Incline Village Schools

Come meet Washoe County's dynamic and energetic new Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Heath Morrison.  He will discuss why the International Baccalaureate (IB) program makes sense in general and specifically for our community.  He intends to include an open Q & A session.  This meeting is for anyone interested in the long-term health of Incline Village/Crystal Bay, so please encourage your friends and neighbors to attend as well.  Childcare will be provided by ROTC volunteers from the high school.

Monday, September 28th             

• Homecoming dress theme:  Hip Hop @ Rap
• Homecoming lunchtime activity: Rap battles
• Any IHS student intending on bringing a guest not from Incline High School to the Homecoming dance MUST complete the guest paperwork by Wednesday, September 30th. NO GUESTS WILL BE PERMITTED INTO THE DANCE WITHOUT CLEARANCE!!

Tuesday, September 29th    

• Homecoming dress theme:  Disco
• Homecoming lunchtime activity: Dance, Dance, Revolution Contest
• Any IHS student intending on bringing a guest not from Incline High School to the Homecoming dance MUST complete the guest paperwork by Wednesday, September 30th. NO GUESTS WILL BE PERMITTED INTO THE DANCE WITHOUT CLEARANCE!!

Wednesday, September 30th                     

• Homecoming dress theme: Rock-n-Roll
• Homecoming lunchtime activity: Guitar Hero Contest
• Any IHS student intending on bringing a guest not from Incline High School to the Homecoming dance MUST complete the guest paperwork by Wednesday, September 30th. NO GUESTS WILL BE PERMITTED INTO THE DANCE WITHOUT CLEARANCE!!

Thursday, October 1st    

• Homecoming dress theme:  Country
• Homecoming lunchtime activity: Country Karaoke Contest

Friday, October 2nd   

• Homecoming dress theme:  Green-n-Gold
• Homecoming parade begins at 2:15pm
• Volleyball vs. North Tahoe:  JV @ 3:00, Varsity @ 4:00
• Football vs. ROP-Silver State Academy, 6:00
• Homecoming Dance, IHS small gym, begins after football game until 11pm

When you get on a plane, you want the pilot to have been trained to the highest standards of flight training. When you need an operation, you expect a well-trained and experienced surgeon. In many areas of our life, we expect and demand high standards. Education should be no different.

I believe we should hold all students to high academic standards. If we don't, the result can be low achievement and the tragedy of children leaving school without graduating or reaching their full potential. In Washoe County School District, we aim for all students to graduate with the skills and knowledge they need to be productive citizens. Children need to be challenged and engaged to keep them learning and in school. We cannot accept mediocrity from them.

As a nation, we appear to have come to a consensus that all children deserve a challenging and rigorous education. Rigor is a word I am starting to hear more and more when I talk to educators. Rigor is found in lessons and activities that actively involve students. It makes them use the knowledge they have to learn or create something new, and emotionally involve students with the concepts. Careful course design should emphasize rigor both in spirit and in fact. Every component of a course must be examined to determine how it engages the students. Rigor is an experience. It stretches a student's mind and challenges their intellect. It goes much deeper than just the issues of testing and accountability. At some point, high standards need defining so everyone in the education system knows what to aim for. Standards allow every student, every parent and every teacher to share in common expectations of what students should know and be able to accomplish. Students will perform to a higher level when more is expected of them, in school and at home.

By raising the level of rigor in our classrooms, it will prepare students for a better future.

Nancy Hollinger is a member of the Washoe County School District Board of Trustees.

