Now that the beginning
of the year "dust" has settled, Loyalsock officially has kicked off its 2012-13
school year! We are excited to be back together as a Loyalsock learning
community. So, we will take this opportunity to share some informational items
and news that we have experienced since the end of the 2011-12 school year.
 |
| Miss Beck Farming in Japan |
Each summer,
students and faculty experience some pretty extraordinary things - from
traveling, working together as a faculty to find ways to constantly improve our
school, and celebrating the exit of our Class of 2012 while welcoming students
back to school in late August. This summer was no exception, as we had faculty
spend time being trained at AP Summer Institutes, travel abroad, and network
with other educators from across the country. Miss Jennifer Beck, social studies
teacher, spent the good portion of her summer traveling to various Asian
countries, experiencing educational practices in schools there. One of her
trips took her to Japan, where she farmed rice
in Arida, Wakayama, Japan with nine other teachers and a fifth grade class
while wearing her Loyalsock gear. As a token, she also gave her hosts some
Loyalsock gear as well. Overall, Miss Beck stated that she learned a ton of the
similarities and differences between American and Asian-country schools.
Various students completed
volunteer hours through our Silver Cord Program working at various locations
around our community, from our local parks, to homeless soup kitchens, and
being "volunteens" at Susquehanna Health System. One student, junior
Alex Haefner, applied to and was accepted to the University
of Pittsburgh's Health Scholars Academy. Alex spent one month living in a
dorm and spending an average of 10 hours per day in lectures, job shadowing and
participation in various experiences by numerous medical professionals. He even
got a chance to spend a day in the OR. Alex was recognized this past Wednesday
at our school board meeting; there, Alex mentioned how this experience was life-changing and very career-focused. His experience was entirely paid
for by our Lancer Foundation.
Another significant accomplishment
this summer and up until just recently was the addition and now completion of
Loyalsock's new artificial turf multi-sport complex at the Kenneth M. Robbins
stadium. Completely funded by the
Project 400 team of the Lancer Foundation, countless individuals worked
diligently to make this project happen in record time over an approximate
three-week time period. What is resulted
in is a state-of-the-art facility that over 600 students can enjoy each year,
including middle school and high school soccer and football, as well as our
physical education and wellness classes.
More work is to be completed on the new turf, but our student community
is ecstatic to be able to play on such a new surface!
As we welcomed faculty and students
back to school, we shared several new pieces of information and procedures to
bolster our overall climate and culture of our school community. After much research of other schools and
colleges, we facilitated and implemented a new student committee, the Student
Lancer Round Table, and worked with several faculty to implement our new Lancer
Honor Code in our school. The overall
premise was that we must continue to find ways to have students demonstrate
acts of integrity as many times as possible, and provide support mechanisms
that allow students to make good decisions relative to academic integrity
concerns. The Honor Code has been
embraced by both faculty and students, and we are proud of the fact that the
implementation of the Honor Code has been met positively by all. Together we can prepare our students to build
positive relationships with adults and other students as well as foster an
environment more that focused on individual student accountability, integrity
and worth ethic in everything they do.
You can read on our website about our new Honor Code.
Overall, we
believe that we have begun the new year very positively - our extra-curricular
activities and organizations are already working hard, our athletic teams and
Lancer Marching Band are competing very well, and students appear to be excited
to be back in school, as indicated by the over 250 students who came out to our
annual back-to-school bonfire recently. You can check out all the good vibes
this school year has brought by watching the video below.
Read more...
A pretty cool lesson was experienced late last week in Mr. Davis's Statistics class in which our SRO, Trooper Knight, teamed up with Mr. Davis to demonstrate how statistics are used by law enforcement every day. Trooper Knight shared with the class the project that was undertaken a few years ago in the Route 220 corridor between Williamsport and Jersey Shore. Students used the data presented to them to make predictions for reducing fatalities as was the similar methods used by PSP. Students were able to apply dependent and independent variables, among other statistics, and interact with both Trooper Knight and Mr. Davis in a team teaching atmosphere. Well done Mr. Davis and Trooper Knight!
