001Well, welcome to Exit High School and I think we should give it up for the incoming class of 2030. [applause] So, this is our Blue Hawk 101 and it is just a quick overview for incoming freshmen on some of the offerings that we have at the high school. We're super excited to welcome this incoming class. We have some great things in store. I think we should also give it up to some of Can you guys stand with us so we can see your shirts? Some of you up here. So, we know these are wonderful student volunteers that we'll also be offering um as guides today. They gave up their time to be here. [applause] Thanks, guys. All right, so we'll get started. Here's tonight's agenda. So, we plan to be in here for approximately 45
002minutes. We're going to do some introductions of some of the adults in the building, talk about the transition program, student life, school counseling. will give a presentation and then from 6:45 to 7:30 hot crew, those are our students that just stood up and repped for us. They're going to be giving guided tours of EHS. We ran out of papers because we had a great turnout. So, thanks for being here. Um, there's five. >> Does anyone need a >> Yeah, we could do that, too. If you need one as we come around, you could just raise your hand and we could try to give you some extras. But also, if you don't have one, you could just join up with one of the colors at the end. They'll say, if you have a blue piece of
003paper, come this way. And if you do not have a map, you could just hop in with one and that's okay too. And then we'll talk about clubs and activities. There will be some information in the cafeteria. So when you are um done with your tour along your tour, you can always pop in there and ask some questions. And then we will also have our some faculty and staff available in the library for additional questions. So we hope you just kind of get around and check it all out and ask your questions and start feeling comfortable being in the building. Here is our high school in aerial view. We have a large facility and it's amazing. And this is um because we have a wonderful supportive community that keeps our facility looking fabulous and keeps
004uh all of our equipment up to par. And so it's the reason why we host a lot of events from neighboring communities. They like to come to exit and so we're very grateful to have such a beautiful campus. So thank you for all you do to help contribute to making that happen. I am Tanya Nevie. I am the principal of the high school, the lucky principal. And then I'm going to have a couple people raise their hands that are standing. Lisa Morren is uh was not able to attend tonight, but Nancy Peterson Kton is, and they are in special education administrators. We also have Lyall Hamill over here. He is our curriculum um administrator. We have Kathy Nukem. She's our director of school counseling. And then we also have who put all of this together
005tonight, and it is a lot of work, Katie Inga Bretzen. and and Steph Westerrren. They are the co-advisors for Hot Crew. We'll we'll talk about some of the other adults here, too. So, we have Miss Russell. She is the assistant principal in the Blue Commons, and she oversees uh students whose last names are A through D. That's the current model. So, if you're not familiar at Exit High School, we have four commons, and they are sort of like a school within a school. So each one of those commons has an assistant principal and um a social worker and an admin assistant and then there are guidance counselors that are partnered up with those students. So they kind of have their own little adult cohort. So that is the blue commons. Then we have Mr. Jean
006Paulo and he is in purple serving kids E through K. We have Mrs. Zeller. There she is. Green Commons with last names L through Q. And we also have Miss Delberon in the red commons over here and she is working with students whose last names are R through Z. We have a great administrative team. So this is what I was just explaining about our commons model. So you can see we have those four commons. Those are the four colors associated with those commons and the um the people that support those commons. The functions of each one of those are to take attendance. They handle dismissals. You can contact them if you need help or support or have questions. They also work with students to make sure that nobody kind of falls through the gaps or
007flies under the radar. They help them with interventions, any other supports that they may need. That's their go-to person. So, when students come in, you might say, "Oh, you need to check in with your commons. Stop by your commons." And that's kind of their little house within the school. Okay. And I'm going to pass it over to Miss Nukem. Thanks. I'm going to quickly echo the thanks to the community on what this great building and and grounds and everything looked like. Look around you. This is 20 years old and look how great it still looks. And that's thanks to all of you. Um I am going to just point out who our school counseling team is. Um I will point out really quickly over here in the back hidden in the shadows. He can raise
008his hand. Mr. York is here tonight but most of our other counselors are not here tonight. Um, Miss Bowen um is A through CO M and we have a lot of C's. Um, and Miss Levit is C O N through F. Then we have Miss Leech G through J. Mr. York L and M. I have K. Mrs. Roland has N through R and Mr. Moretti um is S through Z. And as Miss Ney said, they are all connected to those different colored commons as well. We also have those four social workers. It's nice. They're they're colorcoded with the little circles so you can see what commons they belong to. You've met Miss E tonight. She's here with us. And our other three folks are not able to be here tonight. Mr. Charity in the blue
009commons, Mrs. Pascini in the purple commons, and Mrs. Weekes Koffield in the green commons. We also have two nurses um in the building in the health office. Um, it is a great place for students to pop into if they are trying to connect with any of those other folks that you just saw on the screen, Miss Tibido and Miss Mo. And the health office is lo, you'll see it tonight. It's located really close to the school counseling office. So, I'm just going to share with you um a couple of important dates. Um, students, you should not probably have your phones, but parents, if you want to take a quick photo of this, you're welcome to do that. Um, we are recording tonight and this will be posted on the website for both CMS and EHS.
