Welcome, Students and Parents!

Welcome and Hello!

We're starting a brand new school year and I'm excited to be here for another year at Lexington Senior High School. So many things have changed for my school year: I just officially moved to the town of Lexington, I changed classrooms from the blue hall to the annex, I am now serving as the English department Chair, and Ms. Poole and I are starting a new program with Freshman English -- so many changes and all of them exciting!

Please check out the links above to learn about my Introduction to English classes, the Chess Club, and Scholastic competition at LSHS.

Let's have a great year this year at LSHS as we MAKE HISTORY!

---Mr. Plaster

Parent Letter for English I

Parents:

Your son or daughter is in my "English I" class this semester. I am excited about the new semester and I know that you are, too. I am proud to be teaching at Lexington Senior High School and have high expectations and goals for the class and for your child.

Most students in my classes were also selected to be in an Introduction to English class last semester based on their performance on the EOG and other tests and how they did in their past English classes. Students in Introduction to English had that first semester to prepare them for English I this Spring, and they should now be as ready as the rest of their classmates.

Please review the Course Syllabus with your child, which I have discussed with the class. I would like you to review it, particularly to note 1) class rules, 2) the types of assignments students will be given, and 3) the materials needed for class.

I have a class website that will be a very useful tool to help us communicate about class, post assignments and reminders, and use to link to learning resources.

I also wanted you to know that I believe in communicating regularly with the parents of my students. An easy way for me to do that is through e-mail, so if you are reading this online, please go to my home page and submit your email address on the right hand side under "Get Email Updates." That way, you will get automatic email updates when I add something to the website.

This is my eighth year as a public school teacher and my fourth at LSHS. You can read more about me and my background on my About page at http://mrplastersclass.blogspot.com/p/about-mr-plaster.html.

If there is anything I can do to be of assistance, please let me know. Don’t hesitate to contact me at school (336.242.1574) or e-mail at splaster@lexcs.org. Please sign and return this letter with your child by Monday, January 28. Alternately, you can email me to let me know that you have received this information.


Sincerely,

S. Plaster

Parent Email Address:

Parent Signature:

Student Name:

Varsity Club Peer Mentor Program Celebrates Year of Success

Near the beginning of the school year at Lexington Senior High School, it all started with an idea by Evan McIntosh and his father, football great Joe McIntosh. Wouldn't it be nice to have a program where athletes could help athletes do better in the classroom, tutoring them in their coursework but also serving as role models and mentors? Teacher, baseball coach, and literacy coach Scott Plaster agreed, and he and Evan quickly put the plan into action. The group aptly named the Varsity Club recently celebrated its first year of success by attending a semi-professional baseball game in Kannapolis Saturday night.

The Varsity Club met weekly during the last part of 2nd period during the school year. Plaster paired struggling students with high-achieving mentors in different subject areas. Sometimes the group met to focus on topics such as study schools, time management, and the qualities of a top student athlete. Plaster contends, "The same qualities that apply to top athletes on the field and court are the same characteristics that make students excel in the classroom. Hard work, determination, preparation, and mental focus are aspects we want to nurture in all students. If we can successfully tie those traits together in and out of the classroom, we should be able to make a marked impact on our school climate."

Plaster says that part of the battle is remedying negative stereotypes that some people may have of athletes as not being as capable in the classroom. "That's simply not true. I've always said that athletes make the best students, and when they have these qualities, it definitely is true. The best athletes, the stars, are usually the first ones to the ballpark and the last ones to leave. We want our athletes to be stars in the classroom, too." Plaster has coached baseball at the school for the past three years and he says he tries to bring the same focus on fundamentals to his coaching on the field as he does as an English and reading instructor.

Head football coach Kwayu Graham supported the program throughout the year by choosing his players to be mentees and mentors and by assisting Plaster during the meetings. "This program has definitely had an impact on our players this year," he said. The Varsity Club had members from a variety of sports, including baseball, football, basketball, golf, softball, cheerleading, and track. The group boasted as many as 25-30 attendees during some meetings and had to spread out across two classrooms and the media center to accommodate it.

"The aspect that, I think, marks our true success is to see how some of these student athletes worked as hard in their courses as during the last tied-up inning of a game or the last set of tough match," Plaster says. He noted that he could point out at least a handful of students who were struggling in a class or two, but brought their grades up in the final weeks of the semester through extra tutoring, studying, make-up, and doing well on their final exams.

If students met certain grade criteria, they were rewarded by being able to attend the minor league Intimidators game Saturday, June 2nd, for some of whom was the first time they have attended a sporting event of that magnitude. In addition to watching the game, Ariana and Naja found time to dance the YMCA dance with a group of pee wee baseball players, Tommy and Austin tried their arms with the radar guns against Coach Plaster, and the group had a special meeting field-side with the players as they were warming up. During the game the group let out a cheer when the announcer greeted and congratulated the Varsity Club from Lexington Senior High School.

