Upcoming Events

As I look at the calendar, I can't believe that the end of the semester is right around the corner. But, since we are almost at the end of the semester, I wanted to post about a few upcoming events at LCHS.

First, we will begin our SOL testing on Tuesday, December 11th. If your child is taking an SOL test this week, please make sure that they get a good night's rest before the test. Our students and teachers have been working hard this semester to prepare for these tests and I know that everyone will do well.

Secondly, I wanted to let everyone know that the last day for ROAR Block for this semester will be on Friday, December 14th. Starting on Monday, December 17th, students will be expected to report to school at 8:07. Also, we will be having non-SOL final exams on December 19th and 20th.

Finally, we will be holding our second semester Open House on Thursday, January 3rd from 3:00 pm until 7:00 pm. This will be a great time to meet with your child's second semester teachers. We hope to see everyone there.

Also, the winter sports season is in full swing. Please come out to support all of our athletic teams. Your support is invaluable and our student-athletes appreciate all that you do for them.

I hope that everyone has a fun, relaxing, and safe Winter Break. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at 540-894-5436. I can also be reached through email at smithte@lcps.k12.va.us.

Olweus Anti-Bullying Program

Bullying has become a major topic in education over the last few years. The definition of bullying, as given by the website http://www.violencepreventionworks.org/public/bullying.page, is:

            "Bullying is aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an

            imbalance of power. Most often, it is repeated over time."

Bullying, whether it is physical, verbal, or cyber bullying, has no place at LCHS. We have been working to not only educate students about bullying, but to also ensure that these behaviors do not occur at our school. We will maintain a safe and positive learning environment for all of our students.

One of the programs that we are using to continue to ensure a safe and positive learning environment is the Olweus Anti-Bullying Program. This program is designed to educate everyone in the school community -students, teachers, staff members, and parents - about what bullying is and what can be done to prevent bullying. In addition to faculty and staff training, a major component of the Olweus Program are class meetings. During these class meetings, teachers and students talk about various topics including what constitutes bullying, why some people bully others, and what can be done to prevent bullying. One idea behind the Olweus Program is that open and honest communication can help reduce bullying in a school.

LCHS will begin holding our Olweus class meetings during the second semester. Our plan is to make Thursdays "Activity/Class Meeting Days". Starting when ROAR Block does next semester, we will have Activity Days on the first and third Thursdays of the month and Olweus Class Meetings on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month. On Thursdays, all students will be expected to report to school by 8:07. The class meetings and club meetings will take place during the last 30 minutes of 1st period.

As always, thank you for your support of LCHS.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. I can be reached smithte@lcps.k12.va.us or at 540-894-5436.

 

FALL IS HERE!

The weather is staring to get a bit chillier and tomorrow is the first day of October.  Fall is certainly here.

And, speaking of October, I wanted to let you know about a few events we have coming up this month:

The week of October 1st - October 5th is Homecoming Week at LCHS.  As always, this week will see our students competing in our Spirit Days contest.  On Friday, we will have the Homecoming Parade and the Homecoming game against Fluvanna.  And, of course, we will have the Homecoming Dance on Saturday, October 6th from 7 pm - 10 pm.

On October 9th, Toney Lineberry will be coming to LCHS to speak to our juniors and seniors about driving and highway safety.  Mr. Lineberry is an excellent speaker and his conversation with our students will certainly motivate them to be safer drivers.

On October 12th the U.S. Government classes and the LCHS Library will be hosting our annual "So, Now You're 18 Day".  This event allows our seniors to meet with government officials, hear from candidates for office, register to vote, and participate in a mock election.

Report cards will be going  home on October 19th and LCHS will be holding Parent Teacher Conferences on October 24th from 3:30 pm - 7:00 pm.  We hope to see everyone on the 24th.

As always, thank you for your support of LCHS.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at 540-894-5436.

Upcoming Events

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend.  I wanted to remind everyone about a few upcoming events at LCHS:

1.  We will have school pictures for students in grades 9 - 11 on September 5th.  An order form was sent home last week, but if you need another, please contact the main office.

2.  Senior make-up pictures will be held on September 6th.  If your senior did not get his/her portrait taken in June, please make sure that he/she stops by the main office to sign up for a time to have his/her picture taken on September 6th.

3.  Our College Planning Night will be held on September 6th at 6:30 pm in the LCHS cafeteria.  The LCHS counseling staff will be on hand to provide information and answer any questions you might have about the college application process.

As always, if you have any questions about these, or any other events, please feel free to contact us at 540-894-5436.

Open House

I wanted to take a few minutes to thank everyone who came out for the Open House on Friday.  We had quite the crowd.  It was great to see so many smiling, happy faces!  The start of school is only a few short days away.

Summer!

