan to prepare our sophomores for the North Carolina Writing Test for Grade 10, scheduled for Tuesday, March 4, 2008. All year long, our school and its students have been engaging in what we entitled “Drop Everything and Write” or DEW activities. Each student had to participate, as we are striving to help our students improve their writing skills, as there is renewed emphasis on quality writing across the board. For example:

• Freshmen will have to perform a graduation project in order to graduate from a public high school in North Carolina. Part of this is an 8-10 page research paper on the topic of their choice.
• Sophomores will have to perform this graduation project, in addition to participating in the North Carolina Writing Test for Grade 10.
• Juniors will be introduced to the SAT and ACT, both of which have writing components to them.
• Seniors take the SAT/ACT, write college/university application essays, and have an English term paper as part of our Rigor and Relevance program. In addition, seniors who are matriculating to the 2-year college, technical college, the military, or the workforce MUST be accomplished writers in order to effectively communicate their skills to prospective employers, contacts, or customers. In fact, we are pleased to announce that we are hosting a Community College Fair on Wednesday, February 13 at 1:30! Please encourage your JUNIOR or SENIOR to REGISTER and attend!

With this in mind, Southern Lee will convene an Advisory (homeroom) on Wednesday, February 13 from 8:00-8:15 a.m. Sophomore students will receive a “Primer” for success on the North Carolina Writing Test while they are in homeroom, along with a letter and schedule of events from me. On February 20, we will have a sophomore class assembly in our gymnasium (time to be determined), where we will cover the important aspects of the writing test. Then, on February 27 or 28, we will have a motivational assembly celebrating the accomplishments of our students and to recognize the sophomores for a job well done. We believe that the power of life and death and success rests in the tongue, and if we flood our sophomores with positive reinforcement, we believe they will meet the challenge. Finally, on the morning on March 4, we have planned to feed the 10th graders breakfast prior to the writing test.

The third biggest thing I’d like to present to you is our continued desire to have a flourishing and successful Parent/Teacher/Student organization/association at Southern Lee. I have applied for our school to be a PTA-affiliated school, yet I am also open to the possibility of there being a PTO at our school. To this end, I will invite parents out to another PTA/PTSO Rally at a date to be determined in March.

Fourth, I am pleased to announce that Mr. Randall (Randy) Berkland, Computer Technology teacher, has been named Southern Lee High School Teacher of the Month for February 2008. Mr. Berkland joins Diane Premo, Julie Randolph, Jaci Watson, Wendy Bryan, and Robert Scott as previous winners. These teachers will very soon be eligible to be named Southern Lee High School Teacher of the Year, and move on to district, and hopefully regional and state competition!

Fifth, I am pleased to announce several accomplishments by Southern Lee High School students! Take a look:

At the Southern Lee High School Band Banquet held on February 5 at the Civic Center, the following students were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the band:

Ulises Luviano: Rookie of the Year
Lindsey Burriss: Sophomore of the Year
Jessica Glasson: Junior of the Year
Mary Stevens: Senior of the Year
Jordan Carter: Outstanding Leadership
R.J. Ceynar: Saber Award
J.W. Williams: Musicians Award
Katlynn Premo: Outstanding Marcher
Kimberly Marshburn: Most Dedicated
Jason Simmonds: Most Improved
Doris Clark: Directors Award

Also, on the athletic front, here’s what we are celebrating today:

• Southern Lee High School Men’s Swimming: Cape Fear Valley 3A Conference Champions and state meet participant.
• Southern Lee High School Wresting: Cape Fear Valley 3A Regular Season Conference Champions
• Southern Lee High School Men’s Basketball: Cape Fear Valley 3A Regular Season Conference Champions
• Southern Lee High School Indoor Track: Logan Shearer-2nd place among 1A-2A-3A pole vaulters. Addison Johnson, Nick Bracken, and Aaron Lassiter finished ranked in the top 20 in their respective events (pole vault, shot put, and 300 meter dash, respectively).
• Southern Lee High School Gymnastics: Participant in regional competition.