010So, you will be able to get back to this information even if you don't take pictures of any of these screenshots. So, this morning I was at CMS talking with the eighth graders. I invited them to come tonight with all of you. I see a lot of them out there. So, I'm glad to have you guys back here with your parents. Um, some of what we talk about tonight will be repetitive of what we did this morning, but a lot more information. Course recommendations at CMS are happening right now by the CMS teachers and next week um Mr. Moretti and I will be over to answer any questions that the students have in their teams and course selection will begin. Course selection is going to go through February 13th. So, it's about a 10-day period
011or so for students to go ahead and choose their courses in ALMA. We're going to get into more detail later about that. And then we go through and everything is all set before we go on February break. The counselors over at CMS will do a quick double check when we come back from February break and we'll start building um a master schedule. Am I talking to you? >> I have my own microphone. Thank you. >> Uh, my name is Stephanie Westerren. Um, the kids call me Mrs. W. And I am currently teaching freshman physical science and I've taught physics here as well. So, who knows what's in store for next year. Um, but we have lots of fun things planned as your kids get ready to come here to this amazing place. And we actually
012start this planning process in November of 2025 to prepare for the following August of 2026. So we support our freshmen in a lot of different ways. So we have our Bluehawk 101 which is tonight. So thank you for coming. We have our student mentors who some of them are here. Um this is a very small sampling. There are about 15 students here. But when we get to transition day and orientation, we have about a hundred upper classmen who will be there to support your students as they come in. And it's really fun. They provide this excellent environment that just really helps the kids feel more comfortable. And they just serve as a really great um ambassador program. They talk about all the things they're involved in. they can share their experiences with the kids and
013it gives the kids an just a really great opportunity to ask them questions because they don't want to hear it from me. Um I'm far enough removed from it. So we will do the transition day early in June. We have an orientation which will be the week before school starts in August. And then in the fall we will have a club fair which is giving the kids an opportunity to learn about all of the cool things that we offer here. Most of which are studentrun. So the kids will have that opportunity. um usually the end of September, early October and it will help them find ways to get involved and help them find their people. There you go. Um I'm Katie Angerson. I'm one of the social workers here at the high school. Um I
014also am an adviser for Hawk Crew and I am an adviser for Hope Squad, which all of you will hear more about next year. Um so Hawk Crew is a leadership opportunity for juniors and seniors. We actually start, as Stephanie said, in the spring of this year. So we have our um rising juniors and seniors, our current sophomores and juniors apply to be in hot crew. We actually had 180 applicants last year and we had to accept around between 90 and 100 students. So it was really hard. It's a great opportunity for people to get involved. People get excited about it and it was really hard because there's a lot of really wonderful students um who want to participate in this. they give up their time afternoons in May and June and then they come
015back early in August um to help plan orientation. Um so this was our group last year. This was after orientation in August. Um so that was our group and some of them are here tonight. Um so you'll hear from them a little more about all of the little things that Stephanie was just talking about, but it's a great opportunity for students to get involved. They're students who are involved in a lot of different things. um and can bring a lot of the perspective of a current student to the rising eighth graders and really share like what life is like navigating the hallways and all the things that we as adults don't know about exitter high school in 2026. Um and also things that we don't understand about being a high school student in 2026. Um,
016so it's a great opportunity for them to come in and we really encourage I know some people the the orientation is the last week of vacation in August. And so some families it's difficult with those final days of vacation. Um, if it works for your schedule, we encourage your student to come or if you're here tonight, we encourage you to come to orientation. You get to walk your schedule, kind of get rid of those first day jitters with some upperassmen who are there to support you. Um, but we definitely look forward to seeing you all in May. Um, so the next June, sorry, June, don't worry, you don't need to come till June. Um, so the next few slides are actually going to be some of our hot crew leaders are going to come up
