##VIDEO ID:P-Bkqa8Dad8## I can't hear can you hear good evening [Laughter] everybody 7:04 we're right on Ridge time welcome to academic planning night I cannot believe we are halfway through um hopefully you are all enjoying e8th grade down at whs with hudok and the staff there they're incredible um we are thrilled that you could join us tonight my name is Dr lzic I am the principal here at Ridge High School thrilled to be the Principal before we get into all the information we want to share with you one thing I did want to point out um you'll notice on the slide behind me there is a QR code um we do offer live translation services so if um you would like to experience this in a different language that is totally fine and we make that possible you just scan the code you'll pick your language and as talk you'll be able to read along in a different language if that's helpful for you um pretty much any language that you are looking for um is available so if that's helpful please we make that available to try and help you out um and with that welcome to academic planning night Mr Barry how are you thank you there he is now you can hear me so again I'm Dr laik super proud to be principal here at Ridge High School um I have worked in number of districts uh across the country and um I've worked in other countries I've worked at every level of education and I told the students again today this is by far my favorite job because this place is unbelievable uh the faculty and staff are incredible our central office is unbelievably supportive um you just you won't find a group of people who are more committed to their students and more successful in serving and supporting those students and more successful in having fun while they're doing it so we're excited to have you all here as part of bridge high school tonight I have some friends here with me um introducing them briefly but you'll see them again a little bit later on first uh to my my immediate right to your my immediate left looking if you're looking at me is Miss Smith she is the director of School counseling here for the entire district and next to her you'll be meeting later is Miss Kristen Fox she is our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction they're going to help me out this evening you're going to get a lot of information from us don't worry we're going to tell you multiple times we also put it on websites for your referral and we share videos we try and make sure that anything that you need is available when you need it because you're not going to remember everything that's our job and what we try and do is make sure that you know where to go to access information this is the first of many times that we'll get together um met with the students already uh at the middle school on Monday and had a great time with them they met ACH bunch of people from the building including our counselors and one of our assistant principes and we're going to meet again uh with parents at the middle school PTO function so that's coming up as well we have new family orientation as we get much closer that's in the summer and of course we'll have new student orientation right before school starts so we want to make sure we roll out the red carpet multiple times and that you feel as comfortable as possible coming into a building uh that can seem pretty big can seem pretty scary can seem very confusing um but you'll see a lot of friendly smiling people tonight you're starting with us for information then you'll be leaving us and headed to uh gym a um our new gym where you're going to be meet meeting a ton of our staff and many of our students as well as the content area supervisors uh who are going to help you along and giving you information on all the incredible programs that we have here at Ridge so it's a big night for you welcome thanks for joining us for our presentation we're going to go through three parts first is what makes Ridge so special so you feel good before you even get here the second is what does success look like all the different things that you have to do plus all the things you get to do and then how I build the right path for me which is really important for us that each individual student finds the right path for them um you're going to get all three of those sections lots of wonderful information my section is what makes Ridge so special going to talk about the people how you build a team here students and parents um what our days look like because they are definitely different than what you've experienced at elementary and middle school and then and talk a little bit about communication because we're here to help you and often times we don't know what you need unless you tell us so we encourage communication as much as possible so focus on people our goal here academic preparation um we are fantastic at that students have so many opportunities Beyond us because of the work and the learning that they do here in the high school but what we're really focused on is building confident capable happy people um you'll notice we have our list here confidence selfworth we want them to feel good here and feel good about themselves um we want them certainly to build skills and knowledge but we want them to understand exactly what is they're building it's not just about grades it's about the learning most important on this list is the aster there for self- advocacy we want students who recognize what they need and know how to go get it you know they know how to speak up for themselves ask for help um raise their hand when they see something a Miss help others but we want students who build the skills here with us so that when they leave us they have no problem going out into the world figuring out what it is they need and who will help them and making sure that those resources are available to themselves and that last one um I want to point out and say all the time but we are determined to have fun here on a regular basis not every class may be your favorite class not every activity may be your favorite activity not every staff member may be your favorite staff member but while we're here we want to feel safe we want to work hard but we absolutely want to have fun so how is wham different from rid well a lot of the things are the same you're going to have your classroom teachers your coaches your Club advisers you're going to be paired with a school counselor who follows you as a student and you with the family for all four of your years are going to get to know you really well um our counseling website is unbelievable bar none if you look at public high schools they love steps they have steps for everything so you don't have to worry about all the steps but you find the page for the place that you are right now in your journey and they'll have specific steps that you can then advocate for yourself and ask for help help and we'll be there right along with you every step of the way um our administrators phenomenal group of Administrators that were all here before I got here I can take no credit for how wonderful they are but they're tremendous people and they're incredible School administrators all of them with double- digigit years of experience in school administration and their focus is again on the students here so look forward to meeting them um our office staff run the building they make everything work all of our support staff get to know them they're the ones who answer the phones when you when you make that first level call they're the on you'll see in the offices first and foremost they keep us in line um but they make sure that the building is operating the way it's supposed to and that people are having fun and yes the principal is part of your team so you've had Miss hudok um who is one of my Idols um but now you get to hang out with Dr lastek for four years so I'm very excited about that our assistant principles I mentioned them before this is what they'll look like next year when you get here currently they're all one grade level shifted Mr Graber is currently working with the seniors but he came with us to meet the eighth graders on Monday because we rotate the grade level administrator stay with the class for all four years so Mr Graber will be your grade level administrator but all five of us are here for you regardless of what grade you're in so miss dubout miss howth and Mr Thompson are all people you're going to meet you're going to see regularly um we're at activities we'll be running meetings so even though you have one specific go-to for your grade level who's there to help you based on what's going on for you at a given time the entire administrative team is always here for you Department supervisors for the most part their offices are here so you'll see them even more than you've seen them around the buildings before you're going to meet them all they are in the gym um you'll see them around their tables they're thrilled to meet you and welcome the next class coming in uh to Rich high school but they are a phenomenal team um we have really high level experts that work great with each other and with our students and certainly their families and so we're excited as you come to Ridge for you to spend more time working with them students I mentioned this before on Monday um what can I do we have more than 220 clubs in activities and we still get applications for more so I'm hardpressed I think for you to find that we don't have a club for you already but if somehow that magically happens we work with Miss duat we build more clubs um we have really engaged students um and we try and get people to really enjoy their time here and go after things that they're passionate about so that's a huge piece when it comes to Athletics we basically offer literally everything that the njsiaa sanctions public schools in New Jersey to offer so if you're even if you've never been involved in the sport before we have everything from football and soccer um to our sailing team which is doing incredible things um all sanctioned all competition teams we also have Model United Nations we have a forensics team that is top in the country and has been since the last century Mr why has has built a machine here it's actually our largest organization our largest group bigger than any team um they travel competitions they perform for our own students it really is a Wonder um so if you're looking for things beyond the classroom really proud of everything that we offer and we hope that you get involved when we jump into the classroom how we're different so we as of a number of years ago switched to what's called a rotate and drop schedule and I'll tell you the same thing I've been saying since we changed it's been true every year the students get it very quickly the adults takes all of us a while but for students don't be stressed about it you still take eight classes like you've always done here at Ridge High School but you only meet with six of them a day the classes are a little bit longer you have fewer transitions you can spend more time focused on fewer things it helps you balance your homework a little bit more effectively because you're not working on all eight classes every single day and so that part of it helps with that drop the other piece though is there is a rotation this is what our for day rotation looks like this will become really easy for students once you start to live it takes about a week and you know exactly what you're doing our days are labeled from the first day of school to the last either A B C or D and when you get to D we start back at a and so if you look at this example sample schedule you notice on the left there are eight classes the students taking all right starting with English language arts social studies and math and going down the list but if you look at what they take on any given day of our 4-day rotation English language arts starts off first thing in the morning but in the second day it moves to that second block and on the third day it's right before lunch so you no longer have that stagnant same class every day first thing in the morning you no longer have that class stagnant every day right after lunch or right at the end of the day it rotates through those four days and if you notice from English a days block one bday block two c days block three and then English drops and so you have a day without English all right and what we found feedback from the students is they absolutely love the schedule and actually feedback from the staff is the same uh it was new territory is a big change and what we found is this is helped students in so many different ways find more time to focus on themselves in their studies if you notice right in the middle there's that unit lunch on all four days it's called a unit lunch because