IHS April Newsletter

April 10: C DAY schedule

April 11: NEW Midterm Grading Day/End of Quarter 3 (NO SCHOOL)

April 15: IHS Site Council Meeting (THIS IS A DATE CHANGE)

April 18: TESTING DAY (1/2 day; NO CLASSES)

April 25-May 17: IB Testing Season

May 19: IHS Celebration at Oakway Center

June 6: Eugene IHS Graduation (Last day for seniors)**

June 13: Last day of school

**SENIOR PARENTS--PLEASE READ IMPORTANT GRADUATION INFORMATION AT THE END!**

IHS Site Council Meetings are held once a month, usually on the second Tuesday of the month. However, with the calendar changes for April, the second Tuesday is now during our grading week, and per contract rules, teachers do not hold meetings during grading weeks.

Therefore, our April IHS Site Council meeting will be on TUESDAY, APRIL 15TH, from 4:15-5:15 at South High School in room 541. Snacks are provided :)

If you are interested in being a parent member for IHS Site Council, please email me: dearinger_c@4j.lane.edu. I will add you to our email list so you can receive updates and a copy of the agenda before each meeting.

Friday, April 18 is now a 1/2 day Testing Day for all high school students. Students will only attend school in the morning, and there are various activities planned for 9th-11th graders at each host campus. IHS has requested to hold IB Review Sessions on this day for seniors who are taking the IB History and IB Literature exams in May. With the recent schedule changes for April, we want to make sure seniors have enough time to review and prepare for IB exams. We are working on finalizing details for exact times and room numbers, and we'll communicate this information to all seniors as soon as we can!

We are accepting artwork from our IHS seniors to include in the Graduation Program for this year. Seniors can submit artwork to any of the IHS secretaries in the IHS office at their school. We like to use artwork from many different students, so please encourage your student artists to submit for this year's grad program!

We are also holding auditions for singers, musicians, dancers, speakers, and performers of any kind for our IHS Graduation Ceremony! If your senior can sing, dance, play an instrument, or give a speech, please encourage them to audition for our IHS Graduation Ceremony this year. Seniors who want to audition should look out for flyers in the IHS offices and hallways with more information Below is the audition information for each campus:

South Choir Room: Thursday, April 4 (3:45-4:30)

Sheldon Choir Room: Wednesday, April 9 (3:45-4:30)

Churchill Choir Room: Tuesday, April 15 (3:45-4:30)

**Seniors can go to any audition that works for their schedules--it doesn't have to be their home campus **

PARENTS: WE WILL NEED YOUR HELP WITH IB TESTING THIS YEAR! We have many more students testing this year than usual, so we need lots of parent volunteers to help! Exams start on April 25th and end on May 17th; each exam will be held either in an afternoon or a morning, so there are many options and a lot of different exam duration times. If you think you will have time to assist with an exam, please contact Melanie Namkoong (namkoong_m@4j.lane.edu) to offer your availability. Volunteers must complete the 4J volunteer application: https://www.4j.lane.edu/volunteers.

You may not volunteer for an exam your child is taking, so be sure you know which exams your student is registered for before contacting Leann. Thank you!

Throughout March, students were forecasting for their class schedule for next year, and all (3) of our IHS campuses should be wrapping up this process in the coming weeks. Students have spent Advisory classes reviewing their transcripts, going over graduation requirements, and discussing class options. IHS students are automatically enrolled in the IHS course sequence for the next grade level, but students need to make decisions about math, science, language, and elective courses. Please talk with your student about their plans for next year, and maybe even their plans for after high school, to help them make thoughtful decisions about their course schedule.

Here is an overview of the course sequences for IHS classes in grades 9-12:

9th grade: Global Geography, Global Health, Global Literature

10th grade: Civics and Engagement, Narratives and Perspectives, Literature and the Arts

11th grade: IB History of the Americas, IB Literature of the Americas, IB Economics, IB Junior Seminar

12th grade: IB Theory of Knowledge, IB 20th Century History, IB 20th Century Literature

Students who wish to withdraw from Eugene IHS must go through the formal withdrawal process first, which includes an exit interview and a series of signatures from counselors, teachers, and parents. Once this process is completed, students can meet with their counselor to change their schedule for next year.

And as always, feel free to reach out to me (dearinger_c@4j.lane.edu) or Steve Smith (smith_st@4j.lane.edu) with any questions.

Please visit our school website for more information about IB, testing, and the course curriculum guide for courses at each grade level: https://ihs.4j.lane.edu/

Each spring, our IB students upload a series of high stakes internal assessments to the International Baccalaureate organization. This coursework represents years of academic work and progress and hours of diligent studying and writing on the part of each IB candidate. We are so proud of our 342 IB juniors and seniors who uploaded IB coursework in IB Literature, IB History, IB Theory of Knowledge, IB Math, IB Physics, IB Biology, IB Economics, IB Spanish, IB French, and the Extended Essay!

Every year, IHS holds an Opening Assembly in September and a Closing Assembly in June--this closing assembly also serves as our graduation rehearsal for seniors a few days before graduation. We hold our assemblies in the South Eugene auditorium--these are the only two opportunities we have all year to gather all 1,000 IHS students together in one place. The Closing Assembly serves as our chance to honor our graduating seniors and to celebrate the accomplishments of all our IHS students for the year.

