Middle School Matters

Happy Friday!

I hope you are looking forward to a wonderful three-day weekend.  Remember, NO SCHOOL MONDAY!

We have been focusing on Friendship this week throughout our middle school program.  Students have been challenged to "Make Friendship a Fine Art" by reaching out to people they don't know, refraining from picking on others, and sticking up for victims of bullying.  Please take some time this weekend to discuss these themes with your child as well.  By partnering with us, we can teach our kids how to build and maintain healthy relationships.

Speaking of relationships, sometimes we find that students engage in relational situations that are anything but healthy.  Bullying tends to rear its ugly head during the middle school years, and we want to give you the tools to combat it at home as we work to prevent and deal with such instances here at school.  This CNN article provides some advice to that end that you may find to be helpful.

Absences

Please remember that excused absence requests must be handled through Randy Ragsdale, our middle school dean of students.  Coach Rags has created a new Absence Request Form which will be made available on Edline and in the front office.

Make-up Work

Making up schoolwork after an absence can be challenging.  To make this easier, we have assigned each subject a designated make up day:

Monday - Electives

Tuesday - English

Wednesday - Science

Thursday - Social Studies

Friday - Math

Please contact your child's individual teacher for times and other specifics regarding make-up work.

Moving Day!

We will be moving books into our newly-renovated library next Tuesday.  If you are able to help, put on some work clothes and stop by anytime during the day.  We could use a few more strong backs!

Teacher Blogs and Wikis

In an effort to improve communication with parents I have asked our teachers to create some sort of web presence.  Once these are completed, they will be linked to the middle school page of our school website as well as the home page of this blog.  As of today, the following teachers are hosting blogs and/or wikis.  You may access the site(s) simply by clicking the name of the teacher.

Please note: Some of these sites will be activated next week.  Others not listed will appear next week.

6th Grade

Anita Ellis - Social Studies/Bible
Stan Milton - Math/Bible
Kay Kirtland - Science/Bible
Latrell Fussell - English/Bible

7th Grade

Whittington McLemore - Civics
Elisa Bowden - Bible
Connie Cantey - English
Kelly Long - Math 7, Pre-Algebra

8th Grade

Elisa Bowden - Pre-Algebra
Kristi Weeks - US History
Whittington McLemore - US History
Karen Harris - Algebra I

Electives/Technology/Speech/Etc

Gene Butler - Band/Choir
Jennifer Bricken - Art Blog
Jennifer Bricken - Art Wiki
Rebecca Helms - Forensics/Public Speaking
Kristin Barringer - Introduction to Mac/Bible 8

Here are our tests for next week:

6th Grade: - None

7th Grade:

Friday - Civics, Pre-Algebra

8th Grade:

Thursday - Spanish

Friday - English, Pre-Algebra

Have a Great Labor Day Weekend!