Great Happenings at Discovery High School

Heres the latest email update to the Discovery High School Community.

 

Dates to Remember

 

Sept. 4: School-Wide Field Trip to Henry River Park

Sept. 7: Labor Day No School

Sept. 8: National Honor Society Blood Drive (Contact Ms. Walker to Schedule Your Appointment Time)

Sept. 18: Underclassmen Pictures (Forms for Ordering Forthcoming)

Sept. 28: Senior Make Up Pictures

October 2: Teacher Workday (No School for Students)

October 14: PSAT Testing (All Sophomores and Some Juniors)

October 21: PLAN Testing (All Sophomores)

 

 

Reminder: Make Sure You Complete Your Child's InfoSnap Forms Online

 

Most of you as parents remember the stack of forms schools usually send home at the beginning of each year for parents to complete and return. Well, for parents of Newton-Conover City School students, that is not going to happen any more. Instead, these forms have moved online with a service called Infosnap. You only need enter the information once such as student name, address, phone number, etc., and the entire process becomes much easier. Then, each year after that, you will only need to correct information that has changed.

 

Parents, we need all of you to make sure you have completed your child's InfoSnap forms. There are different instructions for students new to the Newton-Conover district and for students who have been attending Discovery or Newton-Conover Middle School.

 

• If your child is new to the district, you need to go to http://www.newton-conover.org/ and select the registration tab to the far right of the web page and then select new student form. You will be given instructions on how to set up your InfoSnap account in order to complete the forms online.
• If your child has been attending a Newton-Conover City School last year, you need to drop by our office with your driver's licenses as proof of identity and we will provide you with a code to access InfoSnap. You will only need go in to verify information that is correct and change that which is not.

This needs to be done before next Wednesday if possible so that your child can go on the School-Wide Field Trip to Henry River Park next Friday. Please call or email us if you have questions or need help.

 

 

Discovery High School Year Off to a Great Start

 

Parents, our school year is off to a fantastic start! Throughout the week, I have spoken to many of our students and asked them, "How do you like Discovery so far?" I heard students say repeatedly things like, "It's awesome." Or, "I'm so glad I came to Discovery!" It is so important to us that our students have a positive experience here at Discovery.

 

As we move further into the school year, when you have questions and concerns, don't hesitate to let us know. We are only an email or phone call away.

 

 

New Staff at Discovery High School

 

We have two new staff members at Discovery this year. Mr. David Schouweiler has joined us from Newton-Conover High School. Mr. Schouweiler will be teaching Earth and Environmental Science, Chemistry, and Physics. He will also be taking over as coach of our Science Olympiad Team. Robin Hawn has also joined us this year. She is currently our media center and NCVPS lab supervisor. We are glad to have these two quality additions to our staff. 

 

 

 

Discovery High School "Get Crazy! Change the World!" T-Shirts on Sale Now!

 

We still have quite a few of our 2015-16 Discovery High School "Get Crazy! Change the World!" Theme T-Shirts on sale. The shirts this year are gold lettered and a burgundy color, our school colors. They are $15, and we still have all sizes. In addition we also have some of last year's black shirts on sale as well. Drop by our office and pick up your shirt today.

 

 

Underclassmen Pictures and Senior Make Up Picture Dates and Information

 

Underclassmen pictures will be taken on Friday, September 18th beginning at 8:45 AM. We will send order forms home as soon as we get them. Senior make up pictures will be on September 28, with underclassmen make up pictures on October 28.

 

 

Discovery High School Lunchtime Changes: Parents You're Invited!

 

Parents and Discovery High School community members, we have restructured our lunchtime and enrichment time this year, and are looking to have some chess and checker sets available for those students who have extended lunch to play chess or checkers. If you have a chess set sitting around gathering dust, please consider making a donation to our school. Also, if you're a chess player and would like to challenge one of our student chess masters (and several of them have claimed that title), please visit us during our lunch hour (12:00 to 1:03 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of each week). Just contact us to let us know your coming.

Discovery High School: Discovery the Difference!

As we get closer to the beginning of school, the excitement is certainly growing. I can hear it in the voices of phone calls from our parents, see it in the emails from our parents, and detect it in conversations with parents. The new year is exciting, and it brings opportunity and of course the time-worn, but true "new beginnings." Discovery is a different kind of place, and as we begin the new year, take a moment and view our new video commercial and:

DISCOVER THE DIFFERENCE!

