Second Semester - Changes and Updates

We have arrived! Our students persevered through their first semester of the 2017-2018 school year, and today starts their second semester. This is an opportunity to reflect on how things went first semester, make necessary changes to better our school environment, and keep on doing great things here at Freeland Middle School.

Some changes you will see second semester, and some additional updates are below...

Technology Changes

We have noticed some concerns with academic dishonesty on technology devices that we need to address. We are showing this video to all students in 7th and 8th grade this week just to continue to reinforce academic integrity and what that means here at FMS.

Additionally, we have many Chromebooks that have been damaged due to misuse this year. We are showing this video to all 7th grade students to reinforce Chromebook care. Starting next week, if our students have broken hinges on their Chromebooks, they will spend time during lunch helping our tech support team fix their hinges. This is a great life skill for these students, and also shows our students how much work it can be to fix these devices! We hope that this will reinforce care for our 1:1 Chromebooks.

Finally, our building is struggling with device misuse, and we need to make sure we clean things up when it comes to how our 7th and 8th grade students use their devices. Please make sure you watch this video or view this PowerPoint presentation to understand our expectations moving forward. If our students get sent to the office for technology misuse they will be looking at after-school detentions. This will take some coordinating for our parents, and we appreciate your support with this. We want to make sure we are teaching students skills for success when it comes to technology, and right now, we are seeing many of our students not understanding how to use their devices appropriately at school.

Cafeteria Changes

I am sure you have heard frustrations about our cafeteria when it comes to days when we have to "lock down" the cafeteria and not let students move due to cafeteria messes and overall behavior in the cafeteria. For second semester, we want to try to change things up a bit. We are going to be running a "Clash of the Cafeteria Clans" competition in our cafeteria. This will be a fun and positive way to reinforce appropriate cafeteria behavior. Please take a look at this presentation to better understand the game we will be playing with our students this marking period! 

Honor/Merit Roll

This is the week our students will find out if they made the Honor/Merit Roll. Honor/Merit Roll lists will be printed Thursday morning and posted in the halls for students. On Friday, anyone who made the Honor/Merit Roll or is being recognized for being a Student of the Marking period will attend a dessert banquet in the cafeteria during our assembly schedule time at the end of the day. For students who did not make the Honor/Merit Roll this semester, we have set up some goal setting time for them so that they can set themselves up for success second semester! Review this presentation for all information on our Honor/Merit Roll recognition at FMS.

Have a great start to second semester!

Semester Exams

It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of first semester. To better prepare for semester exams, below are several exam study tips, presentations, and videos.

Semester Exam Schedule - January 17th-19th

Wednesday, January 17th        7:40-7:55 1st hour exam review

                                                            7:55-9:30 1st hour exam

                                                            9:30-9:40 Break

                                                9:40-10:38 report to 2nd hour to review for

upcoming exams

                                                            10:38-11:13 Lunch

                                                            11:13 -12:47 2nd hour exam

                                                            12:47-12:53 break

                                                            12:53-2:28 3rd hour exam

Thursday, January 18th 7:40-9:20 4th hour exam

                                                            9:20-9:35 Break

                                                            9:35-11:15 5th hour exam
Student Dismissal at 11:15am

Friday, January 19th         7:40-9:20 6th hour exam

                                                            9:20-9:35 Break

                                                            9:35-11:15 7th hour exam
Student Dismissal at 11:15am

Exploratory classes not giving an exam and do not have a test/exam to provide will have a regular day of instruction.

Semester Exam Supports

Here are some of the resources you can utilize to prepare for exams.

• Exam Study Resources
• Exam Study Tips Video

Finally, to help students prepare for their exams, our Falcon Parent Support Organization (FPSO) will be hosting their 4th annual Exam Cram. Below you will find details for this event:

• When is it? Friday, January 12th from 2:30-5:00pm
• Where is it? Freeland Middle School (starts in the cafeteria)
• What is it? A great space for students to have 20-30 minutes per class to study with peers in a fun but productive way!
• Where do I sign up? Sign up by Wednesday, January l0th in the main office
• What if I have questions? See Mrs. Wulff, or email her at wulffr@freelandschools.net

Additional Announcements

• Our parent/teacher conferences will take place on Thursday, January 25th from 4:30-7:00pm. 
• Our Middle School Parent Survey is still open - we appreciate your feedback!
• If you are interested in joining our middle school parent series please check out the information below - this is a great opportunity to meet once a week for seven weeks to learn more about how our middle school students grow, develop, and learn! 
• Middle School Parent Cohort Series Description
• Middle School Parent Cohort Series Registration

Reflections at the start of a new year.

Although this break was a bit more chilly than I would have liked, it was still a great time to relax and enjoy the company of family and friends. I hope that all of you also had some much needed time to rest and relax with your families. With the start of the new year, I took time to reflect on how things are going at the middle school, and am so proud of the work we have done this year.

When it comes to reflections, it is very important that our parents and students also provide us feedback on how they think the year has gone. Click on this link to access a simple 5 minute survey we are asking parents to fill out to give us valuable feedback about your thoughts with how we are doing serving your child this year. We know we aren't perfect, and we want to do whatever we can to continue to improve our student experiences  here at school! If you don't have time to fill it out right now, you can always access the link on our Freeland Middle School district page - it is labeled "parent survey" on the right hand side of the page. Our students will also be filling out a student survey in their English classes sometime during the month of January.

Our students continue to SOAR above the line at school in both behavior and academics. With the honor roll and merit roll recognition coming up quickly, I am proud to say that our students continue to work hard and take school seriously, and know that we will, once again, have the vast majority of our students with a 3.0 or above for the first semester of the year. If you would like information on how we run our honor roll at Freeland Middle School, make sure to check out this presentation.

As we continue into the new year, I think it is also best to reflect on some of the greatest highlights we have had so far. One of my favorites is definitely the 3rd annual Feliz Navi-Dodgeball tournament that we hosted right before break. This event is by far one of my favorite events of the year, and is chalked full of fun for all students whether playing in the tournament, or watching others participate. We had a great year once again, and a huge thank you goes out to our middle school student council and their advisor, Mrs. Gotts, for putting on this tournament for us!

Below are a few pictures from the dodgeball tournament, but if you want to check out all of the pictures we took just click on this link!

And of course, a big thank you to our teachers for once again participating.... and once again, losing in our dodgeball tournament. Maybe one day we will actually beat our students. :)

Some of my other favorite memories so far this year include all of the times we have gathered together to do something great for the community. Recently, we ran our giving tree program and our donations were used to provide Christmas presents to those in need in our local community. In addition to this, we also sent our Choir to Baynes Apple Farm to carol the night away for visitors at the apple farm. Finally, we wanted to celebrate our students right here at FMS, so we wrote each other Christmas grams to post all over the school, and recently had a locker elf visit clean lockers to give candy canes away to any student that kept their locker clean for the marking period.

What a great semester to reflect on; we cannot wait to see what 2018 brings to FMS! Happy New Year!