A New School Year

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.