Jan. 21 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope everyone fared well through this cold and stormy weekend.  I would like to focus this week’s message on the upcoming parent conferences.  As you may know, all four school days this coming week are early release days, and dismissal will be at 12:00 pm.  Buses will arrive at that time to pick up students who typically utilize this mode of transportation to get home.  The afternoon time are scheduled for parent-teacher conferences.

I urge all parent and guardians who have scheduled conferences with your students’ teachers to arrive on time.  Since finding parking around McCall can be challenging, I encourage all of you to plan for that as well.  By now, all the conference slots for the team teachers are likely taken.  Therefore, please do not expect the teachers will be able to meet with you the same day if you miss or are late to your scheduled conferences.

I ask all parents and guardians to please contact your students’ teachers if you are unable to schedule a conference during the four conference days.  Due to the limited amount of meeting time that the teachers have available during the school year, they not be able to schedule a meeting with you in the near future.  The teachers may suggest that your students’ progress be discussed through phone conferences, email reports, or meetings with specific teachers as opposed to the entire team.

I would also like to remind everyone that the main purpose of the conferences is for teachers to provide you with an update of your student’s progress up to this point in the school year.  Due to the limited amount of time scheduled for each conference session, it is possible the teachers may not be able to answer all your questions or give you an in-depth response to your queries.  If that is the case, I encourage you to follow up with the teachers after the conferences are over to discuss the matter you were unable to discuss.  I am sharing with you the attached article from Understood.org (please click here) to help you prepare for the conferences.  It provides readers with some good advice about how to make the best use of your short parent-teacher conference time.  I hope you will find it to be helpful.

Lastly, I would like to share with you some announcements from our Student Council and The Garden Club.  Please see below:

Spider Plants On Sale 

The Greenhouse Club members will be selling spider plants during the week of parent-teacher conferences.  Spider plants make a great house plant and might be a nice addition to your kitchen or family room!  Plants will be on sale for $5.00 and all money raised will go toward monarch butterfly larvae sets as well as gardening tools for the greenhouse.  The students will be selling at a table near the main office. Cash only please. Thank you in advance for your support!

Cradles to Crayons

McCall is currently running a donation drive for Cradles to Crayons until Friday, February 1st. Cradles to Crayons is an organization where you can donate any high quality or gently used clothes for kids (ages newborn to 12 years old) living in low-income households. There are labeled boxes outside the main office where these much appreciated clothing items will be collected by the student council members. All donations must be bagged and labeled. Thank you in advance for your support!

Enjoy the upcoming week!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Jan. 13 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  As you may know, this past Tuesday evening Superintendent Evans delivered her presentation on the FY 20 budget and the proposed Proposition 2 1/2 override process during the School Committee meeting held at the High School.  She discussed in detail the vision for McCall and the entire district as well as how we are planning to meet those goals.  Since both the school district as well as the entire municipality are currently facing significant budgetary challenges, Dr. Evans outlined the consequences that will occur if the town and the district do not receive an influx of revenues.  The PowerPoint presentations she used during the School Committee meeting are posted on the district website, and you can also access it here.  Dr. Evans will also be attending the monthly McCall Parent Association (MPA) meeting to be held this Tuesday at 9:00 am in the McCall Cafeteria to discuss the FY20 Budget.  I highly encourage all of you to attend this meeting so you can stay informed about McCall as well as the entire district.

Here are some reminders about two upcoming events.

Parent Conferences – Please do not forget Parent Conferences will be held in the afternoons of Tuesday, January 22 through Friday, January 25.  All four days are early release days with dismissal time scheduled at 12:00 pm.  You should have received the conference sign up information from your students’ teachers through email by now.  If you cannot locate those messages, please contact the Team Leaders directly (please click here if you do not know who your students’ Team Leaders are).  Please also note that we will not be able to meet all conference requests during those four afternoons due to the limited amount of slots available.  If the teachers are unable to schedule a conference during the week of January 22, they may suggest that your students’ progress be discussed through phone conferences, email reports, or meetings with specific teachers as opposed to the entire team.  Thank you for your understanding on this matter.

Semester Schedule Change – Please note that the first day of Semester 2 will be Monday, January 28.  Since some of your students’ Exploratory Classes are semester courses, your students’ schedules will change that day.  The school is not planning to print out paper schedules for your student in order to conserve valuable resources, so we ask all parents and guardians to access your students’ schedules through Aspen’s Parent Portal.  You can do so by taking the following steps after you log in to the Portal:

• Click on the “Family” top tab.
• Click on the student’s name if you have multiple students in the district.
• Click on the “Schedule” side tab.
• Select “S2” on the drop down menu located right above the student’s schedule.