for the most part the entire building is off the same time so we have a lot of kids who used to come here nervous they wouldn't have lunch with their friends now everyone has lunch together not just ninth grade but but all four grade levels we have a huge building and kids get to eat everywhere when the weather is nice we go outside as well we have all sorts of Outdoor Equipment outside picnic tables um for kids to find their spaces around the building where they're comfortable um they buy food they bring food um and it works incredibly well we have all sorts of kids interacting that said we also have what's called up behind me the opportunity period so during lunch students can sign up through a system that we use there are certain slots depending on space for a myriad of activities some of the activities are as simple as meeting with their counselors meeting with their teachers extra help we have quiet study spaces for students who want to a break from noise we have collaborative study spaces if groups need to get together and do work someplace but the teachers also offer literally dozens of options that are non-academic um but things that they're passionate about things that are students are passionate about everything from book and movie clubs we have a whole group of kids who are learning to juggle um it may sound a little bit silly but the students absolutely love it and that break is incredibly helpful to them and so the kids get to choose I talked about self advocacy students get to figure out what they need on any given day maybe I want to go to a movie club talk about one of my favorite movies but maybe I need extra help from a teacher and the nice thing is that for the most part everyone is off at the same time and so that's available to everybody all year long that's what a day at Ridge will look like for you or your students communication the running joke when you come for new family orientation is check the website um we work really hard to make sure that the ridge information Hub so there's the main District page but right in the middle of it you click on rhs information Hub and everything is there and it stays in the same spot so as you get used to that information and need to go back to it it doesn't move I send a Friday folder just like uh the other principles do at the bottom of every Friday folder there's a little tip about the website something you might not know that we offer like our counselors and their 10 steps um where to find the athletic schedules how to buy tickets for our performances our music program is unbelievable our theater program if you if you haven't been to a show here please please please join us um but so that website's hugely important everything that you would need to know we worked with parents we worked with the teachers to build that site over two years um and we update it constantly start using that that should be your best friend bookmark it in your phones and your browsers uh it really should be your first go for accurate verifiable information about the high school um what it comes to communication one of the big things especially parents there's that get involved we have so many different things where family members can be involved not just as audience members or Spectators but actually involved and we encourage everyone to come in we want bridge to be a fun place for everyone we want you to feel as parents and family members that you've done an amazing thing choosing this this district and then this High School to send your children to we want you to feel like they're safe they're getting uh worldclass education but they're getting so much more than all of that um email us on the list because yes we still use email um we try to encourage the students to read it's a battle every year but if you could help us telling the kids even if they just check their school email once a day that makes a huge difference but as parents we try and minimize the amount of communications we push out to you but when we push it out it's because we feel it's important um and we want you to have a record um other than that that very first bullet students first every decision we make and all that we're doing here is for the kids um that's why all of us come to work they're the the best part of our days and we're looking forward to having your students join us and so with that I just want to mention one last piece of communication that you're going to hear a lot about our program of studies the cover is behind me is on the information Hub and the counseling website and will be an email to you it is the guiding document for all of our studies here in the building so this program of studies outlines all the courses we offer all the things that are required to graduate how to fulfill them different levels Etc um all the information when it comes to what you're probably going to be focused on real soon which is picking classes everything we have to offer and everything you're going to hear about tonight is in that document so if you don't remember everything you he tonight or that you hear from the tables you want to go to the program of study and make that the first document from Ridge you make your best friend it will give you the answers to the questions that you have with that I'll be back at the end but I'm going to turn this over to miss Fox who's going to take you through how we get from freshman to senior Year miss Fox thank you Dr Fox Dr Fox thank you hi everyone welcome to Ridge High School it's really nice to be here I'm extremely um feel honored and privileged to be able to talk to you about the exciting programming that you have in store uh for the next four years as Dr lazovic said I don't want you to feel too overwhelmed it's a huge amount of information I'm going to give you a lot of information information because it's important for you to start hearing it but know that you don't have to memorize it right now you might come up with some questions and things that you can read about later so yes these are the four things I'm going to talk about everything you need to do in order to earn a diploma from Ridge High School uh some different Pathways that are available to you as you become an upper classman that are something you might want to start thinking about um earlier uh talk about your choices for going into nth grade in particular the difference between levels in the courses that you might have available to you and then finally some updates to our program offerings all right so in order to earn a diploma there's a list of things you have to accomplish in four years and it looks daunting but it's not as hard as it looks and there's a lot of people who will help you um there's a lot of content right four years of English and so on um that total is 120 required credits to graduate you do have the uh you do most kids do take a lot more than 120 credits but that's the minimum to graduate uate um there are a couple of specific courses within there required that come out of your elective choices that you take I'll talk about a few of those later but for example you need one year of career education courses so that's should be some of your elective programming that you're thinking about beyond the courses you're going to take you need to follow the attendance policy you can't exceed that and still earn a diploma and then finally you there's an New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment that all students take and must pass in order to receive a diploma that happens in your junior year we give you lots of warning of course our courses are preparing you for it um but it is important to be aware of it uh the state has been known to change the requirement in the past it's been stable for the last couple of years but if and when some changes occur we would certainly be updating you regularly when we become aware of it as well so that's those are the courses and and the things you need to do in order in order to graduate some of the people who will help with that are your counselors and you will begin meeting with them next month um this is a worksheet you'll find it on the academic planning site and it is something we encourage you to take a look at it's a four-year planning sheet or summary worksheet where you can map out the courses you have to take and then figure out where you can take some of the other courses you'd like to take on top of that so you can download this print it work with it you'll also get a chance to look at that with your counselor so what do I do next year what am I thinking about for next year going into to 9th grade um on the left are the eight courses you know that you will be taking there are six courses that are the required programming core core core programming and then two elective slots so in English social studies mathematics Science World Language there are you know there's straightforward courses and the choice there might be the level at which you take the course and there's a few um the level at which you take the course the only difference being in mathematics depending on the math course you're in right now you might have you might have a different a specific course ranging from Algebra 1 to Algebra 2 um and then in World languages depending on what you've done in Middle School in your proficiency you take either a level one or a level two in the high school um you will all take health and phed and then what I wanted to talk about are the two elective slots in your schedule right so there are six courses that are required and then you have two elective slots that those two elective slots are probably the biggest thing you're going to think about and you can fill those two slots up with two full year courses that are five credits um or you can choose some halfe courses that are two and a half credits to get to a total of 10 credits it's a little complicated when you look in the program of studies when you look on the course selection sheet it does tell you the number of credits but when you think about I'm you may be going to take financial literacy next year that's a semester course so you would need another semester course to balance that out another option to consider is a study hall and a study hall would fill one of those two elective slots you can't take more than one study hall but you can take either a semester or a full year of study hall so that would fill those two bottom elective slots so those are the things you want to think about um probably as much as the level at which you're going to take your required courses for next year so beyond nth grade I wanted to talk about a few of the pathways that will begin to become available to As you move through the high school option two is an alternative way to earn graduation credits um and there are three different types of option two that um you should know about you can find all of this information on the option two site of the Ridge High School information website and that is also linked here but basically there is a remediation pathway for students who might struggle in a course and need to retake it there is also uh an option to um ability to take a course that we don't offer at Ridge High School so if you're interested in something and you want to take it somewhere else and earn credit for it that's another option to pathway and then finally there is physical education for so for students who participate in Ridge Athletics and some off-site uh athletic activities you can apply for and you may qualify to earn option two graduation credit and physical education um offsite right during Ridge Athletics or in some other programming and then during the day you would take a study hall instead you can't take another course but you you you would have the ability to have a study hall in place of that PE course votch Somerset County Vocational Technical High School so the the votch did speak to William man and students earlier this year and the deadline for application has already passed but the late um deadline to to apply is actually Friday so if there was any interest in apply in applying I wanted to make sure you were aware of the fact that that would be due on Friday now Beyond freshman year right if you wanted to apply or you maybe change your mind later that would depend on the program you were interested in um taking some of them would allow you to begin beyond your freshman year and some of them would not so linked here and also found on the academic planning site is a flyer about Somerset County votech and there's some videos on there and links that uh give you information about all of the different programming options they have and you can attend as either a halftime student where you spend part of your day at Ridge and part of your day at botch or full-time