Letter from the MC Principal
Hello MC parents,
I hope that you all had a great weekend. Two weekends ago, the power was out in our building and we almost had to close school on Monday the 19th. Luckily the power was restored in time and we were able to have a normal school day. Big shout out to Mr. Boardman our Technology Specialist who was at the school multiple times during the weekend including really late at night to make sure that the school was up and running. Mr. Boardman is definitely one of the many unsung heroes at our school.
FYI we completed our Fall MAP administration last week so we will upload student score reports to ManageBac soon. You can login to ManageBac using this link: https://atlncs.managebac.com/login. If you have trouble logging into ManageBac try resetting your password, if you still have trouble after that reach out to Dale Scott, our IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) Coordinator at dscott@atlncs.org. The goal is to get the reports uploaded by the end of this week, but if not they will be uploaded shortly after Labor Day. As a reminder, school will be closed to students on Monday, September 2nd for Labor Day and on Tuesday, September, 3rd for a Staff Work Day. This will be a teacher work day during which teachers will spend the day planning, grading, meeting with teaching partners, generally catching up on work, and working to improve their practice.
On Thursday, September 5th we will have Meet the School Family Night. A few years ago we moved away from doing a standard curriculum night, because it was going to be difficult to pull off parents moving through a student’s schedule and spending time with all of their teachers since students have eight classes. We moved to a structure that we call Meet the School Family Night in which we all meet up in The Backyard, and parents have an opportunity to spend some time meeting their students’ various teachers. This year Meet the School Family Night will take place on Thursday, September 5th from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm.
Prior to the event I will send out a link with a collection of videos from each teacher (the videos will be no more than about 4 minutes in length) that parents can look at to learn more about their students’ teachers, what they are learning (and will learn) in class, and some video of what the classroom space looks like. All told, you should be able to gain familiarity with your child’s classes within about 30 minutes of watching these videos. Then during Meet the School Family Night you can put faces to names, get to know the teachers a little more, and ask clarifying questions. That said, you will be one of many families wanting to spend time with each of the teachers that night. We ask that everyone recognize that this night is not for individual conferences, but rather to learn more about your child’s teachers and other school family members at the Middle Campus.
Some additional opportunities for you to learn about things going on at the Middle Campus include the IB Information Sessions that are led by Ms. Scott. When we have these sessions we always run a morning session as well as an evening session, both with the same content, in order to accommodate different people’s schedules. Both sessions are virtual and will last for about 30 minutes. The next two sessions are:
- Community Project (for 8th grade families since only 8th graders do CP) – Wed. 9/11 at 9am or Thurs. 9/12 at 6pm
- Navigating ManageBac – Wed. 10/9 at 9am or Thurs. 10/10 at 6pm
In a recent 6th grade focused IB session some parents asked about access to Google Classroom as a tool to keep track of what their students are doing. The best way to use Google Classroom as a tool is to sit down with your student, have them login, and then have them show you what they’re doing. Teachers use Google Classroom in different ways, but sitting down with your student and having them walk you through what they are submitting can be a way for you to get a better understanding of what work your student is turning in. If you have further questions about Google Classroom, or anything else for that matter, please reach out.
Kind regards,
Mark
Mark Sanders
Mark Sanders began teaching at ANCS in 2011. Before coming to the school, Mr. Sanders worked in New York City. He spent three years teaching 7th and 8th grade mathematics at Middle School 50 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and two years at Harlem Village Academies teaching Geometry and Algebra 2/Trigonometry. He taught 8th grade Math/Science/Technology at ANCS for five years.
