I feel like I should be welcoming you back from another holiday! I do hope everyone enjoyed the snow. From what I understand, it is early in the year for us to be experiencing snow...I am going to tell myself that we've had our snow, winter is now over, everything will now get warm again! Let me live in my happy place!
1. With the missed days of school last week, we've had a few schedule interruptions. As a result,
- school photos will be rescheduled to a date in February. We are currently working with the school photographer to identify a new date
- we will be adjusting our Advisory schedule so it might take us until next week to be back on track with assemblies, ZAP days, etc. on their regular days
- unfortunately, our scheduled staff PD meeting about Standards Based Reporting with Tom Guskey had to be canceled due to a family matter. Our sympathies were expressed to Mr. Guskey and his family.
2. Reminder, After School Activities started up again this week. This continues the session 2 activities that were taking place prior to the holiday. Session 2 activities will end 31 January. Session 3 activity sign ups will take place the week of 3 February through Moodle. Activity choices will be posted prior to 3 February.
3. I would like to ask for your support...........
After observing traffic patterns and student habits throughout the first semester, I would like to ask for your support in reinforcing 2 policy changes at ACS. Students will be informed of these changes this week during advisory and these changes will come into effect this week also.
- For safety reasons, ACS will no longer allow backpacks into the cafeteria, our outside eating area, during lunch time. We realize this will inconvenience some students, but this change is to ensure we will be able to evacuate the cafeteria in a safe and timely manner if there was an emergency and to ensure personal items are secured during times when students often leave bags, etc. unattended for extended periods. Students will be required to leave backpacks in their lockers during the lunch break.
- For social development reasons, ACS will no longer allow laptops to be used during the lunch time for gaming purposes. A key part of middle school is students interacting with each other and developing their social skills. It has been our observation that an increasing number of students not only "skip lunch" for the sake of gaming but also spend the entire break time never having a social interaction with their peers. This will also help keep laptops secure and safe during the lunch time (away from food and drink items that could spill onto the laptops)
It is our goal to support our students in becoming young people who can interact socially in positive ways and take advantage of opportunities to engage in healthy, stress releasing activities during the day. We hope you, as parents, understand our motivation for these changes. Please contact me if you have concerns about these two policy changes. I will be more than happy to discuss these concerns with you.
Enjoy your evening,
Rhonda Isley
MS Principal