Catch-Up Day

Catch-Up Day

A dozen 6th grade students do not complete a math assignment.  Eight 7th grade students do not finish a science project.  Three 8th grade students do not complete an art project.  CMS, like many other schools, has students who do not complete all assignments that are assigned.  The aforementioned scenarios can affect many things such as student learning and impact students’ overall grades.  

CMS has experienced implementing a process called Catch-Up Day during the 1st quarter of the school year to help provide more support for those students who do not complete their assignments.   

At this time, Catch-Up Day has replaced the late-work study halls that occurred on Mondays-Thursdays from 3:30-4:15 which also was a time for students to complete missing work although we do reserve the right to keep students after school to complete missing work on an as-needed basis.    

A big change with Catch-Up Day as compared to our previous process is to catch these students during the school day rather than having the students stay after school.  Many times keeping students after school causes conflicts such as transportation, parents’ work schedules, and students’ after-school activities.

Catch-Up Day looks different from grade level to grade level:

Our 7th/8th grade Catch-Up Day has been implemented on three Fridays since school started, running from 8:30-11:20.  Students who qualify for Catch-Up Day attend a classroom, supervised with staff members who provide assistance, with a list of missing assignments.  Students do not attend their regularly assigned classes until the missing work is completed or as much as possible is completed within the time frame provided.  

Sixth grade students run Catch-Up Day using the 6-day cycle.  Every day 6 of the cycle students who have missing work attend an assigned classroom during a period of the day that is designated as a grade level wide study hall in which they have the opportunity to get caught up on missing work.

Fifth grade students run a Catch-Up Day in the classroom when they find it necessary.  Since the 5th grade teachers have their students all day, they have more opportunity to pull students during free time/ study hall to get caught up.

We are attempting to find a better way to meet our students’ needs by using a Catch-Up Day.  We will look at the data after the first quarter and the upcoming 2nd quarter to evaluate the impact it is having on the students’ learning and their grades.  We hope the Catch-Up Day builds a culture of sending the message to students that the work assigned is important and needs to be completed.    

Please check with your child to see if s/he has needed to attend Catch-Up Day.  We appreciate your support as we continue to better meet our students’ needs.

If you have any concerns, questions or comments, please contact me by email at cheiman@carrolltigers.org or by phone at 712-792-8020.

Internet Safety Parent Night (7-12)

Dear Guardian/Parent(s):

Education and student safety are among top priorities at Carroll Community School District.  In pursuit of these values, Carroll Middle School and Carroll High School will partner up to offer an informational session about Internet safety for parents only who have a child in grades 7-12.  

This idea originated as we recognize the increased presence and use of social media.  Popular sites among our students are Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat as well as frequent cell phone use.  We want to provide information to parents so they know how to handle difficult situations that their child may face with Internet safety and how to talk to their child about Internet safety.

The presentation will be led by Gary Bellinghausen of the Carroll Police Department, whom also leads our 6th grade DARE program and who has led a similar presentation to 7th and 8th grade students previously.  He will utilize NetSmartz (http://www.netsmartz.org/Parents) to guide curriculum and ensure that the most relevant information is being shared.  Some content will address Internet safety including sexting, gaming, and cyber-bullying.  

On Wednesday, October 4th at 7:00 pm, you will have the opportunity to listen to Mr. Bellinghausen’s presentation as well as ask questions that you may have about the topic.  The presentation will be held at the CHS auditorium.  

We hope that you can make it on the 4th as we look forward to offering this opportunity for our parents. Reminder, this presentation is designed for parents only.  

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please contact us at cheiman@carrolltigers.org or llesle@carrollitgers.org or by phone at 712-792-8020 (CMS) or 712-792-8010 (CHS).

Thank you.

Cory J. Heiman

CMS Dean of Students

Larry Lesle
Coordinator of Student Support Services

2017-18 Student Handbook Items

We welcome CMS students and families to the 2017-18 school year. We hope everyone's school year is off to a great start.

We want to take this opportunity to highlight several items in our CMS Student Handbook.  Some of these items are practices similar to previous years while others have been changed from past years.

