001all right good afternoon everyone thank you so much for joining us i am mr davidson i'm the principal of the freshman academy at danbury high school and we're here today to talk about what it's going to mean for you uh to come to danbury high school and what you need to do to be ready to come to danbury high school next year even though we're in kind of a crazy year so i have a few guests with me today mrs ondeck one of my school counselors is here i also have miss carlson who's the director of counseling and i'm muted sorry and uh your counselors are also here too miss harris i believe our our final school counselor is having some tech issues but she'll she'll get rolling in a minute so i'm gonna try
002to project my screen and show you my presentation okay it's kind of weird that you guys are the class of 2025 each year i say that but it's it's it's true every single year um you guys just just keep coming and we i think we're we're ready and we're going to have a really good time next year um and i'm really hopeful that things things get back to normal a little oh mr dara all right good afternoon everyone thank you so much for joining us i am mr davidson i'm the principal of freshman academy at gamer high school and we're here today to talk about what it's going to mean for you to come to denver high school and what you need to do to be ready to come to danbury high school next year
003even though we're in kind of a crazy year so i have a few guests with me today mrs ondeck one of my school counselors is here i also have miss carlson who's the director of counseling sorry i got a little tech issue and i'm muted all right and uh your counselors are also here too miss harris i believe our final school counselor is having some tech issues but she'll get rolling in a minute so i'm going to try to project my screen and show you my presentation okay it's kind of weird that you guys are the class of 2025 each year i say that but it's it's true every single year you guys [Music] all right sorry about that mr daryl you have a lot of feedback i can hear you let's try again okay
004so things we're going to talk about today really what are what is the freshman academy what do you need to know for registration what supports we have available for you what extensions are there to support you dr roy is going to talk about the danbury early college opportunity if she makes it and then what's kind of next for for you as incoming freshmen so throughout the presentation if you have a question about a slide that i just talked about we're going to try to answer them all at the end so i have qr codes in the bottom corner of um of each slide so you can scan that with your phone or you can if you're with somebody else and they want to type like while you watch you can enter um your questions and
005we'll answer them at the end so the freshman academy it's it's kind of a special place at danbury high school it's a little bit separate from everything else and the way we run our freshman academy is it's really a transition program to help you become ninth graders because there's a big difference between eighth grade and ninth grade and it's not fair that we just say hey welcome to danbury high school have fun go get em so we have a transition program in place to help support you to make it to make it a little bit easier for you to transition to ninth grade we have a teamed approach similar to what you may have seen in middle school we have eight teams um each of those eight teams as a has a different team of
006teachers that work exclusively with those students and we also have counselors that work with those teams as well we have some supports that are only offered to freshmen we have common planning time for our teachers and like i said eight teams and we have college prep classes and we have honors classes that we'll talk about in a little bit my counselors are specifically trained to help you in the transition from eighth grade to ninth grade so that's what our freshman academy is about let's learn a little more about it we have a brand new building it's only a couple years old 26 new classrooms new science labs we have a gym in the bottom locker rooms it's fully air conditioned which is really really nice at the beginning of the year and the end of
007the year that's called rg building and the majority of your classes at least your freshman classes will be in there maybe maybe some of your electives will not be but all of your core classes will be in the g building so that's what it looks like you can see a science lab kind of a hallway um i think this is miss i don't know it's coach box room right there um just know that it looks a whole lot different now with social distancing and the way we have to do business now but i'm hopeful that next year we can get back to a little more traditional education things you need to know as a student at danbury high school is you need to take a certain number of courses in order to graduate so you
008have to have 25 credits before you can leave danbury high and that includes english classes social studies classes you need a fine art class elective class you need math science so your counselor will help you plan a schedule each year that puts you in position to meet those 25 credits the thing that you need to know as a student is if you don't get those 25 credits you can't graduate so if you fail a pe class or a health class or your english class you can't graduate until you pass those classes we don't move you on to the next grade we don't move you to the next class you need to pass those classes in order to move on at the end of the four-year experience you have to have 25 credits or more in
009those specific areas in order to move on uh so what does that really mean for you it means your freshman year um it's kind of prescribed so you're freshman you have to decide whether you want to take college prep or honors english and whatever you choose in english you have to choose the same thing in world studies so your english class and your social studies class have to be the same level you can choose college prep for both of those or you could choose honors for both of those but you cannot choose college prep english and honors world studies so this blue box right here around the outside they have to be the same level okay the same thing is is true for math and science so you can take college prep algebra one but
