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KEENE HIGH SCHOOL FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018 VOLUME XII ISSUE III KHS WEB SITE: HTTP://KHS.KEENESCHOOLSNH.ORG/

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The mission of Keene High School is to cultivate the academic, civic, and social growth of all students to empower them to become contributing members of the global community.

Principal Notes

Students are off to a new semester, and with that a fresh start in many of their classes. By this time freshmen, sophomores, and juniors have made their requests for classes for the 2018-2019 school year. Counselors are in the process of meeting with all students individually to discuss the requests, review graduation requirements, and discuss post secondary plans. Parents, please reach out to your student’s school counselor if you have any questions. Seniors are making plans for life after KHS. Please have them contact their counselor or advisor if they have any questions or need any assistance. Tell them to stay focused on their course work and graduation requirements, including 30 hours of community service. PSAT and SAT testing will be administered on March 21 at Keene High School. More details will be sent to you as we get closer to the date. This is a very important assessment for students; it provides an indicator for college and career readiness and provides opportunities to improve their scores through a number of on-line tutorials. Please visit https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org Jim Logan Principal

House Office Update: With the elimination of a house office, the Blue House and Green House administrative assistants are very busy fielding calls, admitting and releasing students and following up on absences. If you know your student is going to be absent, we ask that you email the respective house office to let them know. You will be receiving more information on house office processes/procedures in the near future.


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Speakers Series

The Speakers Series is sponsoring three events in February and March. In February, 174 English students will attend a performance of Jabber at the Colonial Theater. A modern-day Romeo and Juliet (without the tragedy), this play provides opportunities for discussions about stereotypes that arise from perceived differences. Access the link http://thecolonial.org/event/jabber/ to learn more about this play. In March, Stephanie Klapper, casting director from NYC, is providing an Audition and Acting Workshop and a Q and A session to 75 students in theatre and vocal classes, Drama Club students, vocal perfor-mance students, and other interested students. Ms. Klapper will work with students on audition techniques and tips as well as performance. She will also discuss multiple career opportunities in theatre. Also in March, Christine Destrempes will return to work with 42 students in Art 2 classes to teach them the art of monotype printing. Ms. Destrempes’ work with first semester students was well received, and teachers are excited to have her return for second semester students. The Speakers Series is funded by the generosity of the Academy Fund.

Sadie Hawkins Dance 2018 The KHS Girls Ice Hockey team presents this year’s semi-formal Sadie Hawkins Dance: Sadie’s Enchanted Forest. The dance will be held March 17 from 7-

10pm in the KHS Café. Tickets are $10 and will be available the week prior during lunches in the café and after school in room 322. Students must have a signed waiver in order to buy tickets; waivers are available in all offices. The dance is open to all grades.

Upcoming Events • February 9 - Keene Jazz Invitational Concert 7:00pm (auditorium) (Snow date 2/11 @ 2pm) • February 26 – March 2 - Winter Vacation • March 6 – Spring Open House 6:30pm (Snow Date: March 13) • March 12 – Spring Parent/Athlete Meeting 5pm (cafeteria) • March 16 & 17 – Dancing with the Keene Stars 7pm (KSC Redfern Arts Center) • March 17 – Sadie Hawkins Dance 7-10pm (café) • March 19 – 23 – Senior Art Show All Week • March 19 – Spring Sports Begin • March 21 – PSAT 8/9, PSAT 10 & SAT for juniors • March 22 – Early Release Day (Students are dismissed at 11:48am) • March 23 – Teacher Workshop Day – No School • March 27 – Post Secondary Planning Night for Juniors & Parents 6:30pm (LGIA)


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Keene High School Winter Sports Update

