Christa McAuliffe Middle School

Dear CMMS Families, As you may be aware, we are scheduled to hold Parent-Teacher Conferences on Thursday, March 11th. Due to current state and health department regulations, we will not be holding them in person this spring. You are always able to email your teacher and communicate about your student at any time. Your child's teacher will also be reaching out to you at some point before March 11th to let you know their availability on that day. Teachers will be available via email or phone for a 6-hour time frame on the 11th for conferencing. We should also point out that due to conferences, students will have a half day of school on Thursday, March 11th, and will be dismissed at 10:30am.  Please call the main office at 686-7640 if you have any questions. 

CMMS Parents and Guardians: 1st semester report cards have now been posted to Skyward. Simply click on the report cards tab on the left hand side of the screen once you login in to your parent account. A paper copy of the report card will also be sent out in the US mail along with a report on your child's NWEA scores. If you have any questions about 1st semester report cards or NWEA scores, please call the main office at 686-7640.

There are a number of textbooks and library books missing from last school year at CMMS. We have students waiting to check out these books. Please check your home and return items as soon as possible. Thank you.

CMMS Parents and Guardians: Winter NWEA testing in the areas of Reading and Math will take place for all K-8 students between January 18th - 29th. Testing will be proctored remotely, by each classroom teacher, as it was in the fall. These tests help teachers understand what students currently know, so goals can be set to improve growth throughout the rest of the year. Test results are also used in the placement protocols for honors and intervention classes. We ask that you please encourage your CMMS student(s) to put forth their best effort on these assessments. If you have any questions about NWEA testing please contact CMMS principal, Kevin Biskup, at 686-7640 x3204 or by email at biskupk@bangorschools.org

CMMS Parents and Guardians: Please click on the link below for information regarding the upcoming Winter NWEA testing that will be taking place between January 18th-29th. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i1FZDIvmO04B7MHIv6sLaXS9y3tz5U-w/view?usp=sharing

The CMMS Virtual Scholastic Book Fair will end on Thursday, December 17 at 11:59 pm. Thanks to all who participated in this school library fundraiser. It's a wonderful time of the year to curl up with a good book!

Santa still has a selection of Bobcat and CMMS apparel available at the CMMS school store! Tees, Hoodies, hats, etc. are on sale for your last-minute gift-giving. Give Mrs. Schwerin a call at 686-7640 and she will help you out today through Friday from 6:30 AM until 2:45 PM.

Still looking for last minute Christmas presents for you or your Bobcat? Check out the items still available at the CMMS store, at school. Call Mrs. Schwerin at 686-7640 Monday-Friday between 7 AM and 2:30 PM to make arrangements to pick up some of these cool items!

If you know a middle school student who would like a present in January check out this program from the Bay County Library. Only 25 spots so sign up soon! https://www.baycountylibrary.org/events/teen-litloot-boxes-0

The CMMS virtual book fair opens today! You do not need to register or sign in with Scholastic to place an order. If you are placing an order please be aware of Scholastic Shipping Policies. Information regarding shipping policies can be found on our book fair homepage: https://www.scholastic.com/bf/christamcauliffemiddlesch1 or at: www.scholastic.com/fair (type in the school name)

CMMS is having a virtual book fair. It will start on Friday, December 4 and end on Thursday, December 17. Order by December 13 for delivery before the 24th. Lets keep our kids reading! Link to the online book fair:     https://www.scholastic.com/bf/christamcauliffemiddlesch1                   Or find our fair at :   www.scholastic.com/fair

CMMS Families, Please follow the link below for a message from Project Hope chairperson Mandy Klida about this years Project Hope campaign. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hRFQhTaPJ_tykQ_NrsyuxPxMH28_aQ63/view

School pictures that were ordered but not picked up have been placed in the US Mail. If you did NOT order and would like to do so, we still have proofs with codes in the office that you can stop by and pick up by December 9th. Office hours are currently 6:30 AM until 3:00 PM.

We regret to inform you that Picture Retake Day has been canceled by Lifetouch due to the Covid crisis. We will NOT be rescheduling a new date. If you had your picture taken in October but did not order then and would like to now, your picture proof is still available in the school office until December 9th. You can order off the proof for up to a year. If you paid for pictures online and your child did NOT get their photo taken, please call Lifetouch Customer Service at 1-800-736-4753 to request a refund of your payment. Call the school office with any other questions.

CMMS Families: Please follow the link below for information on how to place an order for our 2020-2021 CMMS yearbook. Order now before the deadline. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TBUGAjI09nBThK2s9s5zb5Mfyk4wjUnl/view?usp=sharing

We still have quite a few school pictures left in the office. If you haven't picked yours up yet, we will have them available through 2 PM Friday. We will then be preparing to mail them to the address we have on file, after the Thanksgiving holiday. Please call with questions.

Check out the next edition of our school newspaper the "Bobcat Blurb" in our new website format. Congrats to Mrs. Schmidt and her newspaper class for putting together some great articles. https://sites.google.com/bangorschoo.../cmmsbobcatblurb/news

CMMS: This is a reminder that your Lifetouch School Pictures, as well as volleyball and cheer pictures, are available for pick up at school. You can stop in between 6:30 AM and 3:00 PM, Monday through Friday.

Christa McAuliffe Families and Students, With the Board's decision last week to continue remote learning until January 31st, we wanted to take the opportunity to make some changes to our schedule based on communication that we have received from our students, families, and staff. We have attached the schedule for your convenience and we also plan on having it on the CMMS website for you to refer to. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the changes we have made, and why we have made them. 1. We have heard loud and clear that the current schedule that we have been using makes it very hard to get help from teachers and get one on one assistance. We have also heard that because of the structure that sometimes it feels like you do not have as much time to work on schoolwork during the school day. Therefore, we decided to add 20 minutes onto Flex each day and we added an asynchronous/office hours day on Friday (more on that to come). We hope this will give more time to get caught up on work and get extra help from your teachers. 2. Friday is not a day off. Students still need to check all of their teachers' Google Classrooms to see if there is any work that is assigned. Your student's teacher may still post assignments, lessons, and videos on these Friday's so it is so important that they check every class on Friday. Students are not required to go to the teacher's office hours but this would be a great time to receive extra help. There are no live lessons that the students need to attend on this day. Teachers will be available during office hours in their Google Meet for their Flex class.  3. This schedule was made with the feedback of students, parents, and staff members.  4. While we cannot require our students turn on their cameras, it has become very hard for our teachers to teach to blank screens. Please encourage your students to turn on their cameras during the direct instruction portions of the lessons. This will go a long way to help the mental health of our staff and will help them gauge if students are understanding the material or not. Google Meets has a great new feature where it blurs the background.  That could be something that students could select if they so choose. Once again we cannot make this mandatory but it would be wonderful if you could help us out in this area. I know our staff would be extremely grateful.  We sincerely hope that this new schedule eases some of the stress that our students, families, and staff have been feeling during this period of remote learning. We believe that this new schedule will allow our students more opportunities to receive help from their teachers and a chance to get more work done within school hours. The other nice thing about this schedule is it will have consistency and will be easy to follow. The only adjustment that will be made is for Thanksgiving week on Monday, November 23rd and Tuesday, November 24th will both be a Monday schedule since there is no school that week Wed-Fri. As always please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns and we will be happy to help you in any way that we can.

Picture Retake Day will take place on Tuesday, December 8th from 7:45 AM until 9 AM for those students who were absent on our original date, or don't like their first photo. Students will have to be brought to CMMS for their photos. Call the school with questions.