Weekly News and Notes

So, there is much happening in the next few weeks as we prepare for the final stretch to graduation and exams. We will attempt to keep everything straight - and please be patient with some of the requests, as we attempt to prioritize with what needs to get done in time. After all, there are only so many hours in a day - and we are all in the final push of keeping seniors on track to graduation, underclassmen focused on the curriculum, preparing for AP, MCAS, and other big exams, not to mention the different after-school events and other initiatives pulling at us all!

Starting with...

The Evaluation Process

Many of our teachers who are professional status have been attending mini-workshops on the formative conferences, which will be taking place in the second half of May. As you gather data to support the standards and indicators, there will be many pieces of data that will support multiple standards - and that you will find from various places, from lesson plans and student work samples, to walk-throughs and class observations, to the workshops people attend and Atlas work being completed.

We are in this together! Please be thoughtful and thorough, but know that we are all going to work through the nuances of the evaluation, new as it may be, with one another. If you have questions in advance of the portfolio gathering process, or are wondering if a piece of evidence supports a desired standard, just ask!


Handbook Committee

Our Student Handbook revisions will be due to the Superintendent's office by May 30. Thus, we are proposing the following days for Handbook Committee to meet:

Thursday, May 9
Tuesday, May 14
Thursday, May 16 (if necessary)
Thursday, May 23 (if necessary)

There are some topics that will need to be included, as the Handbook is silent or inconsistent on them, and an agenda of which will be posted a couple of days prior. We ask only that you commit to all meetings for consistency's sake. If you are interested in committing, please let me know by next Friday, May 3.

Hiring Committees

This time of year also gets busy in terms of hiring committees; we know of at least a couple of positions that will soon be posted. The first two positions we will need assistance with will be the Humanities and STEM leader positions. Ideally, we would like a teacher from each department represented for each position, at a minimum, and we have already started identifying some students to serve on the committees.

In all likelihood, these interviews will take place the week of May 13 and 20, which I know coincides with senior exams, MCAS, and AP tests, but in the interest of time is appropriate. Also, we would like these people involved in the hiring of any new staff come late May/early June.

If you are interested in serving, please let me know by next Friday, May 3, so I can start putting some dates and times together. Thanks in advance for your support and interest!

Schedules for 2013-14

The course selections as input have been made live for the students to view. Any changes that need to be made based on their course selections must be done by the middle of next week. If there are any additional teacher recommendations that are needed, that too must be completed by May 1.

Our next steps will include looking at the course tallies to determine how many sections of each course will in fact run, which will determine the structure of the master schedule. We will also be finalizing the numbers of students who will be enrolling in honors classes for Grade 9, which will also have an impact.

We thank those of you who have helped out over the last few weeks with the proctoring, evaluating, and discussing of the honors tests, both for the rising middle schoolers and our current students, and we are confident that the best decisions will be made for everyone's schedules, students and teachers alike.

AP TESTS!

The AP tests are scheduled to start on May 6; be aware that students who are underclassmen may be in and out of class because of the tests. Seniors traditionally have been permitted to come in for the test and leave after.

Senior Exams: There is no change to past practice in terms of senior exams. There will be an exemption list in all of your mailboxes (provided that you have seniors) on Monday or Tuesday. This list will include ONLY those students in year-long classes; we trust that you can figure the second semester out without the power of MMS!


Upcoming Events:

May 3: Six Flags Field Trip, Journalism Field Trip
May 8: Spring Concert, 7:30
May 17: Busy Day! There are two assemblies sponsored by Peer Counselors on Body Image which several of our students and staff have been involved in planning. It is a half-day for students, and the  Junior/Senior Prom is that night.
May 24: Junior Class Field Trip is in the works with Mr. Collins

Links of the Week:

Click here! Check out the link to a jpeg of the very first SAT ever given - and pay attention to some of the questions. The 1920s were different times!

There is a video clip for students on 5 tips for writing better DBQ essays, also found on the weekly links.

Thanks for reading!

Weekly News and Notes

April vacation is here! Serenity now!

Hope that all of you find serenity, wherever you may be! (But don't bottle up too much anger!)

This Week!

There were so many great things happening this week around the building - awesome projects, collaboration, hard work. Not that this week was different from many, but there was definitely many positive happenings. We appreciate that everyone tolerated the smell of vinegar from Mr. Hoek's classes' experiments. A video of one of their assignments is just below. The excitement those students brought to the project was palpable - and they were so proud of what they had accomplished. Awesome work, Frank!

Frank's Students' Video #1 and #2;

Some of you were also fortunate enough to see Mr. Christie's students' interpretation of The Importance of Being Earnest, which was cleverly adapted to Medway circa 2013. In the coming weeks, we hope that many of you will be able to help out with a number of projects, even as spectators, including Ms. Pereira's awesome forensic projects, and Mr. Jacobs' classes trial of Victor Frankenstein. There are many, many wonderful things going on in the classrooms - too many to list here - but if you want to make sure we stop by to get a log or observation of it, just ask!

On top of that, Jon Jasinski's band is up for a WMRC Regional Award. Look for Songs For Ceilidh on #11 - Best Local Ethnic Act and  Click here to vote!


AFL-CIO Scholarship Winners

We are pleased to announce that two graduating seniors who took the 55th Annual Massachusetts AFL-CIO Scholarship exam won scholarships!

Amanda Trainor won the UAPP Local 12 Golf Tourney Scholarship in the amount of $4000!
Jayel Gervais won the LIUNA Local 88 Scholarship in the amount of $1000!

Congratulations!