The winter sports season is half over at the time of this writing, and Keene

High School athletic teams are progressing nicely. Led by the Boy’s Ice Hockey team at 5-1-1, several KHS squads are looking to make an impact in the NHIAA end-of-season tournaments. Boy’s Ice Hockey (5-1-1) has the goal of hosting a playoff game again this year, while the Girl’s Ice Hockey (2-4) Co-op team (Keene/Fall Mtn./Monadnock) hopes to make the State Tourney again this year as well. The KHS Wrestling team is young but has had very good results in their duel meet season, cur-rently at 4-1. There are several wrestlers who could make some noise and place at the D1 State Champi-onship tourney. KHS Gymnastics is also having a good season, currently at 8-3, with a couple of the team members who have the ability to have a strong showing and medal at the end of season meet. The KHS Bowling team is currently sitting in 5th place but is only 2 points out of the top spot. They hope to have a strong result at their state tourney. The KHS Swim Team is also having a strong season with the Girl’s Swim team sitting at 10-4 and the boy’s team at 8-4. There are several swimmers who figure to place in the February 10 State Championship meet at UNH. Alpine skiing has had several 2nd place finishes, and the team is looking to peak for their mid-February State Meet. Nordic skiing is also off to a strong start, with their season just getting going in preparation for their March 5 State Championship meet. The KHS Indoor Track team has had several strong individu-al performances, and with a large number of team members, also has depth in several events. The Unified Basketball team is currently 1-0 and has some big games coming up in the near future that will have an impact on their seeding for the State Tourney. The Boy’s and Girl’s Varsity Basketball teams have shown improvement over last year, and both hope to earn a spot in their respective end-of-season tourneys. A reminder that the "Meet the Coaches" night for KHS spring sports is Monday, March 12 at 6pm in the KHS gymnasium. "Win the Day - Success Will Follow" Michael Atkins Director of Athletics

Music News

Three students will attend the New Hampshire Jazz All State Festival at Pinkerton Academy on February 1-3: Taylor Hoefer and Zach Trombly on trombone and Noah Ramirez on drum set. Noah and Zach scored the highest in their section for the entire State of New Hampshire. Keene High will host a Jazz Invitational on Friday February 9 at 7:00pm. Keene High Jazz Ensemble and the Vocal Jazz Group will perform as well as area schools, St. Joseph’s, KMS, Conval, Fall Mountain, and Monadnock Regional High School. The snow date is Sunday, February 11 at 2:00pm


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March is Music In Our Schools Month! Keene High will celebrate with a concert on Thursday, March 8 at 7:00pm featuring all performing ensembles: Concert Chorus, A Cappella Choir, Vocal Jazz, String En-semble, Jazz Ensemble and Concert Band. Many groups are collaborating, culminating in a group piece titled "Jubilant Song." It will feature over 150 music students. For more information on Music in Our Schools Month, please visit https://nafme.org/programs/miosm/. The snow date is Friday March 9 at 7:00pm. Three students will attend New England Music Large Group Festival on March 15-17: Noah Ramirez on percussion, Macy Woudenberg on clarinet, and Taylor Hoefer on trombone.

Healthy Teen Tips

v While teens are closely engaged to their peers through social media, those being bombarded with messages from a significant other may be in an unhealthy relationship. For more on signs of healthy teen relationships check: www.futureswithoutviolence.org/5-signs-of-a-healthy-teen-relationship/

v Four out of five kids that used a tobacco product started with a flavored vaping product. To learn

more about how to protect your children from flavored tobacco vaping products see: http://www.tobaccofreekids.org

National Honor Society

The National Honor Society (NHS) held two successful events in December 2017. The first event was the RISE Holiday Dinner. Members of the NHS helped set up, serve, and clean up the dinner for families that access the nonprofit group RISE, an organization that helps with child development. The second event NHS ran was a competitive food drive to benefit the Keene Community Kitchen. The departments at Keene High went head-to-head in a competition to see who could collect the highest average of food do-nations. Overall, almost 500 non-perishable food items were collected in total, and the English depart-ment proved victorious. Members of the NHS collected all the food donations and delivered it to the Keene Community Kitchen prior to the December break. The NHS at Keene High looks forward to more community involvement in months to come, including our participation in reading buddies at Symonds Elementary School.

