Welcome Clark W. - Clark is the first official follower of the principal's corner. If you're not a regular follower, but you care about the high school I encourage you to be a regular follower and barring any major issues preventing me from doing so, I'll try and post regularly when I have information that will benefit you.
Communication has stood out as area for improvement at the high school, to begin this improvement, I started with me - I added this blog to the school website. There are a couple of questions at the end of the blog that will guide me in getting quick feedback from the community. I encourage you to use this forum to share your ideas, concerns and occasionally provide survey feedback.
Thanks to community support, the high school is in the midst of major structural improvements. If you've come by the high school and noticed unsightly debris, and the sounds of hammers you might want to call the office FIRST instead of come in person. Running into excessive dust clouds in the halls, scaffolding, and possible falling pieces of old windows are a real possibility if you decide to visit in person. Amy Lif - Principal's secretary and I will be in the main office until we need to vacate the area for improvements to our office windows, in addition we may not have air conditioning for a time as vent and duct work is completed for the new air conditioning system.
Be sure to visit with your son or daughter about classes you would like them to take in the coming school year. I visited with Mrs. Kris Turlington - Counselor, Mrs. Deb Haag - Director of Instruction and Mrs. Tina Woolsey - Superintendent this week about registration in August and how we might be able to provide better service to students during the registration process. It seems the process is very slow due to the number of schedule change requests coupled with registration going on at the same time. Our new plan will separate these two activities so long lines and some frustration from last year are eased. For this year, students will register 2 weeks prior to school at Mexico Middle School (avoiding the construction here at the high school) on August 4th and 5th from 7 am to 7 pm, and August 6th from 7 am to 4 pm. Students will receive a locker assignment, their schedule and will be allowed to sign up for a counseling appointment during the next two weeks if they need to have a schedule change request.
A few notes about scheduling classes: It is always the goal of our guidance department to meet the scheduling requests of students. However, there are no perfect school master schedules that meet every student request. One thing we are blessed with at Mexico High School are A LOT OF CHOICES and ELECTIVES. This is GREAT! It does generate some frustration and confusion however with students because they can't take EVERY class they want, when they want. As a parent, you may want to provide some guidance with your son or daughter so they sort out what electives are most important to them. Our goal remains to serve the educational needs of students by providing the state mandated core curriculum (Math, English, Social Studies, Science) and provide most additional electives they wish to pursue.
Finally, here are a few questions you can feel free to respond to by registering as a follower of this blog and then posting a response. I reserve the right to moderate all responses to keep this blog professional and in line with its intended purpose, so you may not see your post for a time until I've reviewed it.
In an effort to increase communication, some schools have begun using Twitter to send out important updates - basically Twitter is a mass text message that provides information to the persons receiving it.
Would you be interested in receiving a weekly text message with event updates?
What information would you like to access to about our classes and teachers posted on the website?
In your opinion, how can the high school BEST improve communication with the community?
I will check back periodically to review posts and I hope you take the time to provide some answers to the questions above.
