ATHLETICS

scituate high SchoolWeekly Newsletter ꟾ March 23, 2020

Pete Umbrianna, AD• The latest news to come out of the MIAA is that Spring Sports now will start on Mon-day, 4/27. This decision came from the Board of Directors. While this is the latest news, there is still a level of uncer-tainty with what exactly the spring sports season will look like come the end of April. League AD’s and the MIAA have been in constant con-tact throughout the past few weeks and we will continue to update you all further with whatever information we do receive.• I encourage all student-ath-letes to stay as active as pos-sible, while also remembering the importance of social dis-tancing & staying away from any group activities. The Turf Field is officially closed until further notice. Please respect these decisions. Think of “outside-of-the-box” ideas to remain active for the potential 4/27 start date.• A huge congrats to the fol-lowing for being named Pa-triot League All-Stars for the Winter season:Boys Basketball Jack Poirier (Fisher Division MVP) (SR)Keegan Sullivan (SO)Nate Lopes (SR)Tom Connor (SR)Girls BasketballJolie Rojik (JR)Grace McNamara (FR)Boys HockeyEvan McBrien (JR)Nick Spinella (SR)Gerard Burke (SR)Christian Donahue (SR)Girls HockeyHaley McCarthy (SO)Boys Swim & DiveBrian Hixson (SO)Alex Waltman (JR)Girls Swim & DiveEmma McClellan (SR)Megan Nelson (FR)GymnasticsLucy Finkle for Vault (FR)Ciara Hughes for Bars (FR)Girls Indoor Track & Field Cleo Belber (JR)Jane Feeney (JR)Ellie Foley (SR)

Thank you and stay safe!

counseling corner

Mr. Luette- Gr. 9 & 10Ms. Hughes- Gr. 11& 12

Here are some things we can to keep ourselves active and engaged:• Go outside for a walk, run, bike ride, walk the dog, or just exercise in your yard• On nice days when the tem-perature is warm open win-dows in your house to get fresh air flowing• Check in with friends and family digitally-be socially appropriate on social media• Listen to music, make mu-sic, make art, read a book, write in a journal, tutor a younger sibling, help cook dinner or make fun deserts!• Use Khan Academy for vir-tual educational experiences• Take a virtual college tour or a virtual museum tour • Here are some Apps for meditation: • Calm or Calm.com • Aura: Sleep & Mindful ness • Simple Habit: Wellness & Sleep • Stop, Breathe & Think• Listen to an audio book • Play a board game, start a puzzle or do a crossword puz-zle online!• Listen to a Podcast• Disney+ although not free it is awesome for anyone that loves Disney movies! No matter what, stay en-gaged, stay moving, and stay motivated. We’ll get through this. Thinking of you!

The Scituate High School core values are: Serve, Achieve,

Invest, and Learn

notes from the assistant principals

I thought it was time to get back to some sense of normalcy and put together a weekly newsletter to go out for this week. Despite the level of unknown and uncertainty in the world, we all must do what we can to preserve the routines and ex-pectations we have in place as best we can. As you can see to the right, it’s important to reflect on our mindset and consider how we can find the posi-tives out of an oth-erwise horrible situation. Many of you are wondering what school will look like for the rest of the year. We can only take that one step at a time with the information we have. Just as the President, the Governor, the Depart-ment of Education, and our own School Committee are doing, we are taking mea-sured steps as a response to the information we have and the parameters we are given. Until we hear otherwise, we’ll stick to the plans we have in place, but know that the District’s leadership team is meeting regularly to dis-cuss our school’s needs and options. Monday morning, we’ll continue the discussion about how to educate students outside our school buildings. The guidance at the state lev-el has been to continue with social distancing, academic review, and school closure through April 6th. If any of that changes, you will contin-ue to get centralized updates from the Office of the Super-intendent. Principals in the district have been discussing how to maintain relationships with students and staff mem-bers, and we’ve begun ex-ploring options for Zoom and Google Hangout meetups to check in. We’ll continue to share information as it be-comes available! Parents, please review the graphic below that shares some of the responses you may expect to experience from teens and social distanc-ing from COVID-19. What you hear and see may only be a symptom or outward sign of a deeper concern with your teen so please consider as you respond. Adjustment counselors, school psycholo-gists, and school counselors are available to connect; they are just an email away if you or students need to check in, and can provide additional re-sources if students need them during this extended time at home. Teachers are also available on email, but please be pa-tient with all staff, who are experiencing the closure and difficulties COVID-19 have created for families, first re-sponders, and essential em-ployees, and must navigate this for themselves before they are able to reach out to students and parents. Know they are thinking of you, working to reach out, and willing to be flexible as we move forward together. For Students While we don’t know yet if there will be any extension to quarter three, now would be a good time to look through Aspen and Google Classroom to see if there is any work you can complete and submit pri-

