HH News 2009-10 >
Principal's Messages
Announcement from Principal Dave Tremaine on Associate Principal Hire
Greetings Hayfield Secondary Community, I hope everyone is enjoying the warm summer months. As your new principal it gives me great pleasure to announce our first official administrative hire under my leadership.Please join me in welcoming Ms. Pamela Ellison Brumfield to Hayfield Secondary who will be serving as our new Associate Principal. Pamela officially begins work as a Hayfield Hawk on Monday, July 26 and brings a wealth of valuable experience to us at both the middle and high school level. Prior to joining the Hayfield team, Pamela served as an assistant principal at Annandale High School. In addition, she has served as an assistant principal at Walt Whitman Middle School. Pamela also has over ten years of middle school teaching experience under her belt including eight at Irving Middle School. She brings a positive, team building philosophy to us and I am quite sure you will enjoy meeting her. I know that our students will respond well to Pamela’s leadership style. Please join me in welcoming Pamela. Dave Tremaine HSS Principal david.tremaine@fcps.edu |
A Farewell from Dr. Oehrlein - April 2010
Dear Hayfield Secondary Families, Faculty and Staff: Each spring I publish via the PTSA's Hayfield Happenings newsletter names of soon to be Hayfield Secondary retirees. As we plan for the close of this school year and begin preparations for the next, I share with you that my name will accompany those that are departing Hayfield Secondary in late June. While at Hayfield, I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work alongside some of the most talented educators who have also taught me a few things along the way. And, a principal certainly could not have wished for a more supportive community than I have had the pleasure of serving. Despite my comfort and support received in my current position, after 23 years in FCPS, the last six as Hayfield’s principal, there is still much outside of FCPS in which I wish to become involved and contribute to in order to make a positive difference. When I was assigned to Hayfield Secondary in June 2004, after having been the Principal of Irving Middle School, I entered an overcrowded post-renovation building without ceiling tiles, with 4060 students enrolled and 57 trailers filling the Hayfield landscape. Since then, together we have accomplished much including an exponential growth of lesson-embedded educational technology, more effective instructional planning based on data analysis, two boundary change transitions with the opening of a new school within our boundary, leading to a 45 percent student population adjustment, a myriad of educational paradigm shifts, a few reality-check events and budget reduction impacts that our community has worked through positively and, I believe, a growth in traditional Hawk pride. Of course, I will miss most those who have been so supportive in helping lead our school and the students, who despite whatever may have landed on my desk overnight, been sent to my email inbox, or whatever message has been left on the phone, made the challenges of the principalship worth enduring. I have been assured that the principal selection process will be thorough and expeditious so that our students, staff, and Hayfield’s community have continuity during this transition. All the best to you in your future travels as I continue on mine, Go Hawks! Bill Oehrlein HSS Principal |
Principal's Message - Spring 2010
Dear Hayfield Secondary
Families: This is my favorite time of year as the buzz of spring, the upcoming Prom, Graduation, and middle school team activities energize students and staff alike. Student activities are in full swing. I recently attended the middle school musical, Dear Edwina, and thoroughly enjoyed the student performances. The two blizzards and time lost from instruction have created challenges to the instructional continuity of classroom instruction and to our upcoming testing season. April 12 is now a “BLUE” school day; previously a teacher workday. The last day of school is now June 25, although it is not clear as of yet, whether that will be a full or partial day. Our Advanced Placement exams will occur as previously announced May 3-14. Middle school SOL exams will also remain unchanged; however, high school SOL course testing will be delayed until a testing window of June 1 – 18. Senior final exams, activities, and the Graduation date will remain unchanged. Underclass exams are being scheduled at this time. More information will be forthcoming. At the time of this letter’s writing, the budget outlook remains quite murky, even as we begin our planning for next year, 2010-2011. I anticipate more reductions to personnel resources and supply materials, but ever-changing specifics are a planning reality for now. We are projected to remain about the same size in middle school with a slight increase in our high school student population. I recommend that parents periodically review the FCPS website with the latest budget information, http://www.fcps.edu/news/fy2011.htm Study hint: Knowledge of geography is woven into a variety of course curricula critical to meeting SOL requirements. It is a topic that is fun for some and tedious for others. But one thing is certain, many of the world’s countries seem to be redrawing boundaries and their names do not always remain the same. Geography and understanding of geographic relationships plays a key role in many of our course objectives. Map memorization is tough, but can be made easier when maps are broken into smaller parts e.g., focus on one continent at a time. Suggest that your teen list the countries the same way each time, such as east to west or along a major river. There are several geography games or card sets that can be taken on planes and in cars while traveling. Using blank maps for practice tests is a good self-assessment of learned material. Best wishes for an enjoyable spring break. Third quarter report cards will be mailed home on Monday, April 19. William L. Oehrlein, Ph.D. Principal william.oehrlein@fcps.edu |
Principal's Message - Fall 2009
Dear Hayfield Secondary Families:
As fall gets underway,
we will soon begin our academic achievement celebrations including the
first quarter Honor Roll for high school students and the Honor
breakfasts for middle school teams. I’m very proud
to announce that Hayfield has been notified that two of its students
are currently 2010 National Merit Semi-finalist Scholars, two more are
National Merit Commended Scholars, and yet another achieved National
Hispanic Recognition Scholar status based on prior
PSAT scores. We will celebrate these students at the fall Academic
Awards Program and again at the Senior Awards ceremony later in the
spring. At the time of this writing, we were just concluding the
administration of the Princeton Review (composed of released
PSAT questions) for our ninth-grade students and the PSAT for our tenth
and eleventh-grade students, all in preparation for students who will
take their SAT exams in the spring of their junior year or fall of
their senior year. Students should discuss with
their counselor whether the SAT, ACT, or both exams are appropriate for
their post-Hayfield plans. Contact your child’s counselor for
additional information on these options.
