COVENANTCHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL
MR.  RICHARD NOORMAN, PRINCIPAL

OCTOBER 2011

Welcome to the first Parent Communicator of the year. This means that we are now into the second six-week period of school and already nearing the halfway point of the first semester. I’m happy to report that things are going well. Our new students are becoming acclimated to the school. Our new teachers have made it through the first grading cycle. And, we are all, students, teachers and administrators, are all getting used to the RenWeb program.

I hope that you have been able to log on and view some of the features of this program for parents. We would really appreciate any feedback that you could offer to make this more useful. This communication tool has great potential but I have questions in my own mind about how we can best use it. I do want to use it to keep you informed, but I don’t want our emails to be so frequent and of a trivial nature that they start to be ignored. I’m sure we will get it figured out in time. Please bear with us as we work through this.

Report cards and GPA—Enclosed is the first report card of the year. This is also the first report card generated by the RenWeb program so we are hoping that everything is correctly reported and is understandable. If you have questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact any of us.

Parent/Teacher Conferences—We are looking forward to seeing you at Parent/Teacher Conferences. We are still working to accommodate all the requests and we will email a schedule to you by Tuesday, the 25th. If you are not able to keep the scheduled time, we ask that you let us know. Please remember that we will have half days on October 26 and November 3.

Fall Festival— The Senior class hosted the annual Fall Festival on October 8. We had a beautiful day and there was a good turnout of parents and supporters of the school. Many people took advantage of the opportunity to tour the construction project and see the progress that has been made. We had a wide variety of activities to go along with the market of baked goods, apples, produce, and of course, the roast pork meal. We still have a few half-bushels of Golden Delicious apples if anyone is interested. Our thanks go to all the moms who helped out in various ways and to all who contributed of their time and efforts to make this event a success.

Teachers’ Convention—Eastside Christian School hosted the annual PRTI Teachers’ Convention last week. There were about 150 teachers in attendance with all of our schools being represented. Professor Dykstra gave the keynote address on the theme “In every work…seeking God with all our hearts.” The speech showed the scriptural demand and blessings of seeking God in our labors. Prof. Dykstra’s deep love for our schools and the work of teaching was evident as he brought the Word to encourage us to seek God in prayer that we might be able to experience the blessing of our work. Our teachers were well represented among the sectional presenters. Gary Lanning and Joel Minderhoud showed how to use events such as the Science Fair to teach things other than Science. Eric Pols dealt with the area of
conflict management in the school and the classroom. Rick Devries presented on the changes that technology is bringing to the classroom. Scott Van Uffelen gave a thought provoking sectional on what it means to be a “Faculty.” And, I presented a sectional on teaching the Providence of God in History and Social Studies. Next year’s convention will be held at Heritage Christian in Hudsonville.

Field Trips—There have been several Field Trips taken by various classes this fall. The 20th Century World History class went to Milwaukee to visit the museums there and they also were able to take an impromptu excursion on a “tall ship” sailing vessel that is used for educational tours. The Art students visited Art Prize. The Advanced Biology class spent two days in the Pigeon River National Forest working on various projects and gathering data. The Senior English class of Mr. Huizinga went to the Sleeping Bear Dunes area to facilitate their writing on various topics from that region. Mrs. Looyenga took the yearbook staff to a half day conference to work on various parts of their project.

Professional Development—Our teachers have taken advantage of some opportunities to attend conferences in their area of work. Mr. Haveman attends counselor meetings to get updates on colleges, financial aid, and testing requirements. Mr. Van Bemmel attends the Annual MHSAA update meetings. Mr. Lanning and Mr. Van Van Overloop attended a conference for AP Biology teachers. Their goal was to investigate the possibility of having an Advanced Placement Biology class at CCHS, learn more about the teaching of high school Biology, and network with other professionals in this field. Mrs. Looyenga attended a conference for Yearbook leaders and also the National Council of English Teachers conference.

Counseling—Mr. Haveman has been busy meeting with the Seniors to help them stay on track for their post-high school plans. He will soon move on to meeting with the 11th grade students to get them thinking about their courses for next year and 10th grade students to work them through the Career Cruising program. He has also been busy writing recommendation letters to accompany the senior’s college applications. I would encourage parents of Seniors to review the checklist that Mr. Haveman has sent home in the past. This checklist is available on our website under the Guidance tab. A Financial Aid Workshop is scheduled for the evening of January 16.

Parking Permits—It is very important at times that we are able to identify cars that are in our parking lot. In years past we have had assigned parking spots with permits. This year we are still requiring a numbered permit, but it is not for a particular spot. We have asked all students who drive to school to register their car in the office and get a permit. Please check with your student to make sure this has been done. We will soon be checking cars and not permitting unregistered cars to park in our lot.

Concerts—We are looking forward to the first concert of the year for our Music Department. This will take place on Sunday, October 30, at Grandville High School at 8:15 p.m. There will be selections from both Choirs and from the Band.

