CMS Families,

We hope you are settled into your school routines and everyone is having a great year! It was nice to see parents and caregivers at our open houses. We enjoyed showcasing what your students experience each day here at CMS. October has been a great month at CMS - we had our first ever 6th Grade Camp Day and are gearing up for our 8th grade trips. 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.

Halloween is Friday! We welcome student costumes at CMS. We reviewed costume guidelines with students last week in grade level assemblies. We have also had the following information on our daily announcements: Students may wear Halloween Costumes to school on the 31st. They must be school appropriate and not so large that they cause a disruption in class. The following are not allowed: masks, excessive face paint, weapons, or costumes that are excessively gory or disturbing.

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.

• We appreciate parents having proactive conversations with students about appropriate behavior in school and on the bus. One of our points last week in grade level assemblies was that "sometimes funny is actually disruptive." We have encountered a number of situations this year where students think they are being funny by replicating something they see on social media (ex. paper post it darts!). However, the actions can be highly disruptive to the learning environment and/or be dangerous. Hearing this message at home helps students to understand we are all on the same page. 

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.