Information from the IHS Office

•  It has come to our attention that a company called Dream Scholars Foundation has called one of our student’s homes and were soliciting money for an educational CD to help the student improve his grades.  The company claimed to be affiliated with Incline High School and managed to obtain the mother’s credit card information and made a charge within 15 minutes of the call.  Please be advised that Incline High School is not endorsing this company nor do we ever release any student’s name, phone number or address to anyone.  If you receive any suspicious calls, please call the sheriff’s office and report it immediately!
• Boosters Meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 23, in the IHS Teachers Lounge at 5PM.
• Driver education classes will start on October 5th.  To sign up go the school district website and click on Community Education or call 353-5780.
• Any IHS student intending on bringing a guest not from Incline High School to the Homecoming dance MUST complete the guest paperwork by Wednesday, September 30th. NO GUESTS WILL BE PERMITTED INTO THE DANCE WITHOUT CLEARANCE!!
• PSAT testing: Freshmen and juniors need to pay $13 to Ms. Loeschner in the office by Friday, October 2nd in order to test.
• Rookies raffle tickets are on sale during nutrition and lunch through Friday. Tickets can be purchased for $1. The winner will be announced on September 25th (Friday) during the First Annual Football Fundraiser at Rookies from 6:00-10:00.  You need not be present to win.  Help Incline Football and win a new bike!

The best and the brightest academics at Incline High School share one commonality — their level of involvement.

Whether playing soccer, participating in local internships or serving as class president, a top-notch student at IHS often wears a number of different hats and excels in a number of fields.

Four of those students earned recognition last week on a national basis. Michael Ceragioli, Sean McClelland, Shanna Murray and Sterling Vinson each were named semifinalists for the National Merit Award, which recognizes 8,200 students an awards them with a slice of more than $36 million is scholarships.

They are competing with about 16,000 students nationally for the coveted finalists awards, handed out next spring.

Ceragioli is a four-year varsity soccer player and has two years of varsity basketball under his belt and intends to play again this year. The senior said he is excited for the award, and said his strengths as an academic are in the social sciences.

“My strengths are more in social studies, English, writing and reading,” he said. “Math is a little more difficult for me, but I think I do pretty well on everything.”

He, like the other four students, is enrolled in Incline's “We The People” civics course this year, and views the course as potentially the most challenging in a classload including four advanced placement courses.

Vinson, a four-year cross country and track runner who also serves in the Incline JROTC Highlander Battalion and on the IHS Academic Olympics team, said he's also looking forward most to the “We The People” course this year.

“I think it's the class I can take the most away from, that I can learn the most from,” Vinson said. He said his strengths are in math and science, adding that to combat a perceived weakness in English, he needs to put extra time in.

Murray said getting help in classes she's struggled with, like math, is easy.

“Because we're so small you're able to work one-on-one with a lot of teachers here,” Murray said. “I think that's a big advantage to going to a smaller school.”

Murray has played volleyball all four years and has so far earned two varsity letters in basketball, in addition to her duties as senior class president and her positions on the National Honor Society and with the school's French Club.

McClelland said the key to his academic success is an inquisitive nature.

“I pride myself on asking a lot of questions,” McClelland said. “I'm constantly questioning the norms — I think that's where my success comes from.”

The two-year cross country runner, also a black belt in tae kwon do, said “We The People” will provide the stiffest academic challenge this year in a schedule which includes five AP courses.

For recognition as a National Merit finalist, a semifinalist must have an outstanding academic record throughout high school, be endorsed and recommended by the high school principal and earn SAT scores confirming the student's earlier performance on the qualifying test.

ATTN SENIORS - When applying to colleges, please remember that you must submit your transcript to colleges by going to www.docufide.com.

If you have any questions please see Faith Nicole in the Counselors office.

To nominate an Incline High School student athlete for an "Athlete of the Week" to the Reno Gazette Journal, please fill out this form.

The PSAT/NMSQT is a student’s first official step on the road to college.  In fact, the PSAT/NMSQT is a standardized test designed to measure your ability to do college work.  The test is a mini-version of the SAT and for most students, it serves as a practice test. 

This preliminary SAT is also the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC). NMSC has been co-sponsoring this test since 1971. For more information about National Merit Scholarship programs visit: www.nationalmerit.org

You can prepare for the PSAT by studying the student test-taking help booklet developed by CollegeBoard.  Sophomores will receive their study booklets in Enrichment class. Freshmen & Juniors will receive their study booklets in the office after a $13 payment is received. 

