I know that frequently I talk about activities and sports on the weekly Cobra Strike. Or we discuss events. these are easy to discuss and have gravity to them. However, when it comes time to discuss the meat of why we are in schools in the first place, it gets murky. For one, it is illegal for me to call attention to individual students grades or performance on assessments, and for another I can't remember the last time we had standing room only in the board room the night Mr. Howard goes over the MAP testing data. Even though students frequently feel they are blowing off a test like this, it is alarming how often their test results do correlate to their performance on other tests. Once they might actually care about more often than not (ie. ACT, ASVAB, Work Keys...). More important is the concept of academic struggle for all students, not just those planning on college. There is evidence that students that take the path of least resistance in high school often find themselves struggling in the work force to find success. Because of all of this, the Leadership team at the high school is focusing this semester on several tasks of improvement for next semester. I would like to discuss a few of those with you now.

One of the improvements comes in the reason for why we had last Wednesday off for students. We have been working with an outside consultant this year on a school wide curriculum development plan. Right now we have been unpacking and prioritizing our standards within our own disciplines. However, we will be working on this long term for multiple years that will eventually lead into a full k-12 alignment of standards and expectations. This will allow us to add an emphasis to academics that has become necessity. Another task that the team has addressed is the need for targeted interventions. We will be working through this semester to build two labs for students that are identified as struggling in their grade for reading and math. These students will be loaded into their usual math and ELA classes, but also have a second Lab class focused on targeted skills development to improve their deficiencies. This isn't a study hall, or a class built where students just do the work from other classes, but a separate curriculum designed to improve their reading or math skills. By doing this, students will still have their grade appropriate expectations in their usual classes, which will keep them from getting behind their peers, while still having the added support in the separate lab to boost their skills. They will be reevaluated each semester with the ability to leave the lab.

On the high performing end of the spectrum, we will be offering more dual credit courses in the Fall. These dual credit courses will be weighted GPA courses that will be taught by our staff at the Junior/Senior level that will advantageous for students to take these courses over the standard counterparts. Our goal is to offer dual credit courses in all of the core classes that are appropriately challenging for students.

In increasing academic offerings in the 25/26 school year, so too will our expectations of students. I look forward to where we are going with this as it has been one of my goals from the onset of coming to Jackson Heights. I love this school as I see the potential for where we can go from here.

"Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind" The Doctor

From the first day to the last day, It's a great day to be a COBRA!

Derek E. Smith

Speaking of Academics, we have been granted the opportunity to host a regional scholars bowl tournament on Thursday February 6th. With hosting this comes a great deal of need for adult support. I need 16 adults working the different positions in the rooms. If you are wiling/able to help out in any way possible, please contact me ASAP to let me know where you can help. We need moderators and judges. Supper will be on us and you will get the chance to hang out with the best and brightest of Jackson Heights.

I have the power! We are well into the powerlifting season now and we will see a flurry of tournaments for the next four weekends. This past Saturday saw some impressive results with some of our Cobras as Devyn Montgomery won the overall for his weight division at the Lansing Tournament. this is no small feat seeing as it was already a 5A schools tournament and they had around 200 more students signed up than they had expected. I love hearing when our students represent like this. This along with Brayden Innes and Kooper Singleton coming in 4th in their classes makes Cobra nation really proud.

What makes me more proud is listening to the students talking about lifting this year. It reminds me a lot of Cross Country and hearing students get excited about hitting their PR and high fiving strangers when they just did their very best. Coach Bagby has been working with the team a lot this year to get them into top shape and it is showing already. I look forward to this season and hearing about what comes out of the PL team.

The forensics season is off and running. This past Saturday, the team came home with a lot of metal of varying colors. One of which being a gold medal that qualified Talen Browning for the State Tournament. I greatly enjoy forensics and the students that do it. It is a competition where they get to compete in either speeches, dramatic readings of poetry or prose, or in acting. They compete as both individuals and as a team. It is a great way for students to represent Jackson Heights in another way and I love that this program is growing. They can compete in individual events or in a few partner events as well. I highly encourage students to give it a try and Mrs. Cormier would probably agree with me in saying that the more the better as we would love to see Forensics bring home some team awards this season.

Join the Jackson Heights Team!

