Fall Newsletter 2010

STRATFORD NORTHWESTERN SECONDARY SCHOOL

Newsletter

Enclosed with this newsletter is the first report of the semester. Our first parents’ night is next Thursday, October 21 from 5:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. and will be held in the cafeteria. The format of the evening is “first-come”, “first-served”. It is helpful to bring the progress report to the interview so that you can easily find your child’s teachers. If you would like to speak to a teacher but are unable to attend the parents’ night, please contact the school and we’ll be glad to give your message to your child’s teacher(s). WEBSITE We encourage you to visit our website at http://snss.amdsb.ca Of particular interest to many parents are the teacher web pages. I would also encourage you to visit the “Blog” from Students’ Services where you will find information on college and university visits and other information pertinent to course selection and graduation. ATTENDANCE Regular class attendance is the number one indicator of success in school. When the reports were submitted to the office, we had just passed the twentieth school day of the 2010--2011 school year. There are, of course, instances of illness that cannot be avoided. However, if your child has missed more than three days and has not been ill, we would really appreciate the opportunity to work together to improve his or her attendance for the rest of the semester. If our automated attendance system has not contacted you about any unexplained absences, please let us know. Please contact attendance (519) 271-9740 to let us know if your child is ill or excused from school by you for an appointment. We would also ask that you not excuse your son or daughter from attending assemblies and other special events that occur during the school day. We put a great deal of thought and money into all aspects of your child’s education and these presentations are very much part of that education. As parents, we’ve all heard that “there’s nothing going on and so it’s not important to be in school for special events”, but, let us assure you, that is not the case. COMMUNITY, CULTURE AND CARING AT NORTHWESTERN We are very proud of the contributions that our students and staff make every year to our community and to a variety of charities. Once again this year the entire student body and our staff participated in the Terry Fox Run/Walk to raise money for cancer research. Over the last few years we have raised over $12 000.00 for this worthy cause. Our school, under the direction of Mrs. Congram, also collected tents to be sent to Pakistan to help those rendered homeless by the terrible floods that struck that country in September. In October, the “Me to We” group under the direction of Mrs. Ritsma, will be collecting non-perishable food items for an initiative called Hallowe’en for Hunger. In November our students will be sending care packages to soldiers in Afghanistan in support of “Operation Santa Claus”. In December we will once again be participating in the Stratford High School food drive. We welcome parents and guardians assistance with driving that evening. As this is an evening event, it’s a great way for students to earn some of the 40 hours of community service that they must complete in order to graduate.

CELEBRATING OUR MATH RESULTS Every year all grade 9 students in the province are required to take part in the EQAO provincial math tests. Once again, our results were excellent. In the applied (1P) course, we ranked in first place in the Avon Maitland District School Board: --NWSS had 71% of students at Level 3 or 4 which is significantly above the provincial average of 40% In the academic course (1D), we were second place in the Board: --NWSS had 93% of students at Level 3 or 4 while the provincial average at that level was 82% success. In fact, when you add the 1P and 1D scores together (71+93 = 164) and compare to other schools in the province, NWSS ranks around 15th out of 850 publicly-funded secondary schools in Ontario. Thanks to the students and teachers who worked so hard to obtain these results! BUS DELAYS AND CANCELLATIONS As we head toward colder weather, it is likely that winter weather may cause school bus or school delays and cancellations. The Huron Perth Student Transportation website is still located at www.ourschoolbuses.ca and features RSS feeds allowing parents and students to receive instant notification of weather announcements on their home computers, email program or smart phone. CJCS Radio (AM 1240 and 107.7 FM) also carry our weather announcements. As more than half of our students are bused to school from the country, the most common scenario when rural buses are cancelled is that the school is open for study purposes but no formal classes will be taught that day. SUPPORTING OUR ENVIRONMENT This year we have another exciting project for our school. Our E-Team (Environmental Club) is working with our manufacturing classes and with our physics classes to install solar panels in our courtyard. These panels will produce 6kw of electricity that will feed into the grid. Not only will this be a fantastic learning opportunity for our students, but it will become a renewable energy learning centre for other schools and the community. We are in the process of raising funds for this project and would welcome any donations. All donations to this project are eligible for a charitable receipt for tax purposes. As well, we will be hosting an eWaste drop-off depot on October 21st. If you have any electronic waste that we can help divert from the Landfill, please bring it with you to Parent-Teacher interview night and deposit it in the box in the front foyer. Green Tec of Stratford will be taking all electronic waste that we collect. We have also been lucky enough to secure a day with David Suzuki. We expect that he’ll be at Northwestern early in the new year to speak to our students. SCHOOL COUNCIL MEETING DATES You are invited to attend any or all of the School Council Meetings that we have scheduled for the upcoming year. These meetings are held in the Students’ Services Office from 6:30 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. on the following dates with the following topics of discussion: December 6--Guidance and pathways February 7--Science and Solar Project April 4--Specialist High Skills Majors