There are lots of good things happening at and for our school. We appreciate all of your kind words, thoughts, prayers, and visits for and to our school. It is an objective for us to have a top-flight school, and although we experience an occasional “Blip on the Screen,” we enjoy good days and exceptional teachable moments, and that’s what the stuff of a progressing school is made of!

As you check out our webpage, please be sure to visit our P.R.I.D.E. page, which chronicles the accomplishments of our graduating seniors. Mysteriously, some of our seniors have been shy about completing the P.R.I.D.E sheet and allowing us to put them on our P.R.I.D.E. Wall of Fame and P.R.I.D.E. page. Please, if you have a senior, encourage them to share their post-secondary plans for the whole world to see!

Well, that’s about it for this edition. As you know, the doors to our school are always open, and we’d love to host you for a tour and visit. Everything will be on display, and you will be able to walk into any classroom, locker room, restroom, or area of our grounds you wish. All you have to do is show up, ask for me or another administrator, and we’ll go!

Until then,

HDL

Lassiter’s Liberator!
Week beginning January 28, 2008

Good evening, visitors to www.southernleecavs.com! We have just begun our second semester of the 2007-2008 school year, and Wednesday, January 29, 2008 is THE BIG DAY! That’s right-student report cards from the first semester 2008 will be distributed to students during their second period class! When your student comes home from school, PLEASE hold out your hand and ask for your child’s report card that will, in good detail, summarize their performance in class along the following lines:
• First nine weeks academic average
• Second nine weeks academic average
• Final exam grade
• Final semester grade
• Any comments relative to academic performance, conduct, attendance, etc.
• At the top of the report card, you will see your student’s academic average and the number of credits they have earned.

If you have any questions or comments about the report card, a grade, a comment, absences, or just want to schedule a conference, please do not hesitate to telephone the school and we will schedule a conference involving you, your student(s), the teacher(s), and a student services representative.

The new semester started at Southern Lee on January 24, with 1,200 students and a few new faces on the faculty. We were pleased to welcome Ms. Christina McDermott to our faculty, who will teach Spanish Heritage Language and Spanish 1 this semester. We also welcomed Mrs. Bernice Hight and Mrs. Sandra Duty to our staff, as they joined our Exceptional Children’s department and will serve as inclusion teachers in math, English, and in any other academic area as deemed necessary. Prior to the semester break, we welcomed Mr. Vincent Hunt, math teacher, Mrs. Laura Newman, art teacher, and Mr. Peter Norman, math teacher. We are fully staffed, and we believe with the combination of focused and determined teachers, focused and determined students, focused and determined parents and guardians, a safe, caring, and orderly environment, and an environment that is conducive to effective teaching and learning, we can have a dynamic year!

This edition of the Lassiter’s Liberator Blog will ask for your continued support and for your support and involvement in yet another attempt and effort to shape and polish our PTA. I will go to the national PTA website (www.pta.org), get us registered, and do it! The school needs your support in the following areas:

1) Test proctors
2) Study buddies
3) Lunch buddies/lunchroom monitors
4) Classroom volunteers
5) Motivational speakers, using your life and professional experiences to inspire our students that achievement is within reach!

I also wish to spend a little time in this edition chatting about one of the fights we’re having at Southern Lee: Electronic device drama.

Under school rules and board of education policy, cell phones and electronic devices such as IPods and MP3 players are prohibited. We ask that students refrain from bringing these to school, as they constitute unnecessary objects unessential to the teaching and learning process. This is stated in our student handbook, yet students bring them anyway. When they are seen, the student is asked to put the object away or it is confiscated. If the item is confiscated, on the first offense, we will notify the parent and return the object at the end of the day. On the second offense, we notify the parent, and the principal returns the object at the end of the day with a warning. If there is a third offense, parents are notified, and the object is given only to the parent. If there is a fourth offense, more stringent disciplinary action is taken. I realize that this is the 21st century, and that parents have an interest in communicating with their children, but cell phone/electronic device use during the instructional day just isn’t part of the program.

