A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER FROM YOUR AVON HIGH SCHOOL.

November 17, 2011

Phantom of the Opera Nov 17-19

Thanksgiving Break—No School

November 24-25

Talent Show Jan 31

Riley Dance Marathon

March 10

Prom May 19

A new student organization at Avon High School (AHS) is preparing emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospi-tality and management.

DECA enhances the preparation for college and careers by providing co-curricular programs that inte-grate into classroom instruc-tion, applying learning in the context of business, connect-ing to business and the com-munity and promoting com-petition. AHS DECA Student President, Lauren Gerulski, said, “Students will be given the opportunity to work hands-on with business ex-

www.facebook.com/avon.ahs

Stephanie Bode has been appointed as Assistant Principal at Avon High School (AHS) effective January 1, 2012. Cur-rently, Bode is the Assis-tant Principal at Browns-burg High School with

prior experience teaching at AHS. She will join the AHS team of assistant principals when Advanced Learning Center Associate Principal, Michael Swank, moves into the AHS Principal position. Her esteemed education includes a Masters in Teaching, Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in History, and Minor in Foreign Affairs through the Curry School of Education's 5 year combined MT/BA program, University of Virginia (1991) and Experiential Program for Preparing School Principals at Butler University (1995.) She also co-authored Critical Languages grants in 2006 and 2007 and was named in 1995, Indiana Teacher of the Year Semifinalist, and Avon Com-munity School Corporation Teacher of the Year in 1994. Welcome Mrs. Bode! Continued on pg 5

Avon High School 7575 East CR 150 South

Avon, Indiana 46123

317.544.5000

http://hs.avon-schools.org/ http://avon-schools.org/

Superintendent

Dr. Timothy Ogle

Principal Mr. Rick Adcock

Associate Principal

Mr. Mike Swank

Assistant Principals Mr. Jim Ludlow

Mr. Frank Meyer Mrs. Kellie Rodkey

Athletic Administrator

Mr. Brad Holsinger

Assistant Athletic Director/Dean

Mr. Lance Larkey

Editors Mrs. Jennifer Benge

Mrs. Stephanie Fortune Mrs. Lara Habig

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Yearbooks are now on sale! Yearbooks are now on sale through January 23 for $55. To order, please go to: www.YearbookOrderCenter.com or call 1-866-287-3096. No books will be sold after Janu-ary 23! If you go to the website, use order # 3010 to go directly to AHS’s order page.

The Avon High School Echo won the Hoosier Star Merit Award for last year’s paper! This is the second highest state award newspapers can win, and it means we are in the top 5 newspapers in the state (2 schools received the Hoosier Star and we were one of 3 schools that received the Merit Award). Please congratulate the Echo kids when you see them. Congratulations!

FCCLA Brings fun to Local Children Avon FCCLA members organized and worked two booths at the Hendricks County Kids Fair on Saturday, October 29th. 3000 children and adults attended this event located in the AHS field house. The event had approximately 50 booths and a couple of bounce houses. FCCLA, Family Career and Community Leaders of America, is a national student organization that has the family as the central focus. Pictured are Morgan Smith and Cherokee Cave watching over the children at the ring toss. Also pictured is Alex Sweazey and Laura Mullenix giving some advice to the children before they throw the rings.

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FCCLA Goes Trick or Treat-ing to help Local Families FCCLA members went throughout the Avon community to collect food for Project Angel on Thursday, Oc-tober 27. This is the 4th year that Avon Family, Career and Commu-nity Leaders of America has col-lected food at Halloween called Trick of Treat So Kids Can Eat. Pictured is Stephanie Manchester and Matthew Morgan with the food collected.

