Sept. 29 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope you are well.  As you know, tomorrow is scheduled to be a half day for students in order to give all teachers and staff the opportunity to attend professional development sessions so they can advance their skill sets.  I am very pleased to announce the Social Emotional Learning sessions are at a high demand.  That means McCall teachers and staff are electing to further their learning in this area.  I am looking forward to seeing how our teachers and staff will be integrating what they will be learning in the PD sessions into their practices.

I would also like to give everyone an update on the Phase II Expansion Project.  This week the contractors started putting the steel beams in place.  This is an exciting step forward because we can start seeing the skeleton of McCall’s new wing being built.  I am attaching a few pictures to help you see the work that is being done.  I am also happy to say that teachers like Mr. Tom Awiszus is collaborating with the Phase II contractors to have them help the Technology and Engineering students further their learning about construction.  This is authentic learning at its very best!

Thank you and I wish you all a great week!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Sept. 22 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of my thoughts regarding how to support your students if they are struggling at school.  I know parents often have trouble figuring out how involved they should be when helping their students who are not doing well at school.  Some parents feel it is important to be hands off because they want to foster independence in their students and allow them the chance to advocate for themselves.  I understand this approach and agree that students – particularly 7^th and 8^th graders should know how to approach teachers to seek out support.  However, many students do not know how to self-advocate without guidance from adults.  Therefore, the students might not follow through with what their parents had asked them to do, or they may self-advocate in ways that lead the teachers to interpret the behaviors as any thing other than self-advocacy.

There are also parents – particularly those with younger students – who feel the advocacy needs to solely come from the parents.  Doing so may take away the opportunity for students to practice how to take charge of their own education.  Ultimately, how much parent involvement should take place would depend on the needs and maturity levels of the students.  However, the most effective approaches I have seen parents take always involved some level of communication between the parents and the teachers, as well as some level of involvement of the students in the process.  For example, I worked with a family whose student often struggled with homework completion and keeping up with the pacing of a particular class.  The parents met with the teacher when they first noticed the student was struggling, and together they devised a plan to help the student keep up with her school work as well as develop her skills to advocate for herself.  The plan involved the student and the parent sitting down to craft a message to be sent to the teachers on evenings when she struggled to complete all of her assignments.  That message, sent through the student’s email account, described the work the student was able to do that evening and proposed a plan on what she had planned to do to finish the portion that she was not able to complete that night.

When that student struggled to understand what the teacher taught in class, the parent and the student again sit down to craft a message to the teacher to request a time for the student to come for extra help.  The parents would then connect with the teacher after the scheduled extra help appointment to check to see if the student actually showed up.  If she did, the parent would ask if the teacher thought the extra help session was successful and whether the student used the time productively.

By taking this approach, the parent was able to coach her daughter the appropriate ways to advocate for herself and to monitor whether the student was following through with the plan to receive help.  Just as importantly, there is coordination between home and family, so the teacher was able to reinforce and support what the parent and the student are doing at home.

I hope all your students will have a successful school year, however, if you find yourself in a situation where your student needs your help with school, please consider taking an approach where you are connecting with the teachers while helping your student to develop his or her self-advocacy skills.  As always, I am available to support you if you need it.

Here are two reminders for the week:

Clubs and After School Activities – Many of the clubs and after school activities will be starting this coming week.  We have posted the information for each activity on our school website.  You can also access that information by clicking here.  We ask you to reach out to each club advisor directly if you have additional questions about the activities themselves.

Flu Clinic – Please see below for a message from the Winchester Health Department.

The Winchester Health Department in collaboration with the School District, is pleased to again offer flu clinics at every school this fall.  

·         On-line registration will be available on Monday, September23^rd.

·         Go to: www.winchester.us and click on the school flu vaccination icon at the bottom of the page.

·         Registration will end on October 3^rd.

At the on-line registration site, you will find the information you need to sign your child up for either the FluMist nasal spray or flu shot. If you have a question after reviewing the information, please contact the Health Department at flu@winchester.us or 781-721-7121.

We encourage you to enroll your child in a school clinic. A flu vaccination is an important step in preventing the flu virus.

Thank you, and I wish a great week!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Sept. 15 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  I recently came across this article from the PBS Kids for Parents website which I would like to share with you.  The author, a social worker, wrote about the struggle some parents experience dealing with their students’ meltdowns that occur when they return home from school.  The author provided some practical advice that all of us parents may find to be useful.  The one suggestion I found to be the most compelling pertained to giving students some space after they return home from school.  Due to my busy work schedule (and my kids’ own busy activity schedules), I often find myself trying to squeeze as much quality time out of the limited amount of moments we have together.  Therefore, I frequently bombard them with questions about school when I return home.  After reflecting on the information from the article, I realized despite my best intentions my efforts may be cutting into my children’s down time and taking away their ability to recharge.  In fact, my wife and I do the same thing to each other as well.  By inquiring about each other’s work day the moment we see each other, we are pushing each other to revisit the pressure we experienced during the last 8-9 hours and neglecting our need to take break from those sources of stress.  My wife and I now promise each other that we will refrain from “shop talk” (she’s a public school educator as well) and focus our conversations other things that bring us joy.  I am including the article here, and I hope you will find it as helpful as I did.