Our school is also preparing for the North Carolina Writing Test for Grade 10. This evaluation of our sophomore’s writing skill will be on Tuesday, March 4, 2008, and we have been doing some Drop Everything and Write (DEW) activities each month to get our students ready. The desired outcome of the DEW activities was to give us an idea of where our students were in their reading comprehension and responsive writing skills, and then teach accordingly. We will see if our efforts to assist in the development of quality writing were successful in about 5 weeks.

All in all, I would say that we are having a pretty good year. We’ve had some blips on the screen and some bumps in the road regarding some long-term suspensions I have had to recommend for some who just could not (or would not) meet behavioral expectations. Be it for drugs, disruptive behavior, repeated violations of our student code of conduct, or a combination of these, we have to do what is right to maintain that safe, orderly, and caring environment we always talk about. We even applied for Super Safe School status from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction this year. Our application, we found out, was incomplete, as our committee did not view the back of a page that represented a section worth 20 points. Up to that point, our application had a score of 76, with a score of 90 constituting a Triple S school. We were disappointed that this cost us this recognition, but we know to look for the entire application next time.

Blips on the screen and bumps in the road. They happen frequently everywhere, and they’re frustrating. Addressing the issues, and overcoming the obstacles that confront us make up part of our goal to get where we want to be as a school. Working together, the blips and bumps can become less frequent and more time can be spent by all parties associated with our school on teaching, learning, supporting, and encouraging rather than chasing and disciplining.

Look for more information on how YOU can help!

Til next edition,

HDLassiter

Week beginning January 14, 2008

Yes, dear friends and readers, the Liberator is BACK! I took a little break from writing prior to Christmas to do some work of my own toward completion of my graduate degree, and now I will have a little extra time on my hands this semester, so I can get back to writing, working out, and hanging out after school to catch some of our extracurricular activities that we have going on at Southern Lee!

This is a rather big week for thousands of students in high schools across North Carolina-It’s EXAM WEEK!

Southern Lee High School students will begin their exams on Monday, January 14 with their non-EOC and non-VOCAT exams. Examples of classes that fall into this category are Health and Physical Education, World History, foreign language classes, Earth Science, and English for sophomores through seniors.

Beginning Tuesday, January 15, Southern Lee students who are enrolled in end-of-course and career and technical education classes will take their final exams, called EOC’s or VOCATS. The exam schedule is as follows:

Tuesday, January 15: First period exams beginning at 8:00 a.m. with dismissal from school at 12:15 p.m.

Wednesday, January 16: Second period exams beginning at 8:00 a.m. with dismissal from school at 12:15 p.m.

Thursday, January 17: Third period exams beginning at 8:00 a.m. with dismissal from school at 12:15 p.m.

Friday, January 18: Fourth period exams beginning at 8:00 a.m. with dismissal from school at 12:15 p.m.

It is our sincere desire to see your student perform well on their exams, so I would like to present a few things to you:

• Please be sure that your student has a very quiet environment in which he/she can review their notes/study guides for optimal preparation.
• Please be sure that your student allocates at least one hour per subject this week toward studying for their exam. Ask if you can quiz them using their study guide, and encourage them to take their exams very seriously and for them to do their absolute best, taking their time and selecting the most appropriate answer.
• Please be sure that your student gets ample rest on the night prior to their exam.
• Please insist that your student eats a hearty breakfast on the morning of their exam. Southern Lee High School will provide breakfast for its students who wish to eat in our Dining Hall each morning beginning at 7:30 a.m.

After the last exam is collected on Friday, January 18, it will signal the end of our first semester, and we will reconvene in school on Thursday, January 24 for our Spring Semester! For the first five (5) days of the semester, we will meet in advisory (homeroom) to cover logistics, ensure student schedules are accurate and in keeping with the students’ diploma pathways and/or requirements for graduation/promotion, and the provision of drop/add slips for those students who require schedule changes.

It’s going to be a great week, and as always, we will keep you current and up to date on what we’re doing each week through another installment of Lassiter’s Liberator found at www.southernleecavs.com!