Special Schedules and Info

Expect to see information on the Math and Science MCAS, Graduation, Senior Week, and Senior Exams when you return after the week of graduation, as well as more details on the evaluation process for those of you who need to schedule appointments/conferences, both formative and summative. Let us know if you have questions!

Foreign Trips

Thanks to  all our chaperones who spent the April vacation week with students abroad - it is a daunting task to travel across the world with a group of students, and we look forward to hearing about all the excitement of these trips. Hope to see lots of pictures!

Again, have a pleasant and restful week, complete with lots of serenity!

Links of the Week:

Fifteen cool examples of new technology in education


This week's list of resources includes a great article on "Ten Commandments for Educators." My two favorite involving inspiring kids to get gritty and to fail - because taking risks are what's necessary. Click here for the full issue.

Weekly News and Notes

Greetings!

Lots of stuff going on this week (and in the coming weeks)! Thanks in advance for paying attention to all these details!

First, some congratulations! The Banking Program competed at the state competition this week at the Federal Reserve and came home with a state championship in Product Development and a second place finish in Marketing. Congratulations both to Joan at Charles River Bank and her committed group of students for a job well done!

Also, the Science Olympiad won the Regional championship, and after competing last week at Framingham State and the state championship, finished in the top 25 of school's in the state. Congratulations to Mr. Hoek, Ms. Pereira, and Ms. Colace for their efforts with the Science O!

MEDWAY 300!
The Medway Clean Sweep is rapidly approaching. It will be held on the morning of Saturday, April 27, from 8:00-11:00 a.m. We will have a number of student groups involved, and they will be assigned to different areas of the town to assist with the town-wide cleanup, which is in coordination with the Town administration and Medway300. Club advisors have been on top of getting their organizations involved, and we hope to have many of them (and everyone) around town to assist.

The four areas our students will be coordinating are:

Zone 2 - Coffee/Ellis Streets: Project Green/TADA
Zone 3 - Highland/Oak Streets: Class of 2016
Zone 4 - Lovering/Adams Streets: NHS/Peer Counselors
Zone 5 - Oakland/North Streets: Student Government/Leos

Please feel free to bring a set of gloves, a broom, or a rake to help out!

Secondly, get ready for the Arts Weekend, which will be here May 11 and 12. Save the date!

Field Trips

The weather is getting warmer, and the days brighter. With that, there have been more field trips being requested.

Already on the calendar (or tentatively on the calendar):

April 23: Ms. Aigler -  BioTech Field Trip, Periods E&F only to Waste Water Treatment Plant
April 25: Mr. Collins - Junior Honors and Accelerated classes - Medway Community Farm
May 3: Freshman Class- Six Flags Physics Trip
May 3: Ms. Cecchi - journalism classes/Newspaper club
May 7: Ms. Guilfoil - student leadership day for SADD at Boston State House
May 20: Mr. Andreoni, Mr. Rojee, Ms. Ryan- Sophomore AP History/Junior AP Language - Newport Field Trip

Other trips that are pending: The entire junior class hopes to attend a screening of The Great Gatsby, which will likely happen in the Bellingham theater.  A date will be forthcoming.

SENIOR EXAMS

We haven't posted this yet, but the senior exam schedule is looking like:

May 21: A,B; Followed by CDE
May 22: C,D; Followed by EFG
May 23: E,F; Followed by GAB
May 24: G, MU.

On May 24, the makeup will be an A block for the rest of the building, followed by BCD. Everything thus meets during the week.


If there are any extenuating circumstances, seniors should have those approved in advance.

SENIOR WEEK

Here's the schedule for the Senior Week activities, which is not quite set in stone. We would love to see many of you at graduation on June 2!

Tuesday, 5/28, a.m.: Senior Class Outing @ Hampton Beach
Tuesday, 5/28, p.m.: Movie Night - hopefully on Hanlon Field
Wednesday, 5/29, a.m.: Cap and Gown Distribution, Graduation Rehearsal
Wednesday, 5/29, p.m.: Scholarship Night
Thursday, 5/30, a.m.: Homeroom Competition and BBQ
Friday, 5/31: Class Day
Sunday, 6/2: Graduation

We will send more details as they are available, particularly about the location and place for the Superlative Night.

We will be meeting with the Class Officers and have brought up the decision for an indoor graduation (as predetermined, and not as a rain site). We will hopefully have a decision on that very soon.

SCHEDULING

Great job this week by all teachers and in particular the counselors on getting all three grades of students in and out of the labs for course registration. We have most of our tallies in, and will hopefully be able to start the process of determining what will meet next year.

The middle schoolers will be concluding their inputs very soon. As that happens, we will have a more full idea of what will be running and who will be teaching what. After that, it will be a little bit easier to make determinations of what the schedule will look like.

MCAS FOR MAY

The MCAS in Math is scheduled for May 13 and 14, which will be a Day 1 and 2 in the schedule, respectively. Because the sophomores will miss similar periods those days, and because the AP US History test is being given on May 15, we will be adjusting the sequence of periods those days to allow C block to meet, as it will be compromised both days and the sophomores in AP history are the only sophomores to be testing on 5/15.

Monday, May 13 will remain a Day 1; the schedule sequence will be A-B-E-D-C-F.
Tuesday, May 14 will remain a Day 2; the schedule sequence will be B-D-F-E-C-G.

Handbook Committee

We will be having an annual Handbook Committee looking at some policies and procedures, as well as some changes to the Handbook. Some tentative dates will be set very soon, ideally by the end of next week, for a quick process of 2-3 meetings. Agenda items will be provided. Be on the lookout!

LINK OF THE WEEK: Not to pat ourselves on the back, but Medway shows up twice on this link of the top 60 Twitter accounts in Massachusetts!