The first few weeks of the 2010-11 school year are officially complete, and it’s time to play some “catch up” with many posts to our newsletter blog at LTHS. With the implementation of several new initiatives this year, time has been a scarce commodity. However, we endeavor to post stories and newsworthy information on our blog and website now on a much more regular basis. So, please keep checking back for new and updated information of things happening here at ‘Sock!
Welcome New Staff!
First, several new staff have been added to our Loyalsock school community. We welcome Mrs. Christina Confer, who replaces the retiring Mrs. Hepfer teaching Spanish; Ms. Rebecca Leid, who is teaching part-time Spanish; Mr. Todd Girton, who replaces Mrs. Kidd in mathematics; Mrs. Melissa Mattie, who replaces Mr. Matter in business; and, Ms. Jennifer Anderson, who will be serving in Mrs. McCarty’s school counselor capacity through the Thanksgiving break.
Exciting Staff Development for our Teachers
Over the summer, and through the beginning of this school year, several of our Loyalsock faculty embarked on some outstanding professional development that they are sharing with students. A few staff attended Advanced Placement (AP) workshops, bringing back the most recent best practices in preparing our students for the curriculum and eventual AP exam in various content areas. Another opportunity was had by Mr. Mark Peterman, one of our science educators, who took part in the Modeling Physics and Chemistry program offered through Mansfield University, and begun as an outreach program by the Arizona State University. As part of the program, each school’s principal was required to participate. Dr. Reitz never learned so much about physics! And, what Mr. Peterman learned through this experience was, without question, one of the best learning experiences for any teacher to then apply and use in one’s classroom! Congrats and thanks to those faculty who took the vast part of their summer honing their skills in order to share and facilitate learning with our Loyalsock students!
One of the key goals of the high school administration and staff was to find more ways to increase student communication and a voice within our school and among our faculty and staff. We also had a goal to increase school spirit by finding more and better ways to engage students in the great things that occur at Loyalsock each year. For instance, a focused effort was to change the concept of our previously-known Student Council organization. Over the summer and through this year already, Student Council has been re-formed as is now referred to as Student Government. With this new alignment, student officers from each graduating class, officers from each club and organization, and at-large members now meet regularly with Miss Warren, Mrs. Williams, and Mr. VanFleet in an organized, collective fashion where all necessary communication, fund raisers, and student-based initiatives are discussed. This enables students to have a concerted voice within a democratic process when discussing school-wide efforts.
In another way, Student Government has also become the hub of a variety of school spirit initiates that we have experienced thus far this fall. With the advisors’ and students’ leadership, we have been able to have three pep rallies this fall to support our football and other athletic teams that have been in competition this fall. Working collaboratively with our cheerleaders has allowed students to participate in more ways as well. From the awesome events we experienced during Spirit Week (which resulted in a great bonfire and tailgating food event with over 150 students attending), to facilitating the events of Homecoming, the Student Government and clubs rallied to show all of our students how much fun we can all have when we come together. On a specific note, the Homecoming floats were outstanding, and student had a blast designing them! Each club that chose to devise one used a shopping cart, compliments of Weis Markets, as the frame in which to design a thematic representation of the respective club. Each float was voted on by the entire student body, and the winning club walked away with $500, compliments of the Student Government to use for their own club’s functioning. This year’s winner was Yearbook!They also were instrumental with our fall bonfire, pink out, and volleyball tournament. Special thanks to Miss Warren, Mr. VanFleet and Mrs. Williams as well as all of the students who contributed thus far to increasing student school spirit! We look forward to only increasing opportunities for students and have additional pep rallies and functions that promote school-wide spirit! Check out this video of the various Student Government activites mentioned above!
National Merit Commended Student
Congratulations to senior Brad Bailey, a recently recognized National Merit Commended Student by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation! About 34,000 Commended Students throughout the nation are recognized. Commended students rank among the top 5% of more than 1.5 million students who entered the 2011 competition by the taking the PSAT qualifying test in 2009. We are very pleased of Brad’s accomplishment and congratulate him and his family on this high honor!
Youth Leadership Lycoming
Penn College recently re-formed the local Youth Leadership Lycoming program for each of our local schools. Loyalsock’s representatives include Sarah Miller, Alison Malee, and Mike Dougherty. Congratulations to them on their hard work and training as they work through what it requires to demonstrate leadership in today’s world!
Spanish Club is back!
Speaking of clubs, Miss Leid and Mrs. Confer, our two new Spanish teachers this year, have resurrected our Spanish Club! To the delight of many students, activities such as Spanish Heritage week and “Day or the Dead” festivities have occurred in the school and have welcomed the entire school to participate! Special thanks to our two new ladies on welcoming this club back our school!
Key Club
Special thanks are extended to Key Club and their advisor Miss Jennifer Beck for the service they provide our community and school! Two specific notes are with respect to their efforts to re-fill and re-stock over 200 emergency bags located in each classroom in our school district. This bag contains various emergency related items for when/if we ever evacuate from our school (i.e. fire drill, etc.). In addition, Key Club members also were very helpful acting as student ambassadors during our Open House by assisting parents to various classrooms and providing schedules as necessary. Thanks for your efforts Key Club!