HDL

Week beginning November 25, 2007

Hello, dear friends of education! I hope that all of you had an enjoyable and tasty Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends! It is truly amazing that our academic and calendar year is zipping by so quickly! As I was preparing our staff newsletter, I noted that we only have 19 more instructional days, and it will be time for our annual winter/holiday break! Before you know it, it will be time for semester exams, and the beginning of a new semester. With that, we’ll count down the days until spring break, prom, our annual May Day celebration, and then BAM-graduation 2008! As we always advise each other and our students: Slow down and enjoy the very best days of your life! The same goes for you, too!

Last week at Southern Lee was a good one, even though it was abbreviated. As I reported to you in the last edition, we had a very exciting and real Civics lesson in our school affecting our 9th graders. We experienced a tie for the office of freshman vice-president, and we felt like what better way to teach our students about the electoral process than to have an “issues forum” involving the candidates in front of the electorate, and then conduct the required and necessary run-off election. The students LOVED it, and were very receptive to the idea. In the end, Mr. Garrison Lutz was elected freshman class vice-president, and our 342 9th graders took away a very valuable lesson that will carry over well into their adult lives!

We also celebrated History Day at Southern Lee last week. History Day is an annual program sponsored by our Social Studies Department, and all students who are enrolled in World History (9th graders) and United States History (11th graders) were able to choose a figure in history, research about them, and “dress the part.” It was VERY REFRESHING to see the high level of participation AND to hear the students be able to go into considerable depth about their character of choice.

Southern Lee High School also hosted the North Carolina Department of Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler on Monday evening, November 19. Mr. Troxler visited with us in Mrs. Womack’s Agricultural Education classroom, and then took a tour of our Greenhouse. Members of the Southern Lee and Lee County High School FFA were on hand, and the students were outstanding hosts and asked some very good questions.

We are very pleased to announce that we have added two new Cavaliers to our faculty! Mr. Vincent Hunt will join our teaching family as a math teacher! Mr. Hunt joins us from Durham, North Carolina, and he will teach Geometry, Algebra, and Technical Math. We will also welcome Mrs. Laura Newman to our faculty, as she will join the Arts Education department. Mrs. Newman is currently teaching in the Moore County Schools, and will join our faculty in mid-December. We are still on the recruiting trail for one more math teacher and two special education teachers, so if YOU know someone, PLEASE have them to contact me and I can point them in the right direction!

Let’s go back a couple of weeks. As you may recall, November 13-16 was American Education Week, and we had all sorts of celebrations and observations at Southern Lee. Among the things that we did was our monthly (and required) school-wide writing activity called Drop Everything and Write activity, or “DEW” date. The purpose of these “DEW” dates is to help our students to become outstanding writers, as all students in grades 9-12 are accountable for quality writing during their high school career:

Freshmen will be required to write term papers in their English classes and will have to write a research paper in partial fulfillment of their Graduation Project they must complete in order to graduate from the Public Schools of North Carolina.
Sophomores, in addition to the aforementioned requirement applicable to freshmen, must take and score a level 3 or higher on the North Carolina Writing Test for Grade 10 that is administered the first Tuesday in March.
Juniors must write a term paper for their English 11 class, as well as complete any additional writing assignments for their other classes. On top of that, the “new” SAT has a writing component on it that colleges/universities use to assess the prospective student’s communication and higher-order thinking skills.
Seniors must write college admission essays, fill out applications to the college/university/school of their choice, and must be able to communicate effectively in writing on job applications.

We at Southern Lee believe that it is OUR job and responsibility to help our students to enhance and sharpen their writing skills, and their participation in the monthly “DEW” activity is a step in that direction.

The November “DEW” activity was to write a letter of thanks to an educator who has had a significant and positive impact on the student’s life thus far in their academic career. This exercise was well-received by our students, and we promised them that if they wished, the letter they wrote would make its way to its intended recipient. To date, we have sent over 200 letters to teachers in and out of North Carolina!

Well, enough about the past at Southern Lee. Let’s swing to the upcoming week!