Penny Wars to Benefit Community The AHS World Language Honor Societies will sponsor their 3rd annual “Penny Wars” to benefit the ACSP Holiday Con-nection Project as well as additional community projects throughout the school year. The Penny Wars will take place in World Language and other volunteer classrooms from November 14th – December 5th. The classes will compete to collect the greatest number of points. Each coin will equal 1 positive point per cent and each bill/check will equal 1 negative point per cent. We hope to break our $1950 total collection from last year. Please help by collecting your coins and sending them in with your students! Students are not required to be in a world language class to participate.

The AIM program will be involved with the NEHS book drive. All freshman SRT’s are collecting books and the AIM group that collects the most will be given a pizza party by the NEHS!! Also, the next mentor luncheon for AIM will be on December 1st during all three lunches. The mentor parent group will be providing a “taco bar” luncheon. AIM GAME NIGHT has also been scheduled for January 26th! Put it on your calendar now…more information will be posted later.

Do you know an inspirational and phe-nomenal teacher who deserves some positive notoriety for the way they go about their work? 360 Education Solutions, your advocate group for educators, is excited to an-nounce this year's annual writing competition for school district employees. Please visit:

http://www.360-edu.com/resources/contests/nomination.php?cid=11040&eid=4984674

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Business Professionals of America members: Kade Diallo, Lul

Teklit, Michele Pinkins, and Chloey Loman participated in the Fall Leadership Conference on November 4th. Guest Speaker, Matt Meuleners admitted to being a geek and encouraged the 500 students to iden-tify their “geekness”. Of course, you are always uncomfortable with new situations. We need to realize our first reaction is not always the best. He encouraged the students to take a second look; to challenge themselves to look at the possibilities and to learn to connect with others, learn to reach out to others, and to be confident and to be-lieve in yourself. This was all while he was having them participate in finger jousting, linking pinkies and giving us the “cootie” cure!

BPA members were able to attend a session to learn about the new events and activities this year with their asso-ciation. The State Leadership Officers did a great job with a fashion show and making our meeting fun.

In the afternoon, the FOCUS group had the students creating outrageous moving, functional machines, learning business etiquette, and navigating their way across the Grid while overcoming various road blocks. Grid walk em-phasized the importance of taking risks, effective communication and teamwork.

FOCUS is an organization that works with Achieving Excellence through Understanding and Action. Kyle Wilken, Todd Gearman, and Matt Meuleners gave excellent presentations to the students attending. The ultimate goal is for the students to take action when you leave the conference; strategize how they can overcome challenges; learn to believe in themselves, have confidence in themselves, and learn to communicate with others.

5 periences and personal relation skills as our club continues to expand. I hope in this inaugural year, our club will lay a strong foundation for years to come.” Club advisor and business teacher, Mr. Troy Drosche, said students will lever-age their DECA experience to become academically prepared, community oriented, profession-ally responsible, experienced lead-ers. Gerulski also noted that one

of her goals this year for DECA was to impact the Avon commu-nity in a positive way. Although new to AHS, DECA was founded in 1946. The high school division includes 185,000 members in 5,000 schools. For more information, visit, www.deca.org.

DECA continued from pg 1

From left to right: President—Lauren Gerulski, Vice President—Elijah Cramer, Historian—Danielle Ed-wards, Secretary—Kelly McDaniel. Not pictured: Treas-urer - Alex Gardner, Webmaster - Taylor Yeskie, Public Relations - Brenna Jameson and Michele Pinkins

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The Avon Parent Partnership Committee (APPC), comprised of two parents from each school, facilitates communication on academic issues between parents and school administrators. At the October 4th meeting, the ACSC academic achievement was discussed and celebrated. Based on growth and achievement, both per-formance and improvement, 9 of Avon’s 11 schools were rated “exemplary” and were given an “A.” The other two, barely missing the “A” were given a “B.” Avon High School was recognized as on one the top 20 high schools in the state. An AP Scholars update was also shared; Avon is proud to have had 88 students named AP scholars, an honor for those scoring among the top possible scores in several AP exams. The ACSC was pleased to inform the group that they applied for and were awarded an Assistive Technology Grant. Finally, the proposed, and now passed balanced calendar was discussed noting a strong positive initial reaction from both teachers and parents. Details of all topics are given in the meeting minutes that are found on the APPC webpage, linked under the parent information heading on the left side of the main ACSC website. AHS's APPC representatives are Kent Mueller and Stacie Pieczko and can be reached at 544-1234 X 3011 OR hsparentpartnership@avon-schools.org