We have two great opportunities available at Jackson Heights:

Elementary Custodian Position (Full Time / 12 months)

Hours: 10:00 AM – 6:30 PM

Starting Pay: $17/hour (higher pay potential based on experience)

Benefits: Includes health insurance

Cook Position (Part Time / 9 Months)

Hours: 6:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Starting Pay: $16/hour (higher pay potential based on experience)

Benefits: No additional fringe benefits

We’re looking for individuals who take pride in creating a clean, welcoming environment and preparing nutritious meals for our students. Be a part of our supportive and positive school community!

Contact Jim Howard at jim.howard@jhcobras.net to apply or for more information.

Help make a difference at Jackson Heights Elementary!

Additionally, while we will miss her dearly, Mrs. Eubanks will be retiring at the end of this year and we will be actively searching for a world language teacher. If you know anyone interesting in teaching world language at Jackson Heights have them reach out to me or Mr. Howard for more information.

Monday:

• JV Scholars Bowl @ Oskaloosa 4:00 pm
• MS Boys Basketball Vs. St. Benedict @ Home 4:30 pm
• HS Boys Basketball C Team @ P Ridge 5:00 pm (Game 2)

Tuesday:

• Hiawatha Girls Basketball Tournament VS Hiawatha 7:30 pm

Wednesday:

• NA

Thursday:

• Hiawatha Girls Basketball Tournament @ Hiawatha TBD
• MS Boys Basketball @ Riverside 4:30 pm
• Boys HS Basketball @ Oskaloosa 5:00 pm

Friday:

• NA

Saturday:

• Hiawatha HS Girls Basketball TBD
• Powerlifting Tournament @ Royal Valley

We have two major announcements for upcoming Honor Flight events that we will be working on to raise fund for HF 11. The first is the Pies of Honor is doing a spring run as well this year in addition to the Honor Rolls. These will be up for sale for the next three months by Honor Flight guardians. the pies are $20 per pie or per dozen Cinnamon Rolls. The pies offered this time around are: Blueberry, Cherry, Apple, and Peach. They will be ready to go on home on Good Friday. Contact a guardian or Carrie Harris to order yours today.

The second is that we are starting a monthly Bingo night at JHHS commons. these will be held the last Saturday of every month starting in February. Why not come out to JH for a fun evening and the whole while you will be supporting the Honor Flight. contact Suzanne Freeland for more information.

We have made the selections for the Honor Flight 11 Guardians. They are:

Chesnea Cochren, Anna Schierling, Alexis Richter, Layla Cochran, Emma Sides, Josie Jager, Jace Doyle, Alexis Denault, Tryston Honeyman, Michael Robertson, Blaine Burdiek, Talen Browning, Laramie Self, Jen Mellies, Jackson Holliday, Gage Holliday, Teagen Bowhay, Nicole Amon, Anthony Gulotta, Ashlyn Brucken, Duke Condo, Kyla Milligen, Alexa Rash, Gracie White, Brooke Slipke

Congratulations to the Guardians, Now the work begins of getting us off the ground next November!

This past week saw a few fun moments in spite of the crazy schedule. One of them was the pizza party for the fall winners of the house events. House Snake Kingz had a very relaxing meal at Pizza Hut for all of fourth hour and just got to enjoy each others company. I enjoyed driving them there and having conversations with them during our time there.

In the spring, we are going for the big trip. We will see if Snake Kingz can hold onto their lead, or if one of the other houses has what it takes to dethrone them. We have a lot of events between now and then to get through between one more house games and the house olympics at the end of the semester. We also will be doing a Community Service event this year where each house will be doing a major community service project. Needless to say, but it is still any houses to win at this point.

While I have been wishing for better weather to go hunting with my bird dogs, Brittany has been making the best of the indoor time with the boys with a whole bunch of arts and crafts this winter season. I will never fail to be amazed by the level or artistic ability and creativity that comes out of her as she does these little projects with the boys. Here they are with their "Owl Glasses" they made the other day.

It's a great day to be a Cobra!!

Email: derek.smith@jhcobras.net

Website: jhcobras.net
Location: 12692 266th Rd Holton, KS 66436
Phone: (785)248-4386
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jackson.Heights.USD335

https://www.citylinktv.com/channel/cobra

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a0QJd_3uUnHcCppNy4KIttr-i_TO_Q1QcxSKC8PZaHo/edit