This year has been a great year to celebrate instructional improvements and positive behavior at MHS. Our positive behavior and intervention implementation is moving toward silver certification after our bronze recognition in 2013. We have also nearly DOUBLED the number of students at or above the national average on the ACT. Teachers are working hard and our students are following suit. Everyday is a great day to be a bulldog! I hope everyone is making use our two twitter accounts for regular updates - MexicoMoHS and Mexicohssports.
I've attached the April board report for followers of my blog, so much happens in a school year and I'm thankful for all our committed coaches and teachers making all these good things happen.
Current Enrollment: 637
Free / Reduced Lunch Enrollment: 268
Student Services Listing: 268
Students of the Month: March 2014: Kirby Weber and Beau Talley
Teacher of the Month: March 2014 - Mrs. Bridget Bingham
Academics - What have we learned?
Administration Team
Dr. Terry Robinson, Principal:
I attended the state principal’s meeting at Lake Ozark March 30-April 1. Some of the highlights from this conference follow: John Draper, a national presenter at the conference offered his insights into the needs of students today. He stated, “we have a poverty-learning gap...we need to negate the effects of poverty caused by dysfunctional families and unsafe communities...to this end, it takes more than regular school. Poverty is the greatest common factor among low achieving children.” He ended his keynote address with a “successory” -- “Commit to shifting attention to the positive, never bad-mouth another educator in public and continuously share the positives of your school” During this time officials from ACT also offered an information session and state leaders provided information regarding changes for 2015. The ACT will be offered to all juniors by the state of Missouri as a measure of college and career readiness in April 2015. All juniors in the state of Missouri will test on the same day. In addition, this ACT will include the writing portion offered by ACT. In addition I participated in a training session with Liberty High School concerning the ACT and implementing testing for all juniors. I was pleased to learn MHS is in line with a select group of schools that chose to test all students prior to the state mandate and I believe our students have benefitted from our progressive work. Also, our on-site ACT (held during the school day) and board paid ACT has pushed the importance of this test to the forefront of the minds of students, teachers and parents. Finally, Margie Vandeven - DESE, focused on state assessments required for 2015. These will include English II, Algebra I or II, American Government and Biology. English I, American History and Geometry will be optional tests in 2015 and there is no decision on whether or not these tests can be taken by districts to help their accreditation in 2015 if they choose to do so. I asked two department chairs to share information about their improvement efforts to reach and teach MHS students. This month Ms. Paula Isgrig and Mrs. Sara Given have shared their department level work. Their reports follow.
Ms. Paula Isgrig - Special Education Department Chair:
The special education department’s SMART (Strategic, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, Time-bound) goal at the beginning of the year was to increase the percentage of sophomore students with an IEP scoring basic or higher from 33.1% to 44% by the end of the 2013-2014 school year as measured by the English II EOC administered in May of 2014. A variety of classroom strategies were emphasized in our daily instruction to focus on reading and writing. As a department we have worked to implement word walls, word sorts,
anticipation guides, modeling, graphic organizers, and common writing rubrics. Additionally we have emphasized work readiness with our students. Our department had 35 students participate in Job Shadowing Day on March 5. Students shadowed various businesses in Mexico, Centralia, and Columbia. Students were required to make the initial contact with the business to arrange their visit. Afterwards, they were required
to write thank-you letters to the employers.
Mrs. Sara Given- Fine Arts & Media Department Chair:
Our department is unique in that it is a collaboration of five individual departments (Art, Music, Media, Family & Consumer Science and Speech/Theatre). We collaborate together regularly to assess the progression of the academics in our own classrooms as well as our role as a department to support the curriculum of the other departments. Each individual department set SMART goals for the year. All areas of our collaborative department have reported near mastery and mastery of those SMART goals. As a collective department we set high expectations for our students and are proud of their progression and accomplishments. While most of the learning we ask students to accomplish comes in the form of performances or performance tasks, we have also been involved in giving more traditional midterms and finals in all our areas. I have summarized areas we have emphasized with our students this year below:.
The Theatre SMART goal of 90% of students performing in the top two tiers of characterization has been met. Students are continuing to work on characterization this semester. Tara Matlock - FACS reported the her students were assessed on their SMART goal of improving measuring techniques. After their first attempt students didn’t do well. However, she has reassessed them recently and has met her goal of 85% achievement. She also reports that students are continuing to progress in other areas. Robert Cortez - Band and Instrumental Music reported 100% mastery of the SMART goal for primary chord progression in Guitar. The Art department set a SMART goal of 90% mastery of 3D Shading and Illusion of Form. Laura Haynes shared that her classes have met this goal. Alicia Pigg reported her students are making progress and have achieved 85% mastery as well. Jami Williams reported that 95% mastery was achieved for her SMART goal of 80% of her students completing a finished video segment in Broadcast Journalism. She also reported that the MHS Yearbook earned a spot in the top 25 out of 15,000 yearbooks in the “Caught Our Eye” Walsworth National publication.
