April 2013 Update

The fourth quarter at FHS is mainly devoted to graduation and all the tasks that lead up to Commencement. Senior meetings, credit audits, and financial aid meetings have been scheduled. Graduation ceremonies are scheduled for Friday, June 14, at 7pm at the Dearth Center. The graduating class, which is expected to be larger than normal, will include at least 40 seniors.

Besides graduation tasks, the students were recently visited by a Victim's Advocate panel from Coldwater which was extremely well received. Their message was powerful and left the students speechless.

Thanks to some Title VI money, we recently hired two tutors to work primarily with students who are at risk of not graduating. They have both started and are slowly learning the idiosyncrasies of alternative ed. On April 25 and 26, the staff will be attending the Michigan Alternative Education Organization Conference in Thompsonville, where they will be doing their planning for next year.

Parent Teacher conferences were recently held in the building. Parents were called to schedule appointments, focusing on those students who we are struggling most with. As we always do, we meet together as a group and schedule 15 minutes per conference. We saw 16 parents that day, had one phone conference, and 5 were no shows. We continued to see people the following week before and after school. We saw 4 more parents and have a few more pending. In the end we should see about 25 parents, which would be approximately 25% of the parents of the kids who are attending on a regular basis.

We have recently been awarded our fifth Green School designation and students have been busy with various activities including a poster contest, a new bulletin board, and composting. Some old birdhouses will be revamped and some new ones are being built that will also be placed in the woods. We also have a new student with landscaping talent who has volunteered to help us spruce up our outdoor yard.

A piece of artwork by Tailor Howard has been chosen to be a part of the Tibbits Kids Art Rock program and will be available for lease in May and forty students have signed up to see Romeo and Juliet also at the Tibbits. Plans are also being made for more speakers, a leadership course for next year's students, a career day, and let’s not forget prom, which will be held on May 17th at the Dearth Center.

Finally, as always, we continue to accept new students, taking in ten. Some are for the purposes of graduation, some students have just moved to the area, and some have found themselves in trouble in their home schools and have asked for a second chance here.

Think Spring,

Jan Storrs, Principal
Franklin High School