WKHS Connections
November 8, 2024
WKHS Begins Partnership With Oakland 80
The Kettering team is excited to announce our partnership with Oakland 80 -- a community partnership with Oakland County, designed to increase collage and post graduate opportunities for our students.
During the 2024-25 school year and beyond, this partnership will provide personalized supports and assistance for our seniors.
Kettering's in-house Oakland 80 Navigator is Chris Meller, who previously connected with Kettering, Mott and Durant students as an official with Oakland Community College.
"Hello my name is Chris Meller and I’m the new Oakland 80 Career and Education Navigator here at Waterford Kettering. I live in Fraser, MI with my wife, two children and our dog Pepper.
I’m here to help the students with their career and education options after high school. I will provide FAFSA assistance as well as helping them apply for college and scholarship opportunities.
Here is my contact information.
https://calendly.com/cmeller-oakland80/30min
Students can also use the counseling Google form to schedule an appointment"
Stay up to date on your grades
Student Portal link: https://mistar.oakland.k12.mi.us/waterford/studentportal/
Updates on student attendance and cell phones
Waterford Kettering is an incredible place and it is an honor to serve as your principal.
Every year, our team seeks ways to better support our students and community.
During the summer of 2023, our leadership team and staff delved into peer-reviewed research, and followed the data to create a cell phone policy that improved student engagement, increased student achievement and helped make our building safer. Throughout the year, our students and staff told us the policy made a difference.
Upon review of the data, they were right. Our learning metrics improved, student engagement was up and distractions were reduced.
We look forward to continuing last year’s successful approach.
As we begin the 2024-25 school year, students will again be directed house their phones in the hanging holders in each classroom. This will be a school-wide expectation, for all classrooms. This will allow students to avoid the distraction of push alerts, social media, group texts and other non-academic uses of their device.
Headphones will continue to be prohibited from classrooms.
Students who use their phones for glucose readers or other documented medical needs are exempt from this policy. Parents are asked to include this information in their Plan of Care documents.
Students will continue to have the privilege to use their personal devices at lunch, passing time and in the building, during early morning and after-school hours.
All classrooms remain equipped with teacher telephones. In addition, student phones will be only feet away in case of emergencies. In the event parents need to get a message to their student, please reach our main office at 248-673-1261.
This summer, our staff and leadership focused on ways to improve student attendance. In June, we surveyed our students to learn more about the factors impacting their ability to attend class on time. We also reviewed attendance and communication data on MiSTAR. The data was revealing. In the interest of transparency, we’ve shared a summary of our findings in a downloadable PDF, below this article.
Here’s what we learned:
· We had nearly 28,000 documented individual student tardies during the 2023-24 school year.
· Students arrived late to first period 11,321 times
· Nearly 85% of students reported arriving to class late at least once
· Only 6% of students reported they felt class began at the bell
· If each documented tardy averaged just one minute, the total amount of time lost amounts to 466 hours. In a seven-period building, that is nearly 67 school days of lost instruction.
So here’s what we’re doing about it:
1. PRIORITIZING BELL TO BELL INSTRUCTION: Our leadership team, Teacher Leaders, and WKHS instructional staff are committing to make the first few minutes of class time essential learning.
2. IMPROVED PARENT COMMUNICATION: If your student is having trouble making it to class on time, we will partner with you to make a positive improvement in your student’s attendance. Communication will be proactive and collaborative.
3. RECOGNITION AND INCENTIVIZING POSITIVE BEHAVIORS: In addition to our existing Captain of Week program, we have identified new avenues to celebrate and reward our students who do the right thing. All students with strong attendance and a grade of 85% or higher in their course will be exempt from taking their final exam. They are welcome to still challenge themselves with the test, but scores will not be used against a student who qualifies for an exemption. In addition, we will be partnering with the Athletics Department to identify ways to reward our reliably prompt students with freebies, giveaways and special privileges.
4. STRUCTURED SUPPORTS FOR HABITUALLY TARDY STUDENTS: Students who choose to continue to arrive late to class will be held accountable. Academics will always remain a priority, so our structured supports will focus on identifying privileges that may interfere with the student’s ability to arrive to class on time. As a result, chronically late students may lose non-academic privileges, including, but not limited to, parking passes, cell phone possession privileges, the ability to attend school events, field trips and dances.
We have gifted teachers and incredible students, but the data told us our attendance and early class period engagement have room for growth. We look forward to sharing additional information on how this process will work in the coming weeks.
Our team is confident this focused approach will lead to positive outcomes for all students.
I look forward to continuing this conversation throughout the year and welcome your feedback.
Let’s have a fantastic year!
Ben Harwood
WKHS Principal
248-673-1326 (office)
248-309-1160 (cell)
