Hawk Talk - Weekly Principal Notes

We are fortunate at Seaforth High School that we have built in time on our schedule for remediation and enrichment. However, we are not seeing enough students take advantage of the remediation and tutorial opportunities. Parents, I believe that Failure Isn't An Option. There are way too many opportunities to get help and to further your learning to accept failure as a choice.

This week we will be meeting and re-emphasizing to students who are performing poorly in classes that they must attend remediation and tutorial with their teachers. We are just 3 weeks away from the first marking period ending. Our goal is to see that every student excel in their classes and are performing at minimum a C level. We know they can do better than that, but they should not do less than that. Please help us encourage your child to take advantage of the SURGE block. Check their grades routinely and feel free to contact their teachers.

Parents, we have well over 100 students who have signed up to take the PSAT, which is great! The test will be administered on Tuesday, October 10. Your child must arrive to school on time. If they arrive after the test is has begun, they will not be able to take it.

Parents, this week we're going to have a little fun with our staff and students. Friday, is October 13 and we know that freaky things happen on Friday the 13th (at least they do in the movies :)). There's a movie called Freaky Friday where a daughter and mother switch places on Friday the 13th and spend time in each other's worlds. It was quite the mix up! We're playing off of that movie and encouraging staff and students to dress like another staff member or student and make it clear who they're impersonating. It's just a way to have a little fun at the end of the week.

We have amazing students and staff in our building and we want you to know it! We will begin recognizing student and staff members of the week for exhibiting our RISE expectations! RISE is an acronym that stands for:

Respect everyone

Inspire Others

Show Grit

Excel in all you do

Teachers will submit names of students who have exhibited one or more of these expectations and the student's name will go into a drawing for student of the week. The same will be done for staff members, students can submit a name of a teacher who they believe has exhibited those expectations. The staff and student selected will receive a certificate and their name will be placed into a drawing for a free Seaforth Hoodie! The drawing will take place at the end of the month.

It is important that we showcase the great character and behavior of our staff and students!

Parents, our student services department is working on creating a scholarships website for our seniors. The Class of 2024 will have access to local, national, and college specific scholarships. Our goal is to have the website up and going before College Application Week, which is October 16-20. Parents, be sure you check the CFNC website during college application week. During that week, there are several colleges across the state that waive the application fee. It's a great time for students to apply. If you have any questions about scholarships or applying to college, please reach out to our student services lead counselor, Lindsay Phillips at lphillips@chatham.k12.nc.us.

For students who are taking a math class on NCVPS or have a substitute for a math teacher, we are offering tutorial help during surge. Please see the schedule below to know when to sign up.

SURGE Tutorial Support for students on NCVPS & w/a math sub
Pre-Calculus Tutorial Support w/Mr. Ledford
- Tuesday SURGE A
- Friday SURGE B

Math 2 & Math 3 Tutorial Support w/Mr. McCarthy
- Monday SURGE B
- Tuesday SURGE A
- After School on Thursday from 3:10-4:00

Foundations of Math 1 w/Mr. Atkinson
- Tuesday SURGE A
- Friday SURGE B

Students, please feel free to sign up for these tutorials during SURGE.

Parents here is an update on our teacher vacancies. We have reduced our teacher vacancies from 8 to 6 with the hiring of two EC teachers and a math teacher. However, we are now adding another vacancy in CTE (Business and Marketing Teacher). All our vacancies are listed below:

Math (3)

World Language (1)

EC Severe & Profound (1)

CTE (1)

We do have two teachers who will be leaving us before the end of the semester. They are:

- Mr. Volcan (World Language) - Last day at Seaforth 10/11

- Mrs. Volcan (World Language) - Last day at Seaforth 10/16

We will be adding a part-time retired teacher to help in our math department. We will announce who that teacher is as soon as it is official. We have also recommended for hire a World Language teacher. Once she goes through the backgrounds checks and all other human resources items, we will announce her as well. As always, if you know of anyone interested in any of our vacant positions, please encourage them to apply or to email me at rstclair@chatham.k12.nc.us.