SCHS Drama Performance

If you've never been to a SCHS Drama performance then you're missing out. They have an upcoming performance of Pippin . Showtimes: Thursday, February 10 @ 7:00 p.m. Friday, February 11 @ 7:00 p.m. and Saturday, February 12 @ 2:00 and 7:00 p.m. at the ECSD Performing Arts Center on Meisner Road in East China.

Tickets: Adults $15.00 Seniors and Students $12.00
Discounted presale tickets available at: The Red Geranium or SCHS

It is well worth your while....you'll be surprised at how talented our kids are.

Coke Rewards

Thanks to Dakota Burlingame, SCMS is now signed up for Coke Rewards. Dakota went to Coke Rewards to enter some points he had earned from a Coke product and found out SCMS was not registered. Well, that is now changed.

Here's how it works:

Codes are worth points and can be found on hundreds of Coca-Cola products, making it easy for everyone to get rewarded at My Coke Rewards.

Parents and community members can show their support by joining My Coke Rewards and donating points to SCMS at mycokerewards.com.

If you're a Coca-Cola drinker, look for the codes and let the points come pouring in.

Need Some Help

As part of our school improvement process, we periodically like to survey parents in order to gather valuable information that is used to refine and direct our efforts to continually improve teaching and learning. Please take a moment to complete a brief survey located at the East China School District’s main web page: www.ecsd.us . Click on “Parent Survey” and then select the building your child attends. Your feedback is important and we appreciate your willingness to complete the survey.

Thanks

How Long is the Full Moon Cycle????

WOW......has this been a bizarre few days. The full moon can't leave soon enough. Things are a tad crazy (crazier) here at the middle school. Couple of things.....

I've updated our Washington DC link on our main webpage. The due date for the deposit is just around the corner

Someone, a 6th grader I'm assuming, started a text chain last night telling everyone to wear pajama pants to school today (great....). For those that are new to our school or have been living under a rock, pajama pants are against our dress code. Because of the numbers, (and they totally caught me off guard), we allowed them to go to class today. I let them know in the future we'd have one mass in-house suspension in our cafeteria for the day. I hate being the Dress Code Police.

A reminder that Parent Connect is an awesome tool but it isn't instantaneous. Then an assignment is due on Wednesday, sometimes it takes a little time before the teacher can enter the grades. Your patience is appreciated.

Enjoy the weekend...try to stay warm. Hopefully full moons will only come around during our vacations from now on.

6th Grade Math Classes Work for St. Judes

One of the many community based projects that SCMS have done over the years centers around our 6th grade math classes. The Math-a-thon raises money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Over the years, SCMS 6th graders have raised over $65,000! The event runs from Feb.1st through Feb. 11th. Students are not required to fundraise but are required to do the math assignments associated with the Math-a-thon. Students will be bringing home information packets Monday, January 31st with all the details.

2011 Geography Bee

Africa’s highest peak is part of a national park in Tanzania. Name this mountain. (Mt. Holly?) If you know the answer then you'd fit right in with all of our students that qualified for this year's Geography Bee. The championship came down to Todd Armstrong and John Staiger with John knowing the name of the mountain peak. Congratulations to all the participants and a special thank you to Mrs. Hannon for organizing the event.

(By the way, it's Mt. Kilimanjaro)

Register Online for DC

It's sort of hidden on the registration form but if you'd like to do it online follow this steps:

Go to www.gerbertours.com and click on participants. Enter the Online Tour Code: 3501A1CB and follow the steps.

Let the Mid-Winter Slide Begin

You know what I hate most about this time of year? Not the cold weather, not the ice on my driveway, not even the lack of daylight....what I hate most is this is the time of year that students start to slide with their grades/assignments. I'm no different when it comes to the "slide" except that I've been through it enough to realize when I start to fall into the "slide". It happens partly because of the time of year, partly because they've settled into a routine and partly because of the light at the end of the tunnel seems pretty dim. This is the time of year that we all have to slip into a bit of a cheerleading mode to get the kids focused. Please help us keep the kids on track and motivated. Keep preaching short term goals. We can do this but just like every year, it'll take a team effort.

Wrestling Parent Meeting

SCMS Wrestling Parent Meeting will be on Thursday, January 20th at the SCHS (yes, St. Clair High School) Media Center following the SCHS wrestling match. The varsity wrestling match starts at 5:00 pm. The first practice will be Friday January 21st @ SCMS

Saturday's Times Herald

If you haven't already, check out the front page of Saturday's Times Herald.

The ball is rolling....our job is to keep it rolling.

How Do Rumors Get Started?