Please see the attachment below if you need clarifications on the above instructions.

Please note that most of your student’s schedule will not change for Semester 2.  Only the semester-long Exploratory Classes will.

Thank you and enjoy the upcoming week.

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Jan. 6 Update

Dear McCall Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  In addition to updating the McCall Principal’s Blog, I am also emailing you the following two important pieces of information directly because I am attempting to reach as many of you as possible. 

The first topic I would like to discuss with you pertains to vaping or juuling – a behavior that has become a serious health risk among adolescents across this country in recent years.  We at McCall Middle School recognize Winchester students are not immune to this problem so we are teaching them the most up-to-date information about vaping as well as appropriate refusal skills during their Wellness classes.  In addition, this year we will be implementing SBIRT (i.e, Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral, Treatment) to our 7^th graders in order to prevent – or at least delay – alcohol, tobacco, or drug use.  The SBIRT protocol will also allow our staff to reinforce healthy decisions and address concerns about substance abuse to our students.  However, our efforts will not be successful without your support from home.  Therefore, with the help of Mr. Jason Levene, the District’s K-12 Administrator of Counseling, Health, and Wellness, the attached letter has been written to help all of you familiarize themselves with the resources that are available to address the problem of adolescent vaping and substance abuse.  I hope you will take the time to review it (please click here).

Secondly, I would like to let everyone know that we have finalized the MCAS testing dates for this spring.  That information is included in the school website calendar (please click here) and is also attached to this message (please click here).  Please take a moment to make note of the testing dates that pertain to your students.  I urge you to make every effort to ensure your child attend school during their scheduled MCAS testing dates.  We will certainly do what we can to help your students make up any missed MCAS tests, however, taking the tests during make up sessions will cause your students to lose additional instructions on top of what they already missed due to their absences.  I encourage you to plan your April and May schedules with the MCAS dates in mind.

Thank you and I wish you a wonderful week!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Happy Holidays!

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to take this opportunity to send everyone off to your vacation with a wonderful story I heard on WBUR’s Only a Game last weekend.  Perhaps you have heard it already because it has gone viral since its initial broadcast.  The story was told by a young journalist about her father – a cat litter scientist and a Chinese immigrant – who befriended Charles Barkley, former NBA superstar and current basketball analyst and TV personality.  These two human beings could not be more different, yet they developed a deep friendship and were there to support each other's families during the darkest hours of their lives.  It is a touching story, and I hope you will take a listen when you have a moment (please click here). 

The friendship between Lin Wang and Charles Barkley made me think of the relationships we have with each other and with our students.  We can never predict who is going to come into our lives, but when they do we have the capacity to impact those individuals positively and perhaps even bring great joy to them.

A year ago it never occurred to me that I would be part of the Winchester community and that all of you would be part of my life.  I am glad it turned out this way.

I wish all of you a wonderful vacation!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

December 16 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope you are well.  On behalf of all the McCall staff members, I would like to thank the McCall Parent Association as well as all the parent volunteers for putting together such a wonderful spread of holiday treats for us.  We would especially like to thank Adrienne and Mai, our two MPA Presidents, for the leadership, organizational skills, creativity, and energy they exhibited in order to put this event together.  We appreciate knowing that the parent community supports the hard work we do, and we thank all of you for giving up your valuable time during the busy holiday season to be kind to us.

 

 

As we head into the last week of school of 2018, I would like to remind everyone that Friday December 21st is a full day of school and students will be dismissed at the regular time of 3:07 pm.  On that day, McCall staff is planning to do our annual Scavenger Hunt activity with all of our students.  We believe this a valuable exercise because it brings the entire school community together and promotes positive teacher-student relationships.  The scavenger hunt will take place during the last period of Friday.  During that time, students and staff will have the opportunity to work together in small groups and as an entire class with the end goal of accurately answering as many questions as possible. The questions and tasks are varied to respond to different learning styles.  Some of the questions require knowledge about McCall Middle School – the staff, building, how the school operates, etc…  Other items test one's ability to solve puzzles, brain teasers and riddles.

I am looking forward to the Scavenger Hunt.  Most of all, I am looking forward to seeing staff and students bonding over this activity.