010you also have to take college prep biology if you decide you want honors algebra 1 then you take honors biology as well we also have honors algebra 2 for those students who took algebra 1 in middle school so whatever you choose in english you have to choose in social studies and whatever you choose in math you have to choose in biology but you don't have to choose honors across the board and you don't have to choose college prep across the board so if you want to do one thing in english in social studies you can do something different in math and science we also for those students who need additional supports we have reading and math labs that would be in your schedule and those would take the place of some of your other elective
011classes or possibly one of your core classes we recommend that all freshmen take health and physical education and there are some elective courses that you can take too because we have in our day and you'll see a sample schedule a little bit we have seven classes or seven class periods throughout a two-day rotation right so in our block schedule you can take up to seven classes and you have to decide what you want college proper honors and this is always a question what's the difference how do i know if i say college prep and honors so what you need to know is in college prep those courses are going to prepare you to go to college if you want to so if you take those courses you will be ready to go on to a
012four a two or a four year college when you're done doesn't mean you have to but you'll be prepared to if you want to our honors courses you're going to learn the same things you're going to learn about the same um things in those classes but they're going to ask you to go deeper they're going to ask you to do more and they're going to ask you to kind of take on a heavier workload so you're going to be responsible for for more on your own that you're not going to be doing in class so the workloads increase they ask you a little bit deeper and do a little bit more in that class as well so electives there's a whole bunch of them there's even more when we get out of freshman year but
013in freshman year some of them are are not available to you yet because they require some some prerequisites so we have rotc we have art business family consumer science music science theater tech ed and world languages so a sample schedule for you as a as a ninth grader similar to what you probably see now is we have an 8 and a b day so on an a day you may have math you may have health block 2 everybody has a flex period and i'll talk about flex in a few minutes then you may take english and there will be lunch embedded in that block and personal finance may be in block four so notice that these blocks change from block a um from a day to b day so block one block two block three
014let's try to let miss harris in and dr roy um but that fourth block that one meets every single day so that fourth block is shorter and it meets every single day of the week so that's something to be be prepared for when you get to denver high school so when you go to register we're going to ask you what courses you want to take because i don't want to put everyone in in classes and then say wow mr davis and i didn't really want that class this isn't fair so we ask you to register through powerschool and request classes and then we use those requests to build a schedule so you're going to need the course of study guide and that can be found right on our danbury high school webpage it's also linked
015in powerschool when you go to register so you'll log into powerschool like you normally would click on class registration and that's when you're going to choose which classes you want to take so you click on the little little pencil over here and decide what you want to take you want to take college prep you want to take english algebra 1 algebra two whatever it may be make sure when you're there you're choosing semester one and semester two we live in a semesterized environment here at danbury high school which means you do the first half of the course semester one and you do the second half of the course semester two um if you're not successful in one of those semesters you don't necessarily have to take the whole course over you have to take just
016that semester over i don't want anyone to think it's okay to not pass the class because it really puts you behind but we do have some of that built in in case you need some additional supports you do the same thing for electives choose your classes i'm sure you did something similar to this last year and probably the year before so it should be pretty self-explanatory so what do we do to offer support for kids uh like i mentioned before we have a rebounding program and we have a math 180 program for those students who who need additional supports in math and reading we have flex time and i said i would circle back to this flex time is kind of like your team enrichment time but it's a little more structured i think so
017what you'll do every monday is you'll choose what you're going to do during that flex time for the rest of the week so maybe you say i have a test in math on friday so on thursday i'm going to schedule myself to go see my math teacher for review or maybe i was sick last friday and they need to make up a quiz in english so on tuesday i schedule my english teacher so i can go and take that quiz maybe i just need to go to the library and study so we have study sessions that are available if you wanted to during flex we also have enrichment so if you're passing all your classes and things are going really well we have additional activities that are set up that are kind of extra and
