Post-secondary Planning Night at Framingham State

Good morning,

We are excited to share with you an opportunity at Framingham State College for parents. This info session helps parents understand ways to get your students prepared for college, but more in terms of academics and work habits. This seminar is not about financial aid or admissions, but we will have an event on both of those coming.

We know that October 20 is our parent-teacher conferences, but we still wanted to share this opportunity, particularly if parents want to communicate with teachers ahead of time, share parental responsibilities when possible, or have conversations about a number of important topics.

Parking at Home Games

Good morning,

We have enjoyed seeing so many parents and fans joining us at our home games this year so far - and even on the road, when parents, friends, and community members venture out to some of our opposing schools’ homes. With close to 400 student-athletes participating between the high school and middle school, we have been delighted with the numbers and the ensuing support. At the same time, though, we are asking people to cooperate with us when on our respective campuses.

At the high school, please park only in lined spaces. We understand that this may mean walking across from the parking lot, but parking on sidewalks or in areas not marked for parking is actually a safety risk, for pedestrians, for the owner of the respective vehicle, and for emergency vehicles that may need to access the campus. We have asked Uxbridge Police and Fire to assist us on many occasions, and we have buses that sometimes need to enter and exit the campus, which makes cars parked in unlined, driver-created spaces a hazard. We have, to this point, hesitated to post any additional signage, but we are considering that as a likely next step to help mitigate this concern.

We appreciate your assistance and cooperation, and look forward to continuing to see our fans and friends at games this year.

Sincerely yours,

Michael Rubin, Principal

PSG Fundraiser this Saturday

The Yard Sale, Craft/Vendor Table/E-recycling event will take place this Sat., 10/1/16 at the Polish Hall, sponsored by The Parents for Safe Graduation. The group is still looking for items for the yard sale and businesses to rent space for their crafts and activities.

Flyers for the event can be accessed by clicking:

HERE

AND HERE.

Slides for Open House

Our Slides from the onset of the Open House presentation can be viewed here.

Again, feel free to provide us with any insight or feedback as to how we can make it better. Already, there are some good suggestions! The poll can be accessed here.

Open House Last Night

Thanks to everyone who attended last night’s Open House, and if you couldn’t make it, we are sorry we missed you! It was a positive event all around, and we hope that those who were here were able to learn about our courses, teachers’ procedures, and best methods for communication. We are pleased with many of the goals our teachers have this year for supporting students in terms of both the curricula and our schoolwide learning expectations.

For those who were in attendance, we hope that you could indulge us with some feedback by filling out a brief survey - and we know everyone is all surveyed out! The link can be found here.

We look forward to seeing you around campus throughout the year!

Yearbook Purchases for 2016-17

The 2017 Spartan Yearbook is now on sale! Order yours by November 30 to get it for the discounted price of $75. In December, the price will rise to $85, so order yours early to get it at the lowest price. 

Yearbooks can be purchased online at yearbookforever.com - just search for Uxbridge to purchase your yearbook. 

Yearbooks can also be purchased by cash or check. Just drop off payment and a completed order form to Ms. Charpentier in the library.

Additionally, if you have great photos of school events, you can send them directly to the yearbook! When you upload pictures to the Yearbook Snap app with our school code UHS17, they'll go straight to the yearbook staff!

Please contact the yearbook advisers at yearbook2017@uxbridge.k12.ma.us with any questions or problems. 

Ski & Snowboard Club

Uxbridge Ski and Snowboard Club has a new home online. Be sure to update your bookmarks for http://www.uxbridgeskiclub.com.

The club will be sending out sign-up details and additional info in a couple of weeks. For now here are some news and a few upcoming events and dates parents and students may want to know about:

NEW for 2016-17:

• Completely redesigned uxbridgeskiclub.com to make it easier to find information and sign-up.
• We will be accepting both sign-ups and payments (Debit, Credit or PayPal) online.
• We need a coordinator for Whitin Elementary! Please let me know if you are interested.
• Here’s some Wachusett news that will have some impact on our club.

Upcoming events:

• 9/22-25 - Ski / Snowboard Tent Sale @ The Ski Shop Plus
• 9/24-25 - Wachusett’s Kids Fest
• 10/6-10 - Wachusett’s Ski & Snowboard Sale & Swap

The above dates, as well as this season’s Tuesdays, are now on the new club calendar:

• View calendar
• Import dates to your calendar - learn how to import .ics files here

• If you know anyone interested in joining USSC please do forward this message along. 
• If you are interested in chaperoning for the 1st time, take a look here.