Some of the attendees included Logan Wicks, Jalain Charles, Austin Hunt, Tommy McGhee, Caleb Worley, Antonio Evans, Evan McIntosh, Demetrious Alston, Selene Esparza, Ariana Moore, and Jamarries Hardin. Some other attendees were chosen by their athletic coaches to attend as a special treat.

Selene Esparza, a multi-sport athlete at LSH, ended up her last semester passing all of her courses and will graduate this week. She said when talking to Coach Plaster, "I knew I could do it. You helped me believe that I could!"

Mr. Taylor Wins NCASA Principal of the Year!

The North Carolina Association for Scholastic Activities Board of Directors has chosen Mr. Travis Taylor as their 2012 NCASA Principal of the Year! This award is presented annually to the principal that does more than any other to support their students' and school's participation and excellence in scholastic activities. His work establishing and funding a comprehensive scholastic program at Lexington Senior High School was nothing short of phenomenal. No other school in North Carolina made greater strides in advancing scholastic activities this year than LSHS, and this was born out by the school's fifth place finish in the final Scholastic Cup standings. More than one hundred students at Lexington Senior High School were enriched by this program.

 This award will be presented to Mr. Taylor during the NCASA Annual Meeting hosted by the NC School of Science and Mathematics in Durham. The meeting will run from 11:00 to 12:30 on Tuesday, June 26. During the annual meeting we will also present other individual awards, the Middle School of the Year and the NCASA Scholastic Cup, elect officers and directors, and present the state of the association.

 Congratulations to Mr. Taylor!

LSHS Places Fifth in NCASA Scholastic Cup

Lexington Senior High School finished the points race for NCASA's Schlastic Cup in fifth place. "The competitiveness of our students on this statewide academic stage validates what we already know.  Our students are as smart, capable, and creative as any in the state of North Carolina.  We should use this wonderful accomplishment to bolster our outlook and fuel our belief that Lexington Senior High can become a beacon of academic excellence," said LCS Superintendent Rick Kriesky.

Read the full story in the Dispatch: http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20120521/News/305219998

LSHS Chess Team Finishes 7th in State Championship

I am so pleased to tell everyone that the LSHS Chess Team finished Seventh in the state in the NC State Chess Championship held this weekend in Charlotte!

Converging upon the Blake Hotel for this 38th annual tournament, over 500 of the best student chess players from dozens of schools competed, including one grandmaster-level student from the NC School of Science and Math. 

Our team is comprised of Nico Reyes (11th grade), Daniel Owens (12th grade), Karan Deocharran (10th grade), Charles Milam (10th grade), and Juan Arcia (9th grade). The team has met at least twice a week for the entire year and played in other tournaments to prepare for this event. Our players competed in the upper, open, championship division against very stiff competition, but fought some extremely close matches all the way down to the end. While playing against some of the largest schools in the state, and some exclusive private schools, our players showed class and determination all the way; we even had one player who began walking from home at 4:30 am Saturday morning to meet the bus at school for the departure. 

With points for this event, Lexington Senior High School still holds onto its first-place lead in the NCASA Scholastic Cup standings, the award for the "Top High School in the State."

Please congratulate these students! They will be proudly wearing their light blue T-shirts bought for them at the event as mementos. Coach Plaster also awarded Nico Reyes a portable tournament chess set as an award for winning the school-wide chess tournament last week.  

We left Charlotte Sunday night with the motivation to continue learning and growing our team to become better and better. 

Lexington Misses State Championship By Narrow Margin; Now Ranks First in State in Scholastic Cup Standings

"It's awesome -- Jacket pride, amplified," says Lexington City Schools Board of Education Chair Sherraine McLean. Lexington Senior High hosted the state championship NCASA The Quill writing competition Saturday, March 3 and came away with a close second-place finish, missing the top spot by decimals. The Lexington team of four high school students finished second to Atkins High School by less than a full point, with a total team score of 89.67 vs. Atkins' 90.50.

Lexington won two of the four categories, with Atkins winning one and Myers Park High School winning the other. With points awarded for this competition, LSH now ranks second in NCASA's Scholastic Cup annual standings. The North Carolina Association of Scholastic Activities (NCASA) hosts a number of academic competitions open to its member schools, and partners with various other competitions to award its Scholastic Cup to the "Top High School in NC." For more information about the NCASA, see its website at http://ncscholastic.org.

For The Quill, each school brings four writers to address four separate prompts and students have 90 minutes to complete their compositions. While the students break for lunch, the papers are judged anonymously by a panel of carefully chosen teacher judges, then awards are announced and trophies presented at an afternoon presentation. Lexington student Sethea Seang was the top writer in Literary Analysis, and Daniel Owens was the top winner in Creative Writing. Rachel Woodridge finished second in the Argumentative Writing category, and David Powell also finished second in his category of Problem Solution. Students winning their categories were awarded individual trophies. "It made me so happy to see the proud look on all four of our students' faces. Their sense of accomplishment was so apparent. We are very pleased with all of them," said Coach and LSHS Scholastic Director Scott Plaster.

