In the past month, we have had an exciting variety of activities taking place:
- Mike Hall came to CCMS to share his anti-bullying message, and encourage students to go from Zero to Hero by focusing on their own self-worth and qualities. This is the third year in a row Mike has spoken to our students, and his message is always well-received.
- We hosted our first annual Safe Halloween Night on October 29th. The event was a great success, as we had over 350 children show up for the festivities. Thank you to all who helped make this event a success!
- Our teachers are working hard to use technology effectively in their classrooms under the direction and support of our new K-12 technology coach, Mr. Strittmatter. Our laptop carts and computer lab are booked every day as teachers experiment with new technology resources to engage their students and enhance learning.
- Implementation of our new textbook resources in math and science continues to go well. Our teachers are adjusting their curriculum as they proceed through the new PA Core standards for the first time in an effort to provide our students with the best education possible. Our math and language arts teachers meet once per 6-day cycle in professional learning communities to talk about the curriculum, assessment, and instruction in those subjects. Our science teachers are meeting each quarter to build their upcoming curriculum and come up with ideas for hands-on science activities to enhance student learning.
- In language arts, we are continuing to work through the PA Core standards for the first time. In 6th grade, our Collaborative Literacy class is making a significant impact on students' reading levels. Were were able to offer this class due to the expansion of Title I funding to 6th grade at CCMS. In 8th grade, we are working on building some cross-curricular content that will be taught in conjunction with our social studies class.
- Student growth data from our 2013-14 PVAAS report showed that every language arts teacher at CCMS made at last one year's worth of growth with their students in reading, with several teachers exceeding the projection and moving students beyond one year's worth of learning. This is a very positive indicator of effective instruction taking place in those classrooms.
- Due to teacher and student use of our laptops and computer lab, we will be adding a cart of Google Chromebooks to our tech resources in the coming weeks. It is our hope that funding will become available to expand beyond this so that we can continue the positive momentum we have had with technology this year.
- We are exploring the idea of adding additional club opportunities for students during our 9th period. Students will be surveyed next week about their interest in clubs, and teachers have already begun coming up with ideas for clubs they would like to offer. We are excited about the possibility of offering a wider variety of options for our students.
- Our Box Tops for Education contest, round 2, is underway. In round 1, three 6th grade classrooms took the top three spots. We raised a significant amount of money from box tops in round 1, which will be used to purchase additional books for our middle school library. Thank you for participating in this collection!
- Our girls' basketball team participated Lady Lions Education Day at Penn State this past Friday. The girls went around to educational booths set up in the Bryce Jordan Center, watched the Lady Lions win their home opener, and got their picture taken with the Nittany Lion.