Community Service Opportunity: UVentures Program

We are excited to announce a new partnership for UHS students to participate in community service, specifically partnering with Whitin Elementary School.

The UVentures Program is established to create leadership and volunteer opportunities for Uxbridge High School students through partnering with the events and programs of Whitin Elementary School. Open to any member of the UHS student body, the UVentures program is looking for any student who is responsible, organized, collaborative, and respectful, knowing that many students enjoy working with younger students, mentoring the children of the community, and giving back to their younger classrooms. At the same time, there is a demand for community service hours, for students looking to bolster their college applications, to those who are just looking for ways to be involved outside of some of our traditional organizations.

To get involved, interested students should email the UVentures program to be put on the distribution list. When events needing volunteers are coming, registration forms will be emailed to students with details about signing up and what the events are looking for. Students will then be contacted about the needs of the event and their specific responsibilities.

We know this will help students practice many of our core values, including responsibility, caring, and trust, while demonstrating the exceptional character and service of our UHS community.

To sign up for the distribution list, email UVentures at uventures@uxbridge.k12.ma.uswith a simple email including your name and year.

One-Act Play Festival

Uxbridge High School will be holding its first One-Act Play Festival on Friday, October 28th.   Three different plays will be performed.   

Auditions will be held on Tuesday, September 20th at 3:45 PM and should last about an hour.  

Rehearsal will be scheduled at the convenience of the individual casts.  Therefore, students involved with fall sports should be able to avoid conflicts if they wish to participate in the fall festival.

Also, please mark your calendars for the Drama Student/Parent meeting on September 28th at 7:00 PM.   This meeting is for all students interested in performing in the cast or working on the crew in our spring musical,"Anything Goes."

Weather Postponements - September 19

The following events have been either postponed or rescheduled:

JV Football: Canceled completely, no reschedule date.
JV Girls Soccer: Canceled for today; rescheduled for Thursday, 9/22 at McCloskey Middle School. 3:30 p.m. start.
Golf: Canceled for today; makeup match TBD.
Middle School Cross Country: Rescheduled for 9/20, 3:30 p.m., at Millbury Jr/Sr. High School.

Thanks!

Senior Parents: Fun Pasta Fundraiser

Dear Class of 2017 Parents,

Our pasta fundraiser is in full swing and we wanted to share the online link in case you did not receive the brochure.

Check it out....

https://www.funpastafundraising.com/shop/uxbridge-high-school-class-of-2017

We thank you for all your support!!

Ms. Barstow & Ms. Hirtle, Class Advisors

Destination Imagination

The Destination Imagination program is available to all Uxbridge students in grades K-12.   Please submit completed registration forms to your child’s school by the October 3rd deadline.  

There will be an informational meeting on Wednesday, September 28, at 7:15pm in the high school library.  Additional information can also be found at www.idodi.org and www.madikids.org, or contact Uxbridge DI coordinator Kris Holt atkrisandjackholt@gmail.com or 508-274-8938.  

Senior Portraits: Requirements and Information!

Seniors: Please see the information below about senior portraits. Please contact the advisers, Ms. Charpentier and Miss Christian, either in person or by email at yearbook2017@uxbridge.k12.ma.us with any questions about photo requirements or the submission process.

If you have not had pictures taken yet, please do so soon; you are free to select any photographer you would like for your senior portraits. If you would like to take advantage of some low-cost options for your senior portrait, the school photographers, Grynn and Barrett, recently sent home information about scheduling a portrait session at UHS on Monday, September 19.

Class of 2017: Senior Portrait Requirements

Senior portraits are due by October 1, 2016.

If you have your picture taken by the school photographers, Grynn and Barrett, they will make sure your photo meets these requirements and send it to yearbook. Otherwise, it is up to you to make sure your photo meets the requirements and gets to the yearbook staff!

Submission Requirements

• Our preferred format is a high resolution DIGITAL photo – this will result in the best quality.
• All portrait prints or digital files must be submitted by October 1, 2016.
• Submissions after this date may not be accepted and your school photo will be used in its place.