017and talk to you about these different events throughout the year. So I'm going to have Abby come up and talk about move up day. Thank you. Hi, my name is Abby Dan and I'm a junior here at EHS. Um, this past year we had about a hundred upper classmen welcoming the um, upcoming freshman class into the high school in May um, or in June for move up day. Um, we spent the whole month of May training for this day and we created like a bunch of activities um, and just planned with signs and plans to welcome all the upcoming freshmen and put in a lot of hard work. um so that students could feel welcome coming into EHS and getting a feel of the school. Move up day gives eighth graders a chance to visit
018EHS when the school is actually in session. Um they spend part of their visit in small groups which is run by us leaders and we do like activities and a little bit of get to know you and we answer some questions that students might have. Um we try and ease some of the anxiety about the transition into the high school. Um, it's really just a chance for us to interact with some of the eighth graders and maybe make a connection with some upcoming freshmen. Um, and help them feel more comfortable coming into the high school in August. So, I'll pass the microphone to Shay now. Hi everyone. My name is Shayen Gagnon. I'm a junior here at EHS. And every year in late August, hot crew leaders will come together and we'll organize orientation and
019which is all about preparing our incoming freshmen for life here at Exit High School. On orientation day, the ninth graders are invited to EHS a few days before the first day of school and we'll have a presentation and then everyone will go into small small groups with these hawk crew with hawk crew leaders which which we have plan which we will plan some fun activities that allow the freshman to get to know their classmates, understand some of the and understand the expectations of being a Blue Hawk. And this is all to help them navigate the building as they walk through the daily schedules what they which will they be able to have. And our goal is to help the freshman feel welcome and to reduce some of the anxiety they may feel on the first
020day of school. And I will now pass the mic to Miss E. >> Thank you, Shay. Um, so next we're going to hear from some more hot crew leaders. Sorry. Thank you. About our student activities. Um, so move update and orientation. you heard a little bit about the events that we do to continue to welcome the freshmen. Um, and then you'll hear, you know, life as a Blue Hawk, what are some of the opportunities that you have to get involved in once you're here. Um, and tonight we have nine clubs represented in the cafeteria. So, when you're out um after your tour or before your tour, if you want to pop into the cafeteria, there's also cookies. Um, there are clubs in there um and they are very excited to tell you about some of
021the things that they're doing. um together. So, I'm gonna pass this to Kate. Hi everyone. I'm Kate Phelps. I'm a senior here at Exiter. Um so, as you can see here, we have a lot of great opportunities for sports if anyone is interested in anything. It's a great way to reach out and to join your community and interact with other students who you might not see in your classes or might not even interact with because they're not in your grade. Um it's truly such an inclusive environment. I personally am involved in the tennis team, which is great. Everyone should join. Um, but I think that um it's just a great opportunity to get to know and join your community. Obviously, this is the only way, but if anyone is interested, you can go to the
022uh beginning of the athletic wing for Miss Claremont's office and she'll have a flyer out with a bunch of other opportunities for athletics. Yeah. And then next is right here. >> Hi, I'm Ava McKenzie and I'm also a senior here. So, we also have some amazing academic clubs here. We have um Model UN, youth and government club, math team, and women in business. We also have really strong programs in the arts like theater and music. Um personally, I'm a part of the robotics club and all your kids should join. Um, and so stop by the calf this evening to see some of the clubs we offer and talk to some of the current students. >> Um, I'm also part of the Talon, which is the school newspaper. And when we're always looking for new members,
023just another way to reach out and um, join and find out all of this new stuff about your fellow peers. Oh, sure. >> Okay. So, here are some of the other clubs and activities that we have. Um, for example, we have stu uh service and other community clubs. So, I'm a part of SCIG uh which is now also known as the roots and wings collective uh to get more involved in [laughter] stuff about um equality and learning about how we can protect our peers. Um, also you can see Hawk Crew up there. Uh, Key Club, which is a lot to do with volunteer work and helping out your community in any way you can. Um, and then yeah, and then Ava also talked about some of the art departments, which is so incredible. We have
024a really a lot of good resources for everyone. >> Hi, I'm Beth Caputo. I am a freshman teacher. I teach world history. I also teach freshman seminar which all you'll see me again in a few minutes. Um and I am part of the roots and winks collective and the equity committee. And as part of that we have launched an initiative where we offer affinity spaces here at EHS for students who share a common identity to have some time together to meet to have dialogue to learn from each other to share concerns and victories. Um and it's during the school day a couple days a month. Um the discussions are led by faculty who have been trained in how to facilitate these kinds of things. We have four groups um running right now. These were decided