student couple other Pathways academic Pathways that are non-credit bearing you uh some students participate in an independent study that's a situation where you might have um something you're really passionate about uh you have a teacher you've worked with and something else and they're also willing to work with you on an independent study project um that is something that you can apply for and do as part of of your schedule at Ridge and earn and not earn credit but earn um have a learning experience that is part of your record the pathways program the senior Pathways program it is a newer program it's only a couple years old that's for seniors and um that allows you to spend part of your day your senior year doing one of three different things so uh if you participate in the pathways program you would spend part of your day at Ridge High School usually either the morning or the afternoon uh earning your remaining graduation credits that you have to complete and then the other part of your day you could uh be somewhere else you could have a job school to work you could be participate in an internship somewhere or you could participate in early credit and attend an a higher in institution of Higher Learning for example rvcc and begin taking college classes there instead of here so the pathways program is really exciting and something to think about for your senior year if that would be of interest to you I mentioned financial literacy it's a semester elective requirement for graduation there are a few ways that you can take and earn those credits there you can take it at Rich High School anytime between grades 9 and 12 there's a few different ways to earn the credit those are in the program of studies um but you can also take there's a summer offering of the course uh that that you would be it would be available to you to take starting next summer you can't take it as a rising freshman but you can take it as a rising sophomore so it's something for you to to think about if you'd like to earn your um credits that way I think some students do that to make sure they have room in their schedule for other courses they're hoping to take during their four years at Ridge High School the information is posted with the program of studies in terms of the dates in the summer the requirements and the application um to participate in that program so I talked about electives um and in all the required courses depending on the grades you have you might be considering whether what level you're going to take one of your required courses at so we'll speak just briefly about the four different levels um most of our courses are available um in and for you to think about for next year we really want you to think about you know two things if you're qualified with your grade for a course that's great but it might not be the right course for you you might not enjoy that subject area you might want to spend more of your time doing something else so we want you to choose courses that are going to be a good fit for you with your life and your schedule so knowing a little bit about what the expectations is at that level is helpful in to you in making those those kinds of decisions so College Prep right is a challenging level where you can expect some guidance from your teacher in meeting the requirements of the course um more more guidance from your teacher than you might at the upper levels you can expect 20 to 30 minutes of homework on a nightly basis in a college prep course and in science you do not have additional course time what that means is that at the uh um higher levels in science you are required to spend half of one of your lunches in science every four days remember there's a four- day rotation a b c d one of those four would half of that lunch block so about 25 minutes would be spent in science so additional time in science but not at the college prep level so if that's something you really don't want to do that's one consideration right for college prep you would not have additional science time at the college prep level the next level is called enriched it is available only in science and in Algebra 2 it has a similar pacing to college prep but it does start to increase in terms of the level of Independence um application of knowledge critical thinking skills um a little bit more Independent Learning than a college prep course um and in in in science you do have that additional time that comes out of half of your lunch next level would be honors um this is going to become more challenging move at a faster Pace a lot of more a lot more independent work um or independent thinking would be required there would be more homework than in a college prep course an additional reading which is why we say it should be a subject you enjoy because you'll be reading more of it and so it's hopefully it's something you like some of our honors courses do have a summer assignment and you would find information about that in the program of studies where the description of the course is found it would would tell you when there's a summer assignment associated with that course advanced placement is the highest level of course we offer it is the equivalent of a first year college course and the curriculum adheres to the College Board guidelines and the course culminates in the opportunity for students to take the AP exam it is an expectation that students take the exam but not a requirement um students should certainly feel prepared to take the exam by the course it moves at a faster Pace sometimes you're required to learn some of the information independent L and on your own because the um course curriculum is greater than the time we have in school to teach it to you uh there is a summer assignment in most if not all of our AP courses when you are preparing to sit down with your counselor you should think of uh the way this will work for you is if you're interested in um scheduling or requesting an honors course you that's based on your mid-year grade or the average of your mark period one and two grades so you need to earn the qualifying grade in that course at the semester to be able to request it on your schedule that doesn't mean you can't take it if you don't qualify now but that's the only way you can request it during the scheduling process if you do qualify at the mid-year grade and you request it but at the end of the year you no longer qualify because your grade dipped you would be automatically removed from the course and moved to probably the college prep level um if however it goes in the other direction and you're not qualified at midyear so you can't select it but you bring your grade up and you do qualify at the end of the year we will not automatically move you into an honors course we need you to tell us that and there are some forms I'm going to show you in just a second that you would use to tell us that you'd like to be mov you're now qualify and you'd like to be moved into that honors level course that is the change of course request form sometimes we call this the I changed my mind form form because you can use this form for more than just requesting honors because you now qualify that's certainly one of the biggest reasons we use that form but if you selected two electives and you changed your mind you can submit this form and say I'd rather take Ceramics than photography so you can use that form to change your requests as well you can also say you know what I I thought I wanted to take honors but I really don't I would rather take CP you can also use that form to tell us you'd rather take College Prep than honors those forms will be published June 2nd on the academic planning website which Miss Miss Smith will show you in a minute and they will be due June 23rd shortly after the report cards come out the second form is the appeals form so let's say you don't qualify by the end of the year whether you did in the mid year or not you still have the opportunity to appeal submit the appeals form on the same deadline as the change my mind form and tell us why you want to take the course and why you think you would do well in the course despite having not earned the grade requirement right so we're looking for the form to come from the student and to tell us basically appeal and the content area supervisors will review the form the transcript the record they'll speak to the teacher that the student had and they will um make a decision in that case seed availability does become important right because um if you're appealing and the this the class is full then there's no room to put you there so the only way that you are pretty much guaranteed a spot in a course is when you qualify by the end of the year there are a slew of other deadlines that you will hear a little bit more about in a minute but I wanted to make the point that there are several times throughout this scheduling process that begins now when you can change your mind or make requests to change your schedule so two the one I just descri comes in June but also once school starts you have a couple of their Windows of time to either add a course drop a course change a level um and make some other changes to your schedule but the timelines are important to be aware of especially after school starts because when the deadlines pass we cannot we we really can't honor your request or you may have a withdraw or a w on your transcript representing that change because it happened after the deadline right so the deadlines are important I don't suggest that you try to memorize them now now but they're posted on the website they're in the program of studies and just know that there are some deadlines for you to consider if you're looking to make a change to your schedule so every year we are making changes to our programming right based on a lot of different things uh largely trying to provide courses that are interesting and engaging and we publish them all in one page so people who are familiar with our program can see in one place what changed it's called the Amendments at a glance it's linked here it's also on the academic planning site um I'm just going to briefly mention some of the changes in the Departments uh but most of these changes don't apply for Rising freshmen most of them would be more relevant when you become an upper classman but in the career Department we're excited to offer a new um elective starting next year called sports and entertainment marketing replacing our old principles of marketing course that should be a very interesting course in the ELA or English language arts department we've made some changes to the prerequisites right the the grade requirements for moving between honors and AP courses um and that is going to be uh described in the course description as well and that's really important for you to look there because they are different course by course what the grade requirement is and in some cases a course prerequisite might be in order to take a course so we did make a few changes in the ELA Department um on those grade requirements we're also excited to offer three new semester electives in the ELA Department one is women in literature one is Science Fiction and Fantasy and mystery thriller and suspense those are three semester electives that you can take be between grades 10 and 12 lastly we have a an elective in the ELA Department that we've had for a long time called Communications that is now available as a dual enrollment course I haven't spoken about that yet but there's a few of our courses that students can take for dual enrollment credit at an institution of Higher Learning and this is going to be a new offering in that category in this case um students could earn college credit at seatan Hall University while taking that course here at Ridge High School with our teacher the directions for how that would work would be found in the program of studies so you would be applying to the program at Sean Hall and there is a fee that you pay for the credits um but we do have four or five credit courses that offer dual enrollment credit and this will be a new one in the math department some of the prerequisites for AP stats statistics have changed in the science department um some adjustments to the prerequisites for AP Physics and some of the alternative Pathways um to some of our science programming have been updated both the math and the science department have charts very large extensive charts that you might need to expand onto a larger screen to read um that show you different Pathways to get to courses you might want to take so we're looking for ways to help kids take courses they want to take especially when they don't don't qualify in the younger grades and they're trying to get to it by the older grades by the later grades