Homer Highlights

We hope you are having an amazing fall season.

It was so great to see many of you at our conferences last month. We always love the opportunity to have your family in the buildings. If you were not able to attend our in person conferences, we hope the virtual option was helpful for your families. Whether in person or virtually, we appreciate the opportunity to celebrate and discuss your student's progress with you.

You may have heard your students talk about taking the NWEA Map test. This is a test that all K-11th graders take in the area of Math and Reading and 5th-11th graders in the area of Science as well. These assessments tell us a lot of things around what our students know and what their next steps should be. It is our district goal to improve the percentage of students meeting their growth scores by at least 5%. A growth score measures a year's worth of learning for a year's worth of time. If a student meets their growth score, they are on track to move forward one year. If students are behind grade level, we hope to beat the growth score in order to accelerate learning and begin to catch up. You often hear students and educators talking about their RIT score. A RIT score is how about 50% of students in the country score on the test. Please note this is NOT on grade level. To see how close your student is to grade level standards, you will want to look at their percentile. Scoring between the 60th and 70th percentile is what is typically equivalent to being on grade level. To learn more check out the NWEA Family Toolkit at https://www.nwea.org/family-toolkit/.

As we move into this Thanksgiving Season, we want to thank each of you for your partnership with us at Homer Community Schools. It is said that "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child" and we are so honored to be a part of the Homer Village and the Homer families as we work to provide the best school experience possible for you and your child.

We have many other things to share with you so see below for more Homer Highlights!

Be sure to also follow Homer Schools on Facebook (@hcstrojans) or check out the website (www.homerschools.net).

The District receives at risk funding from the state to support students who may need additional supports for academic and social emotional success. We held our Parent Title 1 and 31a Meeting at our Open House, but also wanted to provide a recording of the event for those of you who were unable to attend. Please use this link if you would like to access the meeting. Reach out to your building administrators with any questions or to get a copy of the school/family compact.

PowerSchool is now accessible for all parents and students to view attendance, announcements, account balances, and grades (for MS and HS students). To access PowerSchool, please go to: https://pshomer.vbisd.org

Student Login:

Students will login with their school username and password that was assigned to them.

Parent Login:

Parent access id/password are both the student's student ID number. This is your child's 2050 number. Your student should know this, or you can contact your student's building office.

For the 2023-2024 school year, breakfast and lunch will be free for all students. Regardless of financial status, it is still very important that all families complete the 2023-24 free and reduced meal application for lunches as this helps determine eligibility for state benefits for your student and federal funding for our school. There is a website for accessing the online application: https://homer.familyportal.cloud/ .

Want to keep up to date on our athletics? Check out our schedules for the year here.

Yellow school buses, football games, movie nights, and more. PAX has worked with over 70 countries since 1990, connecting willing host families with hopeful international teens to spend a year attending high school in the United States. Many students have completed the process and are now only waiting to meet their families for the upcoming school year. Will you join our PAX family and share your America? Start your application at https://pax.org/families

Email: homer@homerschools.net
Website: www.homerschools.net
Location: 403 South Hillsdale Street, Homer, MI, USA
Phone: 517-568-4463
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hcstrojans