025on by the students by student need. And so we have one for um BIPO group for black indigenous people of color. We have our gender spectrum alliance. We have a affinity space for students with neurodyiver neurodeiversity and disabilities. And then we also have an allied space for other students who want to learn how to support um their classmates and make EHS a more welcoming and uh place where everybody feels like they belong. So that's something that happens during the day during advisory a couple times a month. All right. So, now that we've talked about all the fun and cool stuff, we're going to get into my nerdy talk for you. Um, so we have a lot of academic supports. I will say I've worked in a few different high schools in my teaching career and
026I have been unbelievably impressed with the variety of supports that we offer students and I can see the students really appreciate it too because we try to hit upon all the different needs which they are various when you have a school over,200 kids. Um, it's very exciting just to see the kids get excited to go get peer tutoring from an upperassman because they might get excited about the fact that the student had the same teacher as them and they were giving them tips and tricks and different things. Um, you know, homework ideas. So, it's been really impressive just to see the kids get excited about this this year having freshmen. Um, it's it's just very eye opening which is nice. So there's a lot though that's different from CMS and middle school in general. So
027having taught in middle schools, I can definitely vouch for this as well that it is different, but it's exciting. It's a good different. So we will be using Infinite Campus for our grading next year. Um we currently use Alma, but we're going through a transition. I've actually used this system before and it's a really userfriendly system. Um it's very intuitive for high schools, which is great. I taught in Maine for several years and that's um the platform they use. So I can vouch for that and say it's really great in my opinion. Um our split is a little different than what is currently at CMS. So we have an 8020 split. So 80% summitative. So can you demonstrate what you've learned and can you meet competencies? And then formative which um is 20% of the
028grade. And I understand that it's not 20% of the grade at CMS. I'm not sure what it is right now, but um homework, classwork, all those little checkpoints where we want to see where the kids are and how things are going. Those matter. So, we tell the kids, you know, make sure that you're staying up to date on your work, checking your grades. Teachers update grades twice a month. So, we have checkpoints ourselves for the kids um so they know exactly where they are in their learning and what their journey is looking like. So, the other piece of this is that when you're in high school, self- advocacy is huge. So, I think it's really important for us as parents, and I say us because I have a high schooler, I have a freshman in
029college, and then I also have a fourth grader. So, we've got the spectrum at my house going on, but you know, there's a lot of advocacy that needs to happen. And I try to help the kids in my classes personally, like, how do I email a teacher? What should I do if I don't understand this? how do I ask for help? So, we focus a lot on how can we support kids as they're reaching out to their teachers? So, it can be very nerve-wracking when you don't understand something in class and you have to reach out and say, "I don't get it." So, a lot of us um here at the high school will help them work on that piece for self- advocacy. Um they have a plethora of opportunities to ask for help, not
030just from faculty and staff, but they have their administrators, they have their admin assistants, we have the awesome school counseling team. So there's plenty of help and it's okay to ask for help when you need it. So the other thing that's a little different here at the high school is we use a learning management system called Canvas. And what it gives us as teachers is the opportunity to put all of our stuff out there into the internet to help students and support students in their learning. So some teachers use Canvas as a means for like they do little self quizzes. Some teachers will just post content on there, but all of our assignments and our grading initially goes into Canvas and then it syncs over to our grading system. So, it's really helpful. A lot
031of kids say they really like it because if they're absent, they can go on to Canvas and see what did I miss and they don't feel as stressed out when they come back. So, it's really nice. Um, speaking of our grading, we have a firm belief at the high school that grading is feedback. It helps the kids and the teachers see where they are in their learning journey. And I think it's really helpful and I can speak from personal experience that, you know, we need to know where our kids are because we need to know how are we going to move forward? Are we going to move forward? Maybe we need to take some time to review some concepts. So these little formative checkpoints, as I call them, to my students are really great way
