Superintendent's Corner: January
Launch the media gallery 1 playerWe hope that everyone had a great Christmas break and that you are ready to return to school. We are excited about the spring semester and about some of the activities and events going on. We have worked hard the first semester to find more ways to better serve our students and enhance their educational experience.
For example, one program we are excited about adding is 4-H. For many, 4-H is tied to agricultural purposes. For sure the program does have a strong relationship with ag-based competitions. Through the 4-H program, students can show animals and they can participate in the multitude of judging events, speaking competitions, and the multitude of additional agricultural-based events that go along with 4-H membership. But 4-H is much more than just agricultural programs. Through organizational membership, students can participate in culinary competitions, robotics competitions, and science competitions. Students also learn the value of serving their local community by being involved in community service-based projects. Students of all ages can participate in the program as we not only will be offering 4-H but also will be including the Clover Buds program for our younger students ages 5-8. The first meeting is scheduled for Monday, Jan. 9th. If you are interested in enrolling your child, please see the Friend School Website at friend.12.ok.us for details. Let us know if you have questions.
So that we can have a better understanding of what our students are interested in, we have reached out to them in a couple of ways. We have created a Superintendent’s Cabinet. The Cabinet consists of a male and female from each grade in grades 4-8. The purpose of the Cabinet is to help us see things from the student’s perspective. They are to let us know what they like and what they don't like about their school. They also are to serve as representatives of their classmates by letting us know what programs their peers are saying they would like to have. Along with the Cabinet, we asked all students in 4th-8th grade to complete a survey in which they were asked to rate their interest in 10 different programs. Program options included athletic choices, fine art choices, vocational options, and STEM-related choices. Based on the results of this survey we have begun to look at how we can best implement several programs the students selected. As a result of the student survey, we have added an Esports program for our school. Esports are competitions through video games. We have just kicked the program off and we have some details to learn and work through but we are excited about adding it to our school offerings! For information regarding the Esports program, please let us know. Also please let us know if you would like to see a specific program included at our school. We can’t promise that every request will be granted, but we do promise to consider all options!
Athletic programs often play a large part when looking at school program choices especially for students when they get a little older. We currently offer boys and girls basketball, boys and girls track and cross county, and softball for our girls along with baseball for our boys. We would certainly consider adding more programs if we have enough people who are interested and we can make it work with the facilities we have and the costs are reasonable. Not only do we just want to have programs, but we want to have quality programs as well. We are currently working with our coaching staff to create ideas that will improve the overall quality of our athletic programs which will enhance the experiences our students have with our school.
We want to be a school that provides a positive experience for our students, parents, and our community. We want to ensure that our students receive a quality education and that they learn life-long skills encouraging them to be responsible hard working folks with high character. Please let us know if you have ideas on how we can better provide services for our students. The future is bright for Friend Public School and we look forward to working with you to meet our goal of having the “Best Small School in Oklahoma!”