SAT TESTS
Be sure to let your students know that there are now two places nearby to take the SAT, McMinnville and Newberg High schools. Beats driving to Salem or Portland!
Test Date Nov. 6 ** Registration deadline Oct. 8, given at Newberg High School
Test Date Dec. 4 ** Registration deadline Nov. 5, given at McMinnville & Newberg High Schools
Test Date Jan. 22** Registration deadline Dec. 23, given at McMinnville High School
Test Date March 12 ** Registration deadline Feb. 11, given at McMinnville High School
Test Date May 7 ** Registration deadline April 8, given at McMinnville and Newberg High Schools
Test Date June 4 ** Registration deadline May 6, given at McMinnville and Newberg High Schools
Friday, September 10, 2010
LINK TO: Inspiring video clip that focuses on the value of all that mentors and teachers do for students
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpG2CZjblzs&feature=fvw
Monday, September 6, 2010
ASPIRE Inspiration for New School Year
Now is the time.
Now is what life is about.
Now is what life is about.
Now is the starting point.
Now is in your hands.
Now is the moment.
Now is the start to a spectacular future
AMOUNT OF SCHOLARSHIPS ACCEPTED BY YCHS STUDENTS DURING LAST DECADE
2010 $1,238,037
2009 $811,399
2008 $394,839
2007 $307,250
2006 $542,842
2005 $300,000
2004 $487,966
2003 $460,000
2002 $191,058
2001 $513,500
2000 $319,812
Start-up News for the 2010-2011 School Year
Mentors All,
- School starts tomorrow, so I wanted to bring you up to speed on some of the things discussed at the first YCHS staff meeting of the year held last week.
- As ASPIRE mentors, you are used to wearing your name badges whenever you are at school. This year, it becomes essential for staff, as well as visitors, to wear ID badges. This is a means of stepping up security at all Oregon schools in the wake of the Kyron Homan disappearance from a Portland school earlier this year.
- The YC athletic department will no longer be preparing paper copies of our teams' game schedules. Instead, the schedules will be maintained, and will be viewable, at www.highschoolsports.orghighschoolsports.net.
- Breakfast-in-the-Classroom will be served earlier this year: It will be at 8:10 a.m.
- Push to renew efforts to use Tiger Tracks/Quick Slips to reward a student's positive behavior. Mentors -- you, too, are encouraged to use Tiger Tracks. I'll be glad to explain how they work if you are unfamiliar with them.
- This year's Student Planner has important school-related information on pages 9-29. The 2010-2011 Planner will be posted online as soon as it is available. Please be sure to read through these important pages.
- Lori Chamberlain is the new YC lead secretary, replacing Keri Dixon.
- Dian Harper, who worked in the YC counseling office half-time last year, joins us full-time in that department. She'll be the one who helps us with transcripts, forms, senior activities and local scholarships.
- Sherry Maynard has moved to the main office. She will continue as attendance secretary and main athletic scheduler as well as taking on new tasks as secretary duties are realigned.
- Susie Amerson will remain with the YC library half time; and also do work for the Dean of Students Rick Dunn, who joined the staff the end of last year, the Athletics Director and coaches. Her office has been relocated to the bottom floor near the counseling office. (Where Sherry's former office is.) YC is looking to make a hire for a part-time library aide as soon as possible.
- YCHS now has a wireless network!
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Notes From Mentors' End-of-Year Meeting in June 2010
Mentors,
Some really great ideas came out of this informal exchange of information.Seniors' counselor from YCHS, Janette Bunn, also attended, and her insights were helpful as well. The notes here are rather telegraphic in form. Hopefully they will serve to jog our memories, so we can further discuss them with the entire mentor/volunteer group at our first ASPIRE meeting of the year. Date for that is still to be determined.
- To avoid having you spend time waiting for students to arrive for their appointments, we discussed pre-scheduling appointments for the following week. This was the method used a few years back. Mentors prepared their students' blue pass slips FOR THE NEXT WEEK before they left school each week. The passes were left with the ASPIRE Coordinator, who delivered them to the Counseling office for distribution on the appropriate day. That means the students should have their passes in hand and be headed your way sort of "automatically." In the past, this has saved considerable "down time" for mentors.
- Since Advisory Class will now be held three times a week rather than daily, there was discussion of mentors meeting with some students on Wednesdays (the day students are dismissed early) between 1:40-3 p.m. Using this time should not overlap with athletic practices and events.