so those alternative pathway charts are ways to take an upper level science course um outside of the traditional course prerequisite um in social studies we're eliminating a uh an elective that is not uh enroll um it is not selected by a lot of students so we don't run courses that students don't take over a period of a couple of years that one's going away in World languages we're excited to offer a Heritage speaker Heritage speaker Spanish course right so if you're a native Spanish speaker this might be a course you're interested in and I would check that out in the uh program of studies or talk to your counselor about it um because that would be a a course targeted for students who are native speakers um in Visual and Performing Arts the important thing for Rising freshman to know is that if you're going to take band The cour has changed from concert band 9 to concert band right that's the only change and the sequence of the band courses has just slightly been changed from grades nine to 10 10 to 11 but in nth grade you would take concert band if you're interested in that overall we added a Capstone project to that senior Pathways program that I mentioned before so that's a new addition to that program that students would do throughout their senior year and we've added some language in the program of studies about how final grades are calculated right so I just wanted to make point that out to you something to take a look at in the program of studies and with that I'm going to uh turn this over to Miss Smith where she can talk to you about how to find your right path yeah we can give it up for Miss Fox all right we've heard a lot of information tonight and so my part of the presentation is to help you feel confident in where you can find all this information after tonight so what your resources are to build that path going forward wh just kidding it was mentioned several times tonight and I'm here to reiterate it the academic planning website the counseling department loves to have a vision we love to have a website and some checklists so you will experience that as you join us for the next four years every year like Dr lasic mentioned we love to have concrete steps as we take you through many different important processes part of the high school Journey some of which conclude with the preparation for college and post-secondary life after Bridge High school but here you are at the start of high school and so we've built a website for you the academic planning resource site that I will walk you through tonight I encourage you as a family to walk through this yourself and to become really familiar because again this is where you can find everything that you need that's relevant to the conversation tonight and choosing your courses over the next several weeks so on our site here you received the letter that we sent to you you can refer to that and we have what's called our five-step checklist so as a family you will will endeavor upon this five-step checklist we talked to your students last week when we went to William inan and we encourag them to refer to the checklist so that they are as prepared as possible to meet with their eighth grade counselor to solidify those course requests in Genesis so these five steps really should be finished by the time you're meeting with the counselor the reason we encourage that is to maximize that time with the counselor so that you can have a thorough review you can ask your questions and that you can feel really confident leaving that meeting the student is the leader of that meeting meeting with the counselor and so they can feel really equipped walking in because they've completed their steps in the checklist so step one we have you here on the website read the program of studies and the Amendments out of glance Miss Fox just referred to the Amendments out of glance that's your quick glance on any program updates for those of you who this is not your first child coming to high school and the program of studies is your 65 page cont comprehensive course catalog so that has all of the course prerequisite information the sequencing as you work your way through the four years the course descriptions and my team works hard to make sure that all of that information is also in Genesis so that when you're in Genesis you can hover over the different courses that you have to select and you can read the course descriptions and have an understanding of the prerequisite grade that is required to enroll into the course so the first step is you're going to become really familiar with those documents and you're going to read through the program of studies you're going to become um um familiar with the Amendments at a glance as well step two students are going to talk to their teachers our teachers have spent some time and really put thoughtful time and energy into making recommendations for next year and so in Genesis when you log in when the portal opens for all of you on February 3rd you will be able to see the recommendations that the eighth grade teachers are making when it comes to those levels that Miss Fox was mentioning so whether it's CP whether it's honors whether it's enriched it should and will look differently for everybody in this room we encourage you to find your best fit right so some of you might be taking all CP some of you might be taking all honor some of you might have a mix that will likely change throughout your time uh throughout High School which is fine but we encourage you to have conversations with your teachers the students so that they have an understanding of why they're making the recommendations that they are for next year number three here you are attend our programming events if you click on this link here this brings you to our events flyer the plug I want to uh put out there tonight is the event that we have next week so a week from today we will be meeting um with any interested William in and family you can come back during the day if you have questions you've let everything soak in for a week come join the three of us for a Q&A session I will also bring my High School counseling team so that you can ask Q&A um informally with us next week as well so click that link for more information about that event step four plan that schedule so we have some resources for you we have a time management tool we talk to your students this week about taking into consideration the full picture when you're aiming for that best fit for you take into consideration your extracurriculars your responsibilities within and outside of the home any jobs that you may have as a student any volunteerism the full picture of what you're committing to when you're making these decisions about your course load for the beginning of high school we have the four-year summary document to help you plan and plug away throughout the the year and we have our course selection sheets so our course selection sheets are documents that you can refer at a quick glance of all of the options that you have to choose from as you make your decisions for next year so we have put some time into making sure that you are taking the time to plan that schedule in step four and then when you feel really solid and that portal opens uh starting on February 3rd you can log in into Genesis and you can follow the instructions you click on that link and it's a stepbystep simple process um follow the instructions to actually put in your course requests into Genesis again we're encouraging everyone here to do that as a family so that the student is ready that's the indicator that's the flag for the counselor that they're ready to then have a sit-down meeting with the counselor to review everything and to make sure that you're good to go into Genesis so those are your five steps as we continue our way through this website we have some documents for you we will post this presentation in the recording of this evening as well so that you can refer back if needed our team has also created a video library and the the target audience is really you all so it's our Rising high high school families who we have created videos our teachers our supervisors have worked together to uh put together a video library for every department so you can go through that if there's any table that you weren't able to visit tonight you can always refer to one of our videos as well my team has created an FAQ so are frequently asked questions after years of experience of doing this transitional point from 8th grade to nth grade what are the frequently asked questions that we have and that we have received and so you can refer to that for some answers for you there as well the last part of this web page is the schedule modification forms you don't need these right now these are the fors that Miss Fox was referring to in June if or when you are to make any changes make an appeal to get into a certain level of a course this is where you would refer back to this website as well for your schedule modification form so that is your orientation to our website again we are pushing tonight that you as a family are visiting that site and feeling really confident with exactly what you need to do by following those five steps in preparation for the students meeting with their school counselor as you go into Genesis and that portal opens we want to remind you that you are your initial eligibility for courses right now are based on the midyear grade and so that will change likely at the end of the year and so your eligibility for courses at the end of the year based on that final grade we will not the counseling department will not automatically place you in a higher level course you would need to indicate that using one of the appropriate forms we will however automatically drop you if you are suddenly not eligible for a course with that final grade I'm also encouraging families as you look at the instructions when you log into Genesis to choose alternates everyone in this room we build a schedule for we also do that for the current nth graders 10th graders and 11th graders we do our best to give you and we want to give you the courses that you want we know you're excited about it we try to build this process to get you excited and so what helps us help you is to give us alternates it'll give you instructions in Genesis for how to indicate your priority One or priority two that helps my team know that if you don't get seeded into an elective of your top choice I at least know a backup and so I can put you into something that you'd like so help us help you by giving us the alternate elective choices as we wrap up I'll reiterate some timelines so you are here at what we call the launch of the season and so this is the beginning of the academic planning season you're getting all the information that you need you're making your thoughtful decisions for next year by and large the decisions that you're making and the requests that you're making today will be the schedule that you maintain many of you will fill out forms for some of the classes but we want you to be considerate about the classes that you're choosing here now because many of you will stay in those choices throughout the rest of the summer the spring the summer and then eventually on August 26th we open up the portal in Genesis and that's when you have your official counselor assignment and you have your official schedule which will be reflected in the rotate and drop schedule that Dr elic described for you so this process we're we're showing you here today is really something that spans across the rest of the spring and the summer the selections that you're making your deadline is April 2nd so you'll have your meeting with your counselor but as we mentioned before there are windows that we operate in so that we can build this schedule for all 2,000 students here at Ridge High School so this first window really closes by April 2nd there is no priority if you have your schedule imputed in Genesis today versus March 30th you don't get any sort of Advantage by doing it quickly or doing it first all right we don't Shuffle the mix so to say and or run the spin of the schedule until after April 2nd so take your time have your meeting with your counselor and feel really good and confident about this process at the end of the school year in June the window will then open for you to make any changes based on grade eligibility based on changing your mind we understand that sometimes you do change your mind from some decisions that you make in February you'll follow the instructions in the program of studies we will communicate to you you'll fill out the forms if that's applicable to you we also understand that once the school year starts that sometimes things change too so it's rare but it does happen