The first quarter officially ended on Friday, November 9, and we hope that many will find the time to finish closing out grades in the next few days. The Report card will be issued on November 19 - please remember to post grades and comments! If you have questions on how to finalize both comments and grades, see a department head or administrator, but we trust that is fairly old hat for almost all of you!
Sarah Hope Signing Letter of Intent!
Stop by the foyer next Wednesday immediately after school, as senior Sarah Hope signs her National Letter of Intent to play basketball at Boston University. According to Officer Grimes, Sarah will be Medway's first ever Division I basketball recruit and scholarship athlete! We plan on a brief ceremony, followed by some refreshments, and it would be a great show of our school community's support for Sarah during this exciting opportunity!
Student Leadership Senate
The student leaders of almost all the groups, along with several advisors, met on Tuesday morning to discuss common goals and procedures for all of the student groups to follow. The meeting was pretty positive, and minutes have been posted to the new "it's learning" group for student activities. It will have an online message board and discussion forum, a calendar of events, and a logo of minutes and agendas for those meetings, so that all groups can be on the same page.
One of the key ideas that came from Tuesday's meeting will be the concept of targeted and focused fundraising, where the group or organization will be required to indicate how the money raised will be used to benefit student life and the community at large. While all groups need money, it will put some goals in front of the students and enable others to see, transparently, what the funds will be used for.
We will be looking at holding a toy and non-perishable drive in December to benefit some needy families and children, and several groups have offered to take part. There will more information forthcoming on how faculty can be involved without having to reach into its wallet!
Midsummer Night's Dream
If you haven't caught it already, be sure to check out the Medway High School Drama Club's production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The student actors are wonderful and the production extremely well done! You will be amazed by the work of some of our students who may appear on the quieter side on a daily basis - be sure to check it out and congratulate them on a job well done!
To that end, the middle school was here Friday with all of their seventh and eighth graders. We join Mr. Christie in applauding them for being a captive and respectful audience, and, moving forward, we hope to accomplish more of these type of days that assists with vertical alignment and potentially some interaction between the schools on a curricular and extra-curricular level.
Discipline Totals
Not to jinx anything, but we went the entire first quarter without a single out-of-school or in-school suspension, and the first Saturday detentions of the year were assigned this week. Let's keep that streak up!
Study Hall, Corridors, and Passes
To say that everything has been perfect would be an exaggeration, though. While 99% of the hall duty reports have come back with the building clear and students where they are supposed to be, there have been a couple of anomalies in the past week or so that bear mentioning.
First, if a student asks for a pass from Study Hall to another area of the building (guidance, computer lab, etc.), PLEASE CALL FIRST! Sometimes there is a class in the lab, or guidance is booked. Generally, people have been very good about following this procedure, but we want to make sure students don't start taking advantage of any situations!
Second, if students in study ask for a pass in the last few minutes, be wary of giving it to them. Often times, they are going to a locker and then wandering for a few minutes. Just check the clock and make sure students are going and coming back within an appropriate window - there have been a few students wandering a bit more this week. If you think a student was wandering, or took too long to complete a simple task, just say no next time!
To that end - every minute is valuable. Students lining up at the door (or outside the door, in some cases) should not be the norm. If classes are running bell-to-bell, the likelihood of students sneaking out a minute or two early goes way down.
Finally, we have gotten a few questions about iPods and other technology during studies. Generally, this issue has been handled on a case-by-case basis. That said, the use of the iPod, laptop, etc. in class or study should be linked to an academic purpose. (If a student is in the study, without anything to do except watch Netflix on his/her iPad or play video games, there is likely a broader conversation to be had about rigor, the number of studies a student may have, or the purpose of them to begin with!) So if a student is refusing to stop watching movies or playing games on his/her iPod, especially after being warned, let us know.
Links of the Week
There is a wonderful collection of lesson plans and teacher resources aligned with the Common Core embedded in this article from US News.
For those that teach the research process, Edudemic published 15 lesson plans for teaching effective researching skills.
Videos of the Week
From PD360: A video on how to prepare a technology-infused lesson
Have a great weekend!
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