The AHS Varsity Cheerleaders competed last weekend in the Indiana State Cheerlead-ing Championship. They brought home a 10th place finish after competing against 29 other 4A teams from across the state. Congratulations Girls!!! Congratulations to Haley Priest for making the 2011 All State Cheer Team. Way to go Haley!!!!

Haley Priest

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The Avon Football Program had a very successful season in 2011 at all levels. The Varsity team finished the regular season with a record of 8-1 and won a share of the H.C.C. Conference Championship! After falling in a tough first game, the Orioles have been on an 8 game winning streak to finish the regular season. The season has in-cluded wins over defending state champion Fishers, Brownsburg at Lucas Oil Stadium, and Zionsville in a wild 2nd Half comeback. The Orioles look to accomplish more goals in the postseason! Also successful this season were the JV and Freshman teams. The JV finished with a record of 8-1 and were H.C.C. Co-Champions. The Freshmen finished 7-2 and were also close to a conference championship. Thanks to all for their support of Avon Football!

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2011 H.C.C. Fall Season Coaches of the Year

Steve Guenin (HSE-GGf), Joe Golden (HSE-BCC), Brett Comer (Brownsburg - Fb), Greg Davidson (HSE - GSoc), Phil Schmidt (Avon-BSoc), Mark Woldmoe (HSE-BTen), Scott McQueen (Avon-Vb), Brad Rosebrock (Avon-BCC), Stan Malles (Avon- BTen), and

Doug Showley (Zionsville-GCC)

Avon Wins 2011 Fall H.C.C. Sportsmanship Award

HOOSIER CROSSROADS CONFERENCE

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Mr. Tony Record is the proud recipient of two grants/awards. In September, Duke Energy Foun-dation awarded Mr. Record with a $1000 Grant for bridging technology use in the classroom for use with his mathematics curriculum. On November 4, Mr. Record will receive a donation in the amount of $1000 from the “Realizing The Dream” program which is funded by the Lily Endowment. The “Realizing The Dream” program is a consortium of the Inde-pendent Colleges of Indiana where first generation college graduates pay tribute to a high school educator who influenced them in their academic pursuits. 2008 AHS graduate Zach Tunberg who will be graduating from Trine University this spring selected Mr. Record as that educator.

End-of-Course Assessments The End-of-Course Assessments in Algebra I and English 10 will be given in December to students who have previously taken these exams, but not yet passed. This also includes students who are new to Avon from an out-of-state school. Stu-dents were given a letter about the ECA’s during the week of October 31, in their ST class. This letter explained the reme-diation information and the dates of the tests. The Algebra I ECA will be given on Monday, December 12 and the English 10 ECA will be given on Wednesday, December 14. All testing will be administered using the online format this year. If parents have questions, they may notify their son/daughter’s guidance counselor.

SRT Meetings The guidance counselors recently finished up a series of SRT meetings with the juniors and sophomores. These meetings included hands-on training and review of the online Naviance program, information about the PSAT and PLAN tests, and also information on college visits and career exploration.

PSAT/PLAN Juniors and sophomores completed the PSAT on October 12. The PSAT is a practice version of the SAT and also the Na-tional Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test for juniors. Students will receive their scores which will include valuable informa-tion from the collegeboard, during their pre-enrollment meetings in January. Sophomores just completed the PLAN test on November 15. This exam is a prep for the ACT. It also includes a comprehensive career/interest inventory component which will be included with their test scores. These will also be returned to the students during their pre-enrollment meet-ings.