Mrs. Alicia Pigg - Art:
Whitney Fecht applied and was accepted to MFAA this year. She put together a wonderful art portfolio and she is very excited about the opportunity! Students from Ms. Pigg's Art class represented Mexico High School at the Culver Stockton Visual Arts Day on Tuesday, March 25th and won the Artistic Excellence Award for the Sidewalk Chalk Competition created by Kamden Ekern and Micah Gwinn. Also winning awards was Lorin Rayl for Artistic Excellence and Honorable Mention for her individual art work.
Mr. Brad Ellebracht - Assistant Principal:
PBiS:
We continue to make progress toward silver PBIS certification. We will renew our Bronze level certification this month after collecting data in the form of discipline incidents - date, time, location and type, student incentive efforts, teaching and modeling appropriate student behavior and regular required surveys of our progress. Throughout the year we have supported training for teachers as well. Overall our teachers and administrators continue to make a positive impact to dissuade students from disruptive behavior. We have significantly decreased persistent behaviors detrimental to the learning environment. Third quarter data indicates the average referrals per day has decreased, the number students with 6 or more referrals has decreased, and finally, the need for temporary assignment to in school suspension has decreased (temporary BIP - hourly). Finally, the senior class of 2013, when compared to the previous year, has significantly fewer referrals.
Seminar review:
A group of teachers and administrators from the high school and the career center are doing a system-wide review of the Seminar program, which is our a primary academic intervention program. This group is reviewing current practices, setting priorities and putting together a proposal on how to move forward with the program.
Guidance and Counseling Team:
New or returning students for March: 8
Students withdrew for March: 9
College Visits - 7
Military Visits - 3
Agency Visits - 5
Job Shadow make up day was held on on March 5th.
ZAPS-ACT Prep Seminar was held on March 17th.
ACT Board Funded Testing for the Junior Class on March 18th.
Math Field Test for 10th graders took place on March 24th and 25th.
The Army brought a Science, Technology, Mathematics, and Engineering Simulator Truck to MHS on
Monday, March 31st from 8:00AM - 3:00PM. Students enrolled in Intermediate Algebra, Algebra 2, Pre Calc, AP Calc, and DC Stats participated during their scheduled class time. 
MHS local scholarships were due on March 17th. Ninety-eight local scholarships were offered. Eighty-one Seniors turned in over 2,385 scholarship application for processing. Those were then distributed to local committees. Twenty-eight previous graduates turned in scholarships to be processed too.
Activities & Athletics
Mr. Jeff Anderson – Vice Principal/Activities Director
Spring sports have begun and we have 142 students participating in Baseball, Boys Tennis, Boys Golf, Track or Girls Soccer. The seasons have gotten started with only a few weather cancellations. MSHSAA honored the some of our teams for achieving the Missouri State High School Activities Association scholastic achievement award for their combined team grade point average.
Outstanding Scholastic Achievement:
Group Scholar Bowl 3.49
Group Speech and Debate 3.42
Group Band and Music 3.49
We have several upcoming home events over the next few weeks. Come on out and support your Bulldogs!
Mr. Robert Cortez- Band Director
Special thanks to our faculty supervisors and leaders for helping to make our annual Music Festival a big success! I had many visitors to our campus (including the music judges from around the state) compliment the friendly staff here at MHS. Some of the judges further commented that Mexico is their favorite festival at which to judge. Special thanks to Kim Foley and Julie Pappas (along with Mrs. Pappas' student teacher Katlyn) for their help in running the festival this year. The MSHSAA District Music Festival for soloists and small ensembles was held at Mexico High School on Saturday, April 5, 2014.
The following 25 students were awarded a "1 - Exemplary" Rating, and have qualified to perform at the MSHSAA State Music Festival in Columbia on May 1:
Vocal Sextet: Kayla Parrott, Kristin Walch, Zori Holman, Aanye' Smith, Austin Patillo, Christian Plummer
Madeline Strunk, Vocal Solo
Isaac Prior, Vocal Solo
Nicole Webber, Vocal Solo
Vocal Double Quartet: Ashlie Woodruff, Rachel Toalson, Ally Applebee, Elysse Williams, Samuel Hobbs, Ethan Musgrove, Isaac Prior, Johnny McDonald
Allison Heckman, Clarinet Solo
Grace Maddox, Vocal Solo
Brass Quintet: Lauren Ransom, Karen Baker, Austin Barnett, Lucas Handlin, Christian McKeown
Grace Troesser, Clarinet Solo
The following students were awarded a "2 - Outstanding" Rating:
Lillian Rotte (Vocal), Hannah Tracy (Vocal), Sierra Forsee (Vocal), DayNeisha Shivers (Vocal), Grace Troesser (Piano), Kali Lewis (Vocal), Debbie Eisenhoffer (Vocal), Kayla Parrott (Vocal), Percussion Trio (Ethan Campbell, Dylan Goodman, Nathan Dick), Elizabeth Kasubke (Piano), Christiana Jordan (Vocal), Madeleine Prince (Saxophone), Alexis Atkinson (Vocal), Trumpet Trio (Rachel Owings, Lary Dye, Jessica Joiner), Elysse Williams (Vocal), Kristin Walch (Vocal), Kerrie Ahrens (Vocal), Clarinet Trio (Nandita Thapar, Grace Troesser, Carly Abbott), Amber Shaw (Flute).