once the school year starts there might be opportunities for you to move up a level we have described for you all of the options that you have in the program of studies but for today we just want you to know that you know as you're making these decisions that there are opportunities for Windows of of change for you to make and the last set of reminders that we have for you tonight you're here at academic planning night we will send you off from here to go peruse the fair style event where you can meet with teachers and talk to um different supervisors and they're excited to see you so have fun with that and then I also want to make a plug for February 5th the Q&A at Williams should you want to join us it's optional for you to do that but we will be there to answer any questions that you have from 9: to 11: in the Williams Auditorium April 16th is another date to put in your calendars that's the activities Fair that's here at Ridge High School in the evening so there will be some Communications about that closer to the date but that's a great opportunity for you to come and to learn about the options that you have for activities here at the high school and then further down the line we have our freshman orientation so this is definitely something that you want to Mark in your calendars that's August 28th it's a full day of fun and activities for our students with special education plans we also have two additional days of orientation events that's called The Ridge ready program on August 26th and 27th so definitely Mark those Cal Mark those dates in your calendars we're excited those are big events for us and it's all part of this major transition to high school new family orientation for our parents is a parent event hosted by Dr lzic and his AP team where it's another opportunity for you later in August once you have that schedule and you're really on the cusp of starting High School where you can come in and ask any questions that you have so I'm going to pass it off to Dr lzic to do a quick wrap up but I just want to give a warm welcome to you to this part of your journey whether it's your first time your second time or your third time we're looking forward to working with you and I hope you have fun this evening thank you Miss Smith and of course to miss Fox um just one more a lot of information like we said everything's going to be where on that website right you want to go to that website so you can peruse it you don't have to rush you're already doing the right things you read enough to know that we had a meeting you're here you have months to take care of these things so make it a family thing have fun with it we're going to be here to help you and for honestly the rest of the next five months just have fun with your eighth grade years and enjoy being an eighth grader and finishing up at whams we hope to see you soon you guys can make your way down to the the gym and meet so many more of our staff thank you all for coming out we'll see you soon how are you e e e e e you skip it I guess you did a good job of moving around job e e e e e e e hey Mr fcan Mr Barry we're good good evening everyone how was the uh course Fair meet lots of teachers and hopefully students as well and got answers to all sorts of questions um thank you for coming before I get going you'll notice on the slide behind me there is a QR code you can feel free to scan see people already scan it without even knowing what it was which is great we tricked you um so what that is is we offer language translation Services here in real time and so if you scan that it'll take you to a website you can choose the language uh that makes most sense for you and you will get a real-time translation as we are speaking so many of you now just put your phones down that's great um but if you need that that's there you can scan it now and there will also be a recording that we post of this so you'll be able to go back but um welcome to the second half of academic planning night you get you know you get us to close which is great my name is Dr lazic I am proud to be the Principal here at Rich High School um we are thrilled to welcome you all thank you for coming we met with the eighth graders on Monday which was great we brought our counselors and Mr Graber down along with the people I'm about to introduce um but we've got a lot of information here for you tonight I don't share most of the information um so I'm going to get out of your way very quickly please understand you don't have to memorize everything tonight you don't have to take pictures of the slides or recall there's not be a quiz on the way out all right we do this multiple times and we post everything you're going to hear that over and over again go to our websites we build the websites with input from parents we've been doing it for a few years um The Ridge information Hub has links to everything you need here at Ridge including all the incredible counseling sites you're going to hear about later tonight so it's all there for you sitting next to me I have two wonderful people from the district first we have um Miss Smith who's sitting immediately to my right she is the director of school counseling uh she's going she's going to kind of close this evening with everything you need to know right now um and prior to her Miss Fox is our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction she's going to come up and talk about the whole four years to give you kind of an overview of what's coming so I'm thrilled I just get to talk to you about what makes Ridge so special um then we'll turn it over to miss Fox and to Miss Smith as the principal I have to tell I've worked in many buildings I've worked many states I've worked in other countries this is my hands down favorite place I love being an educator but this this has been my favorite my favorite stop along my personal Journey because the people here are just absolutely incredible um to a person and so when I talk about people you're coming up for the Middle School our ultimate focus is on the students but we've done an unbelievable job way before I got here in finding some of the best Educators around that can also as a team focus on your children and so you're coming from whams they're fabulous down there I'm a big fan of Miss hudok we work together constantly um but Ridge now high school there are going to be some things that are different as you move from middle up to Ridge High School some of the things we are absolutely focused on academics for sure that's number two but developing self-confidence and self-worth we want our students to feel good about themselves we want them to feel safe here they want them to have fun here going talk about again at the end but we want them to feel good about themselves everyone's going to have their own journey through Ridge High School we offer so much um to try and reach everyone and make things available for each individual student that comes through we want want them to know we care about them and that they should feel good about themselves there's an aster up there as well a middle school you're surrounded by a team of people teachers that talk about you they share a group of kids they talk constantly counselor follows AP follows in high school we have those same things but we take a half step back which is what we told your students we want them to learn how to advocate for themselves all the same resources are there and they're literally right there but they're not built around for them they have to learn how to structure the teams that they need for support on their own so when they leave here they can go out and do that as they need all the same kinds of people though teachers coaches advisers your counselor's going to be huge over the next four years and we've got eight of the best absolute best um Student Assistance counselors our child study team members are fantastic uh I'm a little biased when it comes to our administrators I didn't pick any of them but when you meet the administrators here our assistant principles and our supervisors you won't find any better any place to go in public education period um our office staff run the building you want to get to know them they answer the phones they're the first faces you'll see when you come to our offices and into the hallways and everyone is just genuinely happy to be here and we want to help and then there's that principal also who really enjoys his job um but he looking forward to meeting each and every one of you and being part of your success while you're here I talked about our assistant principles there are four this is what they'll look like next year um right now Mr Graber is working with the graduating seniors class of 25 he will rotate down and then will stay with your class for their four years here at Rich that said while he may be a go-to for you all five of us work as a team and you'll work with all five of us we want to make sure that every student gets what they need and it doesn't matter if Mr graber's available or not we're here as a team for your students I mentioned the supervisors they most of their offices are in this building um so you'll see them around a lot especially students more than you may have seen them at the other Schools they're here regularly they're in and out of classrooms they're constantly working with the teachers to make sure our curriculum and instruction is exactly what it needs to be to support your children and make sure they're ready for Life After Ridge life out Ridge though we offer just about everything you'll find in New Jersey public high school and then some we have over 220 clubs and activities if we don't have what you like with the 200 we have a process where you can form another one um so again it's it's we want people to be involved while they're here before school after school um we want them to be happy about it they want things that they're passionate about right here in the school um when it comes to Athletics and competition teams on the athletic side we offer just about literally everything that a public school is allowed to offer from football to sailing um we offer anything that you could possibly want and whether you started a sport earlier on you're coming you know out for a first first time here we want people involved we will find spots for you we want you to you push yourself and try something new um other competition teams we have model you our forensic team is nationally ranked every single year it has been for more than two decades um Mr Y is force and it is actually our largest club and activity we have over 200 students involved in the program um and they start in summer and they go Full Tilt all year long um it's just another wonderful thing our Arts programs are absolutely incredible visual art Performing Arts uh come out to a music program see the musicals coming up in uh just four weeks from from today actually our musical is opening Cinderella this year uh award-winning program but more importantly we have just so many kids involved onage stage and behind the scenes so we offer everything we want your kids to be happy here one of the few things I do talk about today because you're going to hear about it over and over again because it's dramatically different from the Middle School is that up until now you're used to a straight schedule Monday through Friday block one to block nine it's the same thing every day we at the high school follow rotate and drop schedule and what that means is that we have a 4-day rotation so you're going to sign up for eight classes you're going to hear about this but those eight classes you don't meet with every day you only meet with six of your classes a day it helps us slow things down for students there are fewer transitions fewer changes and they get more time in their instructional blocks with their teachers and they can better manage their homework from day to day because they don't have every class the next day all right so that's a huge help that's the you know that portion of where we're dropping only two only six of your eight every single day we also have a rotation and so no more stagnant I get the same class all year long first period of the day and I'm tired and I got school late or right after lunch or last period of the day and I'm looking to get to my sport or activity job Etc um they rotate if you look at this example ABCD every single day has a letter attached to it as we go from day one to to the day 180 um here in school as you go through ABC and D the next academic day goes back to a and so if you just as an example look students especially if you look at the English language arts class on an a day it's first block but on a b day it's second block on that c day it's third block and on that D day you don't