Financial Aid Night Seniors and their parents are invited to attend Avon High School’s Financial Aid Night on Tuesday, January 24th at 6:30 p.m. in the AHS Auditorium.

Thomas Ratliff, from Indiana Wesleyan, will be presenting information important to families about the FAFSA (Free Appli-cation for Federal Student Aid) and answering questions about the financial aid process.

Plan on attending this very important meeting!!!!

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Students of the Month October 2011

Sponsored by Aqua Systems

Art Cody Reno Business Laurel Wilcoxson Communications Dane Van Paris English Jacob Buchanan Family and Consumer Science Allison Davis Health and Physical Education Sean Cook Math Jacob Lee Performing Arts Brianne Mason Resource Kathryn Pionke Science Jeffrey Rogier Social Studies Joel Kugelman Technology Education Clayton Hubble World Language Stephanie Hoelle

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Tickets ($10 for adults 19 & older; $8 for students 6 - 18; 5 and under are free) will be sold the evening of the per-formances only. Please enter door#33 on the Northwest side of the school.

Avon Marching Black & Gold (AMB&G) completed their sea-son last weekend at the Music for All Bands of America Grand Na-tional Championships at Lucas Oil Stadium. AMB&G placed 2nd in the Finals (by 2/10 of a point.) 92 bands participated in the 3-day event. Broken Arrow from Okla-homa placed 1st and Carmel placed 3rd. The weekend prior, AMB&G took 1st place at the Music for All Bands of America Super Regional Championship. 31 high school marching bands from Indiana, Illi-nois, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia performed in prelimi-nary competition. Although the regular marching sea-son has ended, the music hasn’t stopped! The 273 marchers will continue practicing their show as well as additional music in prepara-tion for their trip to the famous Tournament of Roses® Parade on January 2, 2012.

For more information: www.avonband.com

The Lady Orioles Volleyball Team completed their season with a remark-able record of 39-1. After winning their sectional, regional, and semi-state, the ladies competed at Ball State University in the Indiana State Volley-ball Finals. Thousands of Avon fans packed the stadium to cheer on our Lady Orioles. Although they fell be-hind Penn State High School in a close match, this volleyball team will go down in the record books and our memories forever. Congratulations to Ka-tie Higginbotham to being named to the South Senior All Star Team and for Emily Graves to being named the Junior South All Star Team. Also Congratulations to Beth Prince and Katie Higginbotham being named to 1st team All State and Madi Reeves and Ally Bexell being named 2nd Team All State. Congratulations to Beth Prince for being named Super Team Player of the YEAR!!!! Also congratulations to Katie Higginbotham and Ally Bexell for being named to the Super Team and for Madi Reeves for being named Honorable Mention Super Team. GREAT SEA-SON LADIES!

SHOP. DINE. GIVE. The Holidays are just around the corner, and everyone has those special people for whom they need to pur-chase the perfect gift! As an added bonus, while you're shopping, you can help the Avon Education Foundation (AEF)! On Sunday, December 4th, from 6-9 p.m., Metropolis is having a special night of shopping, dining and entertainment! For only $5, you can purchase a "Shop-Dine-Give" card/ticket for this exclusive shopping event. Metropolis will be closed to the general public that evening and will be open only to those individuals taking advantage of this special shopping experi-ence. Here’s how it works: Purchase a card/ticket from AEF representative: Mary @748-3276 or maryburkhart@yahoo.com) On December 4th from 6-9 p.m., you will exchange the card/ticket for a “VIP bracelet” at the Guest Service area at Metropolis Mall. The VIP bracelet will exclusively enable you to gain entrance to any store or restaurant at Metropolis for an enjoyable and special night of shopping and dining! 100% of the proceeds from sale of the “Shop-Dine-Give” card/ticket will bene-fit the Avon Education Foundation, if purchased from our AEF representative, Mary Burkhart at: 748-3276 or maryburkhart@yahoo.com. Please hurry, as tick-ets for this special promotion are only available until December 2, 2011.