Go Big Red: DCHS Weekly Message

Week 17: 'Tis the Season

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Decatur County Community High School

605 E Commercial St, Oberlin, KS 67749

December 11, 2022 (Schedule at the bottom, Skip What You Want)

Follow us on Twitter at @DCHSREDDEVILS or

Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Oberlin294/

Decatur community,

Those that know me know that my favorite movies are typically movies with narration. As a child, I was definitely one of those that the teacher loved to have in class in elementary school, planting myself right in front of the teacher on the carpet at the reading corner, attentively listening to the dialogue unfold, creating the world in my mind that the teacher was reciting. Movies like Stand by Me, The Sandlot, My Dog Skip, Homeward Bound, Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile are all examples of my favorites. Almost all of them have some unforgettable lines that I will always remember.

'Tis the season that I watch more movies than any other, so many wonderful memories of watching Christmas movies with my family as a child or with my own children as a parent. This past weekend, I watched my all-time favorite Christmas movie. Do you recognize the opening line?

"Ah, there it is. My house; And good old Cleveland Street."

My wife and I have a significant disagreement on our favorite Christmas movie, but, for me, A Christmas Story (opening line above) will forever be the all-time champion of Christmas tales.

We have a lot of Christmas stuff going on right now. Our singers caroled throughout town, decorations have sprouted throughout Oberlin (town and school), concerts are being performed by the band and the choir, cookies are showing up in mass quantities, all things that have me thinking about Christmas traditions, particularly movies.

What's your favorite Christmas movie? I have always wanted to know what the top movie really was. Below, I am going to include a survey to what we think. Feel free to participate.

Why not? 'Tis Bowl season too, and I am in the spirit of competition.

SHOUTOUTS

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Shoutout to Choir teachers Jenny Tally and Lisa Johnson. They made the decision to take our DCHS Singers around the town this past week and sing Christmas carols to a large variety of local businesses. When they returned, they were able to give a final performance for our students that were in the cafeteria during lunch. They were amazing. One of our substitute teachers was at a lunch table and made the comment, "That's what I love about it here. There are a lot of cool things that you don't see everywhere."

Great job, singers, and I can't wait for the concert next week. If you click on the picture, you can see a video of one of their performances.

Shoutout to Coach Brandon Gehring and the Lady Red Devils on their 2-1 record in the Cattle Trail Tournament in McCook. The amazing thing about these ladies is the composure that they are able to maintain throughout the game, regardless of the situation. Their one loss early in the week was a great game. Coming out of the second half, they found the other team on fire and pulling ahead to a double digit lead. The scoreboard said the game was getting away, but the sidelines and reactions of the whole team told a different story. Coach Gehring and his girls made it a game and had possession with a chance to tie it late. Though they lost, games like that one are important for the end of the year. Fun to watch, and they rebounded with two victories to finish the tournament.

Shoutout to the DCHS wrestlers. On Friday, 6 wrestlers traveled to Ellis for the annual Ellis Invitational. Here are the results that I have.

113lb: Josh Junemann 5-0: 1st Place. Josh is still undefeated this season.

120lb: Reid Fort 4-0: 1st Place

138lb: Lukas Zodrow 4-0: 1st Place

150lb: Sage Bryan: 4th Place

157lb: Theo Butterfield: 8th

175lb: Garrett Emigh: 3rd Place

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Scholar's Bowl Undefeated at Colby Invitational

The DCHS Scholar's Bowl Team went 7-0 to win the Colby Invitational. The tournament was heavy with larger schools, but DCHS continues to show that they will be a team to be reckoned with. They won't have another meet until after Christmas.

The team consisted of:

Back Row: freshman Morgan Kreutzer, senior Byant Addleman, sophomore Jack Holloway

Front Row: senior Emma Holloway, senior Olivia Williby, junior Cheyanna Hale

Things You Should Know

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Band Concert Monday Night

On Monday night at 7:30, the DCHS Band will have their annual winter concert. Mr. Persinger deserves his own shoutout for the amount of passion and love he has for his profession. I have been in the class and heard the songs in the hall, and I am always impressed. I truly regret that I never learned to play a musical instrument.

The concerts are always great, and Monday is the band's turn. Come on out and see it for yourself.

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Community Open House

Last week, we posted this on our Facebook page, had it put in the Herald, and I included it here as well. On Wednesday night, we will have our first meeting that is open to the community. I encourage all to come, and please bring anyone that you may think will benefit.