have English language arts all right and that's how all of your courses function the last piece of the schedules if you look right in the middle there's that unit lunch which we love here the entire building is lunch at the same time so if you're worried about not having lunch with your friends as you came up here don't worry about it if your friends are in other grade levels don't worry about it the whole building is off for lunch at the same time and the whole building is open for all of our students we run run what we call Opportunity periods so while you're eating and you can bring food pretty much all over the building we have all sorts of opportunities things like you can meet with your counselor and not miss class you can work with your teacher for extra help or to prep for an upcoming test and not miss class or other things um we have quiet study spaces where students can go individually if they want to get away from the noise for a little bit prep for a test or just kind of regroup for the second half of the day we have collaborative study spaces if you're working on group projects where you can get together and do work together and then we have opportunity periods where our teachers offer nonacademic offerings everything from book and movie clubs to uh needle points oceanography and we have a juggling club we have seven highly committed students whose juggling skills have improved tremendously since September all this comes from the students what are you looking to do to have fun I'm outside my assignment as administrator during unit lunch I cover Outdoors the outdoor session SE of our building Leaf field the bleachers our picnic tables the 400 field are all open weather permitting we have tons of equipment spike ball is currently the most popular thing I'm not good at spike ball I realize so I stick closer to the football and the soccer um but if you want to get outside you can do that as well it's split into two so you can actually make choices you can get outside have your lunch get to another opportunity period that's there so that we're maximizing our time here and that kids are having fun it was on one of my earlier slides and and it is really a big thing we work hard very hard here in supporting your hard work but we have fun while we're doing it really quickly just a couple key things I mentioned websites before the rhs information Hub should be bookmarked that's the one thing you got to take away um on your phones and in your browsers that is where you get accurate information people hear things all the time about the high school this is changing that that is where you get your accurate information and what we tried to do working with parents is when we built the website there menu trees and there is a parent landing page and a student landing page and we don't change them so once you learn where information is it will always be there for four years so you'll take your time you'll get comfortable with it we absolutely make the point to try and make sure you have everything at your fingertips when you need it there's communication constantly we try not to Del use your inboxes but we do use email regularly and when we email you something it's important it's almost always linked on the website as well um stay informed I mentioned the parents especially amilies get involved a lot of our activities after school are not just come and be a spectator but you can get involved with your children so we want Ridge to be a place for everyone in the community to come in and be happy excited and and engaged um we do put the students first as I as I mentioned we're here to monitor to support but we want them to learn to advocate for themselves with that I'm going to turn things over to the to miss Fox um and just once again want to say welcome we're really excited to have your students um there's going to be a lot coming at you but just remember we're all here to help and we're glad that you're here so without any further Ado Miss Fox thank hello everyone good evening welcome I'm really excited and honored to be able to talk to you about the exciting uh programming that we have in store for you for the next four years uh these are the four things I'm going to talk to you about it's a lot of information as we keep saying so um just uh know that you can revisit it in many different ways ways uh after tonight I'm going to talk about the requirements to graduate different Pathways that you can consider when you become an upper classman I'll speak uh about the levels and the prerequisites that you can consider when you're making your choices um especially for next year in 9th grade and then lastly some new programming updates to share with you so in order to earn a diploma from the Berns Township School District and the state of New Jersey these are the requirements for you to that you must fulfill um a lot of it is your coursework that we will help you map out over the four years so that you can complete those as required and then have room for things that you're interested in it is 120 credits to fulfill those C that coursework um and you have the opportunity to take more than 120 credits but that is the minimum required to graduate um some of those are going to be some of your elective offerings like the career education courses that you have to take those fill uh are filled are completed through your electives um but in addition to cours workk there is an attendance policy that you must adhere to to graduate and then finally there is a New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment um that students must take in their junior year and pass either that or an alternative um assessment in order to earn a diploma so we give you lots of information about that as it's coming your courses of course prepare you to for that assessment in your junior year um and we help you um meet that last requirement so that's what you have to do in order to graduate um you have a lot of people who will help you including your families but this four-year summary worksheet is one of the resources you can use to map out all of those requirements and see where they fit over the four years your counselors will help you with that and then think about other courses you want to take as well so what are you going to do next year and what are the things for you to consider as your as a rising freshmen um on in this chart on the left where it says my courses those are the eight slots you're going to be filling for your schedule right there are there's English language arts social studies mathematics Science World Language those your required programming your core courses um in most of those courses you might have the opportunity to take that at the college prep or the honors level which I'll speak about in a minute in mathematics you do have some different math courses available to you depending on the course you're in right now um and in World languages the level that you take might depend a little bit on what you're in right now but also some students like to start over in high school and choose a new language so that would be a level one instead of a level two usually uh everyone takes health and fed um in ninth grade you'll have two marking periods that are health and two marking periods that are physical education and then there are two spots in your schedule right those are elective spots and they are each one of those each elective slot for the full year is five credits so you can fill those slots in your schedule with either some combination of full year courses and semester courses full year courses are five credits semester courses are two and a half credits so you you might do two two full year courses you might do four semester courses depends on what you want to take um in the program of studies uh that's where you'll find information about how many credits each course is their semester electives or full year electives um you can also choose to take a study hall in one of those elective slots you cannot take two but you could take a semester or a full year of a study hall in one of your two elective slots so those are the courses you want to be thinking about um before you meet with your counselor and for your schedule for next year now after nth grade we do have some pathway program opportunities that I want to mention to you now point out to you now so that some of those you you might think about now and over the next couple of years before you become an upper classman so one of them is option two an alter alternative way to earn graduation credit for some of our required courses um there are three types of option two one would and and you can find all this information on the website there's an option to website which will detail this uh a lot more than what I'm saying now but the three kinds are remediation so if you're if you struggle in a course and you need to retake it remediation is one type of option too the other type is if there's a course you want to take and we don't offer it um you can uh take course at another institution that does offer it a higher institution usually like rbcc and apply to have that credit applied to your Ridge High School transcript and the third and final type of option to is for physical education so if you participate in Ridge Athletics or some off-site athletic programming you can apply and may qualify to earn your physical education credits um through option two through that other uh activity and in that case you would be in a study hall during the school day you can't take another elective but you could take a study hall instead of physical education so those are option two um programs for you to consider Somerset County votch is another alternative program that some students might want to consider they did visit William Annon earlier in the fall and so you might know that the deadline to apply did pass but the late applications are being accepted through Friday which is not long from now but I wanted to point it out to you just in case you were thinking about it um some of the programs uh that they offer might be programs you could start in as an upper classman but you would have to look at that program by program so for that there is a flyer linked here but also on the academic planning website with some videos and resources about votek so if you're interested in it I would take a look at that and cons um to find out which programs you're interested in and could take later in high school two other non-credit opportunities to consider one is independent study uh in your junior or senior year that's if you're interested in studying something um you're passionate about we don't have a course about it or you want to go further in a course that you did take with a teacher who's willing to work with you on an independent study that's an option and we also have for seniors a Pathways program that is just a couple of years old but it gives seniors uh something to consider to spend part of their day in their senior year doing something other than being at Rich high school so in this if you apply to this program you would take you would be at Ridge High School and either the morning or the afternoon take fulfilling your graduation requirements and then you could um participate in one of three Pathways one being school to work which means you would uh have a job for the other part of your day and earn money and the other second one is an internship that you would organize and participate in and the third would be early credit where you could begin taking college courses at an institution of Higher Learning like rbcc for example so some we have a a number of students participating in that and that information is in the program of studies and uh you can learn more about it uh as it also uh changes year to year uh and grows I mentioned some of your um graduation requirements do include some of your elective programming one of them is financial literacy that is a graduation requirement it's a semester elective that students have to take to fulfill graduation requirements you can take that course at Ridge High School starting in nth grade semester course there is also a summer opportunity I just wanted to make you aware of you cannot take that this summer as a rising freshman but you could take it as a rising 10th 11th or 12th grader um so if you wanted to plan for that I wanted to point that out to you information about that is in the program of studies including the dates when it runs in the Summer Required assessment dates and the application um but it is an alternative way that some students take advantage of if they're if they if they're looking to make sure they can take certain courses and fit them into their schedule over the four years at Rich high school so the other main