Weekly Update 12/2/10

SOUTHEAST MIDDLE SCHOOL
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2010

Welcome to December!  I hope that all of you had a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving break with your family and friends.

1. Please wish Lisa Horwath well as Friday is her last day with us.  We are so sad to see her go but congratulate her on her new opportunity at Sedge Garden Elementary.

2.  We have many staff members with illnesses, injuries, and family illnesses.  Please keep them all in your thoughts and prayers. 

3.  Lillian Thompson will be retiring at the end of December. We will celebrate her accomplishment on Monday, December 13, at 2:15 in the Media Center. Susie sent out an email to you earlier regarding the celebration.  We are looking for funny stories and memories to share with Lillian and her family, and as always, we'd love to have some brave souls perform for us!  If you can come up with something, please let Susie know as soon as possible.  We'd like to make this a special time for her. 

4.  NCWISE will be shut down starting December 17 and will not operate until as late as January 4.  In addition, you will NOT have access to your school webpage starting on December 14 at 5:00pm through January 3. 

5.  Bridgette Watson passed along some information recently regarding the Classified Employee of the Year.  Flyers were placed in your mailboxes.  If you'd like to nominate a classified employee, please follow those directions. 

6.  If you plan to take any class or group outside, you must approve that in advance with an administrator, let the main office know of your location, let the PE teachers know ahead of time that you plan on coming outside, and pick up a walkie-talkie from the office before you go.  The PE classes have priority on their outside location. If your group is approved to go out, your group may not mix in with the PE classes.  This creates a supervision issue.

7.  The Guidance office copier has had many issues lately with individuals jamming the machine and leaving it behind.  If you experience difficulty with that copier, please let someone in that office know so that it can be fixed as quickly as possible.  Please help us to keep these copiers up and running properly since we have contracts on them. 

8.  Mrs. Montague-Davis enjoyed her official school visit on Tuesday morning.  She was able to sit in on several SSC meetings and observe classrooms.  She had many great things to say about our students and staff.  She will be sending an email regarding her visit that I will forward to you when she sends it. 

9.  The Student Council will be having a candy sale during 6th period on Friday, December 10.  Mrs. Murray will send you details.

10.  Mrs. Montague-Davis has reviewed our School Improvement Plan.  We received lots of positive feedback on our draft.  The only major change that needs to be made is to add a fifth goal regarding Math performance.  We will make these changes and post an updated copy available for view.  In addition, our staff approval SIP vote was a 100% approval rating.  Thanks to those of you who voted.

11.  We have had an increase in discipline issues lately.  We have found that several of these situations could have been prevented if an adult had been supervising properly.  Please be sure that you are on top of your supervision duties at all times.  This includes before and after school, in your classrooms, lunchroom, class changes, etc.  I just don't want to see any of our staff members to suffer the consequence of not being present where required.  Protect yourself by keeping supervision a priority. 

12.  Thanks to everyone who participated in our November school fundraiser.  We were quite successful and actually increased our profits dramatically from last year.  We will share exact numbers with you later.  Here are our fundraiser winners:

Top Sellers (Administrator for a Day):  Brianna Smith, Aryel Cloaninger

Top Homebases (Silly string the teacher):  Hairston (91 items), DiPiazza (96 items), and Munday (51 items)

Top Grade Level (Duct-Tape the Principal):  6th grade (605 total items sold)

We will get you more information regarding when these events will happen.  We also still need to schedule the Games 2U Day for those students who sold 6 items. 

13. Please be sure to update your grades in NCWISE at least every two weeks minimum - this is the requirement.  We have had many parent contacts earlier this week where no grades had been posted for them to check their child's progress.

14. Some of our students have been "smoking Smarties." For those of you who have not heard that term, some kids are taking packs of Smarties candies, crushing the candy, opening the wrapper and inhaling the candy. Then they immediately blow it out, so it looks like smoke. This is a trend that started a few years ago and has trickled into our school. The possible health hazard that this could present is that a student could inhale the wrapper itself or could get the candy dust/pieces lodged in their throat or nose. If you see any students trying to do this, please ask them to stop. Just possessing or eating the candy is not a violation, but if they repeatedly are trying to inhale this and you have already intervened, please let us know. We can intervene at that point. However, if you see a student trying to snort this directly into their nose, an administrator needs to know that when it happens. We just don't want to see kids taking this farther.

15. Winter weather is just around the corner.  It is time to review the inclement weather plan in case we have a delay.  The delay schedule is posted under Teacher Resources on the website.  If we do have a delay, you will be given a schedule that morning so that you know what encore classes your students will need to report to and the times that they need to report.  The blocks of core time can be scheduled as the team sees fit.  I hope that this provides a more flexible schedule for everyone and gives each group a short break.

16.  Differentiated Instruction Training will take place on Monday, December 6, in the Media Center.  Certified staff must attend.  EC staff have already attended this training. 

Please continue to check the online calendar regularly.  There's LOTS going on in December!

Happy Birthday!
Don Fought 12/14
Kathy Albertelli 12/21