Patrons Encouraged to Tour USD 294 Facilities on Dec. 14 and 19

The USD 294 Board of Education invites community members to see firsthand the current conditions of Decatur County High School and Oberlin Elementary. The goal for the evening is to start a discussion on what facility improvements are needed, to help position the school district for success in years to come.

Tours will be held at 5:30 p.m. on both Wednesday, December 14 and Monday, December 19, beginning in the High School Auditorium, 605 E. Commercial St. Board members and school district staff will be on hand to guide the tours, answer questions, and give insight into the current challenges.

“Our community’s ability to thrive in the future depends on the quality of our schools, and facilities play a major role in the education of our children,” said Joel Applegate, USD 294 Superintendent. “Both of our facilities have served our community greatly over the years, and now is the time to look at plans that will allow us to continue to serve the community and our children for the next fifty years.”

For more information, contact Joel Applegate at 785-475-3805.

Social Media and Communications

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Facebook

Parents, students, family, and community members,

I urge you to save our Facebook page. Our Facebook page is updated regularly and is a great way to get information and see amazing photos of our events. You can find our page at https://www.facebook.com/Oberlin294/. Anyone can follow along on Facebook, and it's a great way to stay in tune with what is going on.

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Twitter

I also urge you to sign up for our Twitter page. You can look up Decatur County Community Red Devils or follow @DCHSREDDEVILS .Twitter is generally a fast way to get information, but it is a newer page, and it will take a while to build up. Even my Weekly Messages will typically go out on Twitter before they are sent to you through PowerSchool. It is another form of communication that anyone can follow.

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PowerSchool E-Mail

The way that we communicate with our students and parents is through PowerSchool. This is strictly for students, staff, and guardians. This is how you get the alerts about school, Late Start, etc. that is sent directly to your phones or emails.

Parents/guardians, if you know that either yourself or your spouse is not receiving alerts, please contact the school through phone or email. It is most likely that you only have one email listed or one phone number.

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KESA (Kansas Education Systems Accreditation) REPEAT INFO>.

I will pick up KESA to start the new year, but I am going to leave this information here for the time being.

This past Wednesday, we had our OVT (Outside Visitation Team) Visit, the final meeting in a 5-Year process known as KESA. Now, it's not completely over, but we have turned in our report, given our final presentation, and now wait for the State to evaluate our work.

Every school in Kansas must go through a process of evaluation to become accredited. This process has changed many times over the decades. KESA is the current process, a 5 year cycle that frequently adjusts its requirements and expectations. As an example, here is the state's current answer to the question, "What is KESA?"

"The KESA model is designed around system/district-level accreditation occurring at the end of a five-year cycle of improvement using an education framework called “The Five Rs” – Relationships, Relevance, Responsive Culture, Rigor and Results."

Those "Five Rs?" They will be gone after this year, a whole new process.

KESA is big and it is very hard to condense into a small section in a Weekly Message. I will address KESA a piece at a time over the next several weeks. For now, I am just going to leave with a brief list of steps in the process through the 5 years that got us where we are today. We will start talking about the guts of the whole process as the year goes on.

Step 1: School Buildings at the beginning of the cycle determine current strengths, weaknesses, and challenges, and complete a Needs Assessment.

Step 2: District Leadership Team reviews the Needs Assessment and sets goals for improvement.

Step 3: Site Councils are included in the process as outside stakeholders,. They are informed of the current state of the district and the goals put in place by the leadership team and are included in the process of improvement.

Step 4: An OVT Outside Visitation Team is created to help serve as guides through the process. After the final OVT visit in year 5, the OVT will submit a report to the state.

Step 5: Accreditation Review Council: This 15 member council makes the recommendation of accreditation to the state. This is really the final step. The members review the final reports from the district and the OVT. They then make their recommendation to the State Board of Education.

Step 6: The Kansas State Board of Education reviews the recommendation of the ARC and makes the final decision.

That's it for KESA this week.

GO BIG RED

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Well, I won't ruin it, but I also watched the newest Christmas Story that just came out this year. It starred the same actor that played Ralphie in the original and several other original cast members. As much as I wanted it to rekindle the old memories of my youth, it just wasn't the same.

Movies are great, and there will forever be many memorable movie characters and quotes, but perhaps the best memories are of our own experiences, lines that we can recite on our own.

I'll start. There it is..... Oberlin, and my first Christmas in a small town..................

I can't wait to see how that line is finished.

Until next Week

Jeremy Holloway

Go Big Red!