Let’s get started:

1. If your child is sick or will be absent for any reason, please call the school office at 792-8020.  We encourage you to notify us as early as possible when your child will be absent.  
2. Students will be allowed to drop Band and Chorus within the first 2 weeks of each semester.  Students will not be able to drop at any other time during the school year.  In order for students to drop, the student and the director must meet in person to discuss reasonings behind dropping the class and parent must consent to the director in writing or in person.
3. Students can carry cell phones with them during the school day.  This is a change in policy compared to previous years in which students were asked to keep them in the office or their locker.  Students can have their phones on them.  Once the cell phone becomes a distraction, then the staff member may ask the student for the cell phone.  The staff member may keep the phone for the day, returning it to the student at the end of the day.
4. Students shall not make any recordings or take any photographs during the school day or at school events without the permission of the teacher or an administrator.  Video recordings and pictures are allowed at public events and performances such as award assemblies and athletic contests.  
5. Students who do receive a consequence such as a detention will be asked to serve the detention after school.  We will not be having students serve detentions before school.    
6. Students can receive three tardies a semester.  Once a student receives four of them a semester, a consequence--such as a detention--can be enforced.  Typically a letter will be sent once a student receives two tardies a semester.  
7. Students are allowed to bring a water bottle as long as it is a clear, non-breakable container.  Please no flavor enhancers added to the water.  
8. We have a vending machine located outside the main office that students can use before school and before lunch.  Students are not to use it after school.  

We encourage parents to access the handbook in the virtual backpack on the district website and students have access to it in their google drive.  Please read the handbook so you are aware of our policies.  

We look forward to working with you and your child this year.  If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please contact us at 792-8020 or email me at cheiman@carrolltigers.org.

Thank you.

Advanced Math

Our team of 6-8 math teachers participated in math professional development recently.  The teachers worked as a team to learn more about the Iowa Core Mathematics, to review best math practices, and to evaluate math textbooks.  As part of the professional development, the team also reviewed the acceleration process at Carroll Middle School.  

Throughout our conversations it was evident we believe it is important to accelerate and provide differentiation opportunities for those students whose data qualify them for acceleration.  

We identified several components that are important as we make decisions on whether or not students accelerate in the area of math:  

1. Make it data-driven.
2. Work as a team when looking at the data so more conversations can take place when making these decisions.
3. Add another layer of testing criteria that is more aligned to the Iowa Core (adding a benchmark test).

We agreed upon the following assessments along with the criteria that students will need to demonstrate to accelerate in the area of math.

*Students must meet all 3 indicators to determine acceleration.

Grade	Iowa Assessments (completed)	NWEA (use spring score); in progress	Benchmark Test (take in upcoming weeks)
5th	95% or higher	93% or higher	60% or higher
6th	95% or higher	93% or higher	60% or higher
7th	95% or higher	93% or higher	60% or higher

• All 5th graders take 6th grade Benchmark Test in May.
• All 6th graders take 7th grade Benchmark Test in May.
• 7th graders not taking Algebra this year would take 8th grade Benchmark Test in May to determine if they should take Algebra next year.
• Students who have been identified with a math goal through the Special Education program would not take the Math Benchmark Test unless parent wishes his/her child to do so--please contact us if you would like your child to take the Math Benchmark Test.

If students do not demonstrate the above criteria to accelerate for the start of the next school year, they have the opportunity to accelerate at some later point during the year if a teacher thinks s/he shows signs of possibly accelerating by performing well in NWEA Fall and Winter testing windows.  

We believe our Math Professional Development allowed us to take steps to improve the acceleration process at Carroll Middle School, using a more detailed, thorough process which will benefit our students.  

If you have any questions, concerns or comments, feel free to contact me by email at cheiman@carrolltigers.org or by phone at 712-792-8020.

Grading Information

An 8th grade student turns in a science assignment several days late.  Many 7th grade students do not turn in a math assignment.  Several sixth grade students who do not turn in a reading assignment are assigned a zero for the missing assignment.  A class of 5th graders are assigned extra credit points if they complete a task that is not required for social studies.  These scenarios are commonly encountered by teachers and students when it comes to the reality of grades and grading practices.  

When students receive a lower grade due to missing work or not turning work in at all, does the grade truly reflect what s/he knows?  Does parent support affect his/her grade?  Does a student’s unwillingness or non-compliant behavior to complete an assignment impact his/her grade?  The aforementioned questions are encountered by many schools across the state of Iowa and across the country as school districts have been addressing their grading practices in recent years.

Carroll Middle School is revisiting its current grading practices, recognizing that we too have students whose grades do not often reflect what s/he knows because of other factors such as behavior, home support, etc. We also realize that many of our current grading practices lean toward traditional practices.  

