Weekly Communication 9.10.21

Posted September 11, 2021

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9.10

Update from Principal Thomas

Dear Denver South Students and Families,

Our Raven team is growing and we are actively looking for community members to join our team. If you are looking for an opportunity to earn some money and give back to our school, we have openings for:

Substitute/Guest Teachers: We are experiencing a statewide shortage of substitute teachers. If you have a sub license, or ability to obtain one, and are interested in being a daily substitute teacher, please reach out to Beth Strickland at elizabeth_strickland@dpsk12.org. You can also visit our district site for more information.
Crossing Guards: If you are looking for just a few hours per day, consider becoming a crossing guard. You can find more information linked here.

DRESS CODE– with the return of all students to in-person, we have been balancing welcoming students back and also respectfully enforcing student’s choice of clothing worn to school. We have been enforcing dress code violations with the goal of students missings as minimal amount of class time as possible. We have, and will continue to provide shirts if students are found to be wearing clothing that shows too much skin in sensitive areas (bottoms and chest regions). We understand that students are shaped differently and are still growing during their high school years, but we need to get back to what is appropriate dress attire for school.

We are starting the process of developing a new non-binaray/non-gender specific dress code with the feedback from student leadership groups, administrators, staff, and parents/guardians over the next couple of weeks. Until we have common language and proper visual representation of what the dress code will be at South High School, you might get phone calls if your student is found in violation of current dress code policies. So we ask that parents/guardians partner with us to help enforce what students are wearing, with or many times, without parents/guardians knowledge.

We hope you have a great weekend!

You can access current and past communications, as well as other important information on our website.

Go Ravens!

We are Denver South!

Sincerely,

Bobby Thomas

Principal, South High School

Upcoming Dates for 2021-2022 School Year:

September 21 Senior College Planning Night Auditorium 6:00pm — 7:30pm

September 27-NO SCHOOL for students (staff professional development)

September 28-October 2 Homecoming Week-More information to come!

October 1 Pep Rally and Raven Round-up

October 1 Homecoming game 6:00-8:30pm

October 8 Lifetouch picture retakes 8:00am-12:00pm

Social/Emotional Screening Information & Opt Out Form

Click here for more information

Health and Safety Reminder:

Please remember to come to school each day with an approved mask (no gaiters). A well-fitting mask that goes over the mouth and nose is required for everyone to enter the building. If you are unable to provide your own mask, just ask at the front door or main office. As a reminder, all teachers will also have masks available in their classrooms. At this time, parents and families are not allowed in the building unless an appointment has been previously scheduled.

Click HERE to read the weekly message from our School Nurse

Seminar Reminder

Seminar on Wednesdays and Thursdays is MANDATORY ATTENDANCE.
- If your student needs to miss this class for what you as the parent are prioritizing, then you need to call the attendance line at 720-423-6081 (not the counselor or the teacher) and excuse the absence just like you would for any other class.
  - Mandatory assignments such as Individual Career and Academic Plan (ICAP), district and state surveys, executive functioning skills, social-emotional curriculum, and other graduation requirements will be part of Wednesday and Thursdays; accessing the student during seminar protects instructional time in other classes.
  - Seminar is a credit-bearing class. As such, if a student misses, they need to work with their Seminar teacher like they would in other classes to complete the assignments and engage.
Seminar on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays will be re-coded on student schedules as Advisement and will NOT be attendance bearing.
- Attendance is STRONGLY encouraged as this is a time for teachers to engage students with:
  - Tutoring
  - Social-emotional check ins
  - Goal setting
  - Team building!

Bell Schedule 2021-2022

Click here to access the new 2021-2022 bell schedule

Breakfast and Lunch:

DPS is offering FREE breakfast and lunch to all students for this school year. Breakfast will begin at 8am in the cafeteria.

Ravens Spirit Store

Click here to access the spirit store!

Parking

Parking at South is FREE!

All Students will register a vehicle online using the Parking Lot Application
This is for your safety. We want to make sure we know what cars are South cars.

Please see Ms. Chandler in room 115 for a student parking pass this year.

A note from your friendly school crossing guard, Amy:

My name is Amy and I’m the afternoon crossing guard at South. I have two kids at South and just started working with Andy Payne in school nurse’s office as a paraprofessional. I love South!

What I don’t love is all the traffic after school. I’m sure you don’t love it either.

If you see me out there in the middle of that crazy intersection at Gilpin & Louisiana, know that getting the kids across the street is my first priority.

After that, I try to help direct traffic out of the parking lot so that everyone can get home safely.

So please, please, please, if I direct you to make a right turn out of the lot, please only go right. It’s very unnerving to have a 2,000+ lb. vehicle try to race around me unexpectedly. I understand you’re in a hurry and I understand there is no easy way to go left out of the lot.

Helpful tip: cars traveling east and west on Louisiana have the right of way, so anybody that causes an accident by going left or straight out of the lot would be at fault.

Thanks for helping me to keep all kids at South safe,

Amy Homburger

Back to School Night

You can still access Back to School Night information!

. Click here to access the virtual Back to School Night.

PTSA

Don’t forget to join your Denver South PTSA! For $15 per year, you will have access to the latest and greatest initiatives we are pursuing to support our students from an Academic, Activities, Arts and Athletic standpoint.

We have varying levels of volunteer opportunities available from chairpersons for After Prom, I Am Denver South Campaign, to helping set up events such as our Homecoming Parade and Food Truck Festival on October 1. Help make this a GREAT year and join today.

Visit http://www.denversouthptsa.com to find out more

And, don’t forget to link up your King Soopers and Amazon accounts to benefit Denver South, last year we raised $13,000 from this effort.

Here’s how you do it:

Here are the simple steps to do this

online – please take a moment to do so today:

· Go to https://www.kingsoopers.com/topic/king-soopers-community-rewards

· Click on “enroll now”.

If you have a loyalty /rewards card and have not created an account, you will need to do so before you can enroll. If you do not have a rewards card, you will be prompted to create an alternate ID in step 3 of the account creation process.

Click the blue “Or, create your Alt ID online” to create your 10 digit code.

Again, under community rewards, search for Denver South High School PTSA or use our school code ES323.

Click “Enroll” It will show that South High is now linked to your account.

Giving Grocery

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF THE SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL GIVING GROCERY!For More information click here!