By MICHELLE IRWIN
In February, Henry High School opened its first Learning Lab of cohorted students to attend school while attending classes on Zoom. Students in our first Learning Lab are able to attend classes and receive additional support from a visiting teacher. We are hoping to open additional labs as soon as we are able to staff them with visiting teachers.
Some of our students are also participating in Classroom Labs during the asynchronous time with one of their teachers. We are excited to be able to engage our students with in-person support during this time.
As a district, we are also working towards reopening of our schools for Phase 2. There are many factors to reopen which include the utmost safety conditions, agreements between our district and our employee unions and implementation of PPE equipment at every school. All school principals will share information as soon as we learn about our next steps.
Even though we are doing online learning and we haven’t been able to engage with our students on campus, several of our students are being acknowledged for their dedication to our community and hard work with their academics. I’m very proud of these Henry Patriots:
CyberPatriot Team under the direction of CWO4 (Ret.) Ron Flaherty has qualified for the National Championship. Normally our team would be heading to Baltimore, Maryland in April but due to COVID-19 we will be competing locally. Qualifying for Nationals makes them a top 12 team in the nation. The below students are the team members:
- Ben Gonzalez
- Andrew Gordon
- Diego Johnson
- Darren Lee
- Spencer Magedman
- Alain Zhang
We are very grateful for the guidance of Chris Ahrens, Adaptative Physical Education teacher at Patrick Henry who wrote a plan to ensure that Henry High School is a Special Olympics Unified Champion School. A Unified Champion School promotes social inclusion through intentionally planned and implemented activities affecting systems-wide change.
With sports as the foundation, the three-component model offers a unique combination of effective activities that equip young people with tools and training to create sports, classroom and school climates of acceptance. Chris spearheaded many events to ensure our students with disabilities are able to participate in the sports they are interested in. Learn more at specialolympics.org/our-work/unified-champion-schools.
Finally, congratulations to our newest principal in the Henry Cluster, Dr. Garnica Morris who is the new principal at Lewis Middle School. Dr. Lewis has been an educator for 19 years. She has been a teacher, vice principal and principal at various schools in Texas and Georgia. Her most recent experience has been serving Los Angeles Unified as an executive director of charter schools. We welcome Dr. Morris to the Henry Cluster.
Please remember to visit the Patrick Henry website for up-to-date information about our school and district: patrickhenryhs.net.
On behalf of the Patrick Henry High School Faculty, we want to thank you for being our partner in education so we can ensure all students graduate with integrity, purpose, and options.
— Michelle Irwin is principal of Patrick Henry High School.
