MR.  RICHARD NOORMAN, PRINCIPAL
October, 2009

Dear Parents,

 

I’m writing this from my office the day after returning from the Teachers Convention.  The Protestant Reformed Teachers’ Institute now has over 125 members in 15 schools and most of them were gathered together at Adams Christian School last week.  This event is always a great opportunity to reflect on how blessed we are that we have our own schools located throughout the country and that we are able to staff them with talented and dedicated teachers.  Our time together is a time of professional development where we learn from each other, a time of encouragement where we lift each other up, and a time of growth where we are encouraged to take what we learn and apply it to our work. 

             Several teachers from our staff presented sectionals this year.  Mr. Jim Huizinga presented a sectional on poetry, Mr. Jon Van Overloop spoke on “The Origin of the Species by Means of Providential Selection”, Mr. Tom Bergman’s sectional encouraged teachers to be involved in the production of materials for the “Perspectives” magazine, Mr. Joel Minderhoud talked about “Promoting Ethical, Christian Communication in Your Classroom, Mr. James Haveman related his experience with “Distance Education and the Development of On-Line Courses”, and I presented a sectional titled “Popular Teen Culture vs. the Reformed Worldview”.  As usual, the convention was a great time of refreshment and renewal that left many of us mentally exhausted.  Next year’s convention will be hosted by Trinity Christian High School in Hull, Iowa on October 7 and 8.  

            We have just begun the second marking period and the first Report Cards for the 2009-2010 school year are enclosed.  We are hopeful that by now our new students are getting into the groove and have an understanding about what their teachers are expecting of them.  If you feel that this is not happening I encourage you to start with discussion of this at Parent/Teacher Conferences but then also follow up with more conversations periodically to see if things are getting better.  Conferences are a great opportunity to briefly get to know each other and make each other aware of situations but further contact throughout the year is most valuable to promote the growth of the child.

            Overall I think we have the start to a very good year.  The students have been well behaved and seem to be enjoying the year and the teachers are encouraged by what they see in the classrooms and around the school.

 

EARLY CONCERNS:  I will just mention a couple of things.

--First, thankfully, we have not had many students absent yet due to the flu.  Hopefully that will continue.  We will be encouraging students to practice good hygiene and wash their hands often.  We also encourage you to keep the kids home if they seem to be sick rather than send them to “see how it goes” and, as recommended, keep them home for 24 hours after the fever breaks.

--Second, we seem to be having a large number of students late for classes.  These tardies are starting to pile up and we will soon have kids getting detentions for this.  Many of these tardies are occurring during the day, between classes, for which there is no excuse.  They are just not making it a priority to get to class on time.

--Third, please encourage your kids to either remember to turn off their cell phones or leave them in their car or locker.  We deal with cell phones in the following way: When we see or hear a cell phone during the day it is taken away for the remainder of the day and the student is put a list in the office.  If it happens a second time the cell phone will be held for a week.  So far this year I have 10 students on the first time offender list.  If a phone is deliberately being used to disrupt classes, for cheating or some other unethical purpose, we will deal with it more severely.

--Finally, I ask that you remind your student about driving carefully to and from school and in the parking lot.  We have already had two accidents just in the school driveway and our students have also been involved in accidents on or near the Grand River bridge.  It is really important that serious thought be given to driving safely and defensively on and near Wilson Ave.  Also, there are also a few students who still need to register their car and get a parking permit. 

 

MASTERS DEGREE—We congratulate Mr. Gary Lanning for completing the requirements for a Masters Degree in Biological and Chemical Science from the University of Maryland.  Part of the work for this degree included an internship which was done at the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids.  As our teachers develop through these educational experiences we see new ideas and techniques coming into our science classrooms to the benefit of our students.   We are thankful for the time that our teachers are willing to commit to their own growth.

 

CHAPELS—For Chapel this year we have had a variety of speakers and activities.  Our first chapel featured a program by the Hope Heralds Men’s Chorus.  We had Rev. D. Kleyn speak about his preparation and thoughts going into and following the acceptance of his call to go the Philippines as missionary.  We had two chapel times dedicated to singing; one with the whole student body together and one divided up by grades.  We also had two speakers from the staff.  Mr. Kalsbeek spoke on good and proper friendship and I spoke to the students about their spiritual growth and development and using the tools that we have here to accomplish that.

 

CONCERTS—Our first Music department concert is coming up on Sunday, November 1 at 8:15 p.m. at the Grandville High School Auditorium.  This concert will present music from the Chapel Choir, Concert Choir and Concert Band.

 

CCHS FOUNDATION CONCERT—The Foundation is sponsoring a concert by the Mattaniah Men’s Chorus and the Hosanna Choir at Grace Community Church in Hudsonville on Friday, November 6.  Tickets are available in the school office.

 

PARENT/TEACHER CONFERENCES—We look forward to seeing you at one of our two conference dates.  Schedules for conference times are enclosed.  We did receive one Conference Request Form without a name on it so if you do not see your name on the schedule please contact Mrs. Bartelds and she will see what she can do to schedule you.  If you would still like to be included we ask that you call the office to be put on the schedule.  Do not assume that openings that you see will be available at conference time.

