What a great end of the year! The class of 2018 has begun to set sail to their next stages in their lives. Your contributions to these young adults is amazing. While many of our students will remember the content/subject you have shared with them, it is the personal connections and life skills that will resonate with them the rest of their lives. Your dedication to our students inside and out of the classroom astounds me. For those of you moving on to a new destination, you will be missed as you have made impressive contributions to our division. For those of you staying or coming aboard, I am excited about where we are headed. Have a great summer break!
Jacob
Friday, June 1
Day 1 of Semester Two Exams
HS Final June 2018 Exam and Supervision Schedule
Monday, June 4
Day 2 of Semester Two Exams
HS Final June 2018 Exam and Supervision Schedule
Tuesday, June 5
Day 3 of Semester Two Exams
HS Final June 2018 Exam and Supervision Schedule
Wednesday, June 6
Day 3 of Semester Two Exams (Conflict Exams)
HS Final June 2018 Exam and Supervision Schedule
All Grades and Comments Finalized in PS by 3pm
Thursday, June 7
Early Release Day 12:15
Meet in HS Gym at 8am
Overview of the Last Day
HS Last Day Celebration, 2-3pm (MPR)
Friday, June 8
Last Day for Teaching Staff
Full Faculty Meeting, 11:00am (Auditorium)
Last Day Luncheon, 12:30pm (Plaza)
On the Horizon
- July 16-19, New SSIS Staff Arrive to Saigon
- July 30, HSLT Meeting (9:00-10:30am)
- July 31-August 6, Full Faculty In-Service
- August 7, Orientation Day
- August 8, First Full Day of School
Staff Action Needed
June 7 Final Farewells– Our last faculty meeting of the year will take place on Thursday, June 7 at 2pm in the MPR. The HSLT has suggested a format change for this year. We will be presenting each leaving faculty member with a “special and unique” award. Then staff will have an opportunity to say their individual goodbyes informally during a social. Food from Ganesh will be catered and an “assortment” of drinks available for us to celebrate together.
Kelly Braun Visit– Kelly, our new associate director of university guidance, will be visiting SSIS and doing some transition work with the counseling team from June 2-5. Come by and introduce yourself to her. We are very lucky that she has made a visit a priority for her transition to SSIS.
Dragon’s Lair Kudos–Â We have heard from a few staff members that it would be great to include more teacher voice in theÂ
kudos section of theÂ
Dragon‘sÂ
Lair. It is impossible for Tim, Robert, Erin, Hillary, Sean and me to see and recognize the great things (small, medium and large) that you see your colleagues doing. We will send out aÂ
Kudos reminder each week and also link it in theÂ
Dragon‘sÂ
Lair to get more voice from a larger variety of people. We appreciate the suggestion from teachers in regards to this.
Please complete the following form to give a quick shout out to a colleague that you would like to recognize for doing something special.
Department Offices– As our division grows with students and staff we are starting to feel the pinch for space. This year we added a 5th science teacher, so we created a science departmental office. In 2018-19 we have added another social studies/TOK position and additional staffing to math and STEM courses. As a result, we are having to share classrooms in science, social studies and math. The social studies department will get a new office in room C400 (Galvez and Vu’s current office). The science and math departments will combine offices in room C315. We are calling this the STEM collaboration space. Joining the math and science teachers will be Thomas Galvez and Evan Weinberg. We know that some teachers have struggled finding quiet spaces on campus to work without interruption. To address this issue, we are creating a quiet staff work space in room C310 (current science department office). This room will be a silent work space for teachers that need to grade papers, read, etc in a silent environment. We will have tables and couches in this room to make it as comfortable as possible for your convenience.
Summer Projects– Lots of projects are happening this summer in our division. On the 2nd floor, a state of the art STEM Lab will be created as a collaborative space for students and teachers. More information to follow from our STEM Coordinator, Evan Weinberg. The new STEM space will take over the art storage room, so a new space for ceramics (pottery wheels, etc and storage will be built along the side of the art room by the river to accommodate their needs. In the effort to bring our DP coordinator closer to the counseling and admin staff we will be splitting the current conference room in the HS office into two offices. The counseling and admin teams will be switching sides of the office and a central entry will be created that will house both Huyen and Hang as you enter the front of the office suite.
2018-19 Important Start of Year Documents–Â Please review the following documents for the start of the 2018-19 school year at your convenience.
About The Author
Jacob Hendrickson
Jacob's 20 plus years in education have taken him from California to Seattle, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam as an educational leader. He is currently the high school principal at Saigon South International School.