Photograph Requirements

• Head and shoulder portraits, close-ups, and 3/4 length portraits are all acceptable. Full-length portraits will not be accepted.
• Plain backgrounds in natural colors are preferred, but outdoor photographs will be accepted.
• Portraits must be vertical – you can't be lying down!
• We will accept color or black and white photos.
• The following types of clothing are NOT allowed: sunglasses, visible tattoos, hats, "tank top" type straps on shirts/dresses, strapless blouses/dresses, and bare shoulders.
• Props are permitted in photos; however, pets and fellow humans are not considered props.

Digital File Requirements

• File must be in JPEG format and high resolution (250 dpi minimum, 300 dpi maximum).
• Digital images must be no smaller than 640 x 800 pixels (.8 aspect ratio).
• All digital photographs should be submitted via email to yearbook2017@uxbridge.k12.ma.us or on a CD given to a yearbook adviser.

If you have any questions about senior portraits, please contact the yearbook advisers at yearbook2017@uxbridge.k12.ma.us.

Open House!

We are excited to invite you to attend the annual UHS Open House will be held on Thursday, September 22, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

With many new faces in the building, we know that the night will be informative, particularly as our students now take seven classes, and where many of our curricula are undergoing changes. With teachers focusing on curricular adaptations, the use of Google classroom, and implementing other technologies and instructional tactics in the classroom, Open House becomes an opportunity to learn what your students will be doing in all their classes. Teachers will also let parents know the best way to communicate with them.

Having moved Parent Conferences to the fall, instead of March, and with the number of new teachers we have hired, Open House also allows parents to connect names with faces, to support at home what sort of work is being done in the classroom, and to understand teacher grading practices, which are sometimes different from discipline to discipline.

The evening begins at 6:30 with a 15-20 minute presentation in the auditorium from school administration, and then parents will spend about ten (10) minutes in each classroom with teachers. The night concludes around 8:30.

We will also have information tables in the main foyer with some other details that parents may find helpful from some parent and community organizations.

We hope to see many of you there!

StuCo Meeting

It was great to see more than 60 students at last week's first Student Council meeting. In particular, thanks to Ms. Bernard and Ms. Gaudet for providing such a great environment for so many different students to contribute.

The next Student Council meeting will be on September 20, at which time our students will be discussing Homecoming Week. Last year, we unintentionally ended up embroiled in both conflict and controversy regarding the themes of the week. As we have already started planning for Homecoming, our goal is to create environment that remains focused on the task at hand - that we are, first and foremost, an academic institution, and that we can use these weeks as an opportunity to showcase our community values and our school's core. At the same time, we must be mindful of distractions, supportive of the Student Council, and practical with respect to what our school's needs are, including what distractions could occur.

We encourage students to attend the next Student Council meeting to have a voice in the many themes of the week. Similarly, we ask that parents and students respect the will of the Council, its advisors, and the administration of the school in doing our best to ensure that the week showcases the spirit we have in our Spartan community and respect for each other in so doing. Otherwise, we are acting in complete contradiction to the very spirit the week attempts to espouse.

College Fair, September 16

On Friday, September 16, we are excited to welcome more than 40 college representatives and admissions counselors from a number of regional colleges and universities, as we host our annual College Fair at Uxbridge High School.
All juniors and seniors will have an opportunity to converse with the college representatives, learn about a variety of schools, and see what admissions requirements may be. Additionally, our guidance counselors will be available to converse with students and help with making connections.
Our counselors sent students a document that the students can use to shape some questions they ask of college reps. Our counselors will also be available to follow up with students if they have particular questions or feedback following their interactions with admissions counselors.
The college fair comes a couple of weeks before our seniors will meet, seminar-style, with our guidance counselors, as they start the college admissions process. We anticipate being able to provide instructions for parents on following Naviance and their students' college admission process at our October 6 parent meeting.

October 19: PSAT & College Visit Day

We wanted to reach out to parents, students, and families about the forthcoming PSAT administration at Uxbridge High School, which will take place on October 19, 2016.

The PSAT for 2016 will be administered to all members of the sophomore and junior class. Given the changes that the College Board made to the SAT, we wanted to position our students in the best place possible, not only for their post-secondary planning, but also for planning ahead to the SAT. In years past, the PSAT was administered to the sophomores and only to a certain number of juniors based on a first-come, first-serve basis. We are changing that to allow all students in the junior and sophomore classes to have access to the examination and its opportunities.

