The Family "Celebration" Chronicle

Greetings and happy holidays! I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with relaxation and good company. It is now time to gear up for the festive holiday season! As always so many great things happened throughout the month of November, and December is just as full of many special events.

Our winter sports season has arrived. I am confident that this season will be filled with incredible achievements and memorable moments for our student athletes. We look forward to seeing our families enjoy their student athletes compete and represent Margaretta with great pride!

It is always important that we take care of our Margaretta families. A big thank you to our SADD organization for their efforts with collecting food donations from our students and staff. They were able to provide Thanksgiving dinners to several of our families. Additionally, Ms. Mullins and Ms. Greenler organized our second annual Turkey Trot which also collected food donations for our families. Even though we could not run the Turkey Trot due to weather, we did have a friendly dodgeball tournament with students challenging the staff. It was the high school staff that dominated the tournament!

As a result of HB33, schools districts across Ohio have been charged with the task of implementing a suicide prevention program. This past month 28 staff members and 45 students were fully trained and will be rolling out Sources of Strength, an evidence-based program. Sources of Strength is a preventative program which focuses on building on the strengths of all our students. The major areas of focus include family support, positive friends, mentors, healthy activities, generosity, spirituality/gratitude, physical health, and mental health. This year students will be working on building a campaign to inform and educate our school community.

Our Kindness Tuesday campaign is off and running! We are recognizing students for various acts of kindness each and every Tuesday. Recipients of Kindness Tuesday recognitions have received rewards such as gift cards and snacks from locally owned businesses. We would like to acknowledge Cold Creek Coffee, Mickey Mart, Joe Bias Investments, All Smiles Photography, Civista Bank, The Castalia Market, The Frosty Frog, Village Pizza House, Twin Lakes Golf Course, and 514 Pizza and Treats for their donations for our students and staff. If you would like to donate gift cards, snacks, or even words of encouragement to our staff and students, please feel free to send items to the Main Office.

On behalf of Margaretta Middle and High School, we wish all of our families a joyous holiday season filled with warmth, laughter, and cherished moments. May this time bring happiness, togetherness, and lasting memories to our Margaretta families.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns at 419.684.5351 or at jtheis@margarettaschooldistrict.com.

Dr. Jennifer Theis

Attendance reminders: Please email jmorriscox@margarettaschooldistrict.com or call 419-684-5351 to report your child’s absence. Dr. Notes can be emailed to jmorriscox@margarettaschooldistrict.com or dropped off in the student services office.

Reminder: All school and lunch fees must be paid in order to receive your diploma. You can make a payment any time at payschoolcentral.com or you can pay by cash or check in the student services office.

Please take some time to familiarize yourself with our Guidance Website. This can be accessed by following these steps;

• Go to the Margaretta website at margarettaschooldistrict.com

• You will see six categories on the top of the page go to the tab titled Parents & Students.

• Hover over this and you will see a drop-down box.

• Go to the drop-down titled Guidance.

There is a lot of great information on this page that we feel you can benefit from.

On November 9th 68 of our 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students participated in the 2023 Americanism and Government Program test. This is sponsored by Commodore Denig of the American Legion Post 83. The Americanism and Government Test of the Ohio American Legion was created by Legionnaires of Ohio in 1936 and remains today as another of the leading youth programs of the Ohio American Legion. We are proud to announce that this year we had a winner in the Senior Boys category. This was Nathan Burket. Nathan will now advance to the District finals. If he advances at this level he will advance to the state finals.

At the beginning of the school year, we were offered two really cool opportunities for our students from VFW post 2529, Auxiliary VFW post 2529, and Dads of Foreign Service Veterans post 32. The first opportunity was called "The Voice of Democracy". This consisted of high school students writing a speech on a topic chosen by the National VFW chapter. The students then presented their speeches to chosen judges who came to our school to hear them. The second opportunity was called "Patriots Pen". This consisted of middle school students writing an essay on a topic chosen by the National VFW Chapter. Our Social Studies department collaborated with our English department to make this available to our students. We are very proud to say that we had five winners between the two contests. The recipients were announced at our Veterans Day assembly on November 13th.

Our high school student winners of "The Voice of Democracy" and their prizes are as follows;

1st place - Sean Reardon

$3000 from the VFW Post 2529

$100 from the VFW Auxiliary Post 2529

$100 from the Dad's of Foreign Service Veterans Post 32

3rd place winner - Trace Wilson

$1000 from the VFW Post 2529

$25 from the VFW Auxiliary Post 2529

$25 from The Dad's of Foreign Service Veterans Post 32

Each of our students that placed at the district level will move on to be judged at the state level for an opportunity to win even more scholarship money.

For our middle school students that participated in the "Patriot's Pen" essays (there were approximately 120 that were judged) our students won 1st, 2nd & 3rd places. These students will be entered as the post winners and their essays will be sent to the VFW District level.

Our Middle School Student winners of “Patriot's Pen” and their prizes are as follows;

1st Place - Lilly Bohn

$ 500.00 from the VFW post 2529

$ 100.00 from the VFW Auxiliary Post 2529

$ 100.00 from the Dad’s of Foreign Services Post 32

2nd Place - Allyssa Stacy

$400.00 from the VFW Post 2629

$100.00 from the VFW Auxiliary Post 2529

$100.00 from The Dad’s of Foreign Services Post 32

3rd Place - Reilly Horgan

$300.00 from VFW Post 2529

$100.00 from VFW Auxiliary Post 2529

$100.00 from The Dad’s of Foreign Services Post 32

On December 1st a representative for our American Legion Post 83 visited our school and delivered a presentation to all junior male students regarding Buckeye Boys State. This is a wonderful leadership opportunity that the Legion sponsors for our students to attend. The program takes place over the summer at Miami University. The participants are housed in the dorms for the week. This costs the legion $300 per participant and they offer a limited number of spots to our students for free. Interested students will have the opportunity to ask questions of the Legion Representative and our now senior student who attended Buckeye Boys State last year. All interested students can sign up in Student Services to apply to participate.

We are so excited to announce that this year we will also be participating in The Buckeye Girls State program. This is a leadership program that our female students had been given the opportunity to participate in the past, however, due to lack of sponsorship we have not been offered to participate recently. This year, The American Legion Auxiliary Post will be sponsoring a select few of our interested female students. Further information about this opportunity will be presented to our junior female students next month.

We have been working with the Workforce Development program at Firelands Forward. This program works closely with The Erie County Business Advisory Council with the goal of providing career exploration opportunities for our students. Last month we took 8 of our students on a Manufacturing Day bootcamp. Our students were given detailed presentations on what local companies produce, how to seek employment, company based educational reimbursement for employees and they were able to tour OE Meyer and Norwalk Concrete.

On February 22nd another bootcamp will be offered to our students. More information on this opportunity will be provided in next month's newsletter.

Bear-y Funny: Q: How does a polar bear stop a DVD?

A: By pressing the “paws” button

Middle School Counselor

December 4th - MARMO Meeting @ 6:00 p.m.

December 4th - Booster Meeting @ 7:00 p.m.

December 8th - Lifetouch Senior Portrait Day

December 8th - MS/HS Book Fair Begins

December 13thth - Academic Challenge Match at EHOVE @ 9:45 a.m.

December 18th - Board Meeting @ 6:30 p.m.

December 18th - Middle School Holiday Concert @ 7:00 p.m.

December 20th - High School Holiday Concert @ 7:00 p.m.

December 25th - Winter Break Begins

November 24th - No School