December 14, 2007

Good Friday morning to you all! I hope you’ve all had a good and productive week—and I’m glad we got a full week in this week! It’s been a busy one, and I know we’ve all had to juggle schedules to make up for missed events due to last week’s weather.

Tuesday we hosted all of our satellite teachers on Main Campus for their quarterly meeting and a Christmas Luncheon. It was great to have them all here and get a collective update on all the terrific things happening in these programs! I heard about grants received, community service projects, field trips, business partnerships, and innovative curriculum. I shared our 2006/2007 Performance Measures with them and thanked them for the important role they played in making our success possible. It’s not often we have these folks together in one place, and I was appreciative of their enthusiasm and team spirit. And I also appreciate that they serve as such positive ambassadors for OHP in our partner schools, which is clearly benefitting our Main Campus as well. Many thanks to this group of dedicated teachers!

Wednesday the Tri-County Community Action Commission, which serves Champaign, Logan, and Shelby Counties, held a Senior Citizen Luncheon here at Hi-Point. Darlene Roll, who had been coordinating the event with the CAC, unfortunately couldn’t be here due to a family emergency. But JoEtta Spain and her group of able assistants from our staff, as well as several of our students, stepped right in and did a wonderful job serving lunch, providing musical entertainment, and making our guests feels very welcome! Denise Bergen, Executive Director of the CAC, made a point of thanking me for allowing them to hold their event here and said she just loves to facilitate intergenerational events such as this—it benefits both age groups!! (Some of the staff and I were commenting that we’re far closer to the “senior citizen” end of the spectrum than the “youth”!)

JoEtta shared with me her thanks as well:

A special thank you in for Mr.Carrig’s class who printed the holiday poem and the placemats, Amanda Blackburn’s class for the design of the placemat, and Sally Andrews’s class for helping with the serving and set-up as well as Mark Davis’s 7th-period class. I don’t want to forget Jessica Elliott from Culinary Arts who couldn’t go on the field trip so she wrapped all the cookies for the event. Last but not least were the students who performed (below). The show wouldn’t have gone on without all their help! Hope I didn’t forget anyone.

Bobby Ward
Sallie Roth
Anna Steggeman
Joe Winiger
Barb Taylor
Spencer Wolf
Jessica Skeen
Jeremy Stewart
Tim Sutton
Rechel Renkel
Breanne Gamble
Matt Overfield
Tiara Hinkle
Jordon Fitzpatrick
Deidra Thompson

On Thursday, we hosted our partner school guidance counselors for their regular meeting as well as a special luncheon prepared by our Culinary Arts Students. I could only stop in briefly and wasn’t able to stay for lunch, but it certainly looked wonderful!! (I’ll get to sample the same menu when these students prepare dinner for our Board next Wednesday.) Thanks to Lynne Hall and Lynda Arehart, our Guidance Counselors, for facilitating these meetings and keeping the lines of communication open with our partner school counselors.

While walking through the cafeteria on Thursday, a delightful young man named Dalton (Graphic Arts student) stopped me and asked if I had participated in the Netday survey. I asked him to tell me more about that, which he did very well! He explained that the purpose of the survey is to collect information so we can make improvements in our technology. Then he gave me a small card with the website to go to for the survey and a password. How neat to see our students actively involved in improving their school and their own learning! I appreciate Tracy Franck’s efforts in organizing this survey. And it’s important that staff participate also! If you haven’t filled out the survey, please go to http://www.netdayspeakup.org and use the password “starfish.”

I received another e-mail from one of our Board Members, Scott Johnson from Marysville, congratulating us on our Performance Measures. He apologized for being a little late—he’s been under the weather!

I am very proud of the efforts that you, your administration and staff have made over these past few years. I know all of you have been working very hard at improving the entire educational experience at Ohio Hi-Point; and from these latest results, I think others are sharing that same belief. I am thankful that you have allowed me to sit in on several of your work sessions these last two years. In those I have always been impressed at how the overall spirit of everyone attending and how focused they are on improving Ohio Hi-Point. Those meetings have also been a great learning experience for me as a Board member.

It always nice to see hard work pay off, and in this case, it has paid off very well. Again, please accept my most sincere congratulations for the great gains you have all made at Ohio Hi-Point over these past three years.

Thanks,
Scott

As I said last week, our accomplishments wouldn’t be possible without our very supportive Board of Education!

Joan Manns in Adult Education shared with me this week that Perry Hodies, who teaches our Digital Photography course and is attending Columbus State finishing a degree in Digital Design and Graphics, recently won a digital Holiday Card Contest. Joan asked him to share his winning design with us, and he responded:

Good morning! You had asked me about my card design that placed in the Holiday Card Contest at Columbus State. If you go to www.cscc.edu and let the main photos scroll (about every 5 seconds), my picture will come up. Click on the picture to get to the article.

Congratulations, Perry, on your recognition; and thank you for sharing your talents with the adult students in your classes!

As many of you know, we lost a dear friend and supporter this past fall with the passing of Judge James B. West, one of our Sloan Trustees. But I’m very happy to share with you that we recently learned Judge West and his wife Shirley had decided before his death that they would endow a James B. West Scholarship for our adult education Practical Nursing students. Shirley had taught in our program years ago, and Judge West had encountered many of our students and graduates in local health care facilities. He commented frequently on the fine nurses that our program produces and expressed appreciation for the asset that these adults are to the community. The scholarship has been put in place, and we know it will have a very positive impact on the lives of many future nursing students!

Well, tell you what. Since the weather predictions are so bad, I’m going to go ahead and cancel school for Saturday and Sunday. Have a great weekend, stay home if you can; and if you can’t, be very careful!