NEW NEWS FROM THE GO:

6/6/2013

Best wishes on a fantastic, restful summer break!  I am looking forward to welcoming our incoming 6th graders this fall and wish our outgoing 8th graders the best of luck in their high school careers! :)

4/12/2013

Happy Friday!  With less than 40 days of school left, "Spring Fever" is due to set in as soon as the weather warms up and the sun comes out again.  As a school counselor, I often find this time of year to be the most difficult for students in terms of staying focus and on track for academic success through the last few months of school.

Parents can help to combat this “fever” by staying involved and supportive of their student’s success.  To help your child power through to June, share your expectations and help your child set academic goals.  Let your child know that education is still a priority even though they might be focused on extracurricular activities and would rather set the cruise control until summer break begins.

Children’s attitudes about school are greatly influenced by what their parents say and do.  Through your words and actions, show your child that you believe education is important, are interested in your child’s academic progress and support the teachers and administrators at your school.  Parents who expect good effort and behavior usually find that their children live up to their expectations.  Make sure your child knows that he/she is expected to be in school every day on time, obey the school rules, be respectful to teachers and classmates, complete all homework assignments, take responsibility for their behavior, use technology responsibly and let you know if there is a problem.

Talk to your child about what is happening at school and be a good listener.  Show interest in what your child is studying and be informed.  Finally, provide encouragement and celebrate success!  Good luck to all of our students in these final weeks of the 2012-13 school year.

Excerpts taken from the Parent InfoGuide “Help Your Child Succeed in School”2013 edition, published by Woodburn Press.

 3/25/2013

Hello again and happy Spring! What a great month March has been at Caro Middle School.  I so appreciate all of the participation on the part of both our staff and students as we highlighted Career and College Readiness this month at CMS.  Through daily trivia questions, a full-fledged Career Day with 30 at professionals from our community, and College Day, these last few weeks have been tons of fun around the middle school!  I hope that students have enjoyed the extra activities and have learned some things about what it takes to reach their college and career goals.  For it being the first year that we have done something like this, it went very well and we are hopeful to provide these opportunties for our students again in the years to come.  If you are a parent and didn't hear about these activities from your student, ask them which four professionals they saw on Career Day, or which one of their teacher's Educational Journey speeches was the most inspiring!  Caro Middle School did have a great story on TV 5 about Career Day that can be seen by following this link http://www.wnem.com/video?clipId=8637040&autostart=true

As we prepare for the Spring Break vacation, I want to remind all students that the end of the school year is quickly approaching and therefore we will be moving into scheduling for next year when we return in April.  Now is NOT the time to put your brain on cruise control!  We would like see all students move on to the next grade level but this requires that students pass their core classes in all three trimesters.

Just as a reminder, 8th Grade students will be taking the Explore test for the second time when we return on Tuesday, April 9th.  Please come prepared for testing with pencils and a calculator.  You will be testing in your testing room, not your 1st hour. Teachers have copies of the rosters if you need to know where to report.  Good Luck!

Best wishes for a safe and happy Spring Break this coming week!

1/22/2013

Brrr!  Although it was a little late in coming this year, winter has definitely arrived!  I hope that the random power outages that affected so many in our area have all been resolved and that all of our students have a warm home to return to.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with many parents to discuss assessement results during conferences.  I thoroughly enjoyed having those one-on-one connections and appreciated the time you took to come out and learn more about your children's progress this school year.  Due to the fact that we saw so many parents on that evening, we will not be hosting an additional parent night to give back assessment results.  If there are any parents who visit my site that were not able to make the P-T conferneces, I would be happy to send home test results with your child for you to review at home.  Please click the link in the left column to email me your request.  Stay warm!

1/9/2013

Welcome back!  I hope that the extended break was a great time spent with family and friends.  As students get back into the swing of things, I want parents to be aware of some testing that is occuring.  Winter benchmark tests have started on the NWEA tests in reading and math (results tell the student their grade level).  Students will also be taking the AIMSweb test for oral fluency in the next week.  Please feel free to email me with questions on what these tests mean.  We are currently working on setting up an informational program for parents to learn more about their student's test results. 