Leon Pfieffer, Executive Director of NCASA said, "Congratulations to the Lexington Senior High School The Quill team for their second place finish in the State Finals. This is a dramatic improvement from last year's seventh place finish. Long hours of studying and practice paid off for these students, especially Daniel Owens who took first place in the Creative Writing event, and Sethea Seang who won the Literary Analysis topic." Lexington's other competitors included Myer's Park High School from Charlotte with an enrollment of over 2,800. Myer's Park is regularly ranked in the top 50 schools in the country and competes nationally in several academic competitions. Another school at the competition was Page HS, with around 1,800 students. Winners in the Argumentative Writing and Problem Solution categories were Meredith Hemphill from Atkins High School and George Robertson from Myers Park High School.

"Our students' excelling in each of the four areas of competition speaks to the instruction they are receiving across all disciplines at LSHS. A student's ability to respond to a problem-solving prompt can be attributed to excellence in his science and math classes; addressing an argumentative prompt attributed to the social sciences and CTE courses; and creative writing skills are heightened in all liberal arts classes," said teacher Dawn Poole, who taught three of the Lexington Quill team's four students this year in her AP English classes. Plaster added, "It does truly take an entire faculty to prepare students for a competition like The Quill."

Lexington history teacher Steve Raker has been teaching at the school for ten years and graduated from the high school in 1967. He said, "I remember the day that our school had academic teams and was competitive with every school around. It's good to see us returning to those traditions." "It was a goal of the Scholastic Program from the start that our academic teams represent the true diversity of our school, and that has been no problem to accomplish," said Plaster, who said the school's academic teams have included an equal mix of both genders, grades 9-12, and a broad range of ethnic groups, including Caucasian, African-American, Cambodian, Hispanic, and several students from Guyana.

Pfieffer commented on Lexington's current top ranking in the Scholastic Cup, "In my meetings with superintendents and principals I repeatedly said that any school can win the Scholastic Cup. It is not just for the elite or magnet schools to pursue. This statement is greeted with raised eyebrows and strange looks. However, the current standings bear out this claim. Lexington Senior High School has 65% free and reduced lunch and more extreme poverty students than any high school in North Carolina." Over 500 of Lexington Senior High's 782 students qualify for free or reduced lunch. A January Dispatch article reported that one in five of the school system's children live in extreme poverty.

Lexington City Schools Superintendent Richard Kriesky said, "The Lexington City School System is very proud of the recent second place finish in the Quill writing competition. The writing excellence that our Lexington Senior High students displayed in the statewide academic contest speaks volumes for the quality of students and instruction
at our high school. Congratulations to the outstanding student competitors from LSHS and a special thanks to Mr. Plaster, the team's coach. At this point LSHS is in first place overall in the comprehensive state competition. Good luck, Jackets. Continue to make us proud." LSH Principal Travis Taylor said, "Out of sight, wonderful work for our first year. Great for our image, reputation, community and students!"

Scholastic Director Scott Plaster assembled a full team of academic coaches at the beginning of the year with the idea, he says, "You can't win if you don't compete." The coaching staff includes Kristen Wall for Science, Dawn Poole for a general competition called the Twelve, math coach Tiffany George, choir director Lee Mabe, Quiz Bowl coach Dr. Keith Curry, and Economics coach Robert Hairston. Plaster also coaches the school's chess team, which will be attending the state chess championship later this month. Other upcoming competitions this year include the NC Economics Challenge, the State Mathematics Contest, and the NC Glee Club Competition.

The school's Quiz Bowl team will compete in the District competition on Saturday, March 10 at Guilford College. Curry said, "It has been great to be involved in the school's scholastic program and to get to work with such bright kids. We've been working hard in our weekly meets to prepare for the district competition and hope to do well enough to advance to the state championship." The Quiz Bowl is NCASA's most popular competition, with over 30 schools competing for a chance at the title. The six-week quiz bowl conference play marks the first time in North Carolina history that academic teams have competed in regular "conference" play.

For more information about Lexington Senior High School's academic competition program, contact Scholastic Director Scott Plaster at 336-473-7369 or http://mrplastersclass.com.


A chart with the Cup standings:
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Scholastic Cup Standings after three events:

1 - Lexington Senior HS - 105 pts
2 - Ardrey Kell HS - 95 pts
3 - Atkins A&T HS - 90 pts
4 - Myers Park HS - 85 pts
5 - NC School of Science and Mathematics - 55 pts
6t - Chapel Hill HS - 50 pts
6t - Raleigh Charter HS - 50 pts
6t - Thomas Jefferson Classical - 50 pts
9t - Jordan-Matthews HS - 40 pts
9t - Newton Conover HS - 40 pts
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