UPCOMING EVENTS :

Winter Homecoming February 8

ACHS Production, “Into the Woods” April 18-21

Rumble in the Jungle April 6

Prom April 27

INS IDE TH IS I S SUE :

Enrollment for 2013-2014 2

Academic Advantage Grants for Schools 2

Important Dates to Remember 3

Sportsmanship & Citizenship 3

The Danger of Energy Drinks 3

10 Things Parents Should Know About Common Core State Standards 4

Andover Central High School 603 E. Central

Andover, KS 67002

Winter Issue, 2013 January 25, 2013

The Jungle News

A concussion is a minor traumatic brain injury (TBI) that may occur when the head hits a moving object or a moving object strikes the head. A concussion can result from a fall, sports activities, and car accidents. How long you stay unconscious may be an indication of the severity of the concussion.

However, concussions don't always in-volve a loss of consciousness. Only about 10% of people with a concussion actually lose consciousness. People who suffer a concussion may describe seeing all white, black, or stars. You may hear it referred to as “getting your bell rung.” What makes a concussion dan-gerous is the fact that you can have a concussion and not realize it. Moreover, it is extremely dangerous to suffer a second concussion before the first one has healed because it may cause Second Impact Syndrome (SIS). Even a minor blow to the head may cause the second concussion. SIS can cause permanent brain damage and/or even death.

The symptoms of a concussion typically fall into four categories. If your child suffers a blow to the head, watch for the following symptoms and consult your family doctor:

Thinking and Remembering

Difficulty thinking clearly

Feeling slowed down

Difficulty concentrating

Difficulty remembering new informa-tion

Physical

Headache

Nausea or vomiting (early on)

Balance problems

Dizziness

Fuzzy or blurry vision

Feeling tired, having no energy

Sensitivity to noise or light

Emotional and Mood

Irritability

Sadness

More emotional

Nervousness or anxiety

What Parents Need to Know About CONCUSSIONS

Sleep Disturbances

Sleeping more than usual

Sleeping less than usual

Trouble falling asleep

If an athlete suffers a concussion, it is important to recognize that the brain needs time and rest to heal. Computer games, television, and loud sounds should be avoided. Recovery can take a few days to several months and depends on the severity of the concussion. The Kansas State Legislature passed a law that requires an athlete to be released from a doctor before he/she is allowed to compete in athletics. Once an ath-lete is released for activities, they should gradually increase the level of activity until they resume full participa-tion.

In summary, please remember that all concussions are serious and most occur without the loss of consciousness. Rec-ognition and proper response to concus-sions when they first occur can help prevent further injury. When in doubt, sit them out.

Sources: www.childrensnational.org and

www.kennedykrieger.org

The Jungle News Page 2

Enrollment for 2013-2014

The Counselors will be hosting class meetings to prepare for the pre-enrollment process for the next school year. Please make every effort to at-tend any meetings the counselors host. They provide valuable information to you and your child that will assist you when the pre-enrollment window opens.

Take time to have a thoughtful conver-sation with your child about the classes

your child in enrolling in. Please ask the teachers for their recommendations about which class would be the most appropriate class for your child as well. The teachers are the best resource to assist you with some of the difficult decisions your child will face. Addition-ally, challenge your child to take rigor-ous classes. These classes will better prepare your child for college or post high school training.

Winter Issue, 2013

On Tuesday, November 13th the Andover Advantage Foundation (AAF) Prize Patrol delivered the good news of 71 Academic Advantage Grants to teachers at all 11 schools in the Andover Public Schools. The Prize Patrol is made up of AAF board members, donors and Andover Public Schools staff. So with balloons and “yes” letters in hand, they set off to surprise teachers with the good news.

"What a great day in Andover Public Schools! It was an honor to accompany Andover Advantage Foundation repre-sentatives on the Prize Patrol and so exciting to see the teachers' reactions when they received a grant,” said Su-perintendent of Schools Mark A. Evans.

This year 109 grant requests totaling more than $150,000 were written by Andover Public Schools teachers and administrators. The AAF Allocations committee carefully and thoughtfully reviewed each request and gave away every penny available. Grants that were approved ranged from books and science equipment to iPads.

“I look around Prairie Creek and I see so many great things that Andover Advan-tage has given to us,” said Prairie Creek Elementary School Principal Shelley Jonas. “Their support impacts our stu-dents every single day, and it is every-where -- in the classrooms, in the gym,

and even on the playground. Andover Advantage has made a giant impact on our building and on our student achieve-ment.”

