FCAT

So there is one thing that all our teachers in all Florida public schools prepare us for each and every year….. FCAT. For those who don’t know it stands for Florida Comprehension Assessment Test. Every student takes it up until 12th grade and you only take it then if you’ve failed the reading section.  There is a writing, reading, and math section for 9th and 10th grade. 11th graders have to take the science section and seniors don’t take any unless they failed one. The writing FCAT was on February 9th this year and FCAT reading is on March 8th and FCAT math on March 9th. They will adjust the schedule to fit the FCAT time frames. FCAT does not count for our grade but only helps decide whether or not to put you intensive reading/math. You also have to pass the 10th grade reading FCAT to graduate from Tavares. The writing portion of the test is graded on a scale of one to six. Six being the highest. THS 10th grade writing scores have averaged at 3.9 the last couple of years and we are hoping to average at 4.0 this year! Wish us luck as we reach to succeed our goal!

Exam Week

I know everybody is relieved that exam week is over. Which also means the start of the second semester and the third grading period. Report cards should be coming out next week parents! The exam schedule for us at Tavares High was as followed:

Monday- No School

Tuesday- 1st and 2nd period B day

Wednesday- 1st and 2nd period A/E day; Early Release

Thursday- 3rd and 4th period B day; Early Release

Friday- 3rd and 4th period A/E day; Early Release

It was a LONGGG week for us. We got the following Monday off as well for a teacher work day. For those who don’t understand the A/B/E schedule I will explain it. Tavares has a special schedule where most classes are A/B scheduled. It is when you have 4 classes one day and 4 classes the next. For example: Let’s say you have Math, English, Gym, and Computers on A day and Art, Science, Chorus and History on B day. That means on Monday you will have Math, English, Gym and Computers and Tuesday you will have Art, Science, Chorus and History then Wednesday you will have the A day schedule, Thursday you will have B day schedule and Friday you will have A day schedule. But the following Monday you would have a B day schedule and so on. A/B classes don’t get switched like other schools’ schedules do. They stay the same all year. E day classes are classes that people have everyday and do get switched halfway through the year. These classes final exams were during Exam week unlike A/B classes whose exams were mid-terms. But everybody is relieved that exams are over, now all they’re worried about is report cards!!!(:

Back to School!

School’s been back in for about 2 weeks now. The end of the first semester is coming up very fast!!! Everybody has had their nose in the books because mid-terms are this week! :O I know I have been busy studying!! Now for all those who don’t know how mid-terms and semester grades work they take your first and second nine week scores and find the mean of them and then add a percentage of your mid-term score to find your semester average. A lot of kids are more worried about their GPA’s. Especially us high schoolers because that’s what college’s look at. It’s stressful thinking about college and all that. For seniors it’s the time of year where they start making decisions and finalizing things for college. Well that’s it for me today(: I’d love to hear how everybody’s mid-terms go!!! Fill me in on the hardest and easiest!!!(:

Winter break

So we are out for our winter break finally!! I know everybody is excited for our almost three week vacation! This is the longest vacation the school board has given us in as long as I can remember. School resumes January 6th, 2010.  When we get back there will be a lot to prepare for. Mid-term exams will be about three weeks after we get back. Then in March we will have FCAT(Florida Comprehension Assessment Test) for the 9th, 10th, and 11th graders. Well I would love to hear all about vacation plans for the break!! I’ll be back after break!!! Happy Holidays! (:

Tavares Christmas Parade

The Tavares Christmas Parade will be this Saturday! We are glad to be able to say the Tavares High Women’s Chorus, also known as Bella Voce, and the THS Red Dawg Band will be performing in the parade! The Parade will start at 6 o clock in the evening.

Bella Voce is an all girls choir offered as a class at the high school. This will be their third year singing on a float they decorated. They hope to continue this tradition for many years to come. The concert chorus, vocal tech, and bella voce have their winter concert coming up on December 15th. The concert chorus and Bella Voce were invited back to Disney Candlelight this year. For everyone who doesn’t know what candlelight is it is a Christmas celebration Disney holds every year for about 30 nights and invites many choirs to create a mass choir of about 300. This is a huge accomplishment for the choir! They will be going on December 29th. Wish them luck!!

