I'm proud of my students for working hard with their online weekly math assignments and the students completing the packets. I have also enjoyed reading your creative responses to the challenge problems! Keep up the good work for this last month of the school year! Shout out to these students who have been consistently demonstrating Aztec traits in math : Eddie Acosta, Isabela Arevalo, Diego Gomez, Lorena Luna LLamas, Yaretzy Serna, Eva Torres, Eduardo Garcia, Jasmin Avila, Karly Castillo, Bryan Gamboa, Joel Corrales, and Erlyn Lopez.

As 7th grade teachers, we often find ourselves in the middle -- The middle grade in the middle school in the middle of your academic careers. We don't have you when you enter the building and just learning the ropes, and we are behind you by the time you are preparing to embrace becoming an adult as you are leaving for high school. Yet, the view from the middle is spectacular. It is in this year, 7th grade, that you are finally starting to figure out who you are and learning to speak your mind, and sometimes those are soaring successes and other times epic failures. Both the missteps and accomplishments find a special place in our hearts because they created a memory that can not be replaced or recreated by the next year's class. The middle seems to be the place where the memories begin to stick and live on more than the elementary years. That is where we are, your 7th grade teachers, and we hope that we stick. As this year comes to a close, for some of us, this will be the end of the chapter at GCMS. Next year will bring new faces to the school, but as we move forward the memories live on in the halls. Someday GCMS will be in the past for all of us and we will move away from the middle of this journey. Yet, when it is said and done, you can always close your eyes and think of Mrs. Anderson's laugh or Mr. Acosta's bad jokes. You can remember how excited Mrs. Pistole was about experiments or the way Mr. VandeNoord gave you candy for no reason at all. Perhaps it will be Mrs. Moore speaking loudly all the time to get your attention or Math with Minnis. You might see hear the band playing and Mr. Velasquez races into your mind or see a teacher talking to student and remember your heart to hearts with Ms. Nielsen. We are all here in the middle and we hope to stay in the middle of your hearts and minds.