Lastly, I would like to wish Ms. Galatis a happy retirement as she embarks on her last week of teaching this coming week.  Ms. Galatis concludes a remarkable thirty plus career working as a public school educator and educational leader.  We will miss her leadership, humor, friendship, and dedication to the students and families of Winchester.  Thank you Ms. Galatis!

 

Thank you and enjoy the upcoming week!

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

December 9 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope this message finds you well.  I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our instrumental teachers Mr. and Mrs. Costello, Mr. Galvin, Mr. Hachten, and Ms. Snodgrass for teaching and preparing our students so that they could perform at such an outstanding level during this past Wednesday's winter concert.  I would also like to congratulate Ms. Sebastian for preparing our Solo Voci singers to sing so well during the Festival of Lights performance at the Jenks Center this past Tuesday.  I once heard a comedian joking about how middle school music teachers are like animal-lovers who work at a slaughterhouse.  This certainly is an exaggeration, but I am always impressed by the patience our music department colleagues need to possess in order to get our students to advance from being novice musicians to high level performers.  The skills that our music teachers teach our students go beyond being able to play music.  They also teach our students critical life lessons such as self-regulation and the value of practice.  I thank all our music teachers for their continued hard work and I also thank all parents and guardians for your continued support of our music programs.

As some of you know, this past Wednesday morning Ms. Madden, our Special Education Supervisor, and I did an one hour presentation on the Middle School Special Education program during the monthly Parent’s Coffee.  Quite a few of you contacted me asking if it could be rescheduled because they could not attend due to work.  Since there is a high level of interest for informational session like the one Ms. Madden and I presented this past week, we will schedule an encore performance in January after the holiday madness is over.  We will schedule that session in the evening in order to accommodate for working parents.

Lastly, I would like everyone to know that our Lost and Found area in the cafeteria is getting to be quite full.  I encourage all of you to remind your students to stop by and claim any lost items before the winter vacation.  We are planning to donate all remaining items to charity during the upcoming break.

Thank you and enjoy the upcoming week.


James Lin
Principal
McCall Middle School

December 2 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Happy December!  I would like to begin by reminding everyone that the December Parent Coffee is scheduled for this Wednesday from 9:00-10:00 am.  Our topic for this session will be Special Education at the Middle School, and I have invited Ms. Mary Ellen Madden, the Middle School Special Education Supervisor to join us.  We are planning to discuss the following:

• ·      What are some of the special education services that the middle school provides?
• ·      How does a student qualify for special education services?
• ·      What does an IEP (individualized Education Plan) do or do not do for a student?
• ·      What are the differences between an IEP and a 504 accommodation plan?
• ·      What are the differences between an accommodation and a modification?
• ·      How does the school work collaboratively with parents and guardians when a student continues to struggle while he or she is on an IEP?

I welcome all parents and guardians who are interested in this discussion – regardless whether their students are currently receiving special education services – to join us.  Please note that we will not be discussing specific cases, families, or students during this session.  I also like to thank the McCall Parent Association for sponsoring the Parent Coffees.

Secondly, I would like to let everyone know that every day our main office staff receives quite a lot of requests from parents to pass along messages to their students or to remind their students to pick up items such as lunches, music instruments, cell phones, or assignments that the family members have dropped off for them.  Please know that the office staff works very hard not to interrupt the class time, so we work to minimize the amount of PA announcements or calls into the classrooms.  With that being said, we also understand there are circumstances when parents need to pass along important messages during the day or give students items they may not be expecting.  In order to meet both demands, the office staff will be making “call down” announcements during morning announcements at 8:30 am, right before the first lunch at 11:10 am, and at dismissal time which is 3:07 pm.  We will refrain from interrupting instructions by making PA announcements or calls into classrooms in between those three times unless extremely urgent matters arise.

I also hope I can count on everyone to help the school create an disruption-free learning environment by asking our main office staff to call down students only for urgent matters.  As for forgotten lunches, please note that our food services staff will always provide students with nutritious lunches if they do not have one for any reason.  Thank you for your cooperation with this matter.

Lastly, I would like to remind all parents that we have created a Quiet Lunch space in the library for all students who would like to eat lunch in a calmer and less energetic environment.  If you feel your students can benefit from this resource, please encourage them to see Ms. Henchey, the librarian, and she will help them access the Quiet Lunch space.

Thank you and enjoy the upcoming week,

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School