Since the start of this school year, teachers have been encouraged to experiment with his/her classroom grading practices. The questions below is a sample of questions that were posed to teachers to reflect on current thinking centered around grading:

1. What if we allowed redos?
2. What if we only grade summative tests?
3. What if we didn’t grade every assignment?
4. What if we didn’t reduce a student’s grade due to late assignments?
5. What if we used the word learning in our every day language?
6. What if our conversations with parents centered more to what their child learned and not what they earned?

A Grading Reform Team comprised of seven staff members have been formed to further our learning around research on best practices in grading.  Researchers such as Rick Wormeli and Douglas Reeves along with others in the field of grading practices will assist us in this work.  

We recognize this work will not be easy, but is necessary as we continue to strive to do what is best for students and their learning.  Our hope is that we can further educate ourselves on research-based grading practices that will better communicate what students know.  

As we adventure into this work, the Grading Reform Team, as well as school staff, also will discuss how to report out to students and parents what students do and do not know, which will hopefully provide more detailed information on student learning.

Again, we encounter this work knowing that it will improve upon what we already do for our students. We will keep you updated as we progress in this endeavor.

Big Ideas Parent Letter

September 2016

Parent/Guardian(s):

We would like to welcome you to the Big Ideas math series, which is in the first year of implementation for 6-8 grades at Carroll Middle School.  The series was recently purchased after the Math Team spent months studying math curriculum, learning new math strategies, and evaluating a variety of textbooks that led to a textbook pilot during the 2015-16 school year.

We want to take this opportunity to share the philosophy behind the Big Ideas series:

1. Closely aligned to the Iowa Core.
2. Research-based.
3. Curriculum has depth and rigor.
4. Allows students to look at math concepts rather than topic-based.  For example:  Understanding that multiplication is how many groups of something (4 x 5 is four groups of five) rather than just memorizing a fact without developing understanding.  
5. More opportunity for discovery.
6. Higher order thinking problems.
7. Emphasis to explore, question, explain, and persevere.

We want to highlight a few features from the series:

1. Printed materials available for students.
2. Website with a variety of learning resources that includes interactive digital resources & an on-line textbook.
3. Lesson Tutorial Videos.
4. Skills Review Handbook worksheets.
5. Family & Community Involvement letter in each chapter, allowing parents to take an active role in their child’s math education.  

The implementation is a new endeavor for our students and math teachers.  We recognize that the Big Ideas resources will have different expectations from the previously used resources, which may reveal some gaps in content.  Know that we will continue our commitment to ensure student success as we implement the new math series.  

We hope the new series will offer our students an opportunity to think at higher levels, to increase student learning, and to provide curriculum-implementation consistency from 6th to 8th grade.

If you have any questions, concerns or comments, feel free to email me at cheiman@carrolltigers.org or by phone at 712-792-8020.  

Thank you.

Cory J. Heiman

CMS Dean of Students

Internet Safety Parent Meeting (Grades 7-12)

September 2016

Dear Guardian/Parent(s):

Education and student safety are among top priorities at Carroll Community School District.  In pursuit of these values, Carroll Middle School and Carroll High School will partner up to offer an informational session about Internet safety for parents only who have a child in grades 7-12.  

This idea originated as we recognize the increased presence and use of social media.  Popular sites among our students are Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat as well as frequent cell phone use.  We want to provide information to parents so they know how to handle difficult situations that their child may face with Internet safety and how to talk to their child about Internet safety.

The presentation will be led by Gary Bellinghausen of the Carroll Police Department, whom also leads our 6th grade DARE program and who has led a similar presentation to 7th and 8th grade students last year.  He will utilize NetSmartz (http://www.netsmartz.org/Parents) to guide curriculum and ensure that the most relevant information is being shared.  Some content will address Internet safety including sexting, gaming, and cyber-bullying.  

On Wednesday, October 5th at 7:00 pm, you will have the opportunity to listen to Mr. Bellinghausen’s presentation as well as ask questions that you may have about the topic.  Presentation will be held at the CHS auditorium.  

We hope that you can make it on the 5th as we look forward to offering this opportunity for our parents. Reminder, this presentation is designed for parents only.  

If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please contact us at cheiman@carrolltigers.org or llesle@carrollitgers.org or by phone at 712-792-8020 (CMS) or 712-792-8010 (CHS).

Thank you.

Cory J. Heiman

CMS Dean of Students

Larry Lesle
Coordinator of Student Support Services