Where our sophomores and juniors will be tied up with that administration for the better part of the start of the day,  our guidance counselors will be facilitating the first workshop of the year with the freshmen, as they will begin the introduction to the guidance curriculum before attending classes in the latter half of the day.

For our seniors, we are encouraging them to use the day for college and career visits. Most seniors will take a day to visit a college campus, and others have reported a need to spend some time working on college applications and exploring career options. Thus, while our sophomores and juniors are taking the PSAT and the freshmen working with counselors on learning styles, seniors may visit colleges, spend a day in a job shadow, or interview with a prospective college admissions representative. Seniors who do not come to UHS on October 19 and visit a college on that day will be eligible to participate in interscholastic athletics and extracurricular activities on that day. Using this opportunity as a “College/Career Visit Day” will help them plan with counselors into November and be less disruptive, since the rest of the building is going to be busy with other endeavors. We will outline more details for this day when counselors meet with seniors at the end of September and at our parent meeting with seniors on October 6.

Again, we look forward to the opportunity that the events of October 19 will provide our students. Feel free to reach out to your child’s counselor if you have any questions.

Website Revisions

In an effort to make it look more professional, we have "cleaned up" the high school website, to try and make the site more visually appealing and with better information. 

The home page, which had a number of links that did not seem to intersect, now has a weekly calendar and agenda on the front page, and the tabs on the top of the page have been updated. If you place the mouse over the tabs on the top of the page, you will see a number of new links under each appropriate subsection, including student activities, parent resources, and academics, including teacher websites. The departmental links on the left sidebar are also being updated. 

Many of our teachers are now using Google classroom as part of their regular instructional repertoire. There is a way that a parent can gain access to the system, and our plan would be to have the majority of our teachers up and running on Google classroom over the next couple of academic years. Last year, we had two teachers piloting, but that number is now upwards of 15-18. As we gain more confidence with the resource, we will outreach to parents regarding its use. Of course, iParent remains active for checking grades. 

In this day and age, we realize that most of us rely on the Internet for instant information. Please understand that teachers update assignments and grade books on a consistent basis, but sometimes the "instant gratification" that comes from a Google search does not translate to grades. Should you see a consistent problem, please reach out to the teacher for updates.

We hope everyone finds the site a little cleaner and easier to navigate.

Mattress Sale Fundraiser

The Uxbridge Friends of Music will be again sponsoring a Mattress Sale fundraiser, held at Uxbridge High School, in the main "commons area," on September 25 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. All proceeds benefit the Uxbridge Music and Performing Arts programs.
Last year, in the course of the single day, the Friends of Music were able to raise more than $4000, and the intention this year is to support our program's trip to Washington, DC this spring. A link for the event has been set up, so if you know of anyone looking for or in need of a mattress, make sure they stop by to find one at sharply discounted prices!

Athletics News, September 9

We hope this message finds everyone well. We've had a great start to the school year, and it has been great to see such focus and energy all week long, particularly as our Spartans have started to don their orange and black and start competing, not to mention the work in the classroom!

ATHLETIC UPDATES

Congrats to our girls cross country team for its season-opening victory against Auburn on Wednesday, 20-41. The girls took five of the first six places in pacing the win.

Our boys cross country, field hockey, girls soccer, and golf teams all had close losses on Wednesday, while the boys soccer team had a 2-2 draw, all against Auburn. Lots of teams are in action today, including the football season opener at Quabbin.

Our football team attended the #TopCop game between Leicester and Auburn on Thursday, September 8. We received numerous emails and messages from parents and fans at the game, lauding our coaching staff for attending the game, which honored fallen Officer Tarantino, who served on both police forces. Kudos to Coach Martellio and his staff for extending the lessons of life beyond the gridiron and having our team attend in support of both communities.

We concluded interviews for a new athletic trainer this week, and we are hopeful that we will be able to make the announcement public next week. We hope to see many of you at our sporting events very soon!

New Way of Connecting

Good afternoon!

I know that I've sent out my messages via weekly emails, which we will continue to do, but by sending a link to this blog. In using a blog, parents will be able to search, easily access previous posts, and bookmark our news and notes - often much more easily than in searching an inbox.

We are looking forward to continuing to share information regularly, both through our weekly messages and our newsletters, and we certainly encourage you to contact us with any questions or feedback!

Best,

Mr. Rubin