Academic progress reports were distributed to students on November 19-20, and some may come home this week to give you and your student an idea of where they stand academically and what can be done to solidify their performance and standing in class. We have been running our after-school tutorial sessions, and I am meeting with department chairs this week to discuss rescheduling our after-school tutorials to feature certain classes/subjects meeting on set days of the week. Further, we will kick up the intensity a notch as we approach final exams (January 14-18), and we will offer after-school tutorials/exam review sessions beginning January 3, 2008.

On the athletic front, our winter sports season is underway, with our wrestling team hosting and doing quite well in our inaugural and annual Cavalier Wrestling Classic. Our basketball teams will be in action this week, with the JV Cavaliers hosting the Garner High School Trojans on Tuesday at 4:00 at Southern Lee. The varsity Cavaliers will be at Garner High School on Tuesday, and will make their home debut on Friday, November 30, as they host the Lee County High School Yellow Jackets.

We are also VERY proud to announce that our gymnastics, swimming, and indoor track teams (yes, indoor track!) will begin competition very soon. As always, check www.southernleecavs.com for schedules, announcements, and results!

Well, a certain Southern Lee student is looking over my shoulder telling me that I’ve written too much for one person to read at one sitting, so I’ll stop here! As always, however, YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME AT SOUTHERN LEE TO VISIT WITH US! Simply come into the main office and ask for me or one of the administrators. We will sign you in as a visitor, supply you with a guest pass, and we can walk the halls, sit in the lunches, observe some classes, and check out the building and grounds together!

You know, Friday, November 30 would be a GREAT DAY for you to come! That’s the day we’re having our second annual “Slam-O-Rama” student vs. faculty volleyball game and pep rally at 2 p.m.

Hope to see YOU!

Week beginning November 18, 2007

Good Sunday evening, Southern Lee High School cyber-visitors! I am pleased to return to blogging after a one-week hiatus caused by a nasty flu bug that put me on my backside for a little over 1 week. All is well now, and it’s back to the Liberator Blog for us all!

It has been a pretty good week for us at Southern Lee, as we were able to recommend 1 art teacher and 1 math teacher for approval to our board of education. We are hopeful that our new teachers can begin in early-December, and spend 1 month serving our students before the semester ends. We are still searching for 1 additional math teacher and 2 special education teachers, so if you know someone with a math or special education background, send them our way!

We also celebrated and observed American Education Week last week, and as you may have noted in the Sanford Herald, the students and staff really got into some of the activities. On Wednesday, November 14, we had Deborah Bolden, Jennifer Nance, Shakeila Strickland, and Arthur Wilson, II serve as “Principals for a Day.” They had the unique opportunity to see the school from the adult/administrative side, and I must say that they did an outstanding job in helping to keep the school running smoothly.

On Thursday, November 15, we hosted about 130 parents in our school for our third-annual National Parental Involvement Day, and we inducted 22 new members into the Southern Lee High School Chapter of the National Honor Society.

Our final activity was our monthly “DEW” activity that was an open letter of thanks to an educator. “DEW” stands for Drop Everything and Write, and it is a school-wide activity. It was very cool to see 1,159 students engaged in writing letters to that certain educator that they wanted to thank for helping them to get to where they are today. I have promised our students that I would ensure that their letters made it to their special teacher if they so desired.

This week is an abbreviated week, given the start of the holiday is Wednesday, November 21. We do have some activities at school I need for you to be aware of, however:

Progress reports will be distributed to all students on Monday, November 19 and Tuesday, November 20, 2007.
Mr. Chris Wieczorek, Herff-Jones Representative, will be here at Southern Lee on Monday, November 19 and Tuesday, November 20 taking orders from our Juniors for their class rings. Mr. Wieczorek and his staff will also host a Parent Information Night from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in our Dining Hall to help parents and students navigate through the ordering and purchase process.
The Freshman Class will have a special assembly during second period on Monday, November 19 to have a “Discussion of the Issues” between vice-presidential candidates Garrison Lutz and Carmen McIver. The two candidates finished tied in the popular vote, making a run-off election necessary. The candidates will present a short speech to their peers, and the freshmen will convene in homeroom on Tuesday, November 20 and cast their vote to determine who the best candidate is based upon their position on the issues.
After-school tutorials have started at Southern Lee High School, and these tutorials are designed to assist students who are at-risk of academic failure. I have asked our teachers to recommend students for tutorials, and to notify students and their parents either through telephone calls, comments on the progress reports, or a combination of the two. The tutorials run from 3:15-4:30, and are available for a host of classes.

