South Forsyth High School

585 Peachtree Parkway • Cumming, GA • 30041

Phone: (770) 781-2264 • Fax: (770) 888-1224

Welcome to the 2017-2018 school year.

As with the start of every year there is much excitement and anticipation of great things to come. This year we welcome thirty-two new faculty and staff members to our War Eagle family. We have added several new courses to our offerings including financial literacy and epidemiology. To enhance school spirit, the gift from the Class of 2017 is a victory bell that hangs in the pagoda at the entrance to War Eagle Plaza. The Class of 2018 will ring the bell for the very first time to commemorate the start of the 2017-2018 school year. The bell will be rung after all home athletic wins and to acknowledge and celebrate wins by all our competitive clubs and organizations. Seniors will ring the bell one final time on their last day of school celebrating their successful completion of high school and in anticipation of their launch into the world! Look for a food truck Friday and a community service project for willing staff, students, and parents to join in conjunction with our feeder schools in the South Vertical Team. We are striving for a United South.

During the 2017-18 school year we will also undergo the redistricting process in advance of the opening of Denmark High School and the Innovation Academy in August 2018. We will keep you abreast of information as it is available for us to share. There will be opportunity for community input. I encourage you to voice your opinions. We will send out links via Infinite Campus to connect you to this process. On that note, please make certain your email address in IC is current and accurate as the school year begins.

This year we are focusing on social and emotional learning with our students and using a leadership self-development format. We will be referencing Tim Elmore’s Habitudes: The Art of Self-Leadership to address timeless topics like determination, character, time management, balance, commitment and more. There will be electronic newsletters sent home keeping parents apprised of the themes so that you can ask your student about the topics and conversations generated. In response to school survey results by parents, students and faculty, we feel it is imperative that we increase student connectedness to school. Our goal is for each student to believe there is at least one trusted adult in the building to assist if issues arise. As always, we welcome you to be part of our process. We will be quite large with enrollment currently at 3461 and climbing. Our freshman class is the largest ever with 993 members. Again, we are striving to make a large school feel small by keeping all our students connected and involved.

While we will continue to emphasize literacy (reading, writing and speaking), there are several new topics you will be hearing about this school year including the OECD (Office of Economic Cooperation and Development) Test for Schools and personalized learning. PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is the organization that shares world-wide education rankings. As we are preparing our students for a global society, we will assess a small, randomly selected but representative group of students on the OECD exam to see how South Forsyth High School is faring on the international stage. Look for more information to come. Personalized learning is a district initiative designed to make learning more relevant to your student. Again, as information is available, we will share with you. Through it all we encourage strong communication from school to home and vice versa. Thank you for entrusting your students to us.

Wishing you and your student(s) a most successful and engaging school year. Hope to see you around campus. Go War Eagles!

Laura Wilson, Principal

Expecting Excellence…