Dear Newmarket Families,
As we begin the slow transition from the early to late fall, I hope that everyone had a great October and are still enjoying your spoils from Halloween. October has been a very busy month for us for both our high school and middle school students and I’d like to take a moment to highlight some of the great things that have been happening as well as some very exciting upcoming community-based events that will be taking place throughout November.
At the high school level, we administered the PSAT for all of our sophomore and juniors on the 9th. And while school-wide testing may not be anyone’s favorite way to spend a Wednesday, students showed up ready to go and put forth their best efforts.
Last week the National Honor Society, in collaboration with the American Red Cross, hosted a blood drive that saw over 40 volunteers sign up and donate. Additionally, as part of the town-wide festivities on Wednesday night, National Honor Society, high school student council, and our Student Athletes Leadership Team (SALT) went out for trick or canning and collected over 4 truckloads of donations for the Newmarket food pantry. These types of partnerships between our students and the community are just one of the many reasons Newmarket is truly a special pace.
At the middle school level, our 6th-8th graders are coming off of their fall spirit week which included a wide range of themed costumes and fun events culminating with a Friday morning pep rally. Our students continued to take advantage of the lingering summer-like weather throughout the month with many classes transitioning learning to outdoor spaces. Included in that was an 8th grade field day highlighted by the entire 8th grade having lunch in our newly refurbished courtyard.
Looking forward to November we have quite a few student and community-based events that I wanted to make sure you were aware of:
- Soccer: Tonight the Varsity Girls’ soccer team takes on Concord Christian in Laconia at 6PM. The winner will advance to the championship game.
- Author Visit: As a result of some great work by our Library Media Specialist, Ms. Cole, we have an upcoming author visit on Wednesday Nov. 20. Jarrett Krosoczka will be at NJSHS for the day interacting with students and staff to discuss his books and writing process.
- Astronaut Visit: On Thursday Nov. 21, local astronaut Scott Poteet will be visiting with our Middle School students to discuss his career and time in space.
As I mentioned in last month’s update, we want to ensure that parents and guardians have access to their students grades and attendance via the Infinite Campus parent portal. Quarter 1 grades will be posted to the portal later this week. Our IT department has created some great documents and videos to aid you in setting up your accounts:
Infinite Campus Parent Portal Slides
Infinite Campus Parent Portal Movie
Finally, as you may know, the high school will soon be having decennial accreditation visit as part of our accreditation process through NEASC. As part of the visit, a team of fellow educators will be coming to visit NJSHS Nov. 17-20 to go over our progress from their last visit in 2022. As a component of their process, they intend to have conversations with students, staff, and community members. I am seeking parents who would be interested in having conversations with the visiting group. This would be a one-time commitment and would be a completely anonymous feedback forum. The format would follow a very low stress process where the chair of the visiting team will be asking questions about your experiences, as parents, with NJSHS. The goal of the conversation is to gather genuine, authentic parent feedback and incorporate that information into their report back to the school about how we are doing and how we can improve. There are similar forums for students, staff, administrators, and the school board over the course of their three-day visit and your feedback would be woven into their final report. If you would like to volunteer to be part of a focus group that would take place on Tuesday, Nov. 19 from 11:15-noon, please reach out to me directly.
As always, my door is open and we welcome your input. Please feel free to contact me via email at the address below or call to make an appointment to speak with me via phone call to discuss any ideas or concerns.
Thank you,
Andrew Korman, PhD
Principal
Newmarket Junior Senior High School
kormana@newmarket.k12.nh.us