032for the teachers to see where they are. Um, so I really will stress a lot with my students, don't just copy the person next to you. I want to see what you know because that's going to drive what I do as a teacher. So this is something that, you know, we really focus on a lot with freshmen simply because formatives do count differently when you get to high school compared to what they were in middle school. So it's a little different. So our grading is traditional grading. So you can see right there um on the right hand side we have our ABCDF F and obviously you know the higher the better but I I tell the kids you know make sure that you kind of think about what you want to accomplish. You know if
033you want to earn a B in science because that's the class that you struggle with come talk to me and we'll make it happen. So I think it's really important that you know the kids kind of think about how can I own this? How can I make this experience my own? and how can I make sure that I'm getting what I need? Beautiful. I'm going to pass this over to Caroline. Here we go. >> My name is Caroline Powley. I'm a senior here. And the academic support is something that I wish I had utilized a lot sooner. Um, we have peer tutors in every commons, almost every period, which is super helpful. and peer tutors are like the only reason I pass chemistry. So, I would utilize those as soon as possible. Um, and in
034addition to our regular study halls, which freshmen are automatically given in their schedules, there's assisted study halls to get more of an individualized one-on-one support from teachers that's more focused on their education. Um, there's a homework club Mondays through Thursdays after school. Um, and it's for students who want a supportive place to get their work done that might be easier than being at home if it's loud or you get work done better at school. I do. Um, we have a library that's open before school, after school, um, every day. And Mr. G is in the library tonight that you can ask questions or just check it out. Really cool library. And the maker space is a place to get help with school projects and big projects. And it's a really fun place to be. Recommend.
035And teachers are always open to academic support in your free period during lunch study halls after school before school. Everyone's willing guys. Awesome. >> Thank you, Caroline. And now Miss Neie is going to talk to you about the Rise Center. >> Okay. Flip over. So this is sort of a um an iteration of a program that was started last year and so we are trying to figure out additional ways to support students. So you may have heard about MTSS through some of your other schools. It stands for multi-tered systems of support and basically that is making sure that all students whether you are just a gened student who needs a little additional help with either academics or a social emotional or an executive functioning which is like organizing your binder and keeping track of your
036assignments and all those sorts of things. where is a place where all of that can happen. And so we've created the Rise Center and um it is staffed by a certified teacher. Her name is Amanda Hiler. And so this you can see up here some of the different things, executive functioning support, academic support, social emotional or behavioral support, some problem solving, anxiety. It is a place that is open all day long. And so kids throughout the day can either drop in for a quick touch point of just like, hey, can I get some help on this? or they can have some schedule time to come in throughout the week to help with maybe some organization or some content help. So, um the Rice Center is a great support. I actually was just talking to a
037student today who said the Rice support is a reason why she's passing a number of her classes and it's been a huge help for her and that was unsolicited. She just shared that before this presentation. So, it's great and I hope that your kids all take advantage of it. Additionally, Miss Hiler is willing to pop into the classrooms to offer kind of group lessons on some of these skills that universally all students may need help with as they're navigating entering the high school world. So, if you hear of the Rise Center, that's where it is. It's it's right as you're coming into the main stairway. Um, it's a large classroom just to the right over by the counseling office and it's open all day long. I'm back. Um so freshman seminar is another support that
038we offer to all freshmen. It's um it's a one quarter class that students take. Um it's past fail. They get one credit for it. Um and it's really like how to be a high school student. And we mean that in two different ways. It's there's some of the reinforcement of some skills. Um we talk about organization skills, note-taking skills, um those kinds of things. And then if we notice that students need more help, we can now rely on the Rise Center. like we partner with them. Um but it's also how to be a student in EHS. So we have guest speakers every week. They meet principal, they meet school counselors, they meet school social workers, they meet people from SST and it's really like we looked at our old we talked to some of our
