PCMS Weekly Update

The CharacterDare is a heart workout, inviting students and adults to practice kindness, patience, and respect with themselves and others. These school-wide challenges encourage staff and students to put character into action, fostering personal growth and positively impacting school culture.

This Week's CharacterDare is: Super Support (see below).

We invite families to join us in these challenges and look forward to the positive impact they will have on everyone.

All of our Pirates were in action this week! Here’s a quick recap of their week.

Football:On Thursday, Platte County Middle School played Kearney at Pirate Stadium. The A team played extremely well and won 35-0. Kade Fowler had a rushing touchdown, and also threw two touchdowns to Owen Yates. Rowdy Hawk added another rushing touchdown. The Defense played a huge part in the victory with one fumble recovery, and one interception taken for a Touchdown by Jackson Hickman.

The B team followed with another impressive victory 26-0. Krue White and Emmit Hughes both had a rushing touchdown, and Landon Stewart threw a touchdown to Hunter Hayes. For Defense, Jackson Day and Maddox Chleborad both had interceptions.

The A team is now 2-2, the B team is 3-1, and the C team is 3-0, all with two games left to play. Next week all three teams travel to Smithville for a fun rivalry matchup.

Volleyball: On Monday B & C teams had strong victories in their matches and A team fell to a tough Congress team. On Wednesday A & B teams beat Excelsior Springs.

Cross Country: On Wednesday, our Cross Country runners ran at the Buffalo Stampede in Independence. The race had over 750 runners and the kids ran GREAT and competed well. Claire Babcock and Hadley Newsome continue to be our front runners.

8th Grade Parents: Please review the letter below regarding upcoming training provided by the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault (MOCSA). If you do NOT want your child to attend this presentation, please complete THIS FORM by Monday, October 14.

MOCSA’s sexual harassment presentation defines sexual harassment as unwanted behavior of a sexual nature. The program is conversation based and discusses that each person gets to decide if something is “wanted’ or “unwanted” for themselves. This programming discusses that “sexual in nature” means harming someone based on one’s body, gender, or sexual orientation. Students will learn the types of sexual harassment (physical, verbal, non-verbal, and internet) and what to do if someone is being sexually harassed. Students will lead the conversation based on what they are already seeing and experiencing and the MOCSA educator will help facilitate conversation in a safe and structured way. Finally, students will work to identify safe peers and adults that they could talk to if they or someone they know needs help.

During the month of September, your child participated in our Universal Screening process for skills in the area of Math and Reading. These short assessments are called FAST assessments (given using FASTBRIDGE software). The results of these assessments help teachers identify areas of strength and weakness that might need to be addressed in one of our tiered learning programs (intervention and enrichment both in and outside of the classroom).

You will be receiving Family Reports for FAST Reading and FAST Math to communicate your child’s performance on this screener which is given three times a year. If your child attended PCR-3 last year, you will see trend data on all of the assessments they have participated in over the last two years. It is important to remember that we are looking at trends, and it is not unusual to see dips in assessment data as it is only one piece of data on each student. The narratives on the report will give generalized information about your child’s score.

I hope you all are doing well. Student achievement is our primary focus at PCMS. One main barrier to our efforts can be student attendance. Each grade level has two teams and they all have been working hard to maintain a high attendance percentage and get rewarded with a STAR for those efforts. Yesterday, the 6th grade Navigator team requested bomb pops as their reward for meeting their team goal. The other teams are almost there as well. In an effort to keep it light and have fun with the students, I will be doing random attendance drawings at lunch time every Friday. If you know anything about me you know that I am a competitive person, I like striving to be the best at everything even though I fall short sometimes. My professional goal is to have 90% of our students at school 90% of the time...we currently are sitting at 86%...see the teal data points below and on the graph. Here is our current data:

I invite you all to help me with this goal...together we can achieve many things and in the end our students will achieve more when they are here. Let's make the graph all teal. I truly am blessed and honored to get to work with your students every day. Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Dr. Chris Miller

Platte County School District's Homecoming festivities run October 7-12, 2024. This year's theme is "Homecoming 2024: GAME ON." Click here for information on Homecoming activities, including spirit week information, the Homecoming Victory Supper, parade, and football game.

• Homecoming Spirit Week Flier

At PCMS, we have a long-standing tradition of welcoming our extended Pirate families to enjoy breakfast with their middle school students. We are happy to announce we will be again hosting our 7th Grade Pastries with Pirates breakfast on Wednesday, October 9 at 7 a.m. 7th-grade students are encouraged to invite special family member(s) to join them. This could be grandparents, mom, dad, aunt, uncle, or any other significant person in the student's life. We’re looking forward to seeing you on the 9th!

Parent/Teacher conferences are scheduled for Wednesday, October 23, 3:30 - 7:30 p.m. and Thursday, October 31, 7:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. We are offering both in-person and virtual options for conferences. This is a very important time for parents to discuss their student's progress with his/her teachers, as research has shown that parental involvement is one of the most important factors in a student's success in school. Sign-ups and more information to come in the coming weeks.

• A & B Team Volleyball vs Plaza Middle School @ Home, 4pm
  
• Cross Country @ Capitol Federal Park, 4 pm
  

Oct 8

• C-Team Football @ Smithville High School, 4 pm
  

Oct 9

• 7th Grade Pastries with Pirates, 7 pm
  
• A & B Team Volleyball vs Liberty Middle School @ Home, 4 pm
• Cross Country Meet @ Ray-Pec South, 4:30 pm

Oct 10

• A/B Football @ Smithville High School, 4 pm
  

• 3 Hour Early Release
• FCA Meeting, 7:10 am

Oct 14

• No School - PLD
• Volleyball vs Heritage Middle School @ Home, 4 pm
  

Oct 15

• C-Team Football vs Liberty North @ Platte Purchase Middle School, 4 pm
  

Oct 16

• A & B Team Volleyball Scrimmage @Platte Purchase Middle School, 5 pm
  
• C Team Volleyball @ Pleasant Lea Middle School, 5 pm
  

Oct 19

• A & B Team Volleyball End of Season Tournament
  

Pirates R.O.C.K. (Raising Outstanding Character Kids) is a program designed to surround our families with examples of strong character traits through school experiences, at home, and reinforced in their community. Each month our community focuses on a specific character trait and students are recognized for exhibiting these traits: Self Confidence, Pride, Responsibility, Citizenship, Compassion, Individuality, Self Control, Integrity, Perseverance, Respect, Honesty, and Cooperation.

October's #PiratesRock trait is Responsibility: being accountable for your actions without blame.

Email: tomlinson.kristie@pcr3schools.org
Website: http://www.pcms.plattecountyschooldistrict.com
Location: 900 Pirate Drive, Platte City, MO, 64079
Phone: (816)858-2036
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plattecitymiddleschool/