We Might Be in a New Building, But Our Values Are the Same!

Moving into a new place can certainly change us. Where we are often can redefine us, and make us into something we never intended to be. For staff and students at Discovery High School that has been a concern from the start when talk began about the move to our new building located in the Thornton Educational Center. Place does have the ability to transform us, and sometimes those transformations aren't what we intend, but with Discovery, we do intend to hold tight to those values that make us unique, in spite of new surroundings and a larger student body.

Discovery High School's core values and school norms are:

• We believe that ethics, knowledge of what's appropriate as well as right or wrong, is best internalized rather than written down as a "code of conduct" or ethics. We believe our students and staff "do the right thing because it's the right thing to do."
• We believe in listening to what others have to say, as manifested in our school norm entitled "EF Hutton." When anyone speaks and has something to contribute, we listen.
• We believe we all have a responsibility to "Keep the World Beautiful." We take it as our personal responsibility to keep our immediate world clean.
• We believe in the Pepsi Philosophy, which means take care of the business of learning and doing first, then give ourselves permission to relax.
• We believe it is not moral or ethical to talk about people. Productive and constructive conversation happens about ideas of substance. We don't believe in engaging and talk about people. This is known as our "Weak Mind Rule."
• Finally, we believe all students must act with the intention that they will engage in their best behavior at all times. This is known as our Rule of Angels.

As we move into this school year, our conversations with our students quite often revolve around living these values and norms. In that sense, place has not affected what we as Discovery High School believe as important. Our intention as a school community is remain true to who we are no matter where we are.

Discovery High School Moves In to Its New Home

Things have been really busy at Discovery High School the past two days. We've had about 50 students and 10 parents on campus, helping with the furniture moving, unpacking, and cleaning. Our classrooms are taking shape. The office area and cafeteria is operational. The cafeteria and gym are getting finishing touches in preparation for our open house event. I want to personally thank so many of our students and their parents who have helped us with their school.

Discovery High School's New Entrance

Office Coming Together

Entrance Hallway Freshly Painted

Science Classrooms Coming Together

Courtyard Area

Mr. Barham's Room

Discovery High School Has Left the Building! Looking to the Future

"A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not-knowing is part of the adventure." Pema Chodron

Today Discovery High School began the day at its North Ashe Avenue location. Tomorrow, though not completely organized, Discovery High School will for all practical purposes be at its new location. Discovery has endured much in its short history.  While many times schools come to be more known by their location, not so with Discovery High School (Newton-Conover Health Science High School, The Newton School). It has never been a location. Over the years, those who cultivated Discovery, never intended for it to be identified by its location. For those of us who have been a part of Discovery, the school is its students, its parents, its teachers. It's name has changed, and now its location has changed. Discovery has changed too, but that is always the case. The old adage, "Nothing stays the same" is as true about our school as anything else.

But, as we transition to a new campus, let's not forget we're still Discovery High School. While as Chodron points out, "We can never avoid uncertainty," I do agree that this "not-knowing" is part of the New Discovery High School Adventure.

Community Service Opportunity & How to Document It

Community service is important to us at Discovery High School. Part of being a citizen of the world is giving back our time to worthy causes and to better our communities. That's why we ask all of our students to earn 150 hours of community service before they graduate.

This year, because of all the questions and concerns about how to document that time, we are going to make sure emphasis is placed on community service from the beginning, and someone will be checking at least once per semester to make sure that time is documented in each student's community service folder.

Tomorrow, August 13, we offer another opportunity for our students to earn community service time by helping with our move to the Thornton Building, our new home. To document that time, students will only need to write down the dates, times, and total amount of time served each day, and have one of the staff members sign off on that time. They will then need to turn in that documentation and log it in their folders when school starts.

Community service is important and we at Discovery want our students to be the kind of citizen that gives time back to the communities in which they live.

Discovery High School's New Home at Thornton---Some Photos

Today, I wandered over to our new home and Thornton to see how things are going. Since last spring, a great deal of work has been done. Some work has been done on the restrooms, and the fence enclosure for the inner courtyard has been installed. Paint is going up every as well. Here's a bit of what I saw today. Please don't mind the mess, we're moving!

Discovery's New Entrance

New Entrance Doors Outside the Office

New Halls of Discovery High School

Outside Science and Math Classrooms