039upper classmen and there were we always hear like I wish I knew this sooner. So, we're trying to introduce them to all of the stuff that they have available to them in their freshman year so that even if they don't think they need it right now, they might like know, I know there's something and then they know they can go to their school counselor and get more information because they've they've heard it somewhere. Um, and so it's a program that's been working really well for our freshman and we're excited to keep doing it. And I'm back. So, I'm going to talk a little bit about registering for your high school courses next year. I talked about this in detail with the students this morning, and we're not going to go through the step step bystep
040process with all of you, but I do want to give an overview of some of what they heard this morning and some of what um you as um caretakers can um help your students and guide your students as they're making their choices and and planning through all four years, not just for next year. So course registration is that time frame where they are going your students are going into ALMA and they are actually um choosing courses on a course request form that will publish to them next week when they open that up. um they're choosing core courses based on the recommendations from the CMS teachers and those recommendations are based on their academic performance any kind of standardized test scores their work ethic the knowledge of the student and how the knowledge from the teacher
041sorry um of the student in the classroom but also the teachers at CMS have worked with the teachers at EHS so that they know and understand different pieces and parts of all of our classes whether it's levels or whether it's topics and so they know um what to expect from the classes and they take all of that into consideration as they make those recommendations for your students. Course registration is also the time when your um students get to choose electives. You can see this little note at the bottom. If you are here and you have a student who is not currently at CMS, but is at another school and is planning to come to EHS next year, I'm going to personalize a little bit of this for you at the end of the um at
042the end of the program. So, please don't think that um you're being left out. All of this is going to apply to your students as well. So, the program of studies, we have been working really hard to get this up and running and we hope that it will be on the website starting um at the end of the day tomorrow so that you'll be able to look into the program of studies, see all of the course offerings and descriptions that exit high school has, including graduation requirements and also um a nice um a nice couple of pages around course level descriptions. This is what a typical freshman um schedule looks like. So, we have a seven period day. We do have a modified schedule. So, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, students only go to half their
043classes, but as a total, they do have seven periods that they are filling. For freshmen, the freshman English, math, biology, and world history are required classes. So the only choice that they're making and again based on a teacher recommendation is the level of those courses. All freshmen are required to take PE9. The art and which is a semester course. The art, music, and drama that you see on the other side of PE9 is required for graduation. Students do not have to take that as an incoming nth grader. They can take that any year through the four years. But what we find is that a lot of freshmen like to take that and have that be in the opposite semester from their PE class. So that works out really well. Then there's a sixth uh a
044sixth block that they would need to fill. A lot of students will fill that with a world language class, but that certainly can be another elective as well. Every student does not take world language. And then you'll see at the end then there is another whole period that will be mostly a study hall. So one quarter during the year will be the freshman seminar that um Beth just spoke about. It could be any quarter during the year because what the topics are in the class is not something that they have to know immediately in the first quarter. They could have it quarter 1, quarter two, quarter three or quarter four. And then the other three quarters they would have a study hall. We do have three um three levels of courses. Um I do have
045more information about um specifics within subject areas of how these different levels kind of play out for you. Um that is in the library. So when you have that opportunity to go in and talk with our learning area leaders in the library, you're welcome to grab one of those. It is also posted on the website already. So that is something that you can look at um at any time if you want to dig into the details of the differences. But the biggest differences are is that as you increase in level [snorts] from academic to college prep to honors, the pace of those courses is going to get faster and faster. The expectations of the ability for your student to be independent and work independent and do independent work outside of class time is going to
046increase. So, those are sort of just some general differences between the levels, but for the specifics, we do have a um a three-page um outline of what that means within math, science, English, and social studies. So, I'm going to put a plugin for the teacher recommendations. I know that I already said that the teachers know your students really well and that they know our courses really well. I can also tell you from years of doing this and watching what students take that our CMS teachers do a phenomenal job of knowing exactly where your kids belong and they get here and they take those courses and they're successful. And our ultimate goal is that we want your students to come into our building. We want them to transition successfully. We want this to be a great
