And the Venture High School Teacher of the Year Award Goes To.....

Kevin Mahoney

You were selected by your peers to represent Venture High School as an educator of the year for the Coeur d'Alene School District.  You have earned the respect and admiration of colleagues, students and families.  We all appreciate everything you do for our Venture community!  Congratulations Kevin!!! 

School Social Work Week:  A huge thank you to Alexandra Siron (Aleigh) for joining the Venture team as our MSW!  Aleigh, your work with students, families, and staff has already made a difference, especially for our TSC kids and especially for Mantz!  You are AWESOME, Aleigh, and we are so glad you are at Venture!

Student attendance is by far our top concern for students.  The leadership team is making this our number one priority.  We will have a full plan to roll out for next year that involves education for students and families along with incentives and consequences to encourage high rates of attendance.  For third term we will:

• address attendance at our celebration assembly (yes that is coming back)
• Gayle will be working with students and families beginning with the 4th absence to make them up immediately rather than letting students do them at the end of the semester.  This was always the plan, but tricky to monitor. With Gayle managing this process, I feel confident that we will see improvement.
• When students fail to make up their work or their absences to the point that their infrequent attendance disrupts class, they will be enrolled in an Edmentum/PLATO class.  Their current teacher will be the teacher of record, but the lesson content will come from PLATO.  To facilitate this process, teachers who have an additional prep during the day will be assigned PLATO students.

More on struggling learners... The MTSS team is writing iplans for students who are behind in two or more classes.  Rather than wait for referrals, we are combing through student grades and creating plans to ensure students are getting additional assistance.  You probably already know that Venture is a Title school.  As such, we have additional funding to hire a Title teacher (Diane) and two Title paras (Marita and Gayle)  When students are behind, our Title professionals work individually with students to complete missing work and fill learning gaps.  Andy also plays an essential role in our efforts to help students graduate on time with necessary skills for successful living.  Andy's position is funded from a different source, but her function continues to be very similar to that of the Title paras.  You've likely already been talking to Diane, Andy, Gayle and Marita and providing them with information so they can help students get caught up.  Working together, we can be much more intentional in our efforts to help students graduate on time.

Staff Survey: if you haven't already, please complete the staff engagement survey:   https://eprovesurveys.advanc-ed.org/surveys/#/action/184204/p30861

Grades:  Please have grades in before leaving on March 14.  

Bus/Parking lot duty: Baker and Doering

Monday 3/7:  Non-Work Day

Tuesday  3/8: 

Wednesday 3/9:

Thursday 3/10: Exhibit Night!

Friday 3/11: Last Day of Term 2 Kaiser out @am

Bus/Parking lot duty: Mazhan and Posey

Monday 3/14:  Certified Staff PD Day; Student orientation 10:00 - 11:30

Tuesday  3/15: First Day of Term 3

Wednesday 3/16: Kaiser out @am

Thursday 3/17: St. Paddy's Day BBQ and Celebration Assembly (Tentative)

Friday 3/18:

Bus/Parking lot duty: Pavlik and Penske

Monday 3/21:  Non work Day

Tuesday  3/22: 

Wednesday 3/23:

Thursday 3/24:

Friday 3/25:

Bus/Parking lot duty: Spring Break

Monday 3/28 - Friday 4/1