Student Council—The Student Council has been chosen and last week Miss Knott and the crew put on their first event, the Powder Puff Football game and Burger Fry. We had a nice day for the activity and it went well. The Junior Girls prevailed over the Seniors and everyone had a good lunch and a good time. The students elected to the Student Council this year are Austin Brower, Shelby Lubbers, Mary Mahtani, and Alyssa Scholten from the 10th grade, Titus Mahtani, Ben Noorman, Dan Ophoff, and Jori Wieringa from the 11th grade, and Ryan Gritters, Jackie Hauck, Whitney Mol, Taylor Noorman, and Nate Van Den Top from the 12th grade.

Chapels—We have had 5 Chapels this year with three of them involving singing. The first week we had the Hope Heralds come in to present a program for the students. We had an all school singing chapel, and last week we separated by grade and sang. I presented a chapel on “Promises” and asked the students to think about the promises that come into play in their lives. Rev. R. Van Overloop talked to the students about how they should represent their faith and their church when speaking with those that they come in contact with from other churches.

National Merit Scholarship Program—We have been notified that Senior Joel Rau has been named as a Semifinalist for the National Merit Scholarship competition. This recognition is the result of Joel’s performance on the PSAT test last fall and it qualifies him to continue in the competition by taking the SAT test later this year. Joel is the son of Mike and Elaine Rau. Congratulations Joel!

PLAN test—Parents of 10th grade students are reminded that the PLAN test for 10th grade students is scheduled for Saturday, November 5 here at school. There is a cost of $12 to take the test and signups can be made in the office.

College Visits—College visits are a very important part of the transition from high school. It is good that students visit colleges to determine if that school would be a good fit for them. There is plenty of good information available about how to make a college visit more profitable. Probably the two best pieces of advice are that it be planned out ahead of time and that it be done with a parent. I think I would also add that it not be done as part of a group experience. Going with a group will tend to make the visit much more generic and not specific to one student’s interests and needs.

Academic Support Staff—Our Academic Support Program is very busy this year. We had many students referred to the program from the grade schools and a number of students who have found that they can use some additional help with their classes. The program continues to be managed by Mrs. Dorothy VanDer Schaaf. This year she is assisted by Meghan Looyenga, Briana Prins, and Tracy Cammenga. Meghan is a Senior at Calvin College and will be doing her student teaching this spring. Briana and Tracy are both Juniors at GVSU working in the Education programs.

Instant Communication + Mobility = ???? for young people.
The answer to this equation could be: A great environment for students to be able to get together to enjoy the blessings that Christians are called to be for each other. On the other hand, the answer could also be quite simply: trouble and danger. The teenagers of today are capable of communicating very quickly with great number of friends and acquaintances. Mass emails can be sent out, Facebook postings can be made, cell phone calls made, and texts sent out to individuals or to a large number of people. This capability can be of great value for the good of our young people or, if misused, a great danger.

I bring this up to raise your level of awareness of what can happen and encourage you to be vigilant in trying to safeguard our precious children. A gathering of young people can start out innocently with no bad intentions but if not properly supervised it can turn out to be a very bad thing. We have seen it happen many times that something that was to be just a small group of kids from our school turned out to be a large group of kids from our school and from other schools. The communication that there is a “party” gets texted from one person to another and from one group to another group. Then the mobility factor kicks in and kids are coming from everywhere. If it is known that there is no supervision, the word gets out and someone with connections will show up with alcohol. Once it gets to this point it becomes difficult for those who do not approve. “What do I do now?” is the question that should flash through the kid’s mind. This is what we as parents need to prepare our children to face. You know the answers and what they should do, and maybe they do to, but it takes a constant reminder to bring this knowledge to action. For the sake of our youth, please have these conversations often and pray that God gives our youth the strength that they need to make good decisions.

Kindness and Bullying—I would like to close with a suggestion of one more subject that would be good to discuss with your son or daughter. We have noticed some instances of students being mistreated by other students. Some of it may be considered innocent fun, some of it is just annoying and disruptive, and some of it may be intimidation and bullying. Pestering activity that may be considered just having fun or simply annoying will often escalate to more serious things. Our goal at CCHS should be to assume that no student has to deal with the negative behavior of another student and that positively, all of our students show an attitude of care and concern for all other students. If you sense that your child is having difficulties with other students please don’t hesitate to let us know so that we can work with those who are causing the problems. We believe that for the most part CCHS is a wonderful community of kids who get along with each other and care about each other. We often see and hear about many acts of kindness that reflect the love of Christ that is in the hearts of our students. It is our prayer that God will continue to work in the hearts of all of our students to eliminate behavior that is driven by pride, insecurity, self-centeredness, and peer pressure. This is a great topic to speak about with children of all ages.

Thanks for the daily thoughts and prayers for our school and the work that goes on here.

R. Noorman