This coming weekend,
the Auto Technology classes will be teaming with our neighbors at the
Hayfield Shopping Center to show-off some pretty neat “wheels.” You
may want to stop by; or, if you are into College
research/selection mode with your student, I recommend you attend the
FCPS College Night which we are hosting on Monday, October 19, starting
at 7 p.m. Over 400 colleges and universities will be represented here
and there will be three college-prep workshops
offered.
If you have not seen the alumni walk located between the football stands and the concession stand, you really should take the walk.
Organized by the Hayfield Athletic Boosters, the alumni walk
currently has many bricks inscribed with past Hayfield alumni and
faculty/staff. If interested, I encourage you to contact the Athletic
Boosters via their webpage at www.HayfieldHawks.com.
A big thank you in advance
goes out to all those students, parents, and staff who will organize
and support next week’s Homecoming festivities. The week-long
celebratory activities, enjoyed by
faculty, students, staff, and community will include hallway
decorations, the traditional pep rally, a parade through the Hayfield
community, a hard-to-be-fought football game against Stuart High
School, and the traditional Homecoming Dance. All of this will
be the backdrop as we welcome our new Director of Student Activities
(DSA), Mr. E.W. Nowland, current DSA of Stuart High School, effective
Monday, October 26. Mr. Steve Kewer will be officially retired on
November 1. Mr. Nowland brings six years of experience
as a sitting FCPS DSA, as well as, experience as a DSA in the Virginia
High School League (VHSL) National District (to which we were assigned
this school year). Please welcome him when you get the chance.
It’s mid-fall again,
so please mark your calendars for the upcoming Touching Base
five-minute mini-conferences scheduled for the morning of Wednesday,
November 11. We will follow the same format as last year
providing opportunities for parents to touch base with
teachers. Mini-conferences will start at 7:30 a.m. in the field house
and middle-school lecture hall. Students will have a shortened day
with bus pick-up times scheduled exactly four hours later
coinciding with the start of school, scheduled at 11:20 a.m.
All the best to you and your families, Go Hawks!
William L. Oehrlein, Ph.D.
Principal william.oehrlein@fcps.edu |
Principal's Message - Back to School 2009
Dear Hayfield Secondary
Families: Welcome to the 2009-10 school year! We began with approximately 910 middle and 1,857 high school students enrolled, opening school with seven middle-school teams and three high-school subschools: Madison Hall (A-F), Lafayette Hall (G-M), and Washington Hall (N-Z). Two changes: Ms. Tracey Blaine is the Madison Hall subschool principal and Ms. Terri Breyman is the Jefferson Hall subschool principal. Student counselor assignments will remain the same. Our primary instructional initiatives will be furthering of eCart implementation across the middle school four-core and selected high school courses, as well as, “AVIDizing” selected instructional programs. We will also continue to refine our use of Blackboard, Kagan, Turning Point, and begin the ASCA counseling model. Our School Improvement Plan this year will be focused on closing the achievement gap that exists in some of our NCLB-AYP student population subgroups in math and English, as well as strengthening our school-wide Positive Behavior Strategies. In August, I had the pleasure of mailing 295 Perfect SOL certificates to students to recognize their achievements in content knowledge acquisition this past year. Once again, our College Board Advanced Placement (AP) students have done very well. AP course offerings are our signature instructional program. In spring 2009, the percentage of exams on which a score of 3 or higher was obtained (on a scale of 1 – 5) remained steady at 56 percent; however, we administered 73 more exams than in spring of 2008. Hayfield Career and Technical Education (CTE) course teachers completed an exhausting central audit of their respective programs this past July. The technical education, family and consumer sciences, and cosmetology programs were each rated as “exemplary” in their implementation of instructional rigor, technology, and post-course opportunities. Many of our CTE courses also offer direct post-course career pathways and professional certifications and should be considered when reviewing course elective options for your child. In other developments, our baseline personnel budget has been reduced by an assistant principal, two administrative assistants, and two custodial positions, and the pupil-teacher ratio allocation of teacher staffing was increased by 0.5 students per class for this year. However, our instructional funds look adequate due to some “belt-tightening” by department chairs last year. We have a new Kiss and Ride procedure in the afternoon. Please pull all the way up in double rows to the yellow-folding sign outside the middle school lecture hall. We will have extra staff on hand as we attempt to keep school traffic out of the thru-lanes on Old Telegraph Road. In the morning, please pull all the way up, single file, to the yellow folding sign in the middle traffic circle. I recommend glancing at our home page, www.fcps.edu/HayfieldSS/, to note upcoming events, to obtain staff email addresses, and to gather other pertinent information throughout the year. All the best to you and your families as you enjoy the remaining summer days. Go Hawks! William L. Oehrlein, Ph.D. Principal |
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