Drama Club Spring Play Almost Maine

Show Dates/Times: April 5, 6, 7 at 7:00pm Cost: $7 General Admission

Join us for the Keene High School Drama Club spring play, Almost, Maine, by John Cariani. This is a sweet, sorrowful, quirky visit with some of the residents of the fictional town of Almost, Maine as they experience the full range that comes with the simple emotion of love. It's 9:00 on a Friday night in De-


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cember. While East is trying to understand why stranger Glory is in his backyard with her heart in a bag, Jimmy and soon-to-be-married Sandrine meet after months of being estranged. Meanwhile, Steve dis-covers that he CAN feel emotion (and yes, love hurts) with the help of Marvalyn, and the struggling-with-their-marriage Phil and Marci are left to ponder their future after a shoe drops from the sky. Years ago, Daniel lost Hope, but now she's back; however, he's happily married to Suzette. Lendall and Gayle dis-cover that love can come in small packages, Chad and Randy discover that friendship can turn to love, and Dave and Rhonda discover love after unpeeling layers and layers and layers. The play is framed by the sweetness that is the hesitant love of Pete and Ginette, a love for which one travels all the way around the world, and this raw exploration of human emotion is surrounded by the beauty that is the northern lights of the aurora borealis in winter, in Maine, at 9:00 on an unassuming Friday night. As always, students and employees of SAU #29 are eligible for a free ticket. Questions: Beth Hansel at [email protected]

Library News

In the month of December, the library hosted a Book Club, and the book Hidden Figures was discussed. The discussion included a look at the lives of the women who were instrumental in helping NACA and NASA with space exploration as well as the space race. Through this book we also received a glimpse into history and the world of segregation in America. In January, the booked discussed was The Hate U Give. This story portrays the lives of African Americans in an at-risk community and their daily struggles with prejudice, racism, and discrimination. These titles are currently available for checkout. During se-mester 2 we will be discussing Unstoppable and How to Bake Pi. The big event for February will be “Blind Date with a Book”. During this period, several books will be gift-wrapped and placed on display. The KHS community is encouraged to check out and unwrap these items. Let us all fall in love with reading. Please go to the library’s web page for a list of new items and stop by a READBOX, and adopt a book.

2018 New Hampshire Scholastic Art Awards

The Keene High School Visual Arts Department is pleased to announce the New Hampshire Scholastic Art Awards recipients for the 2018 school year. The Visual Arts Department continues to have strong participation in this competition and is proud of our students’ regional achievements. The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards were established in 1923 by Maurice Robinson, founder of Scholastic Inc., and is the largest and longest-running recognition program for young artists in the United States. For more information and to see the list of recipients, click on the follow-ing link: Scholastic Awards 2018


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KHS Project Graduation

KHS Project Graduation 5th Annual Dancing with the Keene Stars Save the Dates ~ Save the Dates ~ Save the Dates

When: Friday, March 16 and Saturday, March 17 Where: NEW LOCATION – The Redfern Arts Center at Keene State College Time: Doors open at 6:30pm - Show starts at 7pm Ticket Information: $22 per ticket. Tickets go on sale January 22. Get your tickets by calling the Redfern box office after January 22 at 603-358-2168 or go to http://www.keene.edu/arts/redfern/ We have another year of amazing Stars and Partners as well as many alumni cast members coming back to be part of the show. Who do you know? 2018 Stars are: Kelly Darling-Snow, Brad Keay, Sonia Kibbee, Artie Knowles, Tammi Squires, Jim Lamoureux, Rebecca Pratt, Paul Miller, Hannah Trombly, and Jeff Minahan. This is the ONLY fundraiser for Keene High School Project Graduation! There still is room in the program for advertising space or to be a Corporate Sponsor for the event. Email [email protected] by February 14 at 9am if you are interested in ad space or being a Corporate Sponsor. Ad and Corpo-rate Sponsor deadline is February 14 at 9am, firm! Check us out on Facebook and our website for more information.