On behalf of the Southern Lee High School family, I wish to extend to each of you a very joyous Thanksgiving holiday, and I am looking forward to chatting with you once again in the next edition of the Lassiter’s Liberator Blog! As always, YOU ARE WELCOME IN OUR SCHOOL, and it doesn’t take a special event like National Parental Involvement Day for you to come. Just come on in, check in at the Main Office by signing in as a visitor. Let them know I invited you, and I’ll come from wherever I am, get a visitor’s pass to you, and we can walk the halls, visit classrooms, and do and see everything your students do and see and experience.

Just come on to 2301 Tramway Road and consider yourselves at home!

HDL

Week beginning November 5, 2007

Welcome to Southern Lee’s cyber hot-spot! After a one-week hiatus, the Liberator Blog returns with a few hot topics for conversation, thought, and hopefully, ACTION. We ushered in the month with a new character education trait, which is: INTEGRITY. All this month, we will highlight what integrity means through thought and action in our character education initiatives.

First, the nine-week grading period ended on October 26, 2007 and the first cycle of report cards will be issued to students on Tuesday, November 6, 2007. We have been speaking with our students about doing their absolute best on all of their academic assignments and evaluations, and I am encouraged by the few names I have received of students who were not successful in passing all four of their classes during the first grading period. When your student brings their report card home, attached to it will be a letter from me that will discuss our after-school tutorial opportunities, and inviting you to come to Southern Lee High School on Thursday, November 15, 2007 for our third annual Parental Involvement-Visitation Day from 8:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m. We will need YOUR CONTINUED support in ALL of our endeavors to help make us successful in everything that we do here at Southern Lee.

In line with the after-school tutorials, here are the subjects that will be offered for after-school tutorials (the schedule will be set by the instructor/tutor, and these tutorial services are at no charge to the student):

Algebra 1: Diane Premo and Zoretta French
Algebra 2: Michael Friedman and Robert Scott
Advanced Mathematics: Michael Friedman and Robert Scott
Geometry: Charity Brewer
Technical Math: Charity Brewer
Biology: Donna Ansted
Chemistry: Julie Randolph
Physical Science: Cindy Tuttle
English 9: Chris Dossenbach
English 10: Chris Dossenbach
United States History: Bill Bivans and Trisha Furrie
Civics and Economics: Chris Denison and Crystal Jastzabski
Spanish-TBD
French-Donna Rogers
Exceptional Children: Mary Frist
English as Second Language: Deborah Wilkes-Santana

The target beginning date of our tutorial program will be Tuesday, November 13, 2007, and the program will end on Friday, January 11, 2008. It is our belief that if students who are not performing up to expectation, or who require supplemental instructional services, stay after school and participate in these FREE sessions WITH TRANSPORTATION PROVIDED, it’s no telling how successful they can be!

Second, I need four teachers! We began the school year 2 teachers short in our Exceptional Children’s department, and since the beginning of the year, we have lost two math teachers. We have searched high and low in North Carolina, across the southeastern United States, and even stretched our search into the Midwest. Our needs have been posted on internet sites, and through word of mouth. I am asking if YOU know of a licensed math teacher and licensed special educators who would love to work in Orange and Blue Country, please turn them on to me!

Third, we have applied for a couple of distinctions based upon some plans that we have put into place at Southern Lee AND some innovations that were once ideas but that are now practices. The deadlines for these distinctions have passed, and we are awaiting notification regarding our applications. I will let you know how our school is regarded when I receive notification.

