Message to Families

Beloved Community,

One more week of school left to go! This is always an exciting time in a high school. The end of the school year brings celebrations, events and graduation. This Wednesday, we held our annual Patriot Assembly, where seniors were honored in areas of the arts, scholarship, athletics, bilingual achievement and the Patriot awards. Our seniors were honored throughout the assembly for demonstrating what it means to be honorable, skillful, thinking, global citizens.

Juniors held their Junior Breakfast this morning and would like to thank those who made the breakfast possible: the wonderful parents and guardians who responded so quickly and generously to the request for the breakfast fare (it was delicious!), Birds Connect Seattle who kindly offered the use of their table ware, the Lake City Lions who stepped in to make the breakfast happen by donating funds for the venue, and the Class of 2023 officers who worked hard to plan and manage the event. The juniors had a fantastic time!

In this Friday message, we are sharing the new community expectation we will begin with in the fall regarding cell phone use in school. We look forward to developing a strong partnership with families and students on this matter so critical to student health and well-being. We begin this message with a focus on student health, vaping and fentanyl use, and its impacts on students.

Vaping and Fentanyl

Sadly, our community is seeing a rise in fentanyl and heroin laced vape products. We don’t want to lose our students to overdoses that occur while vaping. Visit the Teens Health website that has critical information for families as they have conversations about the danger of vaping both in terms of health and the risk of overdosing.

Distraction Free School

Thank you to all who participated in the distraction free / mobile device policy refresher committee. Your engagement together with student voice has helped us create a new community expectation and distraction free policy for the 2023-2024 academic school year.

Next school year, starting in the fall of 2023, students will be expected to keep phones and headphones away throughout the academic day. This policy will be upheld throughout the school day and as part of this policy, we will ask all families and students to sign a distraction free agreement, which includes expectations for phone usage throughout the school day. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for our distraction free policy, please complete the distraction free policy survey.

Early Dismissal on Friday, June 30th

Students will be dismissed one hour early next Friday, June 30th at 2:40pm for the last day of school. We will follow a special schedule that day. Please go to the Last Day of School Special Schedule page on our website for specific bell times.

For the 23-24 school year, Metro will NOT bring cards to school for distribution

Students will have to register for their own ORCA cards. They should do so as soon as possible (in order to have them for the next school year) however, there is no time limit to apply. They will need to do the following:
1). Visit the MyOrca website.
2). Sign in/Sign up for an account
3). Upload their age verification to show that they qualify for the card.
Metro will mail the student’s card directly to their homes.

Featured Volunteer Opportunities

Graduation Reception Tuesday June 27th 4:00 – 8:00 – Set up starting at 4:00pm, cut cake, plate and put out fruit and cookies, get drinks ready, serve cake and drinks, clean up. Sign up to work all or part of the event or email Katie Fleming nhcoconnections@gmail.com.

Teen Health Center Sports Physicals

Sports physicals for fall sports are available in the NHHS Teen Health Center. Students should sign up now; space will be limited come Fall.

For Seniors

The last day of school for seniors is today, Friday, June 23rd. Seniors spent this week completing their Senior Check-Out Sheet in order to exchange it for their graduation tickets. Seniors receive up to 6 tickets for our graduation ceremony on Tuesday, June 27th at 5:00pm. All seniors must attend graduation rehearsal on Tuesday, June 27th at 10:00am in order to participate in the ceremony. Email about Commencement went out to families and students this past week. Information is also available on the For Seniors – Class of 2023 webpage. 

Finals Week Schedule for Semester 2

Semester 2 finals schedule is available on the Nathan Hale website calendar. For grades 9 through 11 they will be held on Tuesday, June 27th through Thursday, June 29th. Go to our calendar to see the specific bell times for those days.

Summer officially started this past Wednesday and forecasts are for sunny weather for the rest of this month! We’re looking forward to a great final week of school with our 9th through 11th grade students!

With love,

William Jackson, Ed.D. (he, him)
Principal