consideration for most students is at what level to take courses at in the required programming and even in some elective programs um so I want to speak a little bit about the different levels and give you some things to think about as you make those selections for courses you're qualified to take at a higher level um there are four levels um the first being college prep so that is a challenging course that's preparing you to move on to post-secondary learning um you can expect a higher level of guidance from from the teacher within the classroom you can expect 20 to 30 minutes of homework per night in each of those courses um and then one difference between college prep and the other levels in science is that there is no additional time in your schedule for Science and what that means is that the riched and the honors level in science and AP you have additional time so that time comes out of one of the four lunch periods so there are four ABCD days and the unit lunch which is 50 minutes half of that once every four days would be spent in science every level except college prep so you don't have the extra time in science at the college prep level the enriched level you do so enriched is a level offered in science and Algebra 2 it's kind of between college prep and honors um it is similar in pacing to college prep but there is more Independence problem solving critical thinking mathematical thinking uh in that course than there is at the college prep level um and there is that extra time in science honors greater challenge more Independence moves at a faster Pace you do have some summer assignments in honors classes that information would be found in the program of studies if a course has a required summer assignment um and you would expect more homework in an honors course the highest level of course we offer is advanced placement those are only open to students in grades 10 through 12 those are equivalent to the first year a first year college course um and the curriculum is aligned to the College Board requirements for that course which culminate in being prepared to take the AP exam in May most students are expected to take the AP exam but not required um the AP courses most if not all do have a summer assignment again that would be included in the program of studies and you can expect more homework and much more Independent Learning now when you're preparing for scheduling this spring um this I want to explain how you choose which level and how that changes over the course of the year um at the time of scheduling you can select courses that you're qualified for based on your midyear grade the average of marking period one and two grades so you would be uh need to meet the grade requirement at the midyear that is published in the program of studies um if your final grade changes by the end of the year and you're no longer qualified you would automatically be uh moved to the lower level of the course course um you don't um if you're no longer qualified but if it works in the other direction and when you schedule you're not qualified by your midyear grade but you are qualified at the end of the year you can move into honors but it won't be automatic we won't just put you in an honors course you'll have to tell us and you would tell us that by submitting the change of course request form there's there there are a couple of forms that we post June 2nd on the website Miss Smith will show you in a minute uh one of them is is the change of course request form which you can use to tell us when you want to make a change in what you've requested in what you submit um in the spring so that could be a couple of scenarios one like I said if you are now qualified to take the honors course you want to take you would submit that form to tell us to make that change if you selected the honors course and you were qualified and you're still qualified but you changed your mind and you'd rather take the college prep course you would use this form to tell us I would like to take it at the CP level and if you just decide that you want to take a different elective than you selected you can also use this form for that so we do give you some time and some opportunities to change your mind because we know things change over the spring and summer and before school starts um these forms open up June 2nd and then they're due June 23rd just uh right after the report cards are posted um so the second form is the course appeals form if you're not qualified for a course that you really want to take we give you the opportunity to find an appeal um we look for the student to fill out that form and explain why you really want to take the course why you think you didn't earn the criteria but are still going to be successful in the course because that's what we're looking for with these requirements right is setting students up for Success we don't want you to take a course that you're not prepared for or qualified for but sometimes things happen and so this form gives you the opportunity to advocate for yourself and tell us why you really want to take that course that's reviewed by the content area supervisor they take a look at the transcript they read the appeal they usually talk to your teacher and they find out if if there's a seat available in the course whether they think that would uh grant that appeal to you based on based on your submitted application I'm gonna skip that because Miss Smith's going to talk about that later um there are some programming updates we make every year and so if you're new to Ridge High School this one pager called the Amendments at a glance which is posted on the academic planning site everything's there um does put everything in on one page that tells you what's new to our program so I'll just briefly talk about the changes in each department most of them apply to Upper classmen um but we like to make you aware of them especially if you've got students who um have already come to Ridge High School so in the career Department we have a new elective called sports and entertainment marketing just replacing our principles of marketing course we think that'll be exciting for students in the ELA Department we've changed some of those grade requirements for moving from honors into AP courses so that's more for upper classmen but we do adjust those prerequisites from year to year based on how students are doing um to try to meet their needs more effectively we have three new semester electives in ela for students in grades 10 through 12 women in literature Science Fiction and Fantasy and mystery thriller and suspense the last um bullet is a course we've had for a long time called Communications but it is now available as a dual enrollment course and so so what a dual enrollment course is is a course that you take at Rich high school with a rich High School teacher and our curriculum but you have the opportunity to earn credit at a uh institution of Higher Learning and we offer a few of those courses this is a new one and in this case the credit you could earn is at Sean Hall University so at where the cours is in the program of studies in the ELA Department you would find information about how that process would work so it would involve um applying to the program at seatan Hall and there is a fee for the credits for the that you would pay to earn those credits so we do have a couple of other dual enrollment courses and we're looking to add more all the time because we think that's a really great opportunity for students um to take advantage of while they're at Ridge High School in the math department we adjusted some of our prerequisites for AP Statistics in the science department we adjusted some of the requirements for AP Physics C uh and the course and the co-requisites and then we made some updates to an Alternatives path Pathways chart so both of these departments have really elaborate charts that explain the different pathway options for students to move through our programming based on the courses you're in the grades you earn and in science we do offer some alternative Pathways to try to help students um make their way into courses they really want to take in particular if they haven't earned the grade required so those are some good charts to look at you might have to enlarge them because they're really really detailed in the social studies Department we're eliminating an un under enrolled course Human Geography so we're sometimes changing our electives around based on the things students are signing up for and showing an interest or lack of interest in in the world language Department we're excited to offer a new course uh for Heritage speakers in Spanish a Heritage speaker Spanish course so if you are a native Spanish speaker this would be a course that you might be interested in taking um in Visual and Performing Arts the only thing to really point out here is if you're interested in taking band the course name is changed from concert band n to just concert band the sequencing titles changed slightly uh overall we added a Capstone project to that senior Pathways program and we included some language in the program of studies describing how final grades are calculated um to pass courses and earn credit so that's the end of my section I'm going to turn this over now to Miss Smith and um uh nice have a nice evening thank you Miss Fox so my part of the present ation is taking you through the next steps that you need to actually go about choosing the classes that you'd like for your schedule so the first thing I'm going to do is show you a resource that is going to help you with that entire process it's been referred to a couple times tonight and I'll reiterate it it's the academic planning website so I'm going to go ahead and click on that link so that I can give you a visual of what that looks like we sent this link out to you an email so I definitely encourage you as a family to take some time and to go through this this website everything that you hear tonight everything is on the website for you so refer back to this as a helpful resource to you as a family we also love to have a checklist and a process here at Ridge High School especially in the counseling department when it comes to each year of high school even leading up those of you who are familiar with our College preparation program in the counseling department all the steps that you need to take to make sure that you're feeling really confident about that process we have a checklist for everything so our checklist for the academic planning process is five steps so once you have those five steps completed that's the indicator to the eighth grade counselor that you are ready students for your meeting with your counselor so again we're encouraging families to go through these five steps together prior to that meeting with the counselor why do we do that so that that way you can maximize the time with the counselor you can go through feel really equipped for that meeting that they can make sure you're good in Genesis that all the selections are there and that you're good to go you can also come prepared for questions and utilize that time for Q&A as well so the first step in our checklist is to read the program of studies Miss Fox talked about the program of studies that's our comprehensive course catalog it's 65 pages but the first 15 pages or so are all of the rules and policies that you'll need when it comes to dropping courses adding courses the windows of change that we've gone through tonight so definitely become familiar with that document and then as you go through High School each year you'll be familiar with What's called the amendments at a glance that document so that you can have a quick reference of the new curricular updates for each year so take some time to read through these resources that we've built for you to help you feel successful and uh upon going through this process step two students talk with your teachers when we met with the students earlier this week we talked about teacher recommendations the teachers have spent some time and um really given thoughtful consideration to the recommendations that they're making for the students for next year by and large the eligibility that you have for course selection right now is based on that mid-year grade that Miss Fox mentioned that midyear grade in many cases will change at the end of the year for that final grade so your eligibility may change you may need to fill out an appeals form or a change of course request form based on your final grade eligibility but most of you the selections that you're making now will be the schedule that you carry with you through the spring and through the summer until we officially welcome you to Ridge High School so be thoughtful about that process