Weekly Update 10/23/14

SOUTHEAST MIDDLE SCHOOL
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2014

1. Congratulations to George Crummel, PE teacher.  George will be retiring effective October 31.  George, we wish you the best of luck and hope that you will return at the end of the school year for our annual SEMS retirement party!

2. Thanks to Mrs. Cole, Mr. Bailey, and Officer Brown for their immediate response to our serious situation on Monday.  Their swift action and attention to the matter certainly made things much easier to deal with! Thanks for your tremendous work on this case. 

3. Thanks to Mrs. Watson and the Friends of Rachel Club, who created all of the orange hearts around our campus.  They spent many hours making sure that all of our students and staff felt loved and cared about. Thank you for your commitment to SEMS!

4. We are experiencing a drastic increase in the volume of students coming to breakfast.  Many are coming with a breakfast pass, however, they are returning back to homebase without getting any breakfast. Homebase teachers, please remind your students that if they are given a pass, they are expected to come back with some sort of breakfast. If you notice that you have particular students who may be taking advantage of this system, please let us know. We will gladly help you out with that situation. 
 
5. The end of the first quarter is just around the corner.  Please remember that teachers are required to contact parents of students who either have an F or whose grade has dropped at least two letter grades since the progress report.  Please do not wait until the end of the quarter to contact the parent. Remember that calling to inform a parent that their child will get an F on their report card is not considered notification.  Grade notification is when you contact a parent that their child is in danger of failing but still has an opportunity to have more grades entered before the grading period is over. 
 
6. The new quarter grading policy has been approved by the School Board last month.  The two changes that affect you the most:  1) After the quarter is over, the district will not go back and re-enter median grades for the letter grades (in other words, we do not have to deal with the multiple reviews of your quarter grades anymore), and 2) If any child receives an F for the quarter, all teachers must go back into the system before finalizing the grades and manually enter a 63 as the quarter score for the F (unless the F is already higher than a 63).  John Downs will be sending you instructions on completing first quarter grades.  

7. First quarter grades and verification sheets will be due to Cindy Wilkes no later than Tuesday, November 4, at 8:00am.  Report cards will be distributed on November 12. 
 
8. The United Way drive has begun and will last through the end of October. All staff are highly encouraged to donate.  Please follow the instructions on the United Way link on the WSFCS website. Incentives for donating include:  Chick-Fil-a coupons and a chance to win a Target gift card or a United Way t-shirt. Our goal as a school is to raise well over $5,000. We can do this!
 
9. PLT meeting minutes - Core teachers, your weekly meeting minutes are required to be submitted to me by the end of each week. Encore teachers,  your monthly PLT meeting minutes are to be submitted to me.  The expectation for encore teachers is that you all meet monthly as a large group and then you also meet monthly as a smaller PLT.  Please use the meeting minutes format that has been distributed to all teachers. Let me know if you have any questions. Ms. Gardner will be visiting your PLT meetings over the next few weeks. 

10. Quarter testing dates are October 27 - 28.  We will have a modified schedule on these days. Please keep in mind that we will be testing pull-out groups on multiple days, which will affect EC staff members.  Please consult the quarter testing email from last week for all details. It is important that you review all details prior to October 27. 

11.Thursday, October 30, is the last day of the first quarter.  We will have an RS Teacher Workday on Friday, October 31.  This day is not protected for any training, meaning that staff may take an annual leave day on this date.  Soon we will ask you to indicate your intentions for October 31 on a staff sign up sheet. To clarify - since grades are not due until November 4, you do not have to have your grades completed in order to take off on October 31.  

12. The PTSA will have their first staff luncheon of the year onOctober 30.  Staff members can pay ahead of time and order lunch provided by the PTSA board members.  They will be sending out instructions soon. Thanks to the PTSA for their continued support!

13. At our School Improvement Team meeting earlier this week, we discussed hallway supervision between class changes and how to improve the behaviors of our students.  SIT and administration would like to remind all staff that during class changes, each teacher who has a classroom on that hallway is expected to be standing at their classroom door. This drastically increases the supervision needed for an efficient and safe class change.

14. There are several upcoming trade out time opportunities for teachers.  More information coming soon.

15. All mentor teachers are reminded to turn in your required monthly mentor logs.

16. We will have a different schedule for the November 6 fundraiser kickoff day.  Typically we spread out the assemblies during encore time. This year we will condense the schedule and it will take place during core blocks of time. More information coming soon. 

17. The release of the teacher EVAAS data is still delayed.  Apparently, there were some errors in data and they are working to resolve the problem. Once they have fixed the issue, they will notify us of the release so that the rest of you can get your EVAAS data!

18. A big thanks to all of our Early Release presenters on Wednesday.  Thank you to Dr. Landry, Mrs. Jackson, Mr. Rhymes, Mrs.Douglas, Mrs. Barnes, and Mr. Downs for a job well done!

UPCOMING EVENTS
Please remember that this calendar does NOT include all school events, meetings, etc. The online master calendar (SEMS School Calendar, through your email) contains all of these events.  In the future, this list will be limited to reminders/highlights of significant events on the calendar. Please consult the master calendar for more detailed information.

Oct. 24 - Music Fundraiser Celebration
Oct. 25 - Robot Run @ Atkins HS
Oct. 27-28 - Quarter Testing (modified schedules)
Oct. 27 - 29 - Cheerleading Tryouts
Oct. 27 - MTAC Mtg (2:20pm, Media Center)
Oct. 28 - Mix It Up Lunch!
Oct. 28 - Music Cookie Dough Pickup (2-6pm)
Oct. 30 - PTSA Staff Luncheon (details coming soon)
Oct. 31 - Teacher Workday (RS day)
Nov. 3 - Staff Mtg (2:20pm, MP Room)
Nov. 4 - First Qtr Grades DUE by 8:00am
Nov. 6 - Fundraiser Kickoff Assemblies