Fifth Quarter
With the guidance and leadership of Miss Leid, our new part time Spanish teacher, the Firth Quarter program has begun at Loyalsock! Fifth Quarter is an initiative designed to give students a safe and positive place to go on Friday nights throughout the fall and winter athletic seasons. Usually in the form of a dance and variety of activities (basketball, ping-pong, etc.), Loyalsock students can attend the event free of charge. This event is for Loyalsock students only. Food, a DJ, and chaperones are all donated to the school. The inaugural Fifth Quarter occurred November 5, after the football game versus Montoursville. Pizza, chips, baked goods, ice cream sundaes, served by some vey willing adults was available to all. Also, Lycoming College Communication program provided the music (the radio station). We look forward to providing other Fifth Quarter events in the near future!
Yearbook Field Trip
We encourage faculty to take field trips with their students as appropriate to make real-life application to the concepts and content being learned in class. One field trip that was extremely impressive was the Yearbook Media-Journalism class’s trip to Penn State University and the Jostens Yearbook plant located in State College. Organized by Miss Stiber, students experienced a presentation by the Dr. Ford Risley in the College of Communications on what it means to write in journalistic fashion and the function of objectivity in writing. He also led the class on a tour of The Daily Collegian, a completely full-functioning, student-lead student newspaper at Penn State. From there, students jumped on the bus and were able to tour the brand new, state of the art, HD television studio at Innovation Park on the Penn State campus. Students even had the chance to take a seat at the news anchor desk in front of the 24 state of the art cameras. According to students there, Penn State’s HD studio is only one of three in the entire nation. Finally, students went to the Jostens plant and toured each department to see exactly how Loyalsock’s yearbook is made. Clearly, the 21st century is upon us as students experienced exactly what it means to produce a high quality document (yearbook)!
The Fueling Station
This past September, Loyalsock Township School District Food Service Department introduced “The Fueling Station”, an after school nutrition program. “The Fueling Station” can be described as a self-contained student store where students can use cash to purchase food and beverage items such as Harvest Cookies, Fruit Smoothies, Yogurt, Fruit and Granola Parfaits, Fresh Fruit Cups, Cheese and Crackers, Smucker’s Uncrustable Sandwiches, Trail Mix and a variety of beverages. The goal of “The Fueling Station” is to offer students convenient healthy food and beverage snack options as an alternative to the less nutritious items students may purchase off campus.
“The Fueling Station” was in operation throughout September and October and will reopen in January 2011. Students, faculty and staff have had positive comments about the options “The Fueling Station” offers. Members of SNAC, Student Nutrition Advisory Committee, will continue to provide input in the planning process of “The Fueling Station”.
Student Random Drug Testing
Since early summer, a committee of administrators, teachers, student, Board members and parents has been meeting to implement a part of Policy 227, Random Drug Testing for Students. The many meetings have gone extremely well, and the School Board is very close to enacting this very new and important policy. In an attempt to keep students safe and as far away from illegal drugs as possible, the focus of such a policy is not intended to be punitive in nature, but rather pro-active and supportive to assist all students’ fight against the possible use of illegal substances. Likely to be adopted in either December or early January, the policy entails the testing of students who are members of any extra-curricular function (sport, activity, club, etc.) as well as student drivers to school. Testing is completely done by healthcare professionals, not school officials. Students are placed in a randomly selected “pool” in which student I.D. numbers are randomly selected, and then students are tested using urinalysis in a private, confidential environment. Federal and state law as well as recent Supreme Court decisions governs school district policy and procedure, allowing districts to conduct random student drug testing. We look forward to working with and communicating with the community more on this topic as the months continue. Look for more information on our district website, newsletters, and specific letters to be forthcoming on this topic.
Lancer Marching Band Performs at ACC's!
Once again, our Lancer Band made a trek to the Atlantic Coast Championships this past weekend held at Hershey Park Stadium. Our Lancer band scored high enough at Chapter championships to earn the right to compete among 25 other group 1 bands from across seven states. Congratulations to our marching band students and Mr. Barrett on again being able to compete among some of the top bands on the east coast!
Fall Sports Update
Our fall sports’ programs have been extremely successful again this year! While Loyalsock is blessed to get some fairly good press in the local newspaper, it is important to also note their accomplishments here! In a nutshell, here are the results. Girls’ soccer was PHAC champs and District 4 champs! They also just won their first game in the PIAA state tournament by defeating Minersville from District 11. They continue onto states this week at a date an time to be determined. Girls’ tennis also had a banner year as they were District 4 Team champs (3rd consecutive year), and made it to the state semi-finals in team tennis. What a great season girls! Our girls’ golf team was also District 4 champs, and junior Diana Wahl placed third in District 4 and qualified for the regional tournament. Our boys’ soccer team played some fierce competition this year under Coach Canich’s leadership, but they fell a bit short this year at 8-4-3 when they were defeated last weekend by Northeast Bradford. Finally, our football team has also faced some very stiff competition and has experienced a number of injuries that have remained with various players over the season. 'Sock football finished its season with a decisive win over Montoursville this past Friday night, 28-7. The bridge is ours once again!
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Spanish II is currently learning about clothing in Spanish. Students put on their very own fashion show, but there was a twist. Instead of having the clothes made out of fabric, the students had to use their creativity to come up with different material to use to design their clothing. Some groups used aluminum foil, others garbage bags. The students had a great time working the runway! In November, the Spanish II and III students spent a day at Lycoming College for their "Modern Language Day." Students met native French, German, and Spanish speakers while learning about the different cultures. They had the opportunity to observe and participate in two different college classes as well. For some students, they realized they really did know Spanish! Others mentioned that they now want to pursue a career with a foreign language. All in all, the students all had a positive experience and now have an enthusiastic outlook on foreign language. 
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