AAF, a non-profit 501(C)3, is celebrating 15 years and almost $730,000 given to Andover Public Schools. AAF was started by a group of Andover parents and community members. This group felt in order to provide an extraordinary learning experience to all students, the budget needed to be supplemented by private dollars. To this day, the AAF Board of Directors is made up of Ando-ver Public School parents. The idea of Prize Patrol was conceived in the base– ment of the Andover Pizza Hut by

Melinda Fritze and Mindy Page (both AFF Founders). At a recent AAF cele-bration, Fritze commented, “We both had white mini vans and decided to call ourselves the Prize Patrol.”

AAF’s mission is just as relevant today as it was 15 years ago.

"The support AAF provides to teachers and the extra learning opportunities they provide to students are signifi-cant,” Evans said. “We very much ap-preciate all they do for Andover Public Schools."

For additional information about AAF, visit www.andoveradvantage.org.

Andover Advantage Prize Patrol awarding Andover Public Schools a check for $55,079.92. Pictured (L to R) Shannon Johnson, Julie Schillings, Jennifer Steinkamp, Celia Ralston, Marcy DeKoning, Mark A. Evans, Brett

White, Kelly Niernberger, Kathy Hammar, Rita Hynes-Bahm, Barry Stinson, Lisa Trimmell, Elizabeth Reinhart, Stan Smith, Lindsay Hall and Katherine Munson.

Academic Advantage Grants for Schools

After your child pre-enrolls, the master teaching schedule is built . From this point, many decisions are made such as the classes that will be offered as well as the number of sections offered after pre-enrollment. It is essential that your child takes this process seriously since schedule changes next fall will be diffi-cult once the master teaching schedule has been established. You can find in-formation regarding enrollment in the Counselors’ Corner on the Andover Cen-tral High School’s web page.

Page 2

2007 to 2011. A report released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Ser-vices Administration reported that in 2007, there were 10,068 people treated in emergency rooms in which the energy drinks were cited as a potential cause of the problem. In 2011, that number had increased to 20,783. Furthermore, the Food and Drug Administration is begin-ning to examine the energy drink indus-try after receiving numerous reports of deaths and injuries possibly resulting from energy drinks. The energy drink industry estimated sales last year of more than $10 Billion; consequently, it stands to reason they will insist that their products are safe.

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER:

February 8 Winter Homecoming Dance

March 4-13 AP Test Sign Up

March 11-15 Reading Assessments

March 15 ACE Awards

March 18-22 Spring Break

March 25-27 Life Science Assessments

April 1– 4 Math Assessments

April 6 Powder Puff/ Rumble

April 8-10 US History Assessments

April 18-21 ACHS Production, “Into the Woods”

April 26 Department Awards/ Hall of Fame Assembly

April 27 Prom

May 3 Activity Awards

May 6 AP Chemistry Test

May 8 AP Calculus Test

May 9 AP English Literature and Composition Test

May 10 Razzle Dazzle Revue

May 13 AP Biology and Physics Test

May 14 AP Government and Politics Test

May 15 AP US History Test

May 16 Band Spring Fling

May 17 Senior Walk-out

May 19 Graduation

May 1 Seniors Honors Program

Winter Issue, 2013 Page 3

The Wichita Eagle recently printed an article written by Barry Meier from The New York Times. The article cited the substantial increase in the number of young people being treated in emer-gency rooms for complications related to highly caffeinated energy drinks such as Red Bull, Monster Energy, and 5-Hour Energy. Frequently, we see students drinking these drinks when they arrive to school or come back from lunch.

The number of visits to the hospital re-lated to energy drinks doubled from

According to Barry Meier, “problems which are typically linked to excessive caffeine consumption include anxiety, headaches, irregular heartbeats, and heart attacks.” Often times, students will be extremely tired at school and complain of disrupted sleep patterns. Some of these students will fall asleep in classes or they arrive late to school. Excessive caffeine interferes with a good night’s sleep. If your child drinks energy drinks and you see any of these issues, please visit with your child about the dangers of these products.

The Wichita Eagle, Saturday, January 12, 2013

The Danger of Energy Drinks

The administration of ACHS believes that effective schools support both an academic program and activities/athletics. In addition, we support the KSHSAA Rule 52, which is the Citizen-ship/Sportsmanship policy. Activities and athletics provide many valuable life lessons for students. In activities, par-ticipants are given an opportunity to grow, excel, and understand the con-cepts of both sportsmanship and team-work. Activities also provide an oppor-tunity for the community and students to come together and celebrate the accomplishments of our participants. Additionally, adults are given the oppor-tunity to model good sportsmanship to our youth at these events. Sportsman-ship is good citizenship in practice. Please remember that all actions should be for, not against; positive, not negative or disrespectful!

