Interesting news from the high school

There are quite a few exciting things happening at RHS. A sampling:

Thirty RHS students will be attending the 12th biennial Dodge Poetry Festival at historic Waterloo Village in Stanhope, New Jersey Sept. 25-28. The students will have an amazing opportunity to spend time in workshops and other activities with dozens of accomplished poets and storytellers, including state and U.S. Poets Laureate, Pulitzer Prize winners, and an array of poets from diverse cultures and subcultures here and abroad.

According to Principal Jack Lorenz, RHS has nine National Merit Semifinalists this year. Apparently that’s a lot for a New Jersey high school. New Jersey’s cutoff scores (PSATs) are higher than for most other states. I didn’t know that the cutoffs differ from state to state and from year to year. Interesting. Let’s not forget, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation is a private group that can set the requirements for its awards however it sees fit. And it seems to think that different states should have different levels of achievement. Hmmm…I didn’t intend to go off on a NMSC tangent…I really just wanted to celebrate our nine semifinalists…congratulations!

Over the summer, 56 teachers received laptops so now every teacher at the HS has a laptop and can therefore check and respond to their own email, work on lessons and plans, etc., most efficiently.

Mr, Lorenz also announced that he would soon be sending out a letter to parents regarding academic honesty and ethical behavior in school. I actually got the letter last night…maybe I’ll post it here later. I think a reminder about honesty, doing your own work, etc., is not a bad idea for our high school students.