Hard to believe Fall Break is already over a week behind us! Also hard to believe cooler weather is nowhere yet in sight....

Nevertheless, a variety of happenings to further improve our comprehensive and world-class community occurred last week including:

• The "Movement" continues to build cohesion and new relationships within the community with the launch of the "pride" campaign. I had the pleasure of being in Tim Berrier's classroom during the pride announcement and subsequent signing of the pride pledge. It was neat to hear him share his experiences at other schools and to reiterate the truly world-class colleagues, students and facility (to name only a few) that we have to be proud of. Personally, I was proud to sign the pledge yesterday and look forward to being part of continuing building a proud, premier community.
• Also related to pride, I'm again amazed at the students, faculty and staff showing school spirit today by wearing pink and our traditional navy and silver. Bobby Brush's DECA program is selling pink t-shirts and had to place several additional orders to meet the unprecedented demand.
• I was in Theresa Chavez's class today and was proud to see students using the peer review feature of Turnitin.com. Students had written persuasive letters regarding a social issue of their choosing and were now using Turnitin.com to provide each other feedback. In addition to this feature, Turnitin.com also has some automatic grading features for grammar, mechanics and similar issues thus allowing teachers to spend grading time focusing on the more human elements of ideas, content and voice.
• There was a lot happening in our community over the last few days including: The Project Grad Extreme Car Show was held at CDO this past Saturday; all proceeds benefited IRHS, CDO and AHS Project Graduation. Also on Saturday was the March the Ridge marching band festival, sponsored by Mark Hodge, featuring bands from all over the state. The PSAT was administered on Saturday. Monday, October 22, National Honor Society sponsored by Katherine Spencer held its annual induction. Over sixty IRHS students were welcomed to NHS.
• These events and other information can be found on the IRHS website. Bill Lang and his web design students have taken on the responsibility of re-designing aspects of our website. Their world-class work can be see at: http://www.amphi.com/schools/irhs.aspx
• Note also that AIMS testing for Juniors and Seniors who need to pass the AIMS, and some Juniors who are re-taking to earn an exceeds, is occurring this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday October 23-25. Thanks to Vanessa Klier and Terri Amonson for organizing this testing session!