The THS Red Dawg Band will be performing Jingle Bell Rock and Christmas March. They are carrying out a tradition that has been going on for well over 10 years. They will also be performing at the Howie parade so go out and see them on Saturday December 19th. They have their winter concert coming up in the next couple weeks so come out and see them! So come support our music department by cheering us on at the parades and concerts coming up!

National Honor Society

The National Honor Society at THS is for students with high academic achievement.  NHS focus’s on 4 main things: Scholarship, service, leadership, and character. The requirements to get into the NHS are that you have to have a 3.5 GPA, recommendations from 4 teachers, and an information sheet filled out. This year we have 41 inductees this year. Some of the things that the NHS is for sure going to do this year would be candy grams like every year. Something everybody loves right? I know I do!! They did the Halloween candy grams and they plan to do Valentine’s Day candy grams. The ceremony for the inductees is tomorrow (November 4th) in the auditorium. So go congratulate these kids on their hard work because this is a very big honor!! Good luck guys!!

Dress code!

So this whole blogging thing is new  to me. So for right now I’ve decided to just do a like current event kind of thing going on at Tavares High and an opinion on some of the issues I feel are important to the kids at school.

One big issue, mostly with the girls, is dress code! Which is strictly enforced this year with the new principal. The “Student Code of Conduct” is a little over the top with dress code. For example, no holes in our jeans or like ripped pants. I can see if the rips were huge and showing more than necessary but if it’s like a couple of tears on the knee, I see no problem.  Then the shorts thing. Shorts issues are mostly at the beginning of the year when it’s hot. The rule on that is they have to reach mid-thigh. I think that should be a flexible rule. For example, someone with long legs that’s not fair to them because it looks appropriate but they just can’t help being tall and then for a person with short legs their mid-thigh might be too short. I don’t believe it should be mid-thigh, if it looks appropriate and your butt isn’t hanging out or close to it I see no problem. Now, for the guys the big issue is pants falling down. A lot of guy’s pants do practically let their boxers hang out but what I’ve seen a lot of guys doing is putting gym shorts under their pants. I think that as long as their boxers aren’t showing it should be aloud.

That’s it for me today. I want to hear everybody’s opinion on this! So comment and let me know what you think! Also, all of that is an my personal opinion so I nobody take it personally or anything.

Homecoming at THS!

Homecoming at Tavares High was last Friday. Excitement was definitely in the air. From spirit week, powderpuff football, homecoming floats, to homecoming football game, there was no doubt that Friday night was going to be amazing! Spirit week consisted of:

Monday- Tacky Tourist

Tuesday- Favorite College Football Team

Wednesday- Color Wars

Thursday- Career Day

Friday- Spirit Day

Tacky tourist day was hilarious to see, because some people went completely insane with fanny packs, the flowery shirts, khaki shorts, to socks with flip flops! It was a good way to start of the week. Tuesday the mass majority of the school was in orange and blue, but that was a very popular day. Wednesday was color wars. My personal favorite. Seniors are black, juniors are blue, sophomores are green and freshman yellow. Just about everybody did that one, it was really cool because very few people didn’t do it. Thursday was career day when you dress up in the career you would like to be there was a lot of varieties but not that many people dressed up that day. Friday was spirit day and I only saw a couple of people who didn’t dress up for that.

Homecoming game didn’t turn out so good we lost but that sure didn’t affect our dancing at homecoming dance!! Everybody was dancing there was no stopping some people. It was really fun. There was a variety of music which was awesome! It felt very secure because there were a lot of administrators and police officers there. It looked to me like everybody had a blast and I know I did! That was a great way to top off an amazing week!! Let’s wish our dawgs luck as they continue to lead us to victory! Go Dawgs!!!