News from the Nest

Greetings DCHS Family!

I hope this newsletter finds you all well and ready to start our second 1/3 of the first 9 weeks. Our students have gotten off to a great start this year but now is the time to really pay attention to your student's attendance and grades in their classes. Below you will find links to both Skyward and Canvas. Skyward will have the most up to date attendance and Canvas will have their most accurate grades.

As we experience some very warm weather please check our athletic website calendar (link below) to keep up to date with any event changes that may occur.

We are excited for the chance to introduce our new Decatur Central Career Center (DC3) to everyone this Friday. The ribbon cutting ceremony begins at 5:00 with an open house to follow. DC3 is an awesome space where our students are learning the skills necessary for high wage trades. Come join us!

Finally, we are so glad to serve your students. We are Decatur Central High School where we are committed to being better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today because we are HAWKS, and that's what HAWKS do!

Tom Wachnicki

Principal

Monday, August 14

Girls Soccer Senior Night v. Warren Central 6pm

Tuesday, August 15

Girls Golf v. Martinsville

Girls Volleyball v. Franklin Community

Wednesday, August 16

Girls Volleyball v. Ben Davis

Girls Soccer v. Franklin Community

Thursday, August 17

Boys Tennis v. Franklin Community

Boys Soccer v. Franklin Community

Friday, August 25

Decatur Central Career Center Ribbon Cutting/Open House 5:00pm

Football v. New Pal

https://dchawks.com/events

All students must be up to date on their vaccines by Oct 6th.

If you are uncertain of your student's immunization status, please contact Mary Conway in the nurse office at 317-856-5288 ext 01998

Dry and fresh food items will be available for drive thru pick up for any families with children enrolled in MSD of Decatur Township Schools!
When: Select Thursdays 11:30AM – 12:50PM (dates listed below)
Where: Decatur Central High School, Door 10
How to apply: Complete the intake form below and submit! (required for each distribution date). The form must be completed by the Tuesday before the pick up date.

Food Pantry Intake Form

Pantry Pick-Up Dates:
August 17th
August 31st
September 7th
September 21st
October 6th (Note: this is a Friday)
November 2nd
November 9th
November 30th
December 14th

Please use the buttons below to keep up with your student's work, attendance and grades!

Please make sure you update your settings in your parent Canvas accounts. The button to access your account is below. If you do not know how to do this, this LINK will take you to the district IT page that will explain how to do this. I would recommend getting notifications when a teacher makes and assignment and when the assignment is graded. You can set the notification to alert you when those actions are done by text or by email. This is an effective way to monitor how your student is doing in classes.

Students taking credit recovery courses will be able to continue to do so via our Apex Learning system. A reminder that a recovery grade is no higher than a C so please encourage your students to do their best in their classes.

Students are required to apply for and display a parking pass when driving a vehicle to school. Vehicles that are parked on campus are subject to removal by being towed at the owners expense. Parking applications are due August 18. As students begin driving during the school year students will have one week to apply for their permit and display it. This allows us to monitor who is parking on campus.

Students may only use clear backpacks for the 2023-24 school year. All students will be provided a backpack the first day of school in CCR. Please see the policy information below.

As you know, students are to use clear backpacks only during the school day. Athletes that drive to school are to leave their athletic bags in their cars until after school. Students that are dropped off by parents in the morning should be dropped off at Door 14. We will have a storage room just inside Door 14 where students will store their bag for the day. Bus riders will immediately report to that same storage room and store their bag for the day. This needs to be done before getting breakfast or going to classrooms. The storage room will be open each day at 8:15 and will be monitored during drop off and pick up.

Students that drive to school or are dropped off by parents in the morning or throughout the day will now enter Door 10. Door 10 now has a receptionist just for student entry. This was necessitated by the addition of the new Decatur Central Career Center and will make entry for these students much more convenient.

Door 1 will only be used by parents and visitors.

All students will be required to wear a student ID each day. Students will be provided an ID and lanyard on the first few days of school.

Although this doesn’t seem like a safety issue I want to point out that it is. Decatur Central uses cameras to monitor the building and being able to identify students using this technology is vital. Hats and hoodies when worn make it difficult to identify students so students will not be allowed to wear a hat or have their hoodie up during school hours.

Further, anything that covers the face such as a balaclava is not allowed during school hours.

These items will be checked daily, including checking that students are in dress code such as pants at the waist, no bare midriffs, etc. Students will be given an opportunity to correct items.

We have begun using E-Hallpass as of last Thursday, August 10. This app is on the iPad so students need to make sure they have a fully charged iPad each day. Use of E-Hallpass allows us to monitor who is in our hallways and when, thus making our building more secure and functioning in an environment conducive to learning.

DCHS has many opportunities for students to participate in clubs, activities and the like. Research is very clear that the more a student is involved in the activities of their school the better they do academically. This new section of our newsletter will begin featuring different opportunities we have for your student to get involved at the school!

Choice students have started their push to give back to the Decatur community and beyond. The Choice Food Pantry has re-opened for the 2023-2024 school year and our juniors have stepped up to continue to feed our community. The recycling program is underway! Our sophomores enrolled in the EASEi course have learned that the DCHS community needs to learn more about recycling. They are creating posters for classrooms and developed protocols for the running of the building wide program. Finally, the Decatur FFA helped out at the Indiana State Fair with the Little Hands on the Farm program. They helped to spread the joy and science of agriculture to a younger generation of Hoosiers. We are DecaturProud of all of our students who help to make our community stronger, healthier, and smarter.

The agriculture students are learning what it takes to sustainably care for chickens and harvest their eggs. You'll notice that the eggs are a variety of different colors, this is determined by the breed of the hen that lays the egg. This year our students are caring for 6 Araucana/Maran mixes and 2 Silkies.

Edge 9th grade students in SLAM (Science, Literacy and Media) block building problem solving & teamwork skills! The freshmen had to work together to create plastic cup towers. They were given a rubber band with attached yarn and weren’t allowed to touch the cups with their hands. They practiced teamwork, problem solving, and working through frustration in a fun way.

Innovation celebrated the first Jubilation of the school year this week! Jubilation is a monthly gathering where all students within the Innovation SLC gather as a community to celebrate, team build, and launch a character trait that will be focused on the next month. Mr Hiller leads the charge for Jubilation and each teacher within Innovation plays a role in this monthly event.

This week in Jubilation, we celebrated “Sunshine Awards” and the August “Student of the Month”. Each CCR also sent a representative to the stage for a round of musical chairs. For second year in a row, Ms Hartman’s CCR was the winner of this activity! They received the Jubilation trophy and will pass it along to another CCR next month.

Choir and Band departments welcome new staff to DCHS this year. Ms. Crafts is the new Director of Choirs and Mr Halstead is the new Associate Director of Bands. Also this year we welcome a new department chairperson, Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams has served as the Theatre Director at DCHS for the last eight years.

The Performing Arts Department is excited to announce the fall musical, Freaky Friday! This production includes students from all areas of performing arts. Auditions will be August 21, 22, and 23 and the production open November 17, 18, and 19.

We will continue our policy of requiring high school and middle school students to have their ID on them when they attend evening events. Students will present their ID upon entrance to each event. Students K-8 must be under the supervision of a responsible adult to attend high school events.