Dear Northwood High School Community:
The Holidays are upon us and with that a much-needed and well-deserved two-week break. This week is finals week and the schedule is here for your review and planning. Our students have worked hard this semester and we are all excited to wrap up the first semester in January. As a reminder, teachers will not be posting any final exam grades until after the break! We would like to take a moment to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday and to encourage our students and their families to truly enjoy and cherish the time spent together.
As friends and families gather to celebrate the season, we hope that the conversations people have with our students will expand and broaden beyond what may appear like natural topics like: “How’d you do on the test?”; “Where are you applying for college?”; “What score did you get on your SAT or ACT?”; “What do you plan to major in?”; or “How many APs and Honors classes are you taking?” These are questions that many of our students may have to address at various points over the next two weeks and while these questions are oftentimes well-intentioned, our students deserve a break from the day-to-day stresses that school oftentimes brings. This is part of the reason why NHS staff adheres to the policy of final exams before the break and of not assigning any work over it as well.
Denise Pope, co-founder of Challenge Success, and our partner from the Stanford Graduate School of Education, affirms that one of the “best gifts” we can give to our students is to give them a true break. “If you find yourself in a conversation with a high school senior who is being bombarded with intrusive questions from other adults,” Pope writes, “help the student out by steering the discussion in a different direction.” For a link to Dr. Pope’s full article on the topic of holiday break dialogue, please click here and for further information on our partnership with Stanford University’s Challenge Success initiative, please click here.
Before we close, we want to recognize that the Holidays can bring mixed emotions as well. For members of our school community who may feel weighed down by the various feelings, pressures, and stresses that come with this season, we hope you know that you are not alone. We encourage you to take care of each other and to engage in genuine and meaningful conversations with each other toward that end. At the end of this email there are a variety of resources for you and your family. If you need to access additional resources, please click here.
Finally, we hope our Timberwolves community will enjoy the time off from school. We wish everyone a Happy Holidays and look forward to seeing you in the New Year.
Sincerely,
Leslie Roach, Ed.D.
Principal