The Au Gres-Sims School District

One of the focal points that we have made in our district is to increase college and career readiness in our students. We have done this in a number of ways, but one of the best ways is through the use of a program called Xello. In Xello students complete different tasks, depending on their grade in school, and are provided a wealth of information regarding colleges, universities, trades, careers, etc. If you are parent of a secondary child or children and are like me and haven't heard a peep about this, then you are now in luck. Xello is now releasing a family portal, called Xello Family.

See the message below regarding Xello Family from Renee Aumock of the Bay-Arenac ISD and keep an eye out for that email so that you can log in and see for yourself all that Xello is providing for your child(ren).

Your student has been working diligently in their Xello profile and making real progress towards creating a successful future for themselves. We are excited to provide a way for you to support them in this work.

Xello Family bridges the gap between educator, families and student with an intuitive platform that keeps everyone aligned to support a student on their journey to future readiness. Xello Family gives you access to see and discuss your student's future goals and plans. You will also have access to a demo student account and can experience all your student does including interest assessments and exploring careers.

In the next week, parents or guardians who are listed as the #1 contact in Skyward (with an email), will receive an email from xello.world with further instructions for set up and login. If you have any questions please contact Ashley Cardinal (cardinala@ags-schools.org) at AGS or Renee Aumock with the Bay-Arenac ISD at aumockr@baisd.net. Please note that the link that you receive in the email is only good for 7 days. If that time expires please contact Renee for a new link.

Recently, I’ve posted some information on safety tips related to screen time and social media. Today, I’d like to share a great app that my family personally uses which helps keep an eye out on the whereabouts of family members. Using this app will help begin, or guide, discussions on driving safety. The app is called Life360. Click on the Life360 link to learn more about how this may help you and your family.

On the topic of safety, in the next week or so our elementary students will be receiving a Child Safe Kit through a program called “Healthy Kids/Safe Kids”. The completion of this kit is completely voluntary. To ease your mind a little, the program has been supported through law enforcement and the International Union of Police Associations. More information will be coming within the next week or so.

Best of luck this weekend to our All Star band members: Elizabeth Beardsley, Bryce Verdusco, Lucas Verdusco, Selah Anthony, Regan Sanchez, Sophie Fox, Aubrey Hewitt, Charlotte Ming, and Zita Lutz. And don’t forget, we have Student Count Day on February 8 and will be having a mid-winter break February 10-13. We will return to school on Valentine's Day! More details to follow in upcoming weeks.

Although our snow day on Thursday put a little hiccup in our testing schedule, we should have all of our classroom-scheduled NWEA sessions finished up which leaves me with next week to focus on make-up testing sessions across the district. This will also include re-testing any students who fall under our re-test policy. The most common reason under the policy for a re-test is falling more than 10 points from the last test session. Once we have all of our new data, we will begin the next round of IRIP meetings for students in K-3, and we will also hold our Child Study meetings in elementary school. Child Study in secondary just took place in December, so we will meet again before Spring Break. We can also use the data to make adjustments in our intervention groups, which may include a few small adjustments in academic seminar classes as well.

Just a reminder to high school families as we are now a couple of weeks into this next semester, how important it is to maintain passing grades in all in-person classes to avoid having to take credit recovery classes. Teachers send out weekly progress reports, and tutoring is available on Monday and Thursday after school if additional help is needed. If your student is falling behind, I encourage you to communicate with them and the teacher to help get them back on track!

Earlier this year, I shared information about the Michigan Learning Channel. With the cold winter upon us and more time inside, I thought it would be a good reminder of this amazing resource. The Michigan Department of Education has partnered with local Public Television, to create the Michigan Learning Channel. This link will take you to their website, which shows a menu of the daily shows that play on local Public Television stations across the state. You can also access on-demand videos of the episodes on the website. An exciting series for our elementary students is the Math Mights series, which stars some math characters that may look familiar to them. The creator of the series has been a math consultant in our district for the last several years, and she was just on campus last week working with our teachers! All K-5 classrooms now have plush versions of the characters that they are familiar with to help them learn different types of math strategies, and now with her new show on the Michigan Learning Channel - these characters have come to life!! This channel is not just for elementary - they have programming that spans K-12 content. The website allows you to search by grade level to see what is there. Here is an FAQ document from the Michigan Learning Channel. The section "How can I watch the channel?" lists all local public television channels that carry this programming. This is a great free resource, accessible to all students in Michigan, which provides another resource to help support student learning outside of the classroom.

