Success at MHS!

Success isn't just test great test scores; it's really the professional leadership and efforts of teachers at MHS to make our school GREAT for kids! There are so many things our high school does that go largely unseen and sometimes only loosely measured. Here are some things you ought to know about this past year at MHS:

We broke records for the number of students qualifying for district and national competition in speech and debate. 

Our Journalism Department won a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in broadcast journalism.

Our Speech and Drama department has been recognized for the Jellybean Festival for students with special needs with national and state recognition and $5,000 was given to use from the University of Kansas to support this effort. Our teacher, Mrs. Sara Given was recognized as the Speech and Debate Association Teacher of the Year in the state of Missouri. 

Our football team had the most wins in school history and almost every team was recognized by the Missouri State High School Activities Association with an academic recognition for their average GPA of 3.0 or better. Mr. Anderson was recognized as the Northeast District Athletic Director of the Year.

We've maintained a low failure rate of approximately 10% or less in courses and steadily increased rigor over the past three years. 

Our Student Council was recognized as an Honor Council for the 4th year in a row and the Missouri Association of Student Councils named Dr. Terry Robinson as the NE Administrator of the year. (yes, I've added my own award, but I was truly honored and mention it only because - WE won it...it wasn't just ME) :)

Our social studies department expanded connections with the Churchill Museum, the National WWI Museum Kansas City, MO and our local Audrain County Courthouse for Law Day with local prosecutor Jacob Shellabarger. Furthermore they'll be expanding technology use in their department and will be integrating chrome books in each classroom - 25 per room.They'll also offer online Dual Credit Psychology in spring 2017. 

Our science department will add dual credit anatomy and acted as innovators with water pressure rocket design labs and a hover craft experiment in physics. 

Students with special needs and our special education team have been busy as well. We now have a VA job skills/transition program and a new school store for job skill development connected with our positive behavior intervention and support efforts. Bright Futures (our district community connection) has also helped us with the school store. 

Our counseling department worked to focus on freshmen transition last year and added field trips and activities at Mizzou and Columbia College for freshmen. In addition they piloted a new schedule planning process for this upcoming school year that resulted in Spanish being available for our middle school. Because of solid prior planning, we'll share a Spanish teacher at MMS 1/2 time. 

There's more that could be added to this list, but these are some of the standouts that came to my mind. It's my hope you'll continue to support the kids and teachers at MHS. We need the community in partnership with all we do; an old WWII poster once displayed the following slogan: "TOGETHER, WE CAN DO IT!"  - it's true in war and in education, everyone has to work together to impact our kids. 

T.