Volume 4

Good Afternoon South Parents and Staff:

Here is the link to the Weekly Bulletin for September 30 - October 5 (also attached)

National Merit Semi-Finalists for 2020

National Merit Semi-Finalists have been named for 2020. South High School is home to four of them: Caden McElligott, Grayling Peterson, Aleah Williams, and Dylan Yarger. Please congratulate them when you see them! 

All Semi-Finalists from Anchorage High Schools can be found on the following ASD’s Website. 

On another academic note, please also take a look at the college information in the linked bulletin above. Advisors from Dartmouth and Western Colorado will visit us this week during lunch.

Weekend Activities

We are coming off a BIG weekend in athletics. Our JV Boys Football team was dominant at Chugiak on Friday afternoon, and our Varsity team mounted an impressive fourth-quarter comeback to take a 39-14 victory under the lights. Our swimmers were in the pool at West on Friday, while our volleyball girls tangled with Eagle River, and our riflery team had their first match against Dimond. 

On Saturday, our JV volleyball team hosted the South Spiketacular while our Flag Football took to the gridiron against West and our Tennis faced West as well. Across town, our Cross Country Teams were at Regions at Bartlett, where our Girls teams won team honors at all levels, and the Open Girls Team locked up all the top finishes, earning a perfect score. Our boys also ran strong races. Congratulations also goes to Coach Sara Miller, who was voted All-Region Coach of the Year by her peers!

Select photos from last week are linked in an album at the bottom of this newsletter. Thanks to those who’ve sent images my way for inclusion!  

Next Friday and Saturday are particularly busy with many fall sports having their final regular season games or tournaments. Check out the South calendar for details and help us support our student athletes.

Fall Parent-Teacher Conference Schedule

Fall Parent-Teacher Conferences will be held in two sessions at South High School on Wednesday, October 23rd. Teachers will be available in the commons during both sessions to meet with parents and discuss first quarter progress:

  • Student Release 11:00 AM
  • P/T Conference Early Session: 11:45 AM to 2:30 PM 
  • P/T Conference Late Session: 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Students will have a full school day on Thursday, October 24th. There will be no school for students on Friday, October 25th due to a State Released Professional Development Day. 

Attendance Awareness and Fall Count

Throughout the next month the State will be calculating our average daily attendance, which will be used as a primary consideration for education funding for next year. 

We would like all students to make it their goal to attend at least 90% of the time in order to maximize their opportunity to learn, and to form good habits for life after high school. We know that attendance and academic success are correlated, and showing up day in and day out gives every student an edge on their future.

Getting Organized and Planning, Revisited: 

In Volume 2, I shared bullet journaling as a method of staying organized. As an extension of that idea, I would also like to share some of David Allen’s work on planning. He has developed a method, which he calls the Natural Planning Model. The key steps are outlined below, and his TED talk as well as some excerpts from his book are linked below. This is an approach that we might use along with Bullet Journaling to take more control of our daily work, find direction, and reduce stress and anxiety no matter what role we play and no matter what we are planning to accomplish.

Allen suggests that when we have something on our mind, that we consider using the following natural breakdown to organize our work and ideas:

  1. Purpose - Why is the item important? 
  2. Vision - What does the ideal outcome look like? 
  3. Ideas - What steps can be taken to achieve the outcome? (Brainstorm)
  4. Structure - In what sequence or order should the steps/actions be taken?
  5. Next Action - What is the first, specific step in achieving the ideal outcome?

I’ll end this week with a quote from Allen’s book where he quotes Childre and Cryer’s observation about the relationship between order and chaos,

“Chaos isn’t the problem; how long it takes to find coherence is the real game.”

So, here’s wishing everyone coherence this week and in the following weeks. And lastly, as promised, pictures from last week’s events. 

Onward!

Luke Almon

on Twitter: @Dr_Almon