Hello, Ram families!

 I hope you are all hanging in there okay!

This week has been a WHIRLWIND...WHEW!  We have so many things rockin’ and rollin’ that I am not sure which thing to touch next.  The good thing is that random pieces are starting to come together and we are able to put the next steps into plans.

I know that you, too, are juggling lots, so I am highlighting words to help you search a hefty email if you have to come back to find information.

These first few things are standout items that pertain to the broader school community.  I am bumping the senior information to the bottom, so senior parents make sure you look there!

MEMORIAL DAY

Remember that we will not have classes on Monday. We will not make modifications to the learning schedule for the week, so students will return to online learning on Tuesday with their regularly scheduled synchronous learning.

FOOD DISTRIBUTION 

Before I get into much detail, I want to remind families that the food distribution sites at WCPSS will not be open on Monday, Memorial Day.  They will reopen on Tuesday, May 26th.

I also understand that the following Monday, June 1st, local Master Gardeners will provide seeds at the distribution sites at RHS, RMS, and SCES.  If you have a green thumb or want to try your hand at gardening, this sounds like a great opportunity.  

RHS DISTRIBUTION AND COLLECTION EVENT

Includes All Grade Levels

We have several things that either need to be given to or collected from students and families.  We are going to hold a two-day event to take care of all these things simultaneously on Monday, June 1st, and Tuesday, June 2nd, from 9 AM until 2 PM.  

All who participate must follow safety protocols to protect themselves and others.  There are many moving parts to the close of the school year and I must insist that everyone be safe and protected.

For distribution, we will have the following available:

• yearbooks for all grade levels

• remaining caps and gowns and senior yard signs

• Latin Honors stoles

• a few remaining senior cords

• stored medicine

For collection, we need:

• senior fees to clear students for graduation  - for those who are not able to utilize Online School Payments (Bring $40 in cash.  We cannot accept personal checks.)

• senior fines to clear students for graduation (Check your fines email to come with the amount of cash you need to pay the fine.)

• textbooks from students who are in AP Statistics, AP Calculus and AP Psychology and any others that might have been loaned to individuals for home practice

• library books and computers that were loaned to seniors and students who will not return to WCPSS next year.  

• music and costumes from chorus and dance students

• English I novels from Hatcher and Greene’s classes

We do not want:

• computers loaned to students who will return to RHS and who are presently in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade.  

• library books loaned to students who will return to RHS and who are presently in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade.  

GRADING for SPRING 2020

Last week, I mentioned the grading email that parents received from WCPSS regarding grading plans for the remainder of the year. I want to recap the highlights and make sure you understand what comes next.  I also want to add a little more food for thought to help you prepare for the end of the semester.

Seniors will either get PC-19 for passing or WC-19 for any class they did not pass.  There will be no other options.  We have given many opportunities to make sure seniors could get grades to PC-19. 

For students in grades 9-11, I am still sharing the complete document here.  The most important things you must consider are:

• Please make sure you are monitoring your Ram’s grades in Powerschool.

• Whatever a student’s grade is on June 5th is what we are considering the final grade by which some family decisions must be made.  We are asking families to really think about this now and process what it will mean for your Ram.

• The first thing you need to understand is that the default final mark will be PC-19 for passing or WC-19 for failing grades for quarter 3.  This is what will show up on your Ram’s final transcript when leaving high school.  It is also what your Ram will share with colleges when applying in the senior year.

• If a student is still not passing a class, I need them to pull out all the stops to get over the hump and make it to PC-19.  I do not want to think that I am going to see a WC-19 on a report card at the end of the year. 

• That said, all students can follow a teacher’s plan to improve his/her grade.  Again, this is a unique opportunity to show commitment and wisdom to use this spring to bring up GPAs.  Teachers can and will spell out requirements.  I would appreciate students taking care of this now if not already to make sure the students are in a good place soon.

• I got this new piece of information regarding CTE courses that students are taking at Wake Tech for articulated credit.  Students who are in such courses MUST take the grade and cannot take the PC-19 option.  Seniors will not be able to take a grade at this point, only PC-19.  Teachers with students in this situation will be contacting students/families to make them aware. 