Got three or four phone calls yesterday regarding the Washington DC meeting. All had heard that if your didn't attend the meeting you wouldn't be allowed to go on the trip (????). That couldn't be further from the truth. Picking a day for a meeting that everyone can make is impossible. If you missed the meeting please ask your student to pick up a packet of information in the office, look it over then give me a call with any questions. It's an absolutely awesome trip that we'd like every student to experience.

WOW...What a Day

We've got a couple of things going on....

Tonight we have our Washington DC parent meeting for all interested 7th graders at 7:00 pm in our cafeteria.

Today we had an awesome performance from our Drama Class that went hand and hand with our No Bullying Week. Hats off to all the students involved and to Mrs. McDonell for putting this all together.

Because of the snowday we've done a little adjusting to our No Bullying weekly schedule. Tomorrow (Friday) we're asking all the kids to wear white to support our stance on No Bullying. As over the past few days, please take this opportunity to talk to your child about the activities they have been involved with and their thoughts on our efforts. As I've mentioned, these opportunities get farther and farther apart as they get older.

Washington DC Meeting

We will be having our Washington DC parent meeting for all 7th graders that are interested in the trip on Thursday, January 13th from 7:00 to 8:00 pm in our cafeteria. This is an absolutely AWESOME trip that we want every kid to experience. At the meeting we'll discuss the trip, give parents a chance to ask questions and to sign up for next year's trip. Please make every attempt to attend this meeting.

No Bullying Week - Tuesday

Trying to keep everyone one step ahead of the game. Here are the activities for Tuesday:

Cyber Bullying pre-test
Think before you click DVD
Cyber Bullying post test and discussion

As everyone knows, technology is everywhere. Cyber bullying is an extremely difficult area to get a handle on and is a very important family discussion point. Please use this opportunity to discuss this subject with your child.

No Bullying Week - Monday

Here is the short version of what we are doing Monday. You have a GREAT opportunity to strike up some conversations with your child on these topics, what was said/done in school and how they feel about the topic. Please don't let this chance pass you by. Speaking from experience....as your kids get older, these opportunities are few and far between.

Students will be watching a video clips; “Umpire” and “Locker”
We be discussing SCMS's Definition of Bullying
Venn Diagram Activity; Bully, Bystander, Target, and What Bullying Isn’t Activity
Anti-Bullying Contract for students and parents. (Students receive a wristband when it is turned in to Social Studies Teacher by Friday.)

Please look for and ask for the Anti-Bullying Contract. Every student should be bringing it home to be signed by a parent. Take a few minutes to talk about the contract and what it means.

Thanks for your help.....this is going to be great

Facebook Users

As part of our effort to keep parents informed, our Anti-Bullying Committee has made a Facebook page to communicate with our community. In the future we will be posting helpful strategies that you can use at home to support some of our efforts at school with our Anti-Bullying campaign. For now, we are putting out a challenge to all SCMS community members to get other community members to "like" this site. To get to this page (and this is a tad out of my comfort zone....I'm not a huge Facebook person), type SCMS into the search bar. SCMS Antibc (which stands for anti-bullying committee....Facebook has all kinds of weird rules on what/how you can name things). Once you get there, select it and you're off to the races. Please pass our page on to your friends. This has a lot of possibilities that we are very excited about.

Studio 1219

For the past 5 years Studio 1219 in Port Huron has held an ECSD Student Solo Art Show that highlights and celebrates the uniquely talented and creative students in the East China School District. The event goes from January 18th through February 7th. The Gallery hours are Tuesday and Wednesday 10 am - 5 pm, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10 am - 8 pm. Refreshments will be served on opening night, Tuesday January 18th from 4 - 6:30. SCMS will have approximately 40 students have their work on display. It's a great opportunity to see just how talented our kids are. Hope to see you there.

Anti-Bullying Week

Our SCMS Anti-Bullying Week is January 10th -14th and I could not be happier on how this is coming together. In a nutshell each day we will be spending time in our Social Studies classes talking about different aspects of bullying, why it happens, how we can avoid being part of the problem and how to handle it when it does happen. This is not a one week and done "thing". We'll be revisiting this very important topic throughout the year. This a GREAT opportunity to spark some very important discussions at home. I'll be posting more info on what each day's topic is as the week goes on so please check back.

This is going to be great.

Student Anti Bullying Committee

Boy it's good to be back. That was a long but great break. Before break we asked anyone interested in being part of the Anti-Bullying Committee to take home a permission slip to be signed and turned into the office. Thinking back you'll remember that we had a few snowdays right before the Holiday Break which threw a wrench into our deadline for the applications. Because of that, we have extended the deadline to this Thursday. I'll be making announcements over the next few days to remind those interested.