The school district pays for all Sophomores to test.  Freshmen and Juniors will need to pay $13 to Ms. Loeschner in the office by Friday, October 2, 2009 in order to test.

The PSAT test consists of five sections:

•two 25 minute sections testing critical reading skills
•two 25 minute sections testing mathematical skills
•one 30 minute section testing writing skills

For more information, please contact Faith Nicole in the counselors office.

The number of H1N1 flu cases in Washoe County has climbed significantly this month, particularly among children, teens and young adults, but have yet to affect operations in Washoe County’s schools.

Washoe County reported that 93 of 115 confirmed and probable cases of swine flu reported last week were sustained by those ages 5 to 24.

That brings the total number of Washoe cases since April to 311 in people ages 5 to 18 and to 122 for those ages 19 to 24. Overall, 646 cases have been reported.

Still, local schools remain open.
“What we’re doing is sanitizing common surfaces daily and encouraging the use of hand sanitizer,” said Steve Mulvenon, school district spokesman. “Our intent through all of this is to keep schools open and function in a normal manner.”

Mulvenon said health officials initially requested staff at schools record information about symptoms a child is having when their parents called them in ill.  “H1N1 is now so widespread that they said it was pointless to keep that up,” Mulvenon said. “It’s widespread. It’s everywhere.”

Individual schools don’t draw district attention unless an absentee rate among students rises above 10 percent.  “It’s happened several times at several schools since the school year started,” Mulvenon said.

Information on medical absenteeism from Thursday was released by the school district Friday and indicated only Johnson Elementary and Gerlach middle and high schools had more than 10 percent of its students out for medical reasons that day. Seventeen of 39 students were absent Thursday at Gerlach.

Johnson-Gerlach principal Edna LaMarca said she knows of no official H1N1 diagnoses in the area, but some children had symptoms that included nausea, headache and congestion.

“It could be a blend of things,” LaMarca said. “It seems to be short lived, but we’ve never seen this many (absences) at one time.”

Six Washoe elementary schools and one middle school had absences “above normal limits” Thursday, among them Hunsberger Elementary School.  “We sent something home in our newsletter this week that talks about that and symptoms and what the children have to be free of (before returning to school),” said Layne Clarkson, Hunsberger secretary.

Mulvenon said medical-related absence data changes among schools daily.  “You tend to see clusters of illness in various parts of the community that come and go,” Mulvenon said. “What’s true for a given school today night not be the case tomorrow.”

Letters about combating seasonal and swine flu were sent to parents of Washoe County School District elementary students before the start of the school year. 

If the flu becomes more severe, the district plans to take additional steps that might include on-site screenings of students and staff, postponing field trips or moving student desks farther apart.

Mulvenon said the health department determines the definition of “severe.”  However, health department spokeswoman Judy Davis said there isn’t a universal definition.

“It’s a rather subjective topic and the decision made around ‘worse’ or ‘severe’ would be customized to the (affected) community or school,” Davis said. “A component to ‘severe’ would be the number of deaths and hospitalizations.”

The numbers:  Of the 22 flu hospitalizations so far in Washoe County, seven of those patients were between ages 5 and 18 and one was between 19 and 24, according to the health department.

Washoe County had its first reported death from swine flu Wednesday. The victim was a woman between ages 25 and 49 who reportedly had other underlying health conditions.

In a guidance document outlined for school and health officials released in August, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said whether to dismiss students from school should be made at local levels.

However, it said decisions should balance the goal of reducing the number of people who become ill or die while minimizing social disruption and safety risks to children that can be associated with school dismissal.

“Based on the experience and knowledge gained in jurisdictions that had large outbreaks in spring 2009, the potential benefits of preemptively dismissing students from school are often outweighed by negative consequences, including students being left home alone, health workers missing shifts when they must stay home with their children, students missing meals, and interruption of students’ education,” the document said. “Still, although the situation in fall 2009 is unpredictable, more communities may be affected, reflecting wider transmission.”