spotlight Francis Howell High School Saint Charles, MO 63304 http://www.fhhstoday.com
page 3
Vol. 41, Issue 3 Jan. 18, 2012
page 7
page 6
Updates
Attendance Calendar: The Board of Education recently approved the 2012-2013 attendance calendar, which is avaliable at www. fhsdschools.org. New Websites for 2012: The district launched a new district website and school websites. Scrapbooking Cropfest: Saturday, Feb. 25, 9 a.m. –5 p.m. in the commons. $20 reserves your table/ chair for a dedicated day of cropping. Sports: Varsity football coach Bryan Koch was recently named “High School Coach of the Year” by the St. LouisPost Dispatch. Guidance: To prepare for the April 14 ACT test, guidance is offering a ACT prep class. See guidance for details. Senior Hand Prints: During English classes, Jan. 19, seniors will have an opportunity to put their handprints on the wall.
Worth Mention Howelltonian yearbook: The 2010 Howelltonian yearbook received a Crown nomination from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. This is the book’s first nomination. Awards will be presented in March at Columbia University in New York City.
Follow Us
Facebook Francis Howell Publications Google+ Francis Howell Twitter @FHHStoday YouTube FhhsPublications Issu FHHSToday
District provides e-mail Students begin to use Sky Drive accounts, notice advantages Kayla Calandro: writer Technology is taking over almost everything, including students’ daily lives. The school started out moving the morning announcements to Facebook and Twitter instead of announcing them in the morning. Now, the district is providing students with e-mails accounts. This is all part of an effort to make documents and projects that are worked on in school easily accessible at home. “It’s easier to get work done from home, and I use it for school projects a lot,” junior Emily Kohlfeld said. Before students began to use their e-mail accounts, teachers gave instructions and showed video tutorials to help students take advantage of all the tools and programs that come along with the e-mailing . “It was easy (to set up). Mrs. Robinson showed us a Atomic Learning video that helped a lot too,” Kohlfeld said. The district provided e-mail accounts that
I can get to these files anywhere, so I can get my work done.” –junior Erin Flynn come with a program called Skydrive, which is an online file source that will replace the school’s “My Documents” file source, the current location where most students save their school projects. Skydrive’s maximum 25 gigabytes of storage is a substantial amount more than the “My Documents” file source, which only has less than one gigabyte of storage. “I used it last night because I had a paper due. It’s also convenient because I can get to these files anywhere, so I can get my work done earlier,” junior Erin Flynn said. Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, and
One Note are all free programs included with this e-mail account, and all students will have access to these programs anywhere there is an internet connection. Another tool that students will be able to utilize is changing the e-mail settings on the account so that whenever a new e-mail is sent to their inbox, students will receive a text message notifying them of the e-mail. “So now a teacher, coach, or club sponsor can just e-mail students and they will receive a text message to their phone, if students have this option setup and on,” Assistant Principal Randy Carter said. Although some students find these new accounts to be very beneficial, some don’t have a need to use them. “I’m probably not going to use it, even though it is overall a good idea,” junior Kyle Kleist said.
Plan periods added to day
Board gives core department chairs extra time off Emily Aiken: writer Prior to this year, the four core department heads, English teacher Kelly Longo, math teacher Carolyn Bien, history teacher Denny Scherrer and science teacher Janet Eubanks, have always had two instructional activity periods and one planning period. But due to budget cuts, they lost their instructional activity periods and kept only one planning period. All three high school principals got together and decided to petition the district executive cabinet, asking for one of the instructional release hours for the department heads to be restored. The executive cabinet took this idea to the school board and the board approved it in November. There were four options the department heads had. “Only one of these options would
I was very excited about getting another release hour. It was invaluable to me.” –English teacher Kelly Longo be selected per department chair,” Principal Chris Greiner said. The first was to have other teachers volunteer to take over each of the department heads’ classes, giving the department head an extra release hour. That would cost the school around $9,000 per teacher, because the teacher taking the class would have to be paid one seventh of his salary. The only problem with this, Greiner said, was that not all the teachers who wanted to take up an extra class were certified in that specific area. The department chairs were also hesitant with this option. The second
option was to hire part time teachers. These teachers would take over the one class the department heads would give up for the release hour. This would cost the school money, but not so much that it would become a problem. The third option was for the department heads to have an additional stipend. The teachers could come into school and teach a class to other professionals or a class of some sort and get an extra amount of money instead of another release hour. This would cost around $2,150 per department head. The fourth and last option was to provide the
department heads a limited amount of release days during second semester. During their hours off, the school would hire substitutes to teach their class. This also wouldn’t cause a problem with money. The department heads for science, math and history chose the stipend, option three. However, the English department head chose to have a teacher volunteer to teach one of her classes, option one. “I was very excited about about getting another release hour. It was invaluable to me,” Longo said. Greiner felt the board actions were appreciated. “The department heads seemed to be appreciative of the district trying to restore the time they used to have,” Greiner said. “The way this change turns out will help us plan schedules in the future.”
Fire alarms lowered
Alarm volume adjusted over break
Olivia Beilman: writer After hearing all the complaints, district officials took action, adjusting the alarm volume over Christmas break. “Over break there was additional testing of all the fire drill annunciators (the things that makes noise),” Assistant Principal Carter said. According to chief financial officer Kevin Supple, the testing showed that the fire alarms, as installed, met the 2003 International Fire Code (IFC) sound levels, which were in effect
when the construction documents were reviewed and approved by the Cottleville Fire Department. Cottleville has since adopted the 2009 IFC, which allows for reduced sound levels. Since the lower settings meet code, Supple asked that the annunciators be adjusted to the lower setting. “The safety of students and staff has been, and continues to be, my primary concern,” Supple said.