018fun and enrichment type activities so you could take yoga you could learn how to work in the auto shop we we offer those throughout throughout the school year so if you're passionate classes and you don't need any additional support during flex you can take enrichment things and we have a directed study hall so if if i find a real study hall a normal study hall isn't working for you maybe i put you in a direct study hall where you're up in the level four office with my counselors and myself we have after school tutoring program this this year it's all virtual so we'll see if that's going to continue to maybe get you out of the building so you don't have to be in the building for tutoring after after school next year we have
019a twilight program which allows you to take the classes you may not have passed first semester before moving on to sophomore year so that you can move on to sophomore year on time we have a credit recovery program that's available typically to sophomores juniors and seniors if they don't pass the class it gives them an opportunity to make that class up and we also have a pretty intensive srbi intervention process to support students academically throughout their school years extensions so what if everything's fine i don't need any supports well you can i always say you can get as far as you want danbury high school with the effort that you put in so we have 26 advanced placement courses only ones available to freshmen unfortunately that is ap computer science principles but once you get
020the basics out of the way there are endless possibilities in all of those classes they they equal college credit so if if you want to get a head start on college throughout your high school career you can take these courses and get advanced placement credit in college if you score a three or better currently 21 percent of our kids take ap classes and 53 of our minority students take care so that's um just shows that everyone's taking advantage of those ap courses flex like i said those extensions are in there dr roy who joined us a little bit ago is going to talk about the early college opportunity in a few minutes we have honor societies to allow you to kind of expand yourself and push your limits a little bit accelerated summer courses if
021you want to take geometry over the summer you can certainly do that so you can get a head start on the year following and possibly graduate early if you truly wanted to concap up or bound program we have tons of sports clubs i usually tell the freshmen when i talk to them in the middle schools when you come to denver high school be more than just a student don't just come here to to be involved in academics do something else give back to danbury high school and the community in some other way and there's so many opportunities for you at danbury high school to do that so dr roy i'm going to open this up so you can talk about your early college opportunity hi everybody um i am the director of our early college
022opportunity that is a partnership with knocked up valley community college where students enrolled in the program are working towards an associate degree in computer information systems while they're still high school students and so you might say well how can i actually do that um and the way that we're able to do that is we partner with noctuc valley community college we partner with the danbury students and business connections and local businesses to help support you um in acquiring the skills you would need to be able to function as somebody utilizing that computer information science degree so basically in order to join students have to apply for a lottery which we will open up on march 1st if you look on the danbury high school website getting closer towards march 1st you'll see that that lottery
023actually opens up and as long as you fill out the completed application then you're put into the lottery and we're able to accept 60 students into the program so how that affects you as a freshman is one of those electives that mr davidson was talking about would become a class that we take called workplace learning and so the workplace learning course teaches you all the soft skills of business that that's how to make presentations it's how to write professional uh emails letters do professional presentations and working as team members and leaders we have experiences where you get to work with mentors from different industries and you get to get different work experiences we do internships and field trips and those kinds of things to really kind of see what is it that local businesses and
024in danbury do and is it something that you might want to use in the future obviously um whatever pathway you choose you're probably going to use a computer um in in your profession as you grow up um the first experience that our students typically get to have um is the summer experience it's three days towards the end of august our students come into danbury high school we do some team building we get to follow our schedule check out the building check out the people that work there who are there mr davidson we usually try to find him and have him sign off on things and do scavenger hunts and stuff like that he's particularly tricky to find um but we do get to get to know each other a little bit during the summer first
025and then as you go through your high school career i work very closely with you to kind of tailor that pathway tailor your course selections and stuff to really meet the goals that you want um before you graduate so if you have any questions you can check out our website and it's been updated so if you just search danbury early college opportunity it might not show up but if you go to the danbury high school website and click on the button there that says deco then you'll be able to find it and if you have any questions certainly uh either call and leave me a message or shoot me an email thank you dr roy so what's next you learned a little bit today we're going to answer a couple questions i see them then
026i'm coming in on the forum um so what's next so the first step is is seeing you all here today so today is is west side we have rogers park and broadview over the next couple weeks well the next big thing for you guys is 3-1 we have our school fair so what our school fair is all about is you can come in in normal years you can come to dhs and you can walk around you can do a tour and you can find out about all the clubs the uh sports the fun things like that it's a little bit different this year so we're gonna be doing it virtually which i still think is gonna be pretty good so i'll do a similar presentation like this to your parents that night so they can
