The Stinger Newsletter
A Message From The Principal
Hello and Happy Thanksgiving Stingers!
Although we toyed with the idea of just using Parent Square as our sole communication with parents, we have to come to feel that also publishing a more traditional newsletter would allow us to share more of the good things that are happening on campus! Our goal is to send this brief newsletter out every couple of weeks just to make sure everyone has access to the cool things going on at your school.
For this edition I would like to walk you through some of the things we have put in place to ensure that when state letter grades come out next year our school earns an “A”. We take student success very seriously and are doing a lot to refocus on academics. As always, we really rely on the helpful partnership of our parents and stakeholders to increase our effectiveness.
Our approach is two pronged: refocus on academics and encourage student effort. To that end we are:
1. Minimizing students missing class for office and counselor call ups.
2. Implementing tier one (general education classroom) intervention where students who struggle are identified and worked with individually to get them the necessary exposure to the material.
3. Any time a student finishes a benchmark (formative tests that mimic the AASA given three times a year) in less than 25 minutes I call home to remind parents about the seriousness of the tests and encourage them to talk to their students about trying their best.
4. Ensuring that every benchmark is broken down and concepts that many students struggled on are spiraled back into instruction to fill gaps in concept mastery that the students have.
5. Having whole class assemblies on the first Friday of every month to celebrate our students of the month and recognize academic achievement.
6. We have built a new class that all 6th graders take that emphasizes the development of study skills and executive function (it is called Empower 6).
7. Ensuring that all teachers will have assessment trackers in their student's Google Classroom so the parents can monitor the growth of their student's achievement over time.
8. Communicating to parents that students who do not score 'proficient' or above on AASA will not be able to enroll in 'honors' classes the following year.
10. Increasing communication to parents via Parent Square on a bi-weekly basis about upcoming class assignments or projects.
11. We are using daily learning targets in each class. On the board in each class are 'learning' targets specifically tied to that day's learning. I am reinforcing student knowledge of these by quizzing them at lunch and rewarding students who know them with a snack shack token.
Hopefully these meaningful changes to the way we do things highlights our sincerity about raising our school grade. We have a great school and a great community, we just need to make sure that is evident when our students sit and take the state AASA tests!
Thank you for your continued help and support and have a great Thanksgiving!
Dave Boggs
Dave Boggs
Principal, Sonoran Trails Middle School
Upcoming Events
December 2: STMS Cross Country Vs. Highland Lakes 4:30-5:30
December 3: Wrestling 2 Sonoran Trails vs HC and HL 4:45-5:45
December 8: STMS Cross Country 3A Championships 4:30-5:30 @ STMS
December 9: Governing Board Business Meeting 6:00-8:00 District Board Room
December 10: STMS Wrestling, whole conference 4:45-5:45
Ms. Bissing's art room project
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IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION FROM THE CAVE CREEK SCHOOL DISTRICT:
12/06/2024
Dear Parent/Guardian,
We are committed to providing the safest possible environment for our students and staff by taking proactive steps in securing our schools. We want to ensure they have a safe place to learn, work and grow. To maintain our safety standards and adapt to the societal threat of a violent critical incident in or around our school, we have adopted the ALICE proactive strategies.
ALICE empowers individuals to participate in their survival using options-based responses. I want to assure you that we went to great lengths to understand exactly what each option of ALICE entails. We are comfortable with all the ALICE proactive strategies to empower our students and staff to survive until help arrives. We will implement these safety strategies in age and ability appropriate ways.
The acronym ALICE stands for: Alert- Alert is your first notification of danger. Lockdown- If evacuation is not a safe option, barricade entry points. Prepare to evacuate or spread out in the room and prepare to counter, if necessary, grade appropriate. Inform- Communicate real time information about the violent intruder’s location using clear and concise language. Counter- When in close proximity to the intruder, create noise and movement. Counter is not fighting yet focuses on distraction and control techniques that leverage strength in numbers (high school only). Evacuate- When safe to do so, run from danger. Rally points are determined and will be practices and included in our monthly drills in which you will receive communication about.
Adoption of a lockdown-only response has been deemed insufficient by the Department of Education, independent researchers, and law enforcement. Society is dictating we change our thought processes on safety and ALICE options. We have found the ALICE strategies to be the most adopted by schools across the country, and ALICE training helps to maintain our compliance with the Federally recommended guidelines.