047place for them and for them to have a nice pathway for whatever they choose after high school. So I think it's really important for them to kind of listen to um what their teachers are recommending and and consider that in the whole selection process. So if you have to follow a teacher recommendation, a lot of times the question comes up with well what if my student is recommended for let's say CP and I don't want them to be in CP for all four years. We don't track students into one level. They are challenging themselves. They are we hope that they're growing through all four years. So the levels can change from year to year. It's not that once you are blocked into a CP class, you are always in a CP class. There could be
048a year or subject area that you are stronger or weaker in that you might need to go up or down. And that's okay. It can change from year to year. So one of the big differences that I shared with the kids earlier um today is that the way you make it through high school is earning credits. So our fullear classes are worth four credits. Our semester classes are worth two credits. And our quarter classes like freshman seminar, those are worth one credit. They are trying to get to a total of 84 credits. So 21 credits a year is going to get them to 84. 21 credits is taking the um required courses that they need to take each year plus maybe one elective or maybe a PE class, something like that. So, it's not something
049that isn't um that isn't attainable. It's actually pretty easy to do if they are going through and choosing the minimum number of courses that they have to take each year. For them to become a sophomore, they need to earn a minimum of 17 credits. So, as I told the kids this morning, if they pass math, science, English, social studies, and freshman seminar, that adds up to 17 credits. And I think I'm turning it back to our principal to talk about our vision at Exit High School. We're almost done. You guys are doing a great job. Thanks for hanging tight. So, just a little bit about our vision. If you've been in the SAU for a while, this is um this is not an exit high school. This is the whole SAU. This is the vision
050of a graduate. So, you may have seen this previously, but the part that I really like is the second sentence that talks about that we're reciprocal members. And so what we're really trying to do is help our students turn into community members and citizens that give and take. And that's what part of being in the community is. And so we are trying to set up opportunities for kids to receive the help they need, but also ways to contribute to their community and help it be stronger and to thrive. So that's just something I wanted to highlight. Our commitments. So some things that we believe in is we believe in building systems that support and protect all learners. That we challenge ourselves and take healthy risks. We build confidence through new experiences. We create self a
051safe, welcoming and supportive community. And what I personally would like to do and encourage all students is to make sure that you get involved and meet new friends. Join a club, a team, an activity, attend the school events, some of our dances, try courses that stretch and grow you. Like that's what it's all about. So these are the last four years in public education. High school is such a special time and we hope that your kids jump in and join all of the things that we offer and make some new friends and and build some memories. So, these are some pictures from this year of different clubs and activities and events that some of our students are in. So, just remember it goes by quickly. I have um a current sophomore here and I have
052an incoming freshman myself. So, those are the conversations that I'm having with my students. Let's let's do it. Make the most of it and have some fun. So, what's next? We're going to talk about time to to move on and check out the school. Okay, we have a choose your own adventure style. Um, so we have five different groups. So, on your way in, if you did receive a map, it is probably a different color than maybe the people near you. So, five different colors. Those are our tour leaders. So, in a moment, I'm going to have them go out to the lobby where we came in, and they will be there with their color. So, if you would like to have a guided tour, yes, they are excellent, excellent resources for you guys. Um,
053if you would like to meet any of our faculty, ask questions, uh, we have some people in the library that you can visit. So the tour guides will give you an opportunity for that. And then we also have student services faculty will be across from the library. And then uh if you are a parent or family of a student who's enrolling and not currently at CMS, we're going to ask that you hang back for a moment and Mrs. Nukem is going to invite you to come down to the front and she has some information for you. And then we also have our clubs and activities and some snacks in the cafeteria. So, our tour guides are waiting outside if you would like to have a little tour of the high school. Um, they have some
054stops and places of interest for you. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. Have a good