Blog of Craig Smith: Beginning of Year Letter to LNC Families 2019

Dear Parents and Families of the LNC Community:

On behalf of the Lake Norman Charter High School faculty, staff, Mr. Funchess, and the administrative team, I would like to officially welcome you to the 2019-2020 school year. I am honored to serve as Principal of the High School and your partnership, in addition to our collaborative efforts aligned with LNC’s mission and core values, will continue inspiring our students to “learn, lead and serve.”

This letter provides valuable information to assist in a smooth opening to the school year. Please do not hesitate to contact me (csmith@lncharter.org) with any questions.

Similarly to last year, we are providing student schedules digitally via Schoology during the week of August 5. Students will be able to log-in to their Schoology account and access their schedule.

We are proudly in year six of LNC’s 1:World Program and the third year of laptop utilization at the high school. You or your student may pick up their laptop on either Thursday, August 1 or Thursday, August 8, during the specified times. Please make sure to sign-up in advance here. Families must pay their $125 co-pay before picking up their technology, which can be paid at lncharter.org via the HS PayPal portal.

Freshmen and New Student Orientation will take place on Tuesday, August 13 at 6:00 PM. If you have a 9th grader or a student new to LNC, please join us in the HS MPR for a brief welcome and the sharing of some pertinent information, followed by the opportunity to meet your students’ teachers and chance to locate your classes to simulate the opening day of school. Therefore, please make sure to have access to your student’s schedule, as we will not be able to provide a copy for you. This event is for students and their parents.

The Opening Day of school is Thursday, August 15. Our start time is 7:45 AM and our dismissal time is 2:45 PM. We appreciate your patience during the first few weeks of carpool, as it always takes some time for everyone to learn their appropriate procedures. These carpool procedures will be communicated before the opening of school.

Our “Back-to-School” Night for the high school will occur on Tuesday, August 20 at 6 PM, giving all families the chance to visit classrooms, engage in critical conversations with teachers, and simply tour the building by following their student’s schedule. We will provide more information on Back-to-School Night as it draws closer. This event is primarily for parents.

Through the continuous support of our PTO, the Principal’s Coffee Chat will be monthly and I cordially invite all parents to join us for the first installment on Tuesday, September 3 in the Student Commons at 8 AM. I will also continue to live-stream the Coffee Chat via Periscope (viewable through Periscope App, Twitter, or any internet browser), allowing all families to view the chat live or watch/listen to the archive at your convenience.

In addition, I encourage our families to connect with me through Twitter and my professional blog. I utilize both of these forums to communicate our successes, promote school-related events, share resources, and connect professionally with educational colleagues across the nation.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce our two new members of the Social Studies Department: Mr. David Broome, who joins us from Salisbury HS, and Mr. Tim Swiatek, who previously taught at LNC before going overseas to serve as an ESL teacher in South Korea.

Each year we grow and improve as a school. This year many of our classrooms feature a new sofa/chair combination, providing our students with alternative comfortable seating and allowing our teachers to create a more casual and welcoming atmosphere. We also replaced two of our buses with nearly-new models featuring modern safety features and amenities. Your student will likely experience both improvements throughout the year. These enhancements were made possible by families who “Invested in Excellence” last year and we appreciate their generosity.

The expectations of our students should always align with the expectations we have for ourselves as educators. This accountability begins with holding myself accountable every day as the leader of our high school.

The fundamental expectation for our faculty, staff, students and parents is to simply be your best, every day.

I hope you continue to enjoy these last few weeks of summer break and we enthusiastically await the opening of school on August 15. We thank you all in advance for being your best in 2019-2020.

Yours in education,