Welcome back! I hope everyone's exams went well. This is the last semester of the year and graduation is looming ever closer. So be sure you have everything you need, all your core courses and any electives you need before it's too late. All class changes can be done in student services, but you only have a short while to do so.

As our usual, at the beginning of semester we had an assembly. This one going over all of the things the teachers and principals find pertinent to the students. Such as the attendance policy, after a certain number of unexcused absences the student’s parent will be informed. If it continues the student will have to enter a contract, and if it still continues the student will have a referral to an administrator. Attendance is a bit of an issue apparently. Principal Ryan Land had a message for all the students: “Show up on time and do the work.” Those are the three keys to success.

Todd Harwood briefly talked about opportunities to get active in our school, such as the fitness room (or weight room as I have written about before) being open every day of the week – Wednesday's only for girls, or yoga and what we call our kick boxing boot camp, both of which will continue until the beginning of March. They may actually continue after depending on attendance. Other opportunities include intramurals, during lunch and occasionally after school, and the badminton team (tryouts sometime in March) and the track team (tryouts also in the spring). So get active!

David Boyce, our resident drama teacher, brought attention back to the biggest project our drama department has been involved in for the past couple of years, Baraboo The Last Show on Earth, and a new project starting up very soon. During Fridays at lunch students will compete in teams in a game similar to “Whose Line is It Anyway?” To sign up head down to the drama room (Room 178, but classes will be held in the theatre until further notice) the teams require one Grade 12 student, one Grade 11 student and the rest must be Grade 10 and 9 students (two of each). Judges will be chosen from the audience so why not check it out? It should be fun to say the least.

R.D. Parker has raised approximately $3,000 for the Haiti relief fund, and will continue taking student donations.

Our school has a new addition to its teams/extracurriculars, our cheerleading squad. Tryouts were held Feb. 8. Good luck and I hope everything goes well for you guys and girls. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

That's all folks! Until next time.

Kait Taylor writes from R.D. Parker Collegiate every other week. Contact her with story ideas or photos at: kjmt92@hotmail.com