Scholarship season is here and deadlines for several scholarships are fast approaching. The Bay Area Community Foundation Scholarships and the Delta College Scholarships are due next Wednesday February 21, 2023. A representative from the BACF will be on campus this Friday the 27th to help students in completing their applications.

Local scholarships are starting to open up for students to fill out applications as well. Take the time to talk to seniors about applying for scholarships; there is a lot of free money out there that our students can take advantage of.

Bay Area Community Foundation link: https://www.grantinterface.com/Home/Logon?urlkey=bayfoundationscholarships

We are going strong with our winter sports seasons so please come out and support our student-athletes.

Next Week's Schedule of Events:

Mon. 1/30:

• 6p V Girls Basketball HOME vs. Fairview
• ~7:30p V Boys Basketball HOME vs. Fairview

Wed. 2/1:

• 7p V Hockey AWAY @ Mt. Pleasant (I.C.E. Arena)

Thu. 2/2:

• 7p V Girls Basketball AWAY @ Hillman

Fri. 2/3:

• 7p V Boys Basketball HOME vs. Hillman
• 8:30p V Hockey HOME vs. Lakeshore Badgers (Tawas Bay Ice Arena)

Sat. 2/4:

• 1p V Hockey HOME vs. Lakeshore Badgers (Tawas Bay Ice Arena)

The winter season can be tough for everyone, with limited opportunities and sunlight. In response to that AGS is organizing a ski trip for our middle school students on Saturday, February 4th from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm at Snow Snake in Harrison.

We have organized a special group rate of $57 per person and that includes skis/snowboard/helmet rental and a lift ticket, but we need 20 people to get that rate. That number includes both students and adults, so let's make it happen!

If you are interested or have any questions, please contact Mr. Ostrander at ostranderg@ags-schools.org.

Important dates for February for the Au Gres-Sims School District.

FEBRUARY

• 10-13: Mid-Winter Break, no school for staff and students
• 16: Open House at the BAISD Career Center 4-7 pm (10th grade students and their families)
• 20: 6p Board of Education regular meeting
• 22: Early Release for all students at 1pm

Important and note-worthy events taking place in Au Gres and Arenac County

• Saturday, February 18th - Arenac Community Funds Trivia Night (Arenac Community Center, Standish) see attached flyer
• Saturday, February 18th - Family Winter Fun Fest (Center Court @ Bay City Town Center) 10a-2p see attached flyer

We're going to start this email with some bad news, and just rip it off like a Band-Aid that has been stuck to your arm for the past 4 days. The Wolverine Wake-Up has been forced into a situation of corporate restructuring. While large corporations, in our nation, are following the same trend, we were hoping to avoid any massive layoffs. We were wrong. Recently our video editing Crew was faced with two choices: start putting in longer hours to continue to produce high-quality, entertaining videos with an even shorter time window to produce them, or pursue employment elsewhere. Our editors chose to use their talents to focus on projects elsewhere, and have been "let go". We wish them the best.

On another note, we are fortunate to have an entirely NEW video editing team. Please be patient with them as they learn our high-tech video editing software. Some weeks we will have a video, while others we will not. This happens to be a week where we will not have a video, BUT we do have an informative newsletter for you to enjoy.

Click Here to View Issue 72

Job Opportunities at AGS

• We do not currently have any vacancies for the district. If you are interested in a substitute role please contact the administration office

We are also always on the lookout for substitute teachers. If interested, please inquire with Mrs. Miller in the district administration office, (989) 876-7157 and she will put you into direct contact with Laurie Crane at ESS-WillSub

Email: web@ags-schools.org
Website: www.ags-schools.org
Location: 310 South Court Street, Au Gres, MI, USA
Phone: (989) 876-7150
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuGresSims/?ref=br_rs
Twitter: @agsschools