• This is where you are going to have to think about the future of your Ram.  Consider the transcript, college applications, and probably things I have not even thought about at this point.  It might be better if your Ram has the actual grade on the transcript and included in the GPA instead of the PC-19 which will not impact the GPA.  You need to look at your Ram’s GPA and determine if the actual grade would improve GPA.  You might also want to be able to show not only a high grade but also a strong showing in honors and/or AP classes.  While some students might not have reached the next letter grade just yet, I think most families can talk through this and have a plan of action when we are ready for the next steps.  

• Keep in mind that you can have some combination of the PC-19. WC-19 and grades.  It does not have to be all or nothing.

• I am not sending the form that you must complete just yet.  We need to get past this holiday weekend and allow me to get some other things settled before I am ready to put the form out for completion.  

PROCESSING REFUNDS 

Mrs. Nuckles, our bookkeeper, asked me to let you know that parking refunds will not be as quick to refund as prom refunds were.  It is not as easy to pull the information, reconcile the accounts, etc.  She is working through refunds as fast as possible and I am signing the checks and corresponding paperwork as fast as we can move it.

She has cross-referenced the list of seniors who have not paid senior fees and is checking to see if parents just want to refund $20 in lieu of the full parking refund and have us move the $40 senior fees to the graduation line.

TRANSPORTATION

I am worried that in the middle of all the communication that transportation for next year could be overlooked.  You know that this time of year bus routing set-up begins and you usually hear lots about it.   Please make sure you are looking for any emails and listening for voicemails from WCPSS regarding bus routes for next year. You should have gotten notification from WCPSS transportation if your child rode the bus this year already. The online system opened May 11th to allow families to register for transportation if your child did not ride the bus this year.

FOR EDUCATION AND CAREER EXPLORATION

Our local CDCs polled current students for topics they would like to hear about and have found speakers for the various webinars.  Mrs. Ellis, our Career Development Coordinator, tweeted from the RHS Career Services' account to market for the webinars.  The link goes to a Piktochart with the webinar topics, dates and registration info:  She tweeted, “Teens asked & we have answers! Live webinars for 9-12th graders on: Investing, Car Loan Basics, Networking, Avoiding Scams, Applying to Grad. School, Advice from HS Alumni & MORE! Check out the link for dates, more info & how to register: https://bit.ly/3brilPg” 

Mrs. Ellis, our Career Development Coordinator, asked me to share some updates with you regarding opportunities available even now.  We often remind students of these things over the daily announcements, but we need to make sure families are reading and searching out opportunities with Mrs. Ellis.

• For up-to-date Career articles, resources, and leadership & job opportunities for students, please follow @RHSCareer on Twitter.  

• There are many career and college planning resources, information about the school's Business Alliance and notifications about local Employment, Internship and Volunteer opportunities located on the RHS Career Services website: bit.ly/rhscareerservices

• Students interested in learning more about enrolling in the CTE Internship class (Fall 2020 or Spring 2021) must listen to the Internship Information Virtual Workshop recording: https://t.co/MZ4WhPGgh1?amp=1

ROLESVILLE ATHLETIC CLUB WANTS YOU

The Rolesville Athletic Club (RAC) is a volunteer-based organization devoted to providing our student-athletes at Rolesville High School with the best equipment, facilities, and opportunities available.  Monthly meetings are held on the first Monday at 6:30 pm in the Rolesville High School Media Center (2nd Floor). Currently, we are having online video meetings.

We need YOUR help as we continue to grow and improve the Rolesville High School athletic program into one of the best in the state of North Carolina.  One way to support the Rolesville Athletic Club is by volunteering in one of the Club Committees: Apparel and Merchandise; Communication; Concessions; Facilities; Fundraising and Sponsorship; and Membership.

The Rolesville Athletic Club includes dedicated administrators, coaches, parents/guardians, teachers, and community businesses and members who together raise monetary funds each year.  Our various fundraisers have included the Boston Butt Sale, Chicken Plate Sale, Golf Tournament at Zebulon Country Club, and Ram Walk.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and visit our website! 