- Should we introduce some role playing to help students with their college (and job) interviews?
- We will have easier access to ASPIRE students' transcripts this year.We added a statement to the new permission forms explaining to students and parents that this information enables Mentors to better guide their Mentees. We stressed that this type of information in kept confidential. Once school gets under way, the Counseling Office will provide us with the transcripts, which will then be housed in each student's file.
- A reminder to all Mentors working with seniors who are serious about earning scholarships: It's been recommended that a student sign up for at least five different search engines to learn about scholarships offered. The goal is for students to apply for 100-150 scholarships. This means they should be completing two to three applications each week!
- A technique that Tresa used in the spring of last year was to have her Senior mentees talk with her Junior mentees. This turned out to be a valuable way for underclassmen to learn from seniors' experiences about what to do and not do their senior year. We're thinking on how to implement this on a larger scale. Your ideas are always welcome!
- We need to reach out to students in classrooms this year. If memory serves, Pam and Lynsi offered to be among the mentors who do brief ASPIRE presentations in classes from time to time. And we can always incorporate the VERY EFFECTIVE "How You Get into College" exercise produced at Linfield College and shared with us by Laura last year.
- Remind students who work with other YC or Intermediate School students, to refer to this as Peer Tutoring on their activities charts, etc. This is a more meaningful term than the standard, Student Aide.
- The plan is to have ASPIRE be an Opt-In program for seniors next year. This year since we have a new permission form designed at the state level, all students need to sign up for ASPIRE. The good news, the new forms were sent out with the materials mailed to seniors prior to registration. About 25 percent of the senior class turned in their ASPIRE forms on registration day. We can hit the ground running!
- We have reminded parents and students at every juncture that ninth-eleventh graders are welcome to sign up for ASPIRE now, but they may not meet with a mentor until second semester; because seniors have so many deadlines, etc. during the fall. We MAY send a reminder letter about this to parents of the younger students, so that everyone is on the same page. Hence, we should attempt to get parents' e-mail addresses during first sessions with a students.
- Possibly have a meet-and-greet event at YC, so parents can meet their student's mentor.
- We will try to be certain that ASPIRE is kept in the loop about all college visits to the school. This means visits planned by other staff members, too.
- A reminder that at private colleges, a high GPA and high SAT scores may generate as much as $5,000 more in financial aid offered by that college. Private colleges also are known to hold Competitive Scholarship Days on their campuses. Encourage students to call the Financial Aid office at their college-of-choice to find out when these will be held and what needs to be done in order to attend one.
- We plan to work with English teachers to incorporate having seniors do a trial run at writing thei college and scholarship application essays.
Friday, September 3, 2010
YCSD Education Plan and Profile
Mentors:
For awhile now, we've had discussions about how valuable it
would be to know what's included in the Ed Plans for students at YCHS.
We have them available to us this year!! You will soon find one in your
Mentor file in the file cabinet. Thanks for your patience on this matter! Janet
For awhile now, we've had discussions about how valuable it
would be to know what's included in the Ed Plans for students at YCHS.
We have them available to us this year!! You will soon find one in your
Mentor file in the file cabinet. Thanks for your patience on this matter! Janet
September 2010 online ASPIRE trainings for YCHS mentors and coordinators
There are two session of Intro to ASPIRE and College 101 scheduled in September, Sept 14 at 9 am and Sept 16 at 1 pm. There may be one additional coming up. To register for these trainings:
Go to www.aspireoregon.org
Click on “ASPIRE COORDINATORS”
Enter the password
Scroll down to “To register visit the ASPIRE Training Registration Page”
Click on the highlighted blue ASPIRE Training Registration page
Verify that the month displayed is September. If not, on the top right hand side of the calendar hit “Next Month”
Select the training that you want by clicking on the number
Once you click on the number the text with turn blue, scroll to the bottom of the page and enter your information.
YCHS ASPIRE Mentors for 2010-2011
If you are interested in these on-line training sessions, which you can do at your home or at school, please let me know, and I will get you the password. Thanks, Janet
YCHS ASPIRE Mentors for 2010-2011
If you are interested in these on-line training sessions, which you can do at your home or at school, please let me know, and I will get you the password. Thanks, Janet
Broken Escalator Lesson
A reminder to all about the importance of
problem solving and being master of your fate.
problem solving and being master of your fate.
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