We are currently training our staff on the ALICE strategies through online classes and hands-on training with our in-district certified trainers. We are pleased with the comprehensive roll-out procedure ALICE Training Institute has in place and believe this is the right choice for our students, staff, schools, and our community. Additionally, we are using our drills on our campuses to educate our kids on the different strategies. When you see that your child has had a practice drill, please take a moment to ask them what the drill was about, what they learned, etc.
Finally, you will continue to get notification of all drills on campus with this letterhead. Our reason for using this letterhead is that we understand you receive a great deal of information from your child’s school. Some of you have children at multiple schools. When you receive correspondence with this letterhead, our hope is that it encourages you to open that communication immediately. Whether a drill or a real incident, you are receiving the information in a timely fashion and reading it promptly.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to your child’s school principal or Mrs. Jill Sarraino, Director of Student Services.
Moving Forward Together,
Bill Dolezal
CCUSD Superintendent
Tardiness during the day
To combat tardiness during the day we are going to implement a "sweeps" approach. Periodically throughout the week we will instruct teachers to send all tardy students to the office rather than into the room and we will have these students call home in the moment to make the parents aware of the issue. We do NOT want our students to miss class time but we HAVE to address the tardiness issue in a meaningful way and ask for your support in this!
Food Deliveries
Parents: We ask that you please do not have food delivered or door dashed to campus for your students. This can cause a real issue during lunch which is often our most hectic time of day.
Thank you for your support in this!
Just a reminder as Student ID's are critical to student safety.
New Drill Notification Email Template
To insure you have accurate information, when we do planned of drills any kind we will be sending out something to you via text and email so you know it is a drill. The link to what this looks like is:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j9Xzc-SfvnCTL1eNvZsR3HyWTocrilr4cizL32Yp7Uo/edit?tab=t.0
Useful Information
School attendance line: 480-272-8604
VOLUNTARY STUDENT ACCIDENT & SICKNESS INSURANCE
If you would like information about these Voluntary Insurance plans for purchase, including plans for athletics, they can be found at https://myers-stevens.com/
ITEMS DROPPED OFF IN THE OFFICE
If you drop something off at the office during the school day we do not call and interrupt the classroom unless it is an emergency situation. If your student left something at home and you drop it off, it is their responsibility to check in the office for that item.
LOST & FOUND
The L&F is already starting to overflow with water bottles, lunch bags, and more. If your student is missing an item, it's probably in the L&F. There are 2 locations those items could be - the cafeteria or on the Administration patio. Remind your student to look in the Lost & Found for those missing items. Parents are welcome to check them out too!
We so appreciate when parents call their students out in a timely fashion so that we can maintain accurate records and account for all of our students at all times. Below are some tips to help you and us.
Please try to call in as early in the day as possible. We continue to have parents calling their students out for the day as late as 2PM. Here is a perfect call in. "Hello, today is Monday, I am calling Sally Jones out ill today, this is her mother Jane Jones. Thank you." If there is no parent call in, your student will be marked UA (Unexcused Absence as reported to the State)
Spirit Days!!!!
These will be the first Friday of each month:
There are raffles for $ for those who participate!
April - Color War: 7th grade wear green, 8th grade wear black, staff wear white.
May - Favorite fictional character day
Spotlight on Safety
This year, we will be communicating to our families any time that we have a drill on campus. Not only does that let you know what is going on at campus, but also helps us train and prepare our students and staff and practice our procedures should a real emergency take place on our campus. The different drills that we will be practicing this year have been taught to all of our students and they are as follows:
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Hold: Keep students and staff in classrooms and out of access areas and teachers continue to teach. Why would we have a hold? Medical Emergency, Fight on Campus, etc.
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Secure: Bring all individuals into classrooms or building (secure building and lock outside access points) and teachers continue to teach. Students may or may not transition, depending on the situation. Why would we secure campus? Criminal activity in the neighborhood or a dangerous animal is on campus.
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Evacuate: Students and staff would move from one location to another for safety. Why would we evacuate staff and students? Fire, Mechanical failure, gas leak, bomb threat, etc.
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Shelter: Students and staff stay in classroom and need to be prepared for instructions. Why shelter? Weather, Hazardous materials situation.
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Lockdown: All doors locked, windows covered, everyone is quiet. Why lockdown? Threat or hazard inside of the school, act of violence on site.
Please visit our CCUSD safety website for more information.