This year, our Closing Assembly will be held on Monday, June 2 from 9:30-11:00 am. Students from Sheldon and Churchill will ride busses to and from South Eugene HS to attend this event. New district policies require us to gather permission slips for students who are leaving their home school campus---these permission slips must be signed by a parent or legal guardian. Permission slips have been sent home with 9th-11th graders at Sheldon and Churchill--if your student attends these campuses, please make sure to sign the form and have your student return the signed form to the IHS office.

Seniors meet at South HS earlier that morning for graduation rehearsal and therefore do not need permission slips.

IHS sophomores have just finished their study of Afghanistan, which included reading Khaled Hosseini's novel A Thousand Splendid Suns for their Literature and the Arts class. As part of this class, students also learned about Shamsia Hassani, an Afghani street artist from Kabul who has risked her life to paint political murals on the streets of her city. In 2017, Hassani traveled around the United States to share her graffiti art, and she painted a mural in our very own Eugene!

This month, IHS sophomores from Ms. Dearinger's and Ms. Solomon's classes had the opportunity to take a walking field trip to view this mural, as it's right next to Capella Market on Willamette Street. They examined the mural up close and discussed how her artwork exemplifies many of the themes we talked about in the novel about women's lives in Afghanistan.

On March 15th, several of our Churchill IHS students who study Japanese competed in the Japan Bowl, held at Clark College in Washington. Over 100 students from Oregon, Washington, and Idaho gathered that day to participate in a Japanese language and cultural knowledge competition. Our Eugene IHS students IHS performed well, with one team taking first place! Congratulations to them all!

The Eugene IHS Student Government is excited to host the EUGENE IHS CELEBRATION! This year our celebration will take place on May 19th from 5:30-8:00. Join us for food and fun as we take over the Oakway Center!

Alumni, retired teachers, current staff and students are all invited to celebrate our shared history of international education.When you eat at one of the participating restaurants in the Oakway Center during the event, Eugene IHS will receive a percentage of the proceeds toward funding student government and future events. This event has been a great success in the past, both in helping to raise money to improve our school and in providing the Eugene IHS community with a day to come together and relax and have some fun. There will be games, entertainment, and a student art auction. So mark your calendars for May 19th!

Many thanks to Oakway Center and local businesses for supporting Eugene International High School. We hope to see you there!

Eugene International High School offers students a chance to earn an honorary diploma at the end of our four years together. Students still earn their high school diploma from their host school--for example, a student's high school diploma is from Sheldon High School, but they also receive the honorary IHS diploma as recognition for completing our separate set of standards and requirements. Eugene IHS holds our own separate graduation ceremony at the Hult Center (my favorite night of the school year!) where we recognize graduating seniors together from all three host campuses.

In order to earn the honorary IHS diploma, students must do the following:

• PASS all required IHS courses in 11th-12th grade
• Submit a final draft of the Extended Essay research paper (completed during Junior Seminar)
• Take at least (3) years of a world language (does not have to be the same language all three years)
• Complete (100) CAS hours (Creativity, Activity, Service) during junior and senior year
• Complete all graduation requirements for the high school diploma

**Please note that students DO NOT have to take any IB exams in order to earn the IHS diploma. IB testing and the IHS diploma are separate and do not affect the student's ability to earn the diploma.**

Senior Parents: You will be receiving a message via ParentSquare and a letter in the mail with all of this graduation information as well!

**Artwork for the IHS Graduation Program is now being accepted! IHS seniors can submit artwork for consideration to any of the IHS offices until May 1. Please encourage the artists in your life to submit their original work!**

**Auditions for the IHS Graduation Ceremony will be held at each campus in April. We are looking for singers, dancers, musicians, speakers--solo or in a group! All performers must be current IHS graduating seniors. Seniors who want to audition should look out for flyers in the IHS offices and hallways with more information. Here are the dates and locations:

South Choir Room: Thursday, April 4 (3:45-4:30)

Sheldon Choir Room: Wednesday, April 9 (3:45-4:30)

Churchill Choir Room: Tuesday, April 15 (3:45-4:30)

**Seniors can go to any audition that works for their schedules--it doesn't have to be their home campus **

**IHS Graduation Tickets will be available in the IHS offices at each campus starting on May 12, 2025. Every IHS student is guaranteed (6) tickets. After Memorial Day, students are welcome to check in with the IHS secretaries to ask for more tickets if needed. We do not ever run out tickets ;)

**Student Attire: graduates should dress up nicely like they would for a nice dinner or event--IHS GRADUATES DO NOT WEAR CAPS AND GOWNS! Since we have graduates from three different high schools, it looks better to just wear nice clothes.

**There are also separate French immersion and Spanish immersion graduation ceremonies, usually held at Charlemagne and Buena Vista, respectively. These events are not organized by IHS, but instead are coordinated by FI/SI parents of the graduating senior class. If the parent organizers of these immersion graduation ceremonies want me to include any information in this newsletter, please just email me!

Mark Your Calendars:

- Monday June 2, 2025: Eugene IHS Graduation Rehearsal for ALL SENIORS 8:30-9:35am, South Eugene High School Auditorium. Our Farewell Assembly will follow from 9:45-11:15am.

- Friday June 6, 2025: Eugene IHS Graduation 7:00pm, Hult Center for the Performing Arts (seniors will need to arrive at 6:00pm for class photo and taking the stage).