The following students were awarded a "3 - Satisfactory" Rating:
Peyton Johnson (Vocal), Trombone Quartet (Caleb Quinlan, Jordan Hagedorn, Morgan Hall, Marcus Moore), Angela Walch (Vocal), Delanie Jones (Vocal), Rachel Owings (Trumpet), Sax Trio (Madeleine Prince, Chelsea McCord, Haley Barnes).
The MSHSAA Definitions for Ratings are as follows:
EXEMPLARY - An exemplary performance that consistently demonstrates true musical expression and few technical errors. The performance is worthy of the distinction of being recognized as among the very best.
OUTSTANDING - An outstanding performance of distinctive quality, yet has minor defects in musical expression and fundamental technique.
SATISFACTORY - A satisfactory performance showing accomplishment and marked promise, but lacking consistency of musical expression and fundamental technique.
No students from Mexico received ratings of "4 - Developing" or "5 - Ineffective".
In addition to the Fine Arts & Media Department students achieving higher level learning experiences and success within the classroom lessons, it should be noted that many of our students are achieving at high level learning outside of the classroom in our co-curricular programs. These real world extensions of the class curriculum reinforce the educational experience students are getting here at MHS.
Mrs. Sara Given - Speech and Debate Coach On behalf of the Speech & Theatre teams that competed at the MSHSAA District Tournament in March, I want to thank all our faculty, staff and community for their cooperation and support. Not only was I impressed and proud of our MHS Students, but I received many compliments from visiting schools on the cooperation of the student body in allowing us to host a Readers and One Act competition during the school day. Teacher support is always appreciated and we are so proud that our school is able to host such an important tournament without any complications.
Our Readers Theatre was District Champ and qualified for State! It is an especially big win considering that our students wrote about 60% of the script! Kudos to the English teachers! Also qualifying to State were Alex Shaw (District Champ in Humorous) and Sidny Groves (3rd place Storytelling).
Additional finalists were:
Rachel Owings- 3rd place LD Debate
Brooke Ransom 3rd place Original Oratory
Kirby Weber 5th place Prose
Austin Pattillo & Trevor Plummer 4th place Duet Acting
The One Act Play "Not So Grimm Tales" finished 3rd.
State competition will be held Friday, April 25 and Saturday, April 26 at M.U. in Columbia.
Way to go Mexico!
Mrs. Lindsey Yancey - Student Council Sponsor
MHS Student Council received recognition at our MASC State Convention in recognition of our work at MHS and our community. Our school was honored with a Gold Level Honor Council Award which has a detailed and lengthy application process. In addition, we also received an award for our participation in the Polar Bear Plunge for Special Olympics. MHS raised the most money of any high school in our state that has a population between 501 and 999. This was completely unexpected and quite exciting as we were fundraising during Winterwarming with a lot of other stuff going on as well as working around the fact that we had been out for four days due to snow the week before!
Mr. Tyler Burgin - FFA Sponsor
Mexico FFA students competed at the Area 4 Leadership Event last night. 12 students competed for a chance to move to the district level in speaking, job skill, and FFA Events and 5 will be competing next Monday at Monroe City. FFA Competitors were:
Lauren Ransom 3rd Place Job Interview- on to districts
Amber Shaw 4th place knowledge team- on to districts
Brooke Ransom 4th Place knowledge team- on to districts
Cameron Evans 4th Place Knowledge Team- On to districts
Reagan Samm 4th Place Knowledge Team- on to districts
Brooke Ransom- Division I Speaking
Amber Shaw-Creed Speaking
Mackenzie Stumpe- Secretaries book
Maddie Carroz- Chapter Scrapbook
Haley Barnes- Treasurers Book
Caleb Quinlan- Record Book
Austin Terrell- Record Book
Miranda Deimeke- Record Book
Paige Schutte- Record Book
All competitors had a strong showing against a tough area. Please congratulate our students heading to districts.
Upcoming MHS Events and Activities
April 16th - Cheer Try Outs for 2014-2015 School Year
April 23rd - Art Club is taking a field trip to St Louis
April 25th - Physics students will be attending Physics Day at Six Flags
April 25th & 26th - MSHSAA State Speech & Debate Contest, Columbia, MO
April 30th - Band will be Performing @ Busch Stadium
May 1st - MSHSAA State Music
