Dear McCall Parents and Guardians,
I am probably dating myself by letting you know that some of
my favorite movies are the 80’s teen comedies by John Hughes such as Ferris
Bueller’s Day Off and Breakfast Club. However, the movie about a teenager’s life I found
to be the most compelling is Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade that came out in
2018. The movie depicts the last few
days of a young woman Kayla’s 8th grade year. There are a lot of scenes that showed how she
tried so hard to navigate through some very difficult social situations. Kayla did so awkwardly, and despite her best
efforts and intentions the results of her attempts to be accepted are cringe-worthy. You may have witnessed some of these
situations involving your own middle-schoolers, and your hearts may have broken for them as these situations play out in front of you.
Although he is not the focus on the movie, the character that resonated with me the most is Mark, Kayla’s father, who was raising his daughter on his own. The movie showed him doing his best to connect with Kayla while dealing with parenting challenges such as figuring out how to manage his daughter’s social media usage. Mark did plenty of things to embarrass his daughter (and himself) and at times alienated her from him.
Despite his cluelessness, I found Mark to be a very good father. He continued to be a presence in Kayla’s life throughout the movie and persisted in his effort to connect with her even though Kayla pushed him away repeatedly.
You are going to be find your middle school student share less
and less with you about their days at school as they grow older. This is normal. It is also normal to find your child who used
to tell you everything respond with short phrases or even one syllable words when you ask them how
they are doing and what happened at school.
I have found successful parents will continue to ask their middle school
children about how they are doing and consistently find opportunities to ask those questions even though their children would not sharing much or respond with
very little details. The signal you are
sending your middle school children by doing so is that you care and they can
always count on your presence. There will come a day when they need you, and you will be there when that time arrives.
I also want everyone to know that McCall staff are always observing your students’ academic and social emotional progress. You can count on us contacting you if we see evidence that your children are not doing well. No news typically means good news, but if you are unsure whether your parental instincts are matching up with what the teachers and staff are seeing in school, please make sure you reach out to us right away. The appropriate people to connect with if you have academic concerns are the teachers themselves. If you have across the board concerns about your child’s academic progress and/or social emotional well-being, the people to contact are your child’s guidance counselor or the Team Leader. Attached here is a document that lists who those people are. This information is also posted on the Resources page of our website.
Thank you, and I hope you find this information helpful.
James Lin
Principal
McCall Middle School