KHS Project Graduation Needs Your Help!!! We are in dire need of people willing to be on the KHS Project Grad Board. It’s time for many of our Board Members to step down and let new parents continue with this amazing organization. The future of this organization is in grave danger due to the number of board members who are fin-ishing up their last year; 95% of this board no longer has children at KHS, but they have continued on to keep this important event going. If interested in becoming a Project Grad Board Member we need you to attend the April 10 meeting at 6:00pm in the Cheshire Career Center Conference Room. If, on April 10, we do not have enough new people to come on board to fill all positions, this will be the last year of Dancing with the Keene Stars, and KHS Project Grad will dissolve after June 2019. Now is the time for younger parents to join and keep it going! Please consider helping out.


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Cheshire Career Center

Many students from the Cheshire Career Center can boast exciting plans after they graduate from high school. Since CCC students graduate with multiple college credits and their college transcript in hand, their post-graduation plans are well underway in their senior year. Meet Cheshire Career Center Cosmetology student, Arianna Santos. She will graduate with 250 hours that are 100% transferrable to a college program. Since childhood she has been interested makeup. Interest and passion is key to a successful career, and she held on to this until middle school when she learned of the Cosmetology program at the Cheshire Career Center. While here she learned theoretical applications, she can transform an image in to a product, and developed her hair styling skills as well as make-up and application, pedicures, and manicures. She is in her second year of the Cosmetology pro-gram and was recently accepted to Empire Beauty School in Laconia. Empire has a proven track record in instruction of Cosmetology, Esthetics and Barbering for over 50 years. Arianna will be studying Cosmetology and Esthetics where she will receive in-depth instruction in hair coloring and cutting, hair design, perming and straightening, facials, skin structure and disorders, esthetic treatments and professional make up. She plans to combine this technical training with business and chemistry. In the end she hopes to specialize in makeup, hair artistry, and skin care. U.S. News and World Report just published the 25 best jobs of 2018. Not surprising the top job is soft-ware developer. “Software developers are in high demand right now. They're employed in a range of in-dustries, including computer systems design, manufacturing and finance. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects more than 30 percent employment growth for software developers between 2016 and 2026.” Meet Cheshire Career Center Computer Programming student, Jake Saczawca. Jake will graduate with 12 college credits in computer programming which is the equivalent to one semester in college. Although Computer Programming is his passion and one can find him in Mr. Lagace’s classes, he can also be found checking out customers at Home Depot. Recently he was awarded the Employee of the Year and boasts the record for the most credit sales. He explained, “Did you know you can have up to three Home Depot credit accounts?” Jake was recently accepted at Plymouth State University and is holding out hope for acceptance to the University of New Hampshire. He has had an interest in computers since he was young, and his passion has soared since being in Mr. Lagace’s classes. He expressed his satisfaction with the classes saying the career center classes are different, “I can sit down and learn by doing. I am doing things and learning every minute of class.”

Competencies KHS staff have been busy with competencies work the last few months. In December, Laurie Gagnon from the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) guided staff in creating department Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings and trained all staff in Quality Performance Assessments (QPA). The goal of this training was to help staff create learner-centered environments where we teach and assess in ways that are aligned to the competencies that we want students to master. Members of each department worked together to create Essential Questions that align with the departments’ competencies. The QPA training helped us to focus on aligning to the standards and learning targets and to focus on


