Weekly Update: January 13th 2023
January 13th 2023
Dear Grinnell Newburg Board of Education, Staff, Families, and Friends:
Happy Friday! It has been a busy week for the school district as we make our way into 2023!
This past week the Board of Education hosted three hearings to address Policy, 11 11th Ave. Deed Resolution, and our regular renewal of the Instructional Levy. The Board also approved the 2023-24 school year calendar. Action was also taken to approve early retirement agreements and staffing for the 2023-24 school year. You can review board activity through our link to Board Docs found here.
2023-24 Calendar:
Thank you to all of our staff members and public for providing valuable feedback on the calendar. I would also like to thank the committee for collaborating toward this final draft. There was an amended change to the calendar that the board made following feedback. Winter break will begin at 1:00 PM on December 20, 2023 and those two days will be moved after Memorial Day 2024. You can check review the 2023-24 Calendar here.
Ahrens Park is looking for your input to create an outdoor Learning Enviornment.
You can provide Feedback through the link below:
https://ncsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bJUpmeZofl77UB8
GHS Basketball:
Grinnell Basketball highlights of the week:
New Digital Menus in Concessions:
Tech Director Mindy Kostow helped the Grinnell Athletics Booster Club install new digital Menus. Check them out!
Debate:
Updates from the 2023 IHSSA State Debate Tournament.
- All five of our Public Forum teams advanced to elimination rounds, meaning they were among the top 15 teams in the 28-team field (a 33% share). Three of our teams advanced to quarterfinals (a 37.5% share). Two of our teams advanced to semifinals (a 50% share). And one of our teams advanced to the final round (a 50% share) and emerged with a 100% victory, winning the ballots of all three judges! The 2023 State Champions in the Galligan Division of Public Forum Debate are Peter Simpson & Kiran Jones! Semifinalists were Timo Mobley-Benoist & Alexander Crites. Quarterfinalists were Eli Boyd & Liam Crites. Octofinalists were Bailey Moore & Anna Schubert. Our other PF team that advanced to octofinals was Peyton Stevenson & Peyton Stensrud,
- We had three entries in the 77-person Student Congress division. Two advanced to the 19-member Awards House. Kiran Elfenbein finished in 5th place and Kaia Chang Roper finished in 6th place, placing them among the top congressional debaters in the history of our school! Liam Leasure, who is new to debate, was an active participant in his chambers and finished in 3rd place in the D House.
- Our Lincoln-Douglas debaters persevered, learning an unfamiliar event for our school in a division that consisted of debaters from just four schools: Grinnell, Dowling Catholic, and L-D powerhouses West Des Moines Valley and Iowa City West. In this challenging 15-debater field, Grace Redington went 2-3 and Ezra Praitis-Hill went 1-4.
You can find full tournament results HERE. Click on the "Results" tab and then use the pull-down menu on the right-hand side of the webpage to find results for the different debate events.
To check out the press release, click HERE.
Build a Better Grinnell Survey:
BABG is looking to pay some folks to recruit within their personal networks to collect complete survey responses for our "Community Visions" survey. These Community Research Assistants will be paid $10 per complete survey they submit. There is also a food budget of $6.25/person recruited to take the survey - so for example, someone might take a few of their friends out for pizza or drinks and take the survey together.
If you can think of anyone who would be interested in making some money to recruit survey takers and can reach out to them with this opportunity please do! Also if you could share this information within your personal network and forward it along, it would really help.
A reminder, if you have not yet taken the Community Visions survey, I encourage you to take it yourself!
Check out this flyer for more information.
Suicide Awareness & Prevent: Support and Strategies:
The Speaker series continues for families on March 4, 2023 at Hotel Grinnell to hear two speakers related to suicide awareness and prevention. This event sponsored by American Brawn, G-N School district and Grinnell Area Mental Health Consortium. The speakers and meal are all free, but we do need reservations by Feb. 10. For more information, click HERE.
Just a reminder that there is No School on Monday January 16, 2023 as we honor Martin Luther King Jr. Have a safe weekend and we will see you next week!
Basketball Tonight at home against Newton! Go Tigers! We also wish our wrestling team good luck at their invitational in Marion tomorrow!
Please be sure to review the Virtual Back and activities calendar!
Take a look at the Virtual backpack here.
The upcoming activities calendar can be found here:
Have a safe and relaxing three day weekend!
Janet