I would also like to invite everyone to come to a talk by Sarah Ward on developing executive functioning skills in our students.  The event will be held on October 8 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm in the McCall Auditorium.  I thank both Parent to Parent and the MPA for funding this awesome event.  I have attended many of Ms. Ward’s lectures and other professional development sessions.  I find that the strategies she offer are not only effectively but are also very easy to implement.  Her thinking about teaching students also aligns with what our district and school values.  That is be clear with our students about the learning goals and expectations,but provide them with the flexibility to develop the skill sets that are meaningful to them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this message, and I wish you all a great week!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Sept. 8 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  The McCall faculty spent quite a lot of our faculty meeting time last year talking about the behavior expectations we have for our students and for ourselves.  After considering the faculty and staff’s input and our discussions, we decided to summarize our values with the phrase McCall for ALL.  The acronym A.L.L. stands for the following:

A for Act Responsibly

L for Lead with Integrity

L for be a Life Long Learner 

The acronym ALL not only signifies the types of behaviors we should ask students (and ourselves) to strive toward, the word ALL also resonates strongly with me because it represents the primary charge given to us as public school educators.  There is no doubt we are a successful school, but it is important for us to constantly reflect on whether our practices have allowed ALL students to be successful or whether they have benefited most students, but excluded some.  It is just as important for us to constantly think about whether our practices have brought about success in ALL parts of a student.  For example, were the academic successes many of our students experienced gained at the expense of mental health and the development of skill sets such as problem-solving and creativity?

I think much of the work our staff will be taking on or continue to engage in this year (e.g., co-teaching, social emotional learning, and performance-based assessments) relate to teaching ALL McCall students so no one is excluded from experiencing success.  Just as importantly, the work we have done and will continue to do is all about teaching ALL aspects of a student so success in one area does not come at the expense of other areas.  The McCall faculty and staff will continue think about how we can incorporate the idea of McCall for ALL into our everyday practices with our students and with each other.  I would like to share with you this welcome sign created by the school’s Acceptance and Inclusion Committee.  It embodies the idea of McCall for ALL and will be displayed prominently in our school to remind everyone what we value.

Here are some additional reminders:

Student Handbook - I would like to ask everyone to review the McCall Student Handbook included in the Resource page of the school website before the start of the school year.  We have made some important changes to the following areas, so I highly advise all families to review the information with their students in order to ensure everyone is on the same page regarding our practices and policies.

·                Attendance (Pg. 19)

·                Student Conduct (Pg. 31)

·                Disciplinary Actions (Pg. 32)

·                Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender (Pg. 49)

·                Inclusive Sports and Extracurricular Activity Participation Policy (Pg. 53)

·                Parents Bringing Student Items to School (Pg. 16)

Upcoming Events - Please mark your calendars with the following events.  All of these events are also posted on the school calendar on the school website.  You can access it by clicking here.

September 25 – McCall Picture Day

October 8, 7:00-9:00 pm – Sarah Ward Parent Presentation on Executive Functioning

October 10, 7:00-9:00 pm – McCall Back to School Night for Parents and Guardians

McCall Parent Association -  I would like to give the McCall Parent Association (MPA) a shout out for they do so much to support our school.  They held a successful parent coffee this past Friday, and their first meeting is scheduled for Sept. 24 from 7:00-9:00 pm in the McCall Library.  You are welcome to attend if you are available.  I also encourage everyone to sign up for the their weekly newsletter by clicking here.  The MPA newsletter is an informative resource that helps everyone keep updated on the school, its activities, as well as events in the Winchester community.  It also gives you ideas about how to support the school, its staff, and the students.

Thank you and enjoy the upcoming week!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Welcome to McCall!

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  I am attaching a video to welcome all of you to McCall and to provide you with some some first day arrival information (please click here).  I hope you will take a moment to watch it with your students.

It will really help us to get students’ first day started off smoothly if they arrive at McCall knowing their team name and homeroom teacher’s name.  Therefore, if you have not found out who your student’s homeroom teacher is, please look up that information by logging into your student's Aspen account.  Click the "My Info" top tab and then click "Details" on the left side tab.  When the window opens look on the right side and you will find your team, homeroom number, and homeroom teacher.  If you access the parent account, you will only be able to find out the student's homeroom number.  You can do so by selecting the appropriate student (if you have multiple students enrolled in the district), then clicking the "Family" top tab, and "Details" side tab.  You can then identify the homeroom teacher's name by using the Teams and Homeroom document posted on the Resource section of the school website.

Also, if your students are enrolled in Band or Orchestra, please note that they do not have to bring their instruments to school for the first class.  The Band or Orchestra instructors will let your students know during the first class the process to manage their instruments.

Lastly, please note that the Sept. 3 – the first day of school – is a full day.  All students will be dismissed at 3:07 pm just like every school day.

The summer has not ended yet, so I hope all of you will use this weekend to relax and get yourselves mentally prepared for the first day of school.  The most helpful thing you can do for your students is to model for them how to be calm and embrace a positive mindset about returning to school.  If you are calm then they will be calm.  It is just as important that you convey to your children that even though first day of school can be challenging, you have confidence in their abilities to take on this task.  None of the students need to be perfect or need to have everything set up perfectly for them in order to have a great day at McCall.  They just need to come with a growth mindset and the willingness to seek help when they need it.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday! 

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School