talk to your teachers ask them why they're recommending you for certain levels everybody in this room will create a schedule that looks what we hope to be the best fit for you so keep in mind that term as a family the best fit think about all of your commitments at school and uh the requirements that you have in and out of out of your home and really create a schedule that is most reflective of how you can be successful at Ridge High School number three you're here it's our flyer our events I'm gonna make a plug for next week that's an opportunity for the parents to come to William and and middle school we mentioned to you that we met with the students earlier this week you're here tonight and then as you digest and go through all the materials as a family one week from today you have an opportunity to come in person from 9: to 11: at the auditorium at William in and if you have any questions it's the three of us leading that event I will also bring my High School counseling team so that they can answer any questions that you have it's completely optional for parents step four is you're going to plan your schedule we have resources and documents to help you do that as a family I mentioned taking into consideration all of the requirements that you have your extracurriculars your activities new clubs and activities you want to join in high school any sports that you have any responsibilities in and outside of the home take into account the total picture so that you're choosing a challenging course of study a rigorous course of study but one that is the best fit for you and so that you can be the most successful as you're launching into high school we have course selection sheets that you can click on some of these documents and they have all they have it's a list of all the courses that you have to choose from so we try to really equip you to make it as easy as possible for you to become familiar with your options so that you can plan as a family your course of study once you feel really good about it we're going to have you get into Genesis starting February 14th I will open the portal for all of the eighth grade families and that we have instructions for you if you click on that link excuse me excuse me if you click on that link the course selection sheet will give you step-by-step instructions in Genesis it's fairly simple if you have any questions just reach out to your school counselor but you're going to go ahead in there and you're going to choose your classes for next year when you do that you'll be able to see the teacher recommendations anything that you're not eligible for based on that midyear grade we've created it so that that class is in red and so you can't select it so we've try to make it as easy as possible for you you're going to go ahead in Genesis you're going to choose those courses and then you're going to meet with the student is going to meet with their eighth grade counselor so that they can review all of those courses and feel really good about their course of study as we continue on this website for different resources we will post this evening's presentation on this website after tonight along with the video recording our team has also created a video library and the target audience of that video library is you it's the eighth grade family who we coming into Ridge High School so if there are any tables that you did not get to speak with tonight or you really want some more information about the different content areas and departments and course offerings you can click through our video library and each of the respective departments has created a video for you there are also also slide decks to accompany those videos my team has created a frequently asked questions document based on our years of experience with this transition point this special transition Point as you come to high school leaving the middle school what are the frequently asked questions that we get from year to year so you can take some time as a family to review that and to see if any of them are familiar to you lastly on this website you'll revisit this website at the end of the year for your schedule modification forms so these are the forms that we've referenced a few times tonight should you need to make any changes to your course requests at the end of the year this is where you will access the appeals form and the change of course form this is the same process that you will experience throughout High School each and every year and each and every year we do these presentations with the students so that they're reminded of the procedures of the deadlines we send you multiple emails as well so that that way you can have as many reminders as possible as we go back to our presentation we went through the steps together and I do want to make just a few friendly reminders about about Genesis again on February 14th I will open the portal so that you all can start to make those course selections shortly after that your students will hear from their school CER about their appointment date and I really want to make a plug for you to choose alternates what do I mean by that an alternate is an alternate elective that you are indicating as a second priority so when you go into Genesis you're going to indicate to us what your first priority is what your second priority is that helps us help you so that's why I'm trying to emphasize it tonight everybody in this room we will make a schedule for every for every eighth grader every current n9th grader 10th grader and 11th grader we do our best to give you the priorities that you'd like we can't always give everyone their priorities and so I at least want to know what your second choice is what your third choice is so that way we're creating a schedule to maximize your interests and what it is that you'd like so the more information that you give us the more alternates that you're giving us the better it is for us to help you when the school counselor sits down with your student they will also be checking and verifying as part of their job for those those alternates as well so come prepare to the meeting with some of those backup choices I want to review the total timeline the big picture if we zoom out here we're talking to you today because this is the launch of the season this is the point in time when you get all the information that you need to make really informed decisions to hopefully be excited about this process we try to make it a fun experience for you and something that you can look forward to as you're feeling really confident in making these choices going into High School throughout February and March those councelor meetings will happen and then we will close the system down and start to build our schedule for everyone coming into Rich high school next year there's a few Windows of opportunities where you can make changes to your schedule we mentioned uh the current time period so you have until April 2nd to change your mind if you meet with your counselor at any point between now and April second and you know you change your mind about something it's completely fine just email your school counselor and we can update your portal in Genesis for you it does not matter I get this question every year it does not matter if you meet with your counselor on February 14th or on March 30th it doesn't give you any sort of edge or priority we don't run the schedule until everyone is complete and we have a full load starting April 2nd so take your time with the process and you could feel confident that you know you don't have to rush through it or you don't have any you know Advantage if you're meeting is before someone else's at the end of the school year is your second window to make any changes to your schedule that we've mentioned where you're fill out those forms in June and you you'll use the website to do that we also understand that sometimes when schedules come out at the end of August August 26th this year at 12:00 noon sometimes changes have to happen then too the majority of changes that happen at that point in time are depending seat availability and so if we have room in a class according to the policies and procedures in our program of studies if we're able to make a change we can we can make some changes at that point but by and large the decisions that you're making here today you will maintain that schedule throughout uh the rest of the spring and summer and you'll start high school that way sometimes there are changes that happen when school starts and so the program of studies I won't go into too much detail here but the program of studies does indicate to you the different windows that you have after school starts to make some modifications if that's applicable to you if you need to go down a level a level change there's also the first 10 days of school we let you go up a level if there's a placement issue and and sometimes there's a clear indication that a student needs to go up a level as well so we try to be as flexible as possible while maintaining order of all of the nearly 2,000 people who are in this building and who have a schedule of the teachers included so read the program of studies for our policies and procedures so that you know the windows in which you can operate to make any changes if you need to a reminder of important events as we wrap up you're here tonight thank you for coming thank you for joining we appreciate you being here next week I'll remind you February 5th is an optional event you are more than welcome to come it will be the three of us again in my high school counseling team along with the eighth grade counsellors we will be they will be hosting us over at Williams in the auditorium from 9: to 11:00 a.m. we'll review some of the material that we did tonight but it's largely a Q&A at that point April 16th mark your calendars is the activity Fair the activities fair is a great opportunity it's an evening event for you to come with your student um to learn about the different activities and options that you have to get involved here at Ridge High School late August is our freshman orientation we're very excited about that definitely mark your calendars it's a highly attended event very important for the transition to high school it's a fun full day on August 28th more information will come out closer to that date for students with special education plans we also have two other days of support for the transition to high school through a program called Ridge ready and that is held on August 26th and 27th so closer to those dates more information will come out for the parents we have new family orientation where Dr lazic and his AP team will uh host a Q&A session for you as well and that date will be posted that's also another late August event so late August is is really the time to get excited as we ramp it up when we have additional programming for you as you are officially welcomed into Ridge High School so I will let Dr elzabeth close this out for tonight but before I let you go I want to give you the warmest welcome to Ridge High School whether it's your first time your second time or your third time we are excited for you as you can hopefully tell we're excited about this process we love and appreciate the transition that it is to go from middle school to high school and so we warmly welcome you to bridge High School thanks Miss Smith and it is 8:45 with that I'm going to move the mask so you guys can see um a lot of information like we said most important for right now is what we left you with that last section building your schedule um as Miss Smith said multiple times don't rush make it a family affair do your reading take your time you have two months and even after that with our counselors we're going to be with you for four years um we want to make sure that you feel comfortable and prepared uh those events up there our family our new family orientation always takes place the night before new student orientation ation uh it is open for anyone and everyone including the students uh the new student orientation is as it says just for students during the day um they get to walk the building they get to meet with other students um we want to make sure that as we get really close to um the start of school that's when you're paying the most attention and things are real and that we're able to support you through that process until then congratulations on one semester left of Wham so I hope you enjoy being eth grade ERS and having eighth graders and you enjoy your graduation and your move up to here we are here maybe we'll see many of you next week um we're looking forward for you guys to finish up at whim successfully and join us up here at Ridge um thank you all for coming out hope you have a great evening [Applause]