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!