CMS Families,

As we head into the holiday season, we wanted to pause and thank you for sharing your students with us each day. It is our privilege to support your student through their middle level years. If at any time you or your student needs some extra support or guidance, do not hesitate to reach out to your grade level house office. As a reminder, we do not have school on December 4th for Parent Conferences.

We can't believe the 2nd quarter is already in full swing. Don't forget to ask your student about how their new special area class is going. We concluded our 1st Quarter with our 8th grade trips (read about them here) and tomorrow is our 7th grade experience day where students are playing a full grade level game of Clue to build team building skills and to bond with their homerooms. 

We have a lot going on at CMS over the next month including our food drive, concerts, and our beloved CMS Maker's Market on December 9th from 5:30-6:30pm in our cafeterias. Check out the District's Instagram Account to be "in the know" and see some of the fun stuff going on here and throughout the district. SAVE THE DATE: Our CMS Winter Dance will be on January 23rd - more details to come. 

We continue to work thoughtfully to address conflict here in school. We recognize it is hard, as a parent, to have your student come home and tell you that another student was unkind to them or that an incident took place. It is important for us to recognize that conflict during middle school is a normal socialization process (while geared toward educators, this article is a great read for any middle school parent). At CMS, we believe we have a responsibility to help students navigate through conflict resolution. We implement restorative practices in order to foster self regulation and social skills. This includes having conversations regarding incidents and coming up with plans to move forward. Most issues we see here at CMS are not true forms of bullying or harassment but conflict between students who have not fully formed self regulation skills. It is important to note that bullying and harassment have no place here at school and we take all matters seriously whether we are talking about conflict or bullying. If you have any concerns regarding issues at school, please reach out to your student's house office.

There are a few items we would like to review with families:

• Students may enter the South Cafeteria door beginning at 7:55am for activities taking place before school. Please note students are not supervised outside if dropped off before this time.

• Please help your student(s) develop a routine to charge their chromebooks each night. It is problematic when students come to school with devices that are not charged.

• Please drive safely in our school parking lots! We know that people are often in a rush at arrival and dismissal. We have had a number of near misses the last couple weeks alone. We have faculty and staff entering the school in the morning and students exiting at the end of the day. Please drive slow and follow our traffic pattern information. We recognize drop-off and afternoon pick-up can be busy and hectic here at CMS. Much of it is out of our control as we are unable to control traffic on Greiner Rd. It is critical to arrival/dismissal that drivers are patient and follow the proper procedures. There is a long-term plan to fix our traffic situation in the next capital project. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience and safe practices during arrival and dismissal. Please follow the dismissal process - students are not to go out to Greiner or across the street to the church to get in cars.

We appreciate your partnership as your students grow both academically and socially this year. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to teachers directly. Our guidance counselors are here to help students navigate challenges they may encounter and can be reached by calling the respective house office. Please be sure to check out the other “buttons” and sidebars below which include our "Who Should I Call?" cheat sheet and CMS Resource Guide for Families.

Thank you,

Ashley Dreibelbis

Principal

PS - Please be sure to check out the other “buttons” and sidebars below which includes other helpful information. The CMS Resource Guide is a middle school handbook for families and has helpful videos for using our digital resources Schoology and PowerSchool.