Article 1: SPORTSMANSHIP is a general way of thinking and behaving. The follow-ing sportsmanship policy items are listed below for clarification:

Be courteous to all participants, coaches, officials, staff and fans.

Know the rules, abide by and respect the official’s decisions.

Win with character and lose with dignity.

Display appreciation for good play.

Exercise self-control and reflect posi-tively upon yourself, team and school. (KSHSAA Handbook)

We have very high expectations of our student section, athletes, and activity participants. Thank you for all you do to support the teaching and modeling of sportsmanship for our students.

Cheryl Hochhalter

Sportsmanship & Citizenship

Andover Schools Community Volunteers offers a great opportunity for parents to serve throughout the Andover school district. We encourage you to check out our website to learn more about our program and the opportunities we have for parents to serve in our schools. You can find our FAQ section for parents at http://andoverschoolsvolunteers.com/parents/. It is our goal to provide an avenue for all community members to share their talents and interests in the Andover schools to enrich the lives of our students and teachers. We look forward to helping you get connected and thank you for making a lasting dif-ference in the Andover schools.

Amy Simpson

Volunteer

Opportunities

10 Things Parents Should Know About the Common Core State Standards

In recent months, there has been a lot of attention on the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS). As schools and communities begin to think about what the new standards will look like in the classroom, it is important to make sure that, as a parent, you are part of that conversation. It is essential to find out what the Common Core Standards are, how student progress will be measured, the impact on English language learners, and how you as a parent can stay in-formed.

Here are answers to questions you might have about the standards and what they might mean for your children. A list of recommended resources is included at the end of the article.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the Common Core State Standards?

The Common Core State Standards are a set of expectations that outline what stu-dents should be learning in English/language arts and mathematics at each grade level (K-12).

2. What is the goal of the CCSS?

The goal of the CCSS is to make sure that all students are well prepared for college, technical education, or the workplace after high school graduation.

3. Do the standards tell teachers how to teach?

No. The CCSS do not tell teachers how to teach; they simply outline the skills that all students should master. For example, the CCSS do not tell teachers which books should be taught in fourth-grade English/language arts, but they do say that each fourth grader should learn how to identify "a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text" or "summarize the text."

4. Are there standards for social stud-ies, science, and other content areas?

No. At this time, the CCSS do not address content areas other than reading/language arts, and mathematics; however, they do include standards related to content area reading in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects for Grades 6-12.

5. Why were the CCSS created?

Currently, each individual state has its own education standards, and there is little consistency from one state to an-other. The CCSS were designed to provide a single set of research-based standards that will ensure that all students nation-wide have access to the same rigorous academic content. So far, 45 of the 50 states have adopted the CCSS, which are scheduled to go into effect in 2014.

6. Who wrote the standards?

The CCSS were not developed by the fed-eral government, but by a group of educa-tors and experts coordinated by the Na-tional Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Coun-cil of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). The federal government will not oversee the implementation of the CCSS.

7. How will student progress in meeting the standards be measured?

As of now, it is not clear how students' progress toward meeting the standards will be measured or assessed; however, because the U.S. Constitution gives indi-vidual states the right to oversee educa-tion, participating states will likely be in charge of any testing that is done for the purpose of monitoring student progress.

8. Are there special instructions for Eng-lish language learners?

No. The authors of the CCSS provided guidelines for implementing the standards with English language learners and with students receiving special education ser-vices, but they do not provide instructions on how to do so. Individual schools or

@ ACHSJaguars Andover Central High School Jaguars

school divisions will need to make deci-sions regarding the details of implementa-tion.

9. Do the standards include information about English language levels or profi-ciency?

One of the main considerations regarding the use of the CCSS with English language learners will be to align the new standards with existing English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards, which vary from state to state. The CCSS are not currently aligned to ELP standards.

10. Where can I learn more?

Parents can access the Common Core State Standards in their entirety on the CCSS website. By reviewing the standards for their child's grade level, parents can be better equipped to provide support for their child's learning at home.

Parents can support their children's suc-cess by asking their children to talk about what they are learning, reading to and with their kids, and providing opportunities to learn new things at home or in the community. You may also be able to find more information about the standards from your school or district. If you see parent updates about the Common Core, find out what is being offered, and if it is offered in your home language. By being informed about the new standards, you will be better prepared to help your child make this important transition.

Recommended Resources

For more information about the stan-dards, please take a look at the follow-ing videos:

National PTA: Common Core State Stan-dards, The Hunt Institute, and Teaching Channel.

By Karen Ford (2012) www.readingrockets.

Page 4 Winter Issue, 2013