Highland Schools Prep For State Standards Of Learning Testing

Monterey, VA – Testing will take place in the upcoming months at the Highland County school system. At last week’s School Board meeting, high school principal April Goff reported on the remediation program that the faculty set up recently.

“We’ve developed a plan to do a block of remediation twice a week within our regular schedule that is scheduled to start on Tuesday, February 21st,” says Goff. “That is also club day, so we will actually start on Thursday, February 23rd. But every Tuesday and Thursday from February 23rd til SOL testing, we will work in an hour of remediation within the school day.”

Mrs. Goff continues with a discussion of a new teaching resource recently made available to the school.

“EverFi is working with Genworth Financial and they’re sponsoring a no-cost-at-all to the school division online interactive digital model to supplement our personal finance,” she says. “It’s a real life interaction type of thing; there’s actually a game at the end called the game of life. And they go through for high school, college, and post graduate, planning their budget, paying their rent, getting credit cards and all the practice and trial and error that I wish I could’ve done in high school instead of learning it the hard way.”

Another useful teaching tool has recently been added to school resources.

“She also works with a technical company out of Richmond that offers a My digitial life’,” says Goff, “which is geared for eighth grade middle school students and it’s the same kind of concept; it’s online interactive, free to every school in Virginia. It teaches them how to be good digital citizens; it talks about cyber-bullying, how much information to post, how much not to post; it’s about a 6 hour total module.”

Elementary school principal Teresa Blum reported on the school’s “pack a snack” program.

“We serve anywhere from 80 to 100 children a week; it is not based on free or reduced [lunches], it’s simply a yes I need this’ and it’s six snacks for the weekend,” says Blum. “It goes from pre-K to eight and some of the middle school students I think keep it for snacks during break time to save them some money that way.”

She goes on to talk about this year’s spelling bee.

“We held our spelling bee on February 1st for grades five through eight,” she says. “It was the longest bee in the schools’ history, we actually had to finish it the next morning. Of course after we reconvened it took one round. Seventh grader Meyer Rexrode was the winner and the runner up was Haley Warner. Meyer will go on to represent us at Harrisonburg at the regional bee.”

Nicole Newcomb addressed the Board about to this year’s Senior Class trip.

“Before I begin I would like to thank you for your time and consideration with our request this evening,” says Newcomb. “I’m Nicole Newcomb, President of the Class of 2012, and I’m speaking tonight on behalf of the class. We are planning to go to Virginia Beach on May 29th for our senior fun day and we are requesting permission to stay overnight in order to include additional activities around that area.”

“I’d like to give you a copy of our preliminary itinerary. We would like for your vote tonight so we may confirm the date to make necessary reservations. Thank you again for your consideration.”

In other business, the Board approved several items including the Girl Scouts request to use a bus for a trip, the 8th grade trip to Washington DC, the FFA trip to Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the Senior Class trip to Virginia Beach.

The next meeting of the Highland County School Board will be Monday, March 12 at 7 pm in the high school library.