DRIVER EDUCATION

A few of you have asked about Drivers Eligibility Certificates.  We now have a procedure for the release of certificates.  After you contact DMV and get an email with the DMV appointment information, you will forward that email to Dean Tracy Miller (temiller@wcpss.net) with a request to set up a time to get the certificate from school.  We will only release certificates by appointment.  You will need to take a picture of the Driver Education Certificate and email it in advance of your meeting at school.  The person who contacts you to set the appointment will tell you where to email the picture of the Driver Education Certificate.  Please limit the number of people who meet with the school representative to the parent and student for whom you are requesting the certificate.  When you come to the school at your scheduled time, you must bring:

• Student’s birth certificate or passport

• Proof of address if the current address is different than the one listed on the Driver’s Education Certificate or the address listed in PowerSchool. The address must be verified for the NC Real ID.

STAYING HEALTHY

I want to remind you that WCPSS also has resources listed for families who are experiencing great stressors at this time and need community support.  Those resources are at the bottom of this page.

SENIOR INFORMATION   

New and revised information has been added first.

Dates/Times you need to put on your calendar:

• June 1 and 2 from 9 AM-2 PM:  As mentioned above for distribution and collection
• June 4 @ 7 PM: Seniors Awards Program online
• June 8-10:  Dates we are reserving for Diploma Distribution at RHS.
• June 11 @ Noon:  RHS Virtual Graduation

Diploma Distribution:  We will send detailed information in a separate document next week.  Here is what you need to know to begin planning for your grad and family.

• We will send out a Grad/Parent document via email and post it to the website when it is polished.  I will walk you through preparations prior to diploma distribution as well as the day of the event. 

• We will have each senior grouped into segments of 30 minutes as this will allow us to maintain a reasonable number of people at any area of campus throughout the event while also allowing us to respectfully maintain a flow.  Seniors/families will register to participate in a 30-minute window on one of the three dates listed above.  We will do this through some online format like Sign-Up Genius.  We plan to send it out next week to allow you to choose and then prepare your schedules to make it happen.

• Seniors will have a walking event while families remain in the car but are allowed to see the “walk of fame” occur.  Families will be allowed to have two cars in the procession to accommodate the number of people who would have attended the Raleigh Convention Center graduation.

This should give you an idea of what to anticipate next week regarding communication.  We will email, post to the website, and tweet.

Senior Fees: We still have many seniors who have not paid the senior fee of $40.  Seniors/parents please go on the school website to Online School Payments to take care of this. It is an easy thing to allow to slip your mind.  For those who may not be able to pay online, we will have a way to collect that money in person on June 1st and 2nd. Bring cash.

Senior Fines have also been emailed to families.  There is no way to do this through OSP because every student is different.  When we set OSP up on our side, they have to be a standard fee. On June 1st or 2nd seniors either need to return missing items or pay fees.

Picture Portal Information:  I got an email that I am so glad came to me.  The question was about the student honors with the virtual graduation picture.  WCPSS has a standard for what they are publishing in virtual graduation.  We will provide the programs for senior awards and graduation in print when students participate in the diploma distribution.  We want to make sure you still have what would have been available any other year.  The programs have more information than you will see on the screen, so more honors will be documented in paper form.

Scholarship Offers:  We really, really want to get the total as complete as possible and we need it ASAP.  This total is shared during senior awards and it is also shared with our Board of Education.  We need to capture any and all scholarship offers whether they will be accepted or not.  Please forward this information to your Ram’s counselor as soon as you possibly can.

The Wake Weekly wants to support our local seniors and families in a very generous way.  They have always published the names of graduating seniors in the paper.  This year, they will publish photos and messages from families in the June 18th edition at no expense to families. Don’t let this opportunity slide.  Go to  https://wakeweekly.com/wake-graduation to find the form.  You must do this by Friday, May 29th.

Senior Survey:  This is important.  As we are approaching graduation, whatever that form might be, there is some information we need to collect from you.  In this email is a link that directs you to the senior end of year survey that we give at the end of every year.  Please complete your survey as soon as you can by logging into your wcpss account.  We would like to have a survey returned from each student.  https://forms.gle/oSroMHRnLia4Ce95A

Senior FAQ: It is on the school website.  

Perfect Attendance: This is the last week I am going to run this paragraph. If any senior attended WCPSS from kindergarten through twelfth grade and believes he or she has had perfect attendance for all of those years, we need to know right away to give us time to research and respond.  Please email Mrs. Jane Stever (jstever@wcpss.net) and copy Mrs. Kelly Nilles (knilles@wcpss.net) to notify the school.  

Stay healthy and Ram Strong!  

Best,

Mrs. Lassiter