I hope that everyone is having a relaxing, fun-filled summer.  As I sit to write this, we are just over a month away from the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year.  It is amazing how time seems to fly.

As is usual over the summer, things have been busy at LCHS.  Custodians, secretaries, teachers, and administrators have been hard at work getting LCHS ready for the new school year.  Our summer remediation program went very well and many of our student-athletes have been at school getting ready for their upcoming season.  School may not be in session, but there always seems to be something going on at LCHS.

We will be sending out a newsletter shortly with information about the beginning of school.  Please be sure to take a few minutes to read through this when it arrives.  Also, be sure to put August 10th on your calendar.  We will be having our Open House on that day from 3:30 pm - 7:00 pm.  I hope to see everyone there.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.  I can be reached by email at smithte@lcps.k12.va.us or at 540-894-5436.  Enjoy the rest of your summer!           

A Busy Time At LCHS

First, I need to apologize for not having made a blog entry in a while.  As you know, things at LCHS have been busy and time just got away from me.  I promise I will get back on track with my monthly entries.

I find it hard to believe that we are already in May and less than a month from graduation.  We are entering the final stretch of what has been a unique school year.  We have SOLs and exams coming up, as well as all of our typical end of the year activities.  May and June will certainly be busy months.  Please check out the calendar on our website for the dates and times of the events we have planned.

Speaking of graduation, we do have two plans in place depending on the weather.  If the forecast is for sunny weather, the ceremony will be held at the LCHS stadium at 10:00 am on Saturday, June 9^th.  If the forecast calls for rain, we will have the ceremony at the Siegel Center in Richmond at 1:00 pm on Saturday, June 9^th.  Letters were sent home with seniors that provided the details for each of the venues.  The final decision will be made by 9:00 am on Friday, June 8^th.  I know that our seniors (and their parents) are excited about graduation and we want this important ceremony to be special and memorable.

As we near the end of this school year, we will continue to demonstrate the hard work, dedication, and commitment to excellence that makes us LCHS.  Our mission is to finish the school year with the strength that saw us through all of the challenges of the year.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.  I can be reached at 540-894-5436 or at smithte@lcps.k12.va.us. 

A NEW HOME

The last month has been a busy one.  After finishing up the semester in January and then moving all of our items from LCMS to the new modular high school, we have spent the last few weeks settling in to our new home.  (Our move into the modular high school even made it into the USA Today.)  While we have had to address some minor issues associated with our new home, I think that the transition has gone very smoothly.  The fact that it went so well can be attributed to the planning and hard work of everyone in the LCHS community.  Once again, teachers, students, administrators, and parents came together to help, offer advice, and to do what needed to be done.   

We also got some great news late last week.  As you may have heard, FEMA came through with a grant to rebuild LCHS.  The FEMA money, combined with funds from the insurance company, as well as funding from the state and local levels, will allow us to begin the process of getting back to normal.  We still have a few years in the modular high school, but this is the first step in the rebuilding process.

Speaking of normal, even through all of this, things at LCHS are going on as they always have.  Our teachers and students are working hard in their classrooms each and every day.  Our winter sports teams faced a variety of challenges this year, but competed well over the course of the season.  And, our students continue to participate in a variety of extracurricular activities.  Even though we've seen a lot of changes, the outstanding dedication shown by the LCHS community has stayed the same.  That's what makes us LCHS.

Thank you for visiting my blog.  If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me.  I can be reached at 540-894-5436 or at smithte@lcps.k12.va.us.

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!!!!  I hope that everyone had a great holiday and that 2012 is a great year for you!

I wanted to update you on the progress of the pods.  As you have probably seen, all of the pods have been set and they are working diligently to finish the trim work, hook up electricity and plumbing, and get them ready for our February 1st start date.  So far, everything seems to be on track.  I just hope Mother Nature cooperates with us and we don't get any snow in January.

We have also begun the process of moving items into the pods.  Many of the classrooms have been transferred and that process is going smoothly.  Again, as long as we don't get too much snow, we should be ready to go on February 1st.

Over the next week or so, I will be posting on our web site a list of questions and answers about "Life in the Pods".  This document is designed to answer questions we have been getting about how things might be different in the pods.  It will cover items such as pick up and drop off points, the bell schedule, and ROAR Block.  If you have a question that you would like me to answer, please email me at smithte@lcps.k12.va.us.  I'll be sure to include it when we post it on the web.  (We will send home a paper copy as well.)

I also want to remind you that we will be having our Fall SOL tests on January 11th, 13th, 18th, and 20th.  Please be sure to check out our web site to get the specifics.  Also, we will be holding our exams on January 23rd and January 25th.  January 27th will be an exam-make up day.

As always, thank you for your support of LCHS.  This has been a challenging semester, but through the hard work and dedication of the LCHS family, we have made it through this difficult time.