AVMS is off to a great start this year. Students are engaged and excited to learn! We recently held student council elections and had a very close race. Students gave their speeches to the entire student body and voting took place during class. There were only four votes separating president and one vote separating vice president. The race for treasure was also close with only 15 votes separating the candidates. It fills me with pride to see the excitement on campus.

In addition to motivated students our staff is ready to move us forward too. One new person on campus is our school counselor, Mr. Gore. He comes to us by way of New York City. He has been able to address student issues and plans weekly lessons that address topics that are relevant and support the whole student including the social and emotional learning of our students.

So far this school year students have had dynamic discussions with their teachers during our Friday - Social Emotional Learning (SEL) time:

• Battling Bullying in Altar Valley Middle School

• How Sleep Helps Your Health and Your Success!

• Better Results Next Time - Learning from our Mistakes

• Accepting Differences

• Goal Setting

After each lesson if a student feels they need more support or help with one of the topics they are referred to Mr. Gore. He works with students individually or in small groups of students. During these sessions he is able to get to know the interests of our students and help them make connections between current learning and future goals. Mr. Gore also teams with our 7th grade team to support math during our reteach time. This allows smaller groups of students during reteach to address learning gaps. We look forward to a great year of building, growing and learning as students and staff flourish at AVMS!

Be on the lookout for next month's issue where we will feature our 6th grade team!

Mrs. Camp

AVMS Principal