Blog of Craig Smith: Beginning of Year Letter to LNC Families 2023

Dear Parents and Families of the LNC Community:

I hope the summer weeks have given our entire community a well-deserved opportunity to relax, refresh and rejuvenate. 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 2023-2024 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.

LNC'S STRATEGIC AREAS OF FOCUS

Fostering a place of belonging for each LNC student and helping develop and support their "whole" self will be the two overarching themes throughout this 2023-24 school year. We will continue to build upon our district-wide IDE&A initiative with the goal of every student knowing they belong and feeling valued for all their individuality and uniqueness. Secondly, THRIVE focuses on our students' overall well-being, supporting their full selves while growing areas of individual strengths and needs. To that end, we are grateful that mental health therapist, Dr. Danielle Graham, and our entire team of six counselors will be returning to LNC in 2023-2024.

TECHNOLOGY

We are proudly in year ten of LNC’s 1:World Program and the seventh year of laptop utilization at the high school. If your student is a freshman, they took/will take their laptop home at the conclusion of Freshman Kick-off provided they paid the $125 tech co-pay. While our upperclassmen retained their laptops during the summer, their tech co-pay must be paid before the first day of school, Thursday, August 10. That co-pay can be paid here.

SCHEDULES

You can expect to receive your student’s schedule via the email address we have on file by Friday, August 4. Please remember these schedules are final unless there is an obvious scheduling error. If you wish to send us an updated email address, you can make that change using this form.

NEW BELL SCHEDULE

We made a slight change with the location of Knight Time in our Bell Schedule for ‘23-24. Knight Time will now occur after 3rd Period (10:20-10:50am) and will be shown on your student’s schedule as KT, not a period number. The Bell Schedule 2023-2024 is embedded. You will see that we reserve the right to shift Knight Time to after 2nd Period for unique circumstances, but that will be announced well in advance to students if necessary for a single day.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

The first day of school for our freshmen is Wednesday, August 9 from 7:45 - 11:15am. We welcome all of our HS students on Thursday, August 10 for a regular, full day from 7:45am - 2:45pm.

Special Note Concerning Attendance at the Beginning of the School Year

Charter schools are funded in large part based on the number of students attending during the first 20 school days of the year. LNC’s funding is reduced for every day a student is absent (regardless of reason) during this period. For this reason, during the first 20 days of the school year, LNC will closely monitor absences and will require documentation excusing them (i.e. letter from medical provider, etc.). In past years, the school has faced decreased funding because students have not returned to school at the beginning of the year because of family vacations and for similar reasons. The Office of Charter Schools has clarified that a charter school may treat unexcused failures to attend as a withdrawal. If a student (new or returning) fails to attend at any point during the first 20 days of school, LNCS reserves the right to treat the absence as a withdrawal and to offer the student’s enrollment slot immediately to a student on the waiting list.

Also, please be reminded that prior to the first day of school all parents are required to complete LNC’s parent acknowledgement form.

LUNCHES/CARPOOL/STUDENT PARKING

Remember, the PTO does not offer an ordered lunch option in the first few weeks of school so students will need to pack a lunch. We will communicate more information about the PTO-led lunch program before school begins. Additionally, look for carpool and student parking information to also be communicated before the opening of school. As always, we appreciate your patience during the first few weeks of carpool, as it takes some time for everyone to learn the appropriate procedures.

SERVICE & ENGAGEMENT

We look forward to continuing our commitment to service through our service program for high school students and our Serve10 program for our parents. Our HS PTO, led by Ms. Kim Schild at the HS (hspto@lncharter.org) has many exciting plans to support our teachers and your students and needs your involvement. Your family already belongs to the PTO and we hope your membership fosters a sense of belonging to our school community. Please sign up here to get involved.

SAVE THE DATES

High school Back to School Night will occur on Thursday, August 17 at 6:00pm, giving all families a 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.

Join us for a school-wide tailgate on Friday, September 8 as we take on rival Pine Lake Prep. Look for more information about this tailgate once we are back to school. You will also want to save Monday, October 9 on your calendar as that is when we will hold our annual Royal Golf Outing benefitting LNC athletics. You can learn more and sign up here.

Please circle Tuesday, October 10 on your calendar for a day of Serve & Play in support of our mission of service and our continued commitment to THRIVE and our students' overall well-being. Finally, reserve the evening of Saturday, March 16 for a Knight of Shenanigans, LNC's adult-only event.

PARENT/PRINCIPAL CONNECTION

Our monthly Principal Coffee Chats will continue and I cordially invite all parents to join us for the first installment of the school year on Tuesday, September 5 at 8:00am. We will live-stream the coffee chat via a link on Schoology, allowing all families to view the chat live or watch/listen to the archive at their convenience. If you are not a member of the LNC2HSP Schoology group, the code to join is M4XT8-Q43FD. More information will be shared closer to the date, but the agenda for the September chat will include a high school counseling overview for the year.

As a reminder, here are the student-counselor assignments:

The counselor for 9th to 12th graders with last name A - G is Kimberly Van Buren

The counselor for 9th to 12th graders with last name H - O is Michael Porter

The counselor for 9th to 12th graders with last name P - Z is Christine Casillas

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 collaborate with my professional learning network. You will also find school-wide social media shared via LNC's Facebook page, Twitter account and Instagram. We are very active on all three and they offer an opportunity to gain an understanding of our school culture and keep up with the "softer" side of the news at LNC.

NEW HS STAFF

Next, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce our new faculty members to LNC:

Matthew Montroy is a veteran social studies teacher, previously serving at South Mecklenburg High School (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools). Coach Montroy has taught a wide-range of social studies courses throughout his teaching career. Prior to arriving at South Meck in 2018, he spent two years at Parkwood HS (Union County Schools), being recognized as Graduation Keynote Speaker in 2018 and a Teacher of the Year finalist in 2017. Coach Montroy's first position in NC was at Marvin Ridge HS (Union County Schools) in 2008, where he was named Teacher of the Year and a Union County Finalist for the award in 2014. This winter, Coach Montroy was selected as the next Varsity Football Head Coach at Lake Norman Charter.

Coach Montroy will be teaching Econ. & Personal Finance and Psychology this year.

Dr. W. Ray Leach is a veteran English teacher and educator, previously serving as an Instructional Technology Facilitator in Gaston County Schools. He earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and his Doctorate of Philosophy in Curriculum and Instruction, also from Charlotte. Dr. Leach previously was with LNC as a Middle School Language Arts Teacher from 2017 to 2021. He also currently works as a part-time Collegiate Test Prep Instructor for Central Piedmont Community College. Dr. Leach will be a Literacy Specialist and teaching English I for ‘23-24.

We are excited to welcome them to our LNC Community.

SAFETY AT LNC

Our greatest responsibility and first priority is to provide a safe environment for our students and staff. You can expect to receive a communication next month explaining our protocols and procedures for ensuring our school’s security. Mark your calendars for “Cup of Joe with Officer Bo” on August 22 at 8:00am when you’ll hear directly from School Resource Officer Bononno and have an opportunity to ask questions. This informational session will also be live streamed and archived for your convenience.

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 look forward to the opening of school on August 9 for freshmen and August 10 for all students. We thank you all in advance for being your best in 2023-2024.

Yours in education,