Dear Pickerington Tiger Community – Letter #7
It’s hard to believe, but our first month is over already! September is behind us and October ushers in autumn with cooler temperatures, spectacularly colored trees, shorter days and a full slate of school events. Without question, much attention has been focused on the upcoming flu season, especially regarding H1N1. There is a wealth of information available at various health department websites, as well as the site for the Center for Disease Control. The most important few things we can do to limit the spread of this flu is to limit personal contact, wash hands regularly, cough or sneeze in shirt sleeves as opposed to in a hand or open air, and most importantly, stay home and consult a physician if flu-like symptoms arise. We remind students daily to practice those healthy habits and have helpful information posted on our district’s website.
Congratulations to our Girls Tennis team for capturing the 2009 OCC Ohio Championship. Now it’s on to the district tournament! PHSC hosted the annual Tiger Invitational Cross Country meet on a rainy Saturday morning. Our girls finish in a muddy 3rd place. Girls Volleyball finished the week strong with two victories over Watkins Memorial and Licking Heights, and began the week with the annual Volley for the Cure game vs. PHS North. Admirably, all proceeds from that game were given in support of the Susan G. Komen Foundation for cancer research. Girls and Boys Soccer teams had key OCC league victories and our Girls and Boys Golf teams are readying for the district tournament with our boys finishing 2nd in OCC Ohio standings. Finally, the football Tigers had a thrilling 7-6 victory over our sister school, Pickerington High School North, in front of nearly 10,000 fans from the Pickerington community in Columbus Crew Stadium. The pre-game activities featured a combined show from the PHSC Marching Tigers and the PHSN Marching Panthers. The combined Chorales of both schools sang the National Anthem, and there was a very moving tribute to two exceptional Pickerington Local educators, Mary Ann Kirkby and Cindy Roepke, who both recently lost courageous battles with cancer. It was an intense, well played game that showcased two well-coached teams that represented the Pickerington community proudly. Best of luck to both the Tigers and the Panthers as they begin the second half of the football season and race toward qualification for the OHSAA State Playoffs.
This week marked the halfway point of the first grading period. Traditionally, this time is designated for interim reports. With the advent of our Parent Assist Module (PAM), there are no longer printed reports given to students to take home, as parents are able to review their student’s grades electronically. If however, parents are unable to access PAM, current student grades can be requested from their student’s teachers.
On Thursday, many World History students had the chance to witness the historical Renaissance period first hand as teachers Mr. Daugherty, Miss Eilers and Miss Ross took 46 students on a field trip to the Renaissance Festival in Waynesville, Ohio. Employees of the park dressed in Renaissance attire and spoke in authentic Old English. Students experienced a joust, the play “Beowulf” performed in the mud, pirates battling in a ship, saw daredevil tricks, had the opportunity to tour a castle, and even shot bows and arrows! For those students, history really did come alive!
Speaking of Renaissance, the PHSC Renaissance program had their first event of the school year on Thursday by sponsoring a field day in the field house during lunch periods. As you recall, Renaissance is a program at PHSC that honors and celebrates students who accomplish three basic things: work hard in the classroom, have good attendance, and have good behavior. The Violet Township Fire Department sponsored a hotdog-eating contest during the field day, there were corn hole contests, and in cooperation with the United States Marines, there were fitness tests and a fun but challenging obstacle course. NBC 4 TV sent a camera crew out to provide footage of the great things that the students of PHSC accomplish.
Lastly, on Tuesday, in cooperation with the Pickerington Police Department and several local law enforcement agencies, nine dogs from various canine units completely went through the halls, random classrooms and the parking lots of PHS Central. The canines are trained to detect the aroma and presence of illegal narcotics. This exercise was preplanned several weeks ago together with PHS North and local agencies, and will occur at random a few more times this school year. The exercise took less than a class period to complete and disruption to the educational process was minimal. As I have stated often, the safety of the students and staff of PHSC are one of our top priorities and exercises like this are but one tool to ensure our students and community understand our expectation that bringing drugs, weapons or anything that compromises our safety will not be tolerated – ever.
I told you our plate was full! Have a great week.
Go Tigers!
M. Scott Reeves
Principal, Pickerington High School Central
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