On Monday, December 18th, the 1st, 2nd & 3rd graders took the audience for a ride on the Polar Express for their Christmas concert. Afterward, there were cookies and hot chocolate in the cafeteria with a visit from Santa himself!
Hay Springs High School Students competed in the Fall Finance Challenge!
The Finance Challenge is sponsored by the Nebraska Council on Economic Education. The challenge promotes budgeting and general financial literacy in a competitive environment.
We had two teams that competed in the Fall Finance challenge which is a computerized test where students compete against other Nebraska teams. Hay Springs teams competed against 385 other high school teams. Our Accounting 1 team which was comprised of Kaelob Marx, Mattie Johnson, Erin Kadlecek and Payton Schoenhals placed second place winning $20 each. Our second team Personal Finance 1 was comprised of Sam Kearns, Addie Regier, and Thomas Scherbarth and they ranked 92nd in the High School Division.
Students will also compete in the Spring competition in late March. If the students are in the top five in the region they will advance to the regional competition and then on to the National Competition.
The Hawk Store will be at the Santa Soup Cook off with new apparel. We will have kid’s hoodies and t-shirts available in the colors pink and gray. For adults we have hoodies, long sleeve t-shirts, and short sleeve t-shirts available in Pink, Dark Green, and Dark Heather. We also will have available for adults ¼ zip jackets available in Dark Green, Yellow, and White.
Price list for the new apparel is as follows:
| Item | Sizes | Price |
| Youth T- shirts | Youth Small thru Youth Large | $10 |
| Youth Hoodies | Youth Small thru Youth Large | $20 |
| Adult T-shirts | Small thru X-Large | $10 |
| Adult T-shirts | 2 X-Large and 3 X-Large | $13 |
| Adult Long Sleeve T-shirts | Small thru X-Large | $15 |
| Adult Long Sleeve T-shirts | 2 X-Large and 3 X-Large | $18 |
| Adult Hooded Sweatshirt | Small thru X-Large | $25 |
| Adult Hooded Sweatshirt | 2 X-Large and 3 X-Large | $28 |
| Adult ¼ zip Jacket | Small thru X-Large | $32 |
| Adult ¼ zip Jacket | 2 X-Large and 3 X-Large | $35 |
In addition, we will also have Hawks Playoff shirts, cups, hats, headbands, and few other clearance items.
The football t-shirts for the 2017 season can still be ordered. Let’s try to have those orders in by the end of the week. That way we can guarantee to have them by Christmas time. Feel free to shoot Coach Borm an email or text if that is easier for you and he can get your order in.
Kindergarten enjoyed an afternoon at the Hay Springs museum. Their favorite parts were sitting in the old desks and dancing to music on a record player! They are all glad we live in the present and not the past.
First Grade is working on a Social Studies unit about Life Long Ago. We conducted interviews of family members to find out what life was like long (or longer) ago. We learned from our interviews many things such as how some people rode horses to school longer ago. We were fortunate to have a pony visit us this week! Goliath quickly made friends with everyone in our class and also made a visit to the PreK class as well. It was a great experience and we now have many horse enthusiasts! Thank you to the Gaswick family for sharing Goliath with us.
The annual Hay Springs Public School Veteran’s Day Program took place on November 9th, 2017 in the High School Auditorium. Thank you to our Veterans and all those who attended! Here is a recording of this event:
Hay Springs High School One Act Team
Presents:
We Loathe Our Customers
A Comedy
by Bradley Walton
Show times:
November 16, 2017 3:00 PM
November 20, 2017 7:00 PM
Hay Springs High School Auditorium
Free Will Donation
Produced by special arrangement with Brooklyn Publishers, LLC
External Visitation Team
Exit Report
Hay Springs Public Schools
October 29-30, 2017
The external visitation team began their exit report with a brief summary of the “Continuous Improvement in Nebraska Schools” process. Which includes a review of the school profile which is a document that provides a concise collection of information, in chart and graph form, that includes:
This information was provided in a Power Point presentation presented by Mr. Lechtenberg and Mrs. Marx at our Sunday evening meeting with the external visitation team, our school Improvement and our school’s committee chairpersons. We also provided a school profile in written format as part of our evidence over the past five years on the Hay Springs website link.
The next step in the improvement process involves utilizing the profile information in the following steps to identify the district goals.
These determined goals serve as targets for the remainder of the improvement cycle and were established in 2012 to improve writing proficiency across the curriculum and as the continuous improve process took place in 2016 to our goal was changed to demonstrate an increase Math proficiency across the curriculum.
Once goals have been determined the next step in the process is the development of an improvement plan. The Action Plan for Improvement, serves as a guide in Implementing strategies for continuous improvement and covers a period of one to three years. The action plan helps all staff implement strategies to improve student learning and includes appropriate staff development, teaching strategies, and staff and student accountability. The implementation process involves an entire set of significant actions by ALL staff, over a period of time, resulting in Improved Student Performance. Implementation is monitored closely by annual data analysis by administrative staff and school improvement committees to provide assistance and support as needed. The final step in the school improvement process includes a visitation by a team of external representatives to review progress and provide written recommendations to the district at least once every five years.
The purpose of the external team visitation is three fold.
In the oral exit report on the afternoon of October 30th the external team presented the staff with the following general process commendations:
The team’s general process recommendations included:
Writing goals commendations:
Writing recommendations:
Math goal commendations:
Math recommendations:
Overall commendations included:
The external visitation team left us with the recommendations for our next steps to include:
It was a very rewarding day and a thank you goes from the visitation team, our school visitation team, the staff and the administrative team to all who played a role in this process over the past five years and in particular those involved in the visitation process on October 30th.
“Empower Students to Achieve Lifelong Success”
Dear K-6th grade parents,
I am writing to inform you of a potentially new after school program that Hay Springs School may be offering for our struggling elementary and middle school students. As you know the school already provides a mandatory Friday school program for our struggling 7th -12th grade students. What we are considering is:
As an administrative team we are interested in your level of interest in this program. Please stop by the office yet today or call the office next week if your child would utilize this opportunity.
Sincerely,
Russell Lechtenberg
Superintendent/Principal
Hay Springs Public School
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