12/17/2012

With the holiday break quickly approaching, your students are probably looking forward to a break from the academic demands of school.  Just incase the break becomes a little too long, I have updated my Useful Links page with some online academic websites that provide math and vocabulary games and other information you and your students may find helpful.  Happy surfing! 

12/4/2012

Happy December!  We are now into the second trimester and parents should have recieved hard copies of their student's report cards from first trimester late last week.  Hopefully your student's grades were in line with their academic ability.  Please encourage your students to keep on top of their grades as we move toward the Christmas break in a few weeks.  It can be easy to try to slide into the long break, but with the short trimester schedule each and every week is important!

11/19/2012

Over the last three weeks I have had the opportunity to meet with each student in the school individually for a Minute Meeting where we chatted about the student's personal and social wellbeing, grades and future career goals.  I so enjoyed getting the chance to catch up with students through these meetings!  Thanks to the students for their great participation - I am looking forward to chatting again throughout the year. =]

Additioanlly, I would like to wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving this Thursday.  May it be just the beginning of a joyous holiday season.

11/13/2012

Eighth grade students will be recieving their Explore test results today in their math class.  Parents should look for their student's score report to come home over the next day or so as I meet with students individually to review scores.  More information on how to read the score report can be found in the newsprint pamplet students will be recieving, or by clicking on the link in the column on the left.

Only four days until the end of the trimester; now is the time to make sure all missing or late work is caught up!

10/26/2012

Whew; what a month October has been!  We are officially through the MEAP test and looking forward to the end of the 1st trimester quickly approaching in November.  Just as a reminder, we only have three and a half weeks of school left until final grades will be given for the tri.  For parents or students unfamiliar with the trimeser calendar, students will recieve final report cards three times a year instead of twice like last year under semesters.  The second trimester will run from November 26 - March 1st, with the third tri starting March 4 and going through the end of the year.

If your student is falling behind, please remind them to get in any missing assignments and seek help as soon as possible from their teachers.  Don't wait until it's too late!

November is also the month that I will attempt to meet individually with every student on my caseload (that's the whole student body!).  Over the next couple weeks I will being seeing all students through "Minute Meetings" where we will briefly chat about the three main school counseling focuses of personal/social wellbeing, academic achievement and career planning.  I will be visiting students for their Minute Meeting sixth and seventh grade science classes.  For eighth graders I will be also meeting with students to explain their scores from the EXPLORE test that they took last month and review individual score results with them. I have never had the chance to meet with every single student in the building on an individual level and I am really looking forward to it!

Best wishes for a safe and happy Halloween!

9/24/2012

Is it possible that we are almost a month into the school year already?!  As is usually the case at the start of the school year, time is absolutely flying around here.  I hope that your students have gotten back in the swing of things and that the school year is going well so far.  As we start this shortened fourth week of the trimester I want to remind students and parents that we are getting ever closer to the midterm which will occur after week six.

The big news in the Guidance Office is the Explore test that 8th grade students will be taking for the first time tomorrow, Tuesday, September 25th.  This standardized test is the first in the series of tests leading up to the ACT all students in the state are required to take in their junior year.  Due to a grant from the state of Michigan, our 8th graders will have the opportunity to take the Explore for a second time this spring.  These two tests will provide a lot of insight into the growth experienced over the 8th grade year.

Parents of 8th graders should encourage their students to do their best on this test.  It is a great benchmark to see where they are at in terms of college readiness.  Score reports will be coming back to students and then home toward the end of October.  More infomation about the Explore can be found by following the link on the left.

As we approach October, the MEAP test looms in the not so distant future.  This year testing will occur from Tuesday, October 9 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012.  I will be updating information on this site as we get closer to the testing window.

9/4/2012

Welcome back to Caro Middle School!  I hope that you had a fun and restful summer vacation.  I am excited to be back in the Middle School for my second year and looking forward to making this an even better year of working with our students.

This month I will be in classrooms to meet the incoming sixth graders that I missed meeting last spring while on maternity leave.  I will also be working to get all of our eighth graders tested for a benchmark Explore score.  Students will test again in the spring of 2013 which will provide both the student and the school with growth data and give students a good measure of their grade level achievement prior to moving onto the high school.