MCMS Staff Update - November 20 -24, 2023

Good Afternoon MCMS,

Happy Friday!  We have enjoyed celebrating American Education Week and honoring all of your contributions to our students, school, and community!  It truly takes a village to help guide our students in the right direction.  To continue the momentum of American Education Week, everyone can enjoy a free Jeans Day Monday and Tuesday.  We also look forward to our coffee cart from Mrs. Werts class!

Thank you to Lynn Riddle and her cafeteria staff for an amazing Thanksgiving lunch!  The food was amazing and it was great having our families on campus.  The MCMS Chorus program had a great concert last night.  We appreciate the leadership of Lynn Grimsley and thank her for all she has done this year.  We wish her well in her next position and look forward to Mrs. Strobel taking over the program.

Fundraising Totals: Thank you for your help in raising money for our school!  We raised almost $700 in our Homeroom competition.  All funds will go to our school improvement projects and faculty support.  Below are the winners and grade level totals.

• Winning Homerooms: 1st Place - Hentz ($132.01), 2nd Place - Hanes ($99.40), 3rd Place - Steurrys ($93.51)
• Grade Level Totals: 6th Grade - $373.65, 7th Grade - $287.48, and 8th Grade - $33.14

Make sure you are looking over the 2023-2024 MCMS Calendar for current activities and events on campus.  If we have any changes to the calendar, we will make sure to let everyone know.  

Below are updates and reminders for this coming week, November 20 - 24. Please let me know if you have any questions about this email, upcoming events, classroom supplies, or anything else.  We are here to support you!

Happy Birthday! We wish a very happy birthday to those who celebrate this week!

• No Birthdays next week

Weekly Reminders

Letters of Intent for 2024-2025 - It is that time of year again!  You will be receiving your Letters of Intent for the 2024-2025 school year on November 27th.  Please return those to me no later than the morning of December 7th.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Semester 2 Schedule Change - Thank you for submitting your votes for moving for moving events to Wednesday's in semester 2 and the feedback with the power up schedule. The vote was in favor of moving all alternative schedules to Wednesday.  We will begin making this change after the December 1st Club Day.  We will not pursue the power up time, everyone brought up a lot of great points and it does not seem beneficial at this time.  We appreciate your voice in this decision!

Semester 1 Peer Observation - We have changed our November 29th Professional Learning meeting.  Instead of meeting after school that week, we would like you to complete a Peer Observation during your planning.  I will send more details related to this next week.

Faculty/Student Basketball Game - We will be having our Winter Pep Rally on December 13th.  At this Pep Rally, we will be having a Faculty/Student Basketball game. I will be announcing this to the students on Tuesday.  More information to come!

MCMS Schedule- November 20th - 24th

• Monday (11/20)
• Pie a Principal
• Tuesday (11/21)
• No Team Meetings
• Duty-Free Lunch and Faculty Tailgate
• Wednesday (11/22)
• Thanksgiving Break
• Thursday (11/23)
• Thanksgiving Break
• Friday (11/24)
• Thanksgiving Break

Sneak Peek at 11/27 - 12/1:

• (11/27), Team Meetings @Planning (11/28), No After School Meeting (11/29), 6th Grade Field Trip to Roper Mountain (11/30), and Club Day (12/1)

Professional Learning - Second Quarter

• Below are the remaining Wednesday Professional Learning dates for the second quarter.  The dates highlighted in yellow will be full faculty.  I will send additional information and reminders.
• November 29th - No After School Meeting - Peer Observation
• December 6th - Early Release- Teacher Work/Collaboration Time
• December 13th - Leadership Team
• December 20th - MCMS Holiday Social! 

Ellevation Training Reminder

• After completing your module, implement one of the strategies and then reflect on that strategy.
• The module completion and reflection should be on different days.  
• Below are the Ellevation Training modules you will need to complete this school year:
• Semester 1: Pathway- Understanding Multilingual Learners: 
• Intro to LTELs (Q1)
• Intro to Multilingual Learners (Q1)
• Intro to Newcomers (Q2)
• Intro to SIFE (Q2)
• Semester 2: Pathway- Developing Academic Language (4 modules in this pathway):
• Intro to Develop Academic Language (Q3)
• Develop Academic Language with Meaningful Messages (Q3)
• Develop Academic Language with Strong Sentences (Q4)
• Develop Academic Language with Weighted Words (Q4)
• If you have any questions, please reach out to Mrs. Carpenter for more information.

7 Mindsets Schedule

• Thank you for continuing to teach the 7 mindsets curriculum and infusing it within your daily teaching.
• Mindset of the week- We are Connected
• 7 Mindsets Schedule 2023-2024

Please let me know if you have any questions about this week's updates or any other topic.  

Have a great day!

Dr. Dobyns