Teens * Social Distancing * Covid-19

Course Selection Process Update: The ASPEN portal is now open for students to enter their SHS course re-quests for the 2020-2021 aca-demic year. Please note that deadline for making course selections has been extended to *Friday, April 10, 2020. All supporting documents, in-cluding instructions for mak-ing course selections in As-pen is available on the SHS School Counseling website or via link through the student’s Aspen account. All current 8-11th grade stu-dents will register for next year’s high school courses through their student ASPEN Portal. Parents/Caregivers are urged to review their stu-dent’s course requests with them, as all requests are made directly on the STUDENT portal. Parents/caregivers should review the Program of Studies 2020-2021 with their student and discuss course se-lections with them. The Pro-gram of Studies 2020-2021 is available for download on the ASPEN family/student portal and on the SHS School Coun-seling website. The student portal will be opened through *Friday, April 10, 2020 for students to make their course selections. Stu-dents will be able to see what levels their current teachers have recommended for next year’s classes on the portal. Students wishing to override a course level recommendation must complete a “Placement Review Request Form” and submit it to the Counseling Office by *Friday, April 10, 2020. Students may email this form directly to their school counselor, who will

forward it to the appropriate Department Chair for follow up. This form, along with all other course registration docu-ments are available via link on the ASPEN homepage and on the SHS School Counsel-ing website under “Academic Planning - Course Registra-tion.” Students who are not planning to attend SHS next year are still required to select courses in Aspen for data pur-poses. It is important to remember that the course selection pro-cess is the first step in creating the master schedule. Course selections are not made on a first-come, first served basis. Once the selections are made, the master building schedule is built. Once the building schedule is finalized, the stu-dents are scheduled into class-es. It is important that students make every effort to make their course selections carefully. Please note that all efforts are made to accommodate selec-tions but there is no guarantee that all course requests will be fulfilled. *This date is subject to change, based on further guidance from DESE and the SPS school dis-trict. Students/families may contact their teacher or coun-selor via email if they need additional support with course recommendations. Advanced Placement Test-ing:The College Board, which oversees the Advanced Place-ment examinations, has been updating its website regarding the impact of the Coronavirus on AP testing. Here is the link to that website. https://apstu-dents.collegeboard.org/coro-navirus-updates

First, the College Board is providing live and on-de-mand AP review courses for free for students. Beginning on Wednesday, March 25, stu-dents may attend free, live AP review courses, delivered by AP teachers from across the country. These courses:• Are optional, mobile-friend-ly, and can be used alongside any work your teacher may give you.• Will be available on-de-mand, so you can access them any time.• Will focus on reviewing the skills and concepts from the first 75% of the course. There will also be some supplemen-tary lessons covering the final 25% of the course.Please refer to the above link for scheduled times. Second, the College Board is developing a new at-home testing option, as traditional in-school administration will not be possible. The College Board will offer two differ-ent testing dates to accom-modate students. The full exam schedule, specific free-response question types that will be on each AP Exam, and additional testing information will be available by April 3 on the College Board site. Stu-dents will be able to test from an electronic device. Accord-ing to the College Board, the exams will be secure and it is using a variety of digital se-curity tools, including plagia-rism detection software. Please note that any student registered for an exam may cancel at no charge*. The College Board encourages students to wait until closer to the test to decide. *Infor-mation on how a student may cancel and be issued a refund will be forthcoming from the district. Families and students may reach out to Ms. Rundle at trundle@scit.org, AP Co-ordinator for Scituate High School, for any questions or concerns relating to the AP program. Know that we will continue to monitor these de-velopments and communicate with our community as this new process unfolds. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to your school counselor via email if you have questions or concerns, or just want to connect. Ev-eryone is availble to support students during what can be a stressful time.

Mindfulness Brain Breaks• With eyes closed, imagine a beautiful smelling flower. Breathing in slowly, fill your body with freshness. Breath-ing out slowly, notice how your body feels.• Covering your ears with your hands, take long and slow in-breaths and out-breaths as you imagine waves rolling back and forth towards the shore. Listen to the sound your slow breathing makes. •Closing your eyes, remem-ber a time when you felt filled with joy. Where were you? Who were you with? What sounds, tastes, colors, and smells do you remember? • Stand tall, feet forward, legs hip-width apart. Straighten your arms alongside your body. Imagine you are a mountain, strong and stable.

or to the end of the term. Email teachers if you have questions about a particular assignment, and access Google Classroom for any assignments you may

have missed prior to leaving school for the closure. This will put you in the best pos-sible position at the end of the term. Take advantage of this time to review of your class materials, optional AP reviews being held by College Board online, and the enrichment op-portunities put together by de-partment chairs. While there are no particulars to move to a virtual learning platform at this time, use your time to further your studies in ways that make sense. Teachers are hoping to see you interacting with your course work. For Juniors, I know the big question is whether the prom will go on. The short answer is yes, at some point. While I cannot guarantee that it will be at the regularly scheduled date and time, I am commit-ted to rescheduling if needed so that you get to experience this quintessential high school memory with your friends. For seniors, there are many unknowns that must be weigh-ing heavily on your minds. Between college selection for some, disappointment over lack of spring sports, stress of finishing courses in order to graduate, the hope to experi-ence senior events, most impor-tant being graduation, there are more than enough thoughts to keep one’s head spinning at all hours of the day and night. A number of students and parents have reached out to discuss our options, including postponing or modifying events so they happen at the end of the year as a culmination of the four years of high school and twelve plus

y e a r s y o u ’ v e e x p e r i -enced in p u b l i c e d u c a -tion to get to this p o i n t .

Know this: My commitment is to do the best we can to pro-vide the experiences and clo-sure you are expecting. In a best-case scenario, we will do so at the end of May. If that is out of our hands, the next best thing will be to postpone senior week and recreate it the best we can, including gradua-tion, as soon as it is safe to do so. I have been in contact with class advisors, and will con-tinue to communicate as best I can to answer your questions and share updates. We will work this out together. I miss all of you and being at school. Be well and support yourself, your friends, and your family during this difficult time. Your partner in education,

Lisa E. Maguire, Ed.D.Interim Principal

Sometimes what we want doesn’t happen when or how we want it to. But that doesn’t mean the answer is “no” it just means “not right now.” -Sarah Cantrella