Fourth, our student-athletes and coaches are doing some really good things. Take a look at this:

Women’s Golf Team: Finished 7th in the state 1A/2A/3A Golf tournament recently. Mrs. Tammy Batten is the head coach of these ladies.
Men’s Soccer Team: Claimed 2nd place in the Cape Fear Valley 3A Conference, and advanced to the second round of the state 3A soccer playoffs. Mr. Jason Burman is the head coach of these young men.
Cross Country: Keely Wood finished 66th in the state of North Carolina among 3A competitors. Mrs. Trisha Furrie is the cross country head coach.
Football: Finished the regular season 6-5, and will enter the first round of the state 3A playoffs vs. South Johnston on Friday night, November 9. Mr. Bryan Lee is the head football coach.

We are very excited about how well our students performed in their athletic and extra-curricular endeavors thus far this year, and we are expecting big things from our winter and spring sports programs, too!

Finally, I just want to say THANK YOU.

Have a good week!

Week beginning October 22, 2007

Hello, everybody out there in cyberspace! I am so happy that you took time out of your busy schedule to visit us this week to check out the latest installment of the Liberator Blog on www.southernleecavs.com!

This week (October 22-26) marks the FINAL week of instruction for the first grading period of the 2007-08 school year! It seems like only yesterday we were welcoming 1,200 students for the first day of school, and here we are now at the MID-POINT of our semester!

This week’s blog entry has a “serious” tone to it, as we are FOCUSED on preparing our students for success on the mid-term exams that begin on Thursday, October 25 (1st and 2nd period), and conclude on Friday, October 26 (3rd and 4th period). As stated in previous entries, and as written in the letter sent home to you by your student, these mid-terms count for TWO (2) TEST GRADES, and we beseeched and implored our students to take these exams very seriously! The exams are cumulative in nature, as they cover everything introduced between August 27 and October 24, and are in 100% alignment with the objectives and competencies in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. They will be administered under EOC/VOCAT settings, with multiple choice, short answer, and in some instances, essay questions on the test.

Just as you have done for the duration of your child’s educational career, please help them to focus and prepare for success by:

• Insisting that they invest at least one hour per evening on reviewing notes, prior quizzes and tests, and review exercises.
• Insist that they get at least 8 hours of sleep per evening so their body and mind will be rested for the tasks at hand the next day.
• Insist that they enjoy a nutritious and sustaining breakfast either at home or in our dining hall so that they will have enough carbohydrate energy to sustain them throughout the day and their academic activities.

The grading period will officially end after school on Friday, October 26, and after a scheduled teacher workday on Monday, October 29, our students will return to school on Tuesday, October 30 and begin the second (and final) nine week grading period of the first semester!

In other academic news:

Southern Lee High School instructional personnel met on Monday, October 22, 2007 in their Professional Learning Community to discover how to encourage and recognize better writing skills from their students. As you know, one of our instructional goals here is for our sophomores to perform at or above state average (50%) on the North Carolina Writing Assessment for Grade 10, which will be administered in March 2008. Mrs. Wendy Bryan, English instructor, and her colleagues from the English department, facilitated an hour-long workshop on the grading rubric used to grade student essays and on how to recognize quality writing. Beginning Friday, October 26, ALL Southern Lee High School students will participate in a Drop Everything and Write, or DEW, exercise! Here’s why:

12th graders have SAT essays to write as well as college application essays to complete and Senior term papers to write. For those who are entering the workforce upon graduation, there are applications to complete and statements of purpose to write so the company will find them to be an attractive candidate (Resume’s).

11th graders have SAT’s to take, as well as writing the major research paper for their English 11 class!

10th graders have to take the North Carolina Writing Test for Grade 10 AND prepare to write their MAJOR research paper as a component of their GRADUATION PROJECT they must complete in order to graduate!

9th graders are preparing for what they’ll have to do as sophomores, AND be prepared for the GRADUATION PROJECT!

See how important clear and effective writing is? Please support us in our “DEW Date” activities!

Things are going well for us this year because of your kind words, thoughts, and gestures of interest and sincerity. I encourage you to visit with us during the instructional day and walk the halls with us. Please be sure to mark your calendar for November 12-16, which is American Education Week. Don’t forget, your student could mess around and find himself/herself “PRINCIPAL FOR A DAY!”

Until next time,

HDLassiter