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students’ ability to apply skills by using higher-order thinking. These QPAs consists of common summative assessments (think unit exams) that will be administered in similar courses. Core Competency Team (CCT) members piloted the school-wide competencies/work study habits in their classes quarter 2 and gathered feedback from their students. We used the feedback from students, parents, and staff to revise the rubrics for the school-wide competencies/work study habits, and CCT will be piloting them again with their students third quarter. In January, KHS staff attended two competency-based workshops. The NH Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (NHASCD) hosted Tom Guskey’s workshop on Leading the Way: Transforming and Personalizing Student Grading and Reporting. The seven staff who attended this workshop learned about reporting systems that communicate student mastery of competencies and how rubrics are used to assess the competencies. Guskey explained why the 100 point grading scale, averaging grades, and ranking students are not effective ways to assess students’ skills. One teacher who attended the conference cited the importance and effectiveness of quality feedback to students. The teacher further stated that, “Any fears I had about the changes from grades to competency-based grading and how colleges would use CBE grading were alleviated. I can't wait to make the change.” This was the second time KHS staff attended a Guskey workshop. In May 2016, some department chairs attended his presentation at the NHASCD conference and first learned about the relationship between assessment and grading including the challenges and solutions to standards-based grades when reporting student achievement. Five members of the Core Competency Team (CCT) attended the PACE Tier 2 workshop which focused on rubric development. Training included connecting competencies to standards and learning targets and creating rubrics that align with these learning targets. Additional training included learning how to use an evaluation tool to assess the QPAs that KHS staff are currently creating and plan to pilot in the fourth marking quarter. All KHS staff will receive training in March on how to assess the QPAs and how to create rubrics for these QPAs. Remember to check the Competencies tab under Quicklinks on the KHS website. We add new resources each month.

French Club Fundraiser To Support Haiti and the French Exchange

We wanted to thank everyone who participated in our Haiti fundraiser. We were able to send the Apparent Project a check for $751.50 to use in their programs working with parents and children in Haiti. (One student couldn't afford a bracelet, but donated $1.50

to help the children in Haiti!) Thanks to everyone who supported this worthwhile cause. As you know, the people in Haiti have endured a multitude of problems. As recently as a week ago Saturday, an article in the Keene Sentinel recounted the trafficking of Haitian children into the Dominican Republic. In a small way, our fundraiser provides help to the people who so much need it to support their families. The fundraiser also supported our April French Exchange trip. The French Club also made St. Nicolas clogs filled with candy as another fundraiser. We were able to raise about $65.00. Some teachers made extra donations; we are touched by their goodwill and support. This amount will help French Club and the French Exchange students.


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Franco-Spanish Carnival March 26, 2018

Welcome to the Carnival! We would like to invite you to our second International Carnival on Monday March 26 from 6:30 to 8:30pm in the LGIA. This is a fundraiser to help Puerto Rico and the French Exchange. Tickets will be on

sale at the door. You can also purchase them in advance through the French and Spanish Clubs. The event is free for younger children. Students and teachers will make delicious dishes for your pleasure from Mexican, Spanish, Latin American, French, Swiss, Canadian, and other Francophone countries…so come and eat international food on March 26! Students will also play music, sing, play games, and hold a raffle. Many other fun activities are also planned.

Senior Scholarships

There are many scholarship opportunities for seniors to take advantage of! Check the KHS website under “Departments/School Counseling Depart-ment/Scholarship Information” for a listing of the various scholarships availa-ble. This listing is updated monthly as more information becomes available. Pay attention to deadlines and materials requested.

In addition, there are many local scholarships that will be available for seniors. Information and applications will be available mid-March in the Main Office for these scholarships. At that time, seniors will be called to a brief assembly to explain the process. Deadline for return of these ap-plications is Friday, April 13. More information will be made available on the KHS website. For all scholarships, it is important for seniors to attach all documentation requested, as well as note any deadlines other than April 13. Many of these outside scholarship organizations will not consider incomplete applications or applications returned to them after the deadline. At senior awards night last June, we awarded 134 scholarships to 74 recipients in the amount of over $227,000. As you can see, it is worth the time and effort taken to apply!

Vote on the Proposed Keene School District 2018-2019 Budget Tuesday, March 13

7:30am-7:00pm Same day voter registration is available. (Note: You must show proof of age and residency.)

All Wards Keene Recreation Center

312 Washington Street Keene, NH

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