 

BOOK BILLS—We should have Book Bills ready to be picked up at Conferences.  This bill will have the details of books turned in for credit last spring and books purchased this fall.  We ask that that these bills be paid as soon as possible.  Please make sure that when you send in payment that it is a separate check from tuition and it is clearly marked “Book Bill” so that it is not mistaken for a drive contribution or tuition payment.

 

COLLEGE NIGHT—We postponed our scheduled College Night information session because of the low number of parents signed up.  We will try to reschedule this in the spring.  If you have questions that you would like answered before that please feel free to call any of our counselors.  We have scheduled a Financial Aid information night for early January.

 

PLAN TEST—The 10^th grade students are encouraged to sign up and take the PLAN test this Saturday morning, October 31.  Students can sign up in the office.  The cost is $9.50.  This test is valuable preparation for the ACT test which they will take next year and it is also a very useful tool for us to use as the counselors meet with the students to talk about their future.

 

NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIP—Two of our Seniors were named National Merit Scholarship Semi-Finalists.  Brent DeJong, son of Don and Cindi DeJong and Hannah Westra, daughter of Dirk and Beth will be moving on in the Scholarship competition.  They are in the top 1% of the 1.5 million students who took the test.  This is based on the score that they received on the PSAT test taken last fall.  They each will now take the SAT I test and based on that score and other information they may be able to advance to the next level of the competition.  We also had four students named as Commended Students.  These students are in the top 5% of test takers.  They are Jared Bosveld, son of Michael and Sharon, Devan Dykstra, son of Brian and Carrie, Josh Dykstra, son of Doug and Pam, and Kylie Mulder, daughter of Joel and Jory.  Our congratulations go to all of these students.

 

FALL FESTIVAL—Our Fall Festival was once again an enjoyable and successful night.  Thanks to all the Senior parents who helped out with that event and to all of you who joined us that night or purchased apples.

 

CAREER CRUISING—We are once again using the Career Cruising program to assist in the counseling area.  All of the students can access this information from school or from a home computer via the Internet.  I would encourage you to visit this site to see what is available to our students.

 

FALL SPORTS—Our fall sports seasons are coming to a close.  The Soccer team had victories over TriUnity Christian and Zion Christian in District play to make it to the finals on Saturday afternoon against Freedom Baptist.  Saturday on a wet and mushy field we gave the state ranked Falcons a battle before losing 2-1.  Congratulations to our boys for a good season.  The Volleyball teams will wrap up regular season play this week with a full slate of games and then the River Valley Conference Tournament at TriUnity on Saturday.  They then begin District play the next week.  The boys’ and girls’ Cross Country teams will host the CCHS Invitational on Tuesday the 27^th at Johnson Park and then run in the District meet on October 31.

 

STUDENT COUNCIL—The Student Council has been hard at work planning events for the school.  We had our annual Powder Puff Flag Football game and Burger Fry on Oct. 16.  The Senior girls pulled out a last minute win in that game.  They are now working on details for Homecoming Week which will be Feb. 1-5.  Student Council members are Alicia Bos, Keith Gritters, Kaitlin Haan, Becca Kuiper, Brad Ophoff, Stephanie Looyenga, Kristen Elzinga, Taylor Dykstra, Taylor Noorman, Whitney Mol, Ellie Lubbers, and Jackie Hauck.  An ongoing fund raiser for the Student Council involves the collection of pop bottles and cans around school.  Last year’s collections were designated for the Protestant Reformed Scholarship Fund and $1000 was given to that cause.  This year the students have decided to give to help those on the Philippine mission field.

 

WEB PAGE—We are in the process of making some major changes to our school’s web page.  The changes, which are made possible by some new web design software which was donated to the school, will make the web site more user friendly and less cluttered.  We will also soon have information on our web site regarding future expansion plans and our Capital Campaign to raise the funds for the next additions.

 

COLLEGE VISITS AND APPLICATIONS—Mrs. Van Uffelen and Mr. Haveman report that there have been a large number of college applications and transcripts sent out already.  We have been encouraging our students to do this early and it seems we are seeing the results.    If you have a Senior and they are still waiting to apply we would encourage them to get this done as soon as possible. 

 

ACT SCORE REQUESTS—Students occasionally change their minds and decide to attend a college they were not considering at the time of the ACT tests.  Because of this, their new college choice would not have been designated to receive their ACT scores.  For a small fee students can now designate additional choices either online, through the mail, or by phone (the most expensive option).  If you would like details on how to do this you can contact Mrs. Van Uffelen or Mr. Haveman.

 

SENIOR PICTURES—We encourage our Seniors to have their Senior pictures taken before the end of the year.  We remind you that we need to have 3 wallet sized copies brought to the office by the first of the year.

 

We covet your prayers and your support for our school and our students as we continue through this year.

 

In Christ,

 

Rick Noorman