Congratulations to our Captains of the Week: Jaxson Foster, Julius Chapman, Perry Whiting, Wyatt Bovee and Aidan Rollison

SEPTEMBER 6: Varsity football home opener vs Walled Lake Western (7 pm)

SEPTEMBER 9: NWEA Testing begins -- students will need their charged Chromebooks

SEPTEMBER 10: Boys varsity soccer vs. Mott (7 pm)

SEPTEMBER 10: Cross Country Meet (WLN/ SLE) Hess Hathaway Park / 4:30

SEPTEMBER 11: Curriculum Night (6-7:40 pm)

SEPTEMBER 27: Football Homecoming Game (7 pm vs Orchard Lake St Mary's)

SEPTEMBER 28: Homecoming Dance (6-10 pm, outdoors in WKHS courtyard)

OCTOBER 14: District Break, no classes

NOVEMBER 5: Election Day, no classes

NOVEMBER 27-29: Thanksgiving Break

DECEMBER 23: Winter Break Begins

JANUARY 6, 2025: Classes resume

JANUARY 20, 2025: MLK, Jr Day. No classes

JANUARY 22-24, 2025: Semester 1 exams

JANUARY 27, 2025: Semester 2 begins

FEBRUARY 14-17, 2025: Mid-Winter Break

MARCH 24-28, 2025: Spring Break

MAY 9, 2025: Senior Prom (Boulder Point Golf Club, 6-10 pm)

JUNE 1, 2025: Graduation

JUNE 9-11, 2025: Final Exams

Additional dates will be added throughout the year

The No Hate High School Tour, now in its 25th year, visited Kettering High School, Friday morning (9/6).

This impactful educational program used the energy and excitement of action sports to deliver critical bullying prevention tools, techniques, and information to students in a relatable, peer-to-peer manner.

The program featured top BMX pros that teens admire performing high-energy action sports shows on campus while speaking to the students about their own experiences with bullying (both online and offline), overcoming obstacles, being an ally, inclusion, kindness, surrounding yourself with positive influences, problem solving, mental health awareness, and other important subjects that really resonate with teens.

In addition to performing stunts, the crew even convinced Mr. Harwood sit on top of the ramp and let one of the athletes jump over him.

The program was sponsored by the U.S. Marine Corps and was provided at no cost to WSD or Kettering High School

For more information on the No Hate Tour, click: https://nohatetour.com/tour-overview/

If you are transporting your student to or from school, please use the loop in front of the Main Office.

Passenger vehicles are prohibited from drop off/pick-ups at the Bus Doors

Doors open at 7 am.

***Please do not park in loop to block traffic. This is a no parking zone***

Those arriving early and choosing to remain in vehicles should wait in Student Lot until dropping off.

Please help keep our parking lot safe, by dropping off and picking up students at the curb.

Please help WKHS be a good community partner and neighbor.

During the morning commute, Bender Ave will be open only for WSD buses. Parents and students using Bender impact traffic flow and may run the risk of being ticketed.

Traffic enforcement will be on site during the morning and afternoon commute to provide support.

Please help ensure your student is prepared to engage in the Fall NWEA testing. This assessment helps measure student growth and our school's instructional delivery. Testing begins Monday, September 9.

Student Portal link: https://mistar.oakland.k12.mi.us/waterford/studentportal/

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)

harwob01@wsdmi.org

For information about first year class size, GPA, cost and other details, download the PDF above

To help ensure student safety on the WKHS campus, food deliveries for students are not permitted. This includes orders placed by family members off campus for students in session.

To help limit interruptions to learning, we will not be permitting late-arriving students to bring food and/or drinks into the classroom. Students arriving late to campus must consume food / drinks prior to entering the building.

Kettering Orchestra Boosters is excited to announce that we are now enrolled in the Kroger Community Rewards Program! By simply purchasing your everyday groceries you can support the Orchestra program. Sign up two ways, online or on the app. To sign up through the Kroger webpage, once logged into your Account, select Community Rewards, then search for Kettering Orchestra Boosters. Or sign up through the Kroger app, by clicking on the 3 bars in upper right side, select Rewards, then search Kettering Orchestra Boosters. The rewards earned will help KOB to replace formal wear, purchase music, bring experienced clinicians into the classroom and more. Thank you for supporting the Kettering Orchestra program.

As always, please reach out to wk.orchestras@gmail.com with any questions or suggestions.

Congratulations to boys varsity soccer team, who is off to their best start since the late 1990s!

We are excited to announce some additions to our athletic department.

First and foremost, please welcome- Shane Hynes- Assistant Athletic Director at Pierce and Kettering and Collin McGran- Assistant Athletic Director at Mason and Mott.

In addition, we have moved to a new athlete registration and paperwork process. We will now be using FINAL FORMS, which is an online database that will collect all of the paper forms from the past. Linked below you will find the parent playbook that gives you a step by step process of how to enroll and use FINAL FORMS. This includes all of our usual forms: Code of Conduct, Transportation, and Concussion. This also includes information that will provide us emergency contact information for each athlete. You will upload the MHSAA Physical right to the site as well from your phone or a computer. I went through the step by step process enrolling my child, and it is very user friendly. We no longer will be accepting paper forms. Please read through the information linked below.

This year for admissions, we will still be accepting cash at all Waterford games, but also using GOFAN. GOFAN gives our spectators they ability to pre-purchase game tickets, but also purchase with a credit card or apple pay on site. Ticket prices have increased to $7 per person at most venues in the area, including all LVC sites. Please note that some venues will not accept cash, we will try and notify families of this in advance. Family passes can be purchased on GOFAN as well. Family passes are $175 for 6 people, and are good for ALL Mott and Kettering regular season home games. Family passes are available now. To purchase a family pass, visit gofan.co and type in Mott or Kettering.

Please take a look at the link and attachment, and contact the athletic offices with any questions. We are looking forward to another great year in athletics!

Allison Sartorius
Waterford School District
District Athletic Director

Parent Playbook for FINAL FORMS: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kHAVEpukweUeW3UGXwl-zJkbLI0Wwq6l/view?usp=sharing

We are partnering with the WKHS athletic department to recognize the work ethic of on-time students. We look forward to sharing information on this new initiative soon!

Attendance Office: 248-673-6440 | Main Office: 248-673-1261

Principal’s office: 248-673-1326 | Counseling Office: 248-673-1264

Athletics: 248-674-0113 | Mr. Harwood's Cell Phone: 248-309-1160