027know what do i need to know as a parent of a student that's going to danbury high school you'll learn about the clubs the organizations the other fun things or interesting things that you can do to be involved in in danbury high school the registration opens later that night so you can start choosing the classes that you want that we can use to build your schedule we'll talk to the private parochial schools at night on the 15th and i think i think the registration window closes the 24th but we can keep it open if we have any issues but you guys should be really good at that by now so i'm going to leave this up while we start answering questions if you need to ask a specific one of us a question you can
028either email us or call us and leave us a message and we'll get back to you because most of us are at home today but we start up school again tomorrow so if you don't enter into the forum question feel free to reach out to us and we'll do our best to answer it so mrs ondeck i believe is taking a look at the the questions if anybody has any other questions add them in now and we will do our best to answer them um mr davidson can i just like pop in really quick you can hi west side so nice to see you my stem kids um and mrs rieffer's global studies kids so i know mr davidson touched based on the registration for your freshman classes we uh mr ritberg and i will
029also be open for for those questions too um for like you know choosing like you know your different types of math classes honors classes and you're a little elective so stay tuned for it from an updated email from us and we can definitely uh touch base with you so we will be talking to all of our parents and students when that becomes available on powerschool awesome thank you this is the questions here i can just run through them multi-screens so the first question we got was are there uniforms for jim no we don't have any specific uniforms i know in middle school you may have gotten uniforms we do require that you change we don't want you in jeans and hoodies sweating all over the place in pe class so we do ask that our
030students change for pe so they need sneakers they'll mark up the floors and they need you know at least somewhat comfortable clothing to to complete the activities in that's a good question um mr miller asked where the best classes are and he put a plug in for himself a208 um he teaches mr miller's the the one who who's in charge of of uh our youtube channel so he's live streaming this for you guys and then he's recording he does so much for us so i will give him a plug he does does an awesome job so if you're interested in in um engineering or you're interested in in the cte classes that he teaches uh graphic design things like that um he's a really good teacher so that's his that's his one one plug he
031gets during flex if a lot of people choose one thing does it close up yeah it actually does that's a really really good question so teachers set up these courses that that students can join into during flex and they typically set their cap at like 17 for academic things um so um they can make them larger obviously so if if we have like a tire change tuesday they make it a little bit larger so kids can go in and see how to do that sort of thing but um the most of them are capped at 17. that's a really good question are there any programs or classes that we can take in order to get a free scholarship now denver high school is free luckily so so you can come here you don't have to
032pay anything um but what i recommend you if you want to get scholarships for college is you work as hard as you can and you'll be as involved as you can in in your school and in colleges will notice that and they'll understand that you know you're worth investing in and they'll give you any assistance that you may need to go there next question is uh how do you apply for the honors program you really don't have to apply for it what you have to do is um register for honors classes so when you go to choose your schedule choose the college prep or the honors classes you want and that kind of puts you in what i guess you you think is the honors program but those honors classes allow you to kind of
033extend yourself and and challenge yourself throughout your your career we also have ap classes and the way you do that is the same way you you register through the the powerschool portal um next question we don't dress appropriately for jim like worn jeans will it impact our grade so if your teacher feels that you are not properly changed then yeah you'll you'll lose points in participation and you won't get credit for that day so you need to wear something that is conducive to to pe class next we have how do i register for my classes so you go to your your power school click on register for classes and you choose what classes you want you can't do it yet because it's not open it opens on march 1st so once that's open choose your
034classes i'm sure you can meet with your counselor if you have any questions to to kind of run through the options and they can give you some advice and they hear a lot of things they've done this a lot of times so they know which courses may be perfect for you and which ones maybe you you might not like as much so they they're pretty well versed in what we have okay so those are all the questions i have if i get some more in i will respond to the people who send them and i will post them online near the video so that we can we can answer them and you can get your answers okay so thank you all for being here today i really do appreciate it um remember three one is
035our our school fair so look out for information on that we'll send it to your schools and and be there so that you can learn as much as you can about tambourine high and be ready for that smooth transition in ninth grade thank you mr davidson thank you so much for hosting west side it's always a pleasure to see you and your wonderful staff at the freshman academy our students really look forward to going up there so thank you so much for this exciting presentation