DKHS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Happy New Year, and welcome back for semester two. Teacher grades will be due this week, and once we store them, we will alert families that grades are final and up to date in PowerSchool. We held class meetings this week with each grade level to reset for this semester and discuss some things they need to prepare for as the year rolls on. PSAT/SAT testing, senior audits, credit recovery, and other items specific to their grade level. We ask that all of our kids take an honest inventory of their choices and effort from semester one to look for things they could change to find even more success in this semester.

Today we had a motivational speaker named A’ric Jackson who brought a message of inspiration, goal setting, working hard, and changing the culture for our students. He has a powerful testimony of overcoming life’s challenges and pursuing his dreams. His speech title, of The Ripple Effect, focused on empowering student voice and proactive leadership. Thank you to our anonymous donor from the DK community who has been paying for these high-profile speakers, and thank you, Mr. Jackson, for your inspiring and encouraging words.

January 12-17 is our annual Winterfest Week with daily themes and activities for kids culminating with a pep assembly, Friday’s basketball double header, and the Winterfest Dance on Saturday, January 17th at the high school. This is always a fun week for kids, and we invite you out to support our teams all season. This week, our wrestling team hosted its 2nd annual spotlight night on Wednesday. This event has been a highlight of the season for kids. The match had just the circle of the mat lit up by spotlights, as kids competed. I want to give a shout-out to Dr. Munger and Mr. Myers, who work tirelessly to create special environments for many of our events, and this is a great example of their efforts. Mr Myers is gifted at creating good energy at events that our kids feed off of, and it makes it fun for the student body and spectators also. Wednesday our Competitive Cheer Team took 2nd place out of 11 teams at Schoolcraft. This follows an earlier tournament overall first place so these girls are crushing it!!

We have rolled out our new electronic hall pass system. There are many features of this system that we believe will help us with safety, by limiting the number of kids on a pass at any given time, and providing some data around the times and places that are high traffic. Our students have been quick learners of the system. As always, they are being polite and respectful with their pass usage and staying in class for instruction as much as possible. I appreciate the attitude of cooperation and character our DK students display daily.

This semester, we have started a new credit recovery option in math by offering the most recent “A” sections from semester one of algebra and geometry. This is with Mrs. Miller as opposed to online, and being able to jump right back into the instruction that just finished in semester one, we hope will help more of our kids fill those gaps instead of waiting until summer school or next year. We are finding math has some of the biggest gaps for our learners, and many are missing some of the foundational skills that I believe are still being impacted by the COVID years. We continue to look for new ways to help our kids find success, and I believe if they continue to stay engaged, not give up, and work with our teachers, they will earn the credits and develop the skills they need as they move forward.

This note came from one of our bus drivers, and it highlights some of the great young people of character we have here at DKHS. Way to DO A JOB, girls. This type of maturity and respect makes you Hogie’s Heroes this week.

I wanted to take a moment to tell you what awesome girls these two are (I’m pretty sure you already know that). Kyra and London Sansom are kind, caring, mature, and respectful. I have never had one issue with either one of them. They are always pleasant, quiet, and they respond with “good morning,” “good night,” “have a nice day,” or “have a nice night.”

We are seeing some early success from our IGNITE lab, with some industry certifications being earned. We had our first passing scores on the SACA C101 by Gabriel Pharr and Wyatt Calgaro. These certifications give our kids an advantage in the market and make them a target for employment by many companies in the trades. Way to DO A JOB fellas, that makes you this week’s Hogie’s Heroes also.