First, I wanted to thank you for sharing your amazing students with us! As parents, we instill in our children the importance of making a positive first impression. On behalf of the staff of Mears Middle School, your children were respectful, responsible, and true joy to be with. We are looking forward to an amazing year. We had two assemblies over the past week, one where administration reviewed decorum expecations and another where we had an opening day pep rally to generate school spirit and have some good old fashioned fun! Our community partners, School Resource officers, Officer Sargent and Officer Gallen were able to join us for some of the fun. I've included a few pictures for your enjoyment.

With over 1075 students at our school, i want to take a moment to explain some student management decisions in place to aide in maintaining student safety and optimizing efficiency.

Lanyards:

Students begin and end the day with their homeroom/advisory teachers. The expectation is the lanyard is to be worn while on campus on Mears. The lanyards are color coded by grade level, which helps staff guide students to the specific grade level locations during student movement. Replacement lanyards are available for purchase since visual identification is a campus requirement. Currently, each student has an index card with their name, homeroom number, and other pertinent information they need to navigate the building. Once the student ID arrives, we can swap out the index cards with the ID. We are hoping, students will be able to use their ID's to sign-in/out of the classroom on the kiosks.

Assigned tables at Lunch:

950 students are required to take physical education during the school day on our campus. Our multi-purpose room (MPR) transforms for 90 minutes a day from a "gymnasium" to a "cafeteria" to allow students a place to eat lunch. With three grade levels, we need 3 lunch waves and have to run them one right after the other to make everything work. With moving almost 375 students in and out of the MPR in 30 minutes, the best option was to assign lunch tables by advisory teacher. Students may sit anywhere at their assigned tables. Assigning tables facilitates students entering quickly, knowing they have a seat, and allows us to find them quickly to relay messages, etc. As the routines of the year are more established and executed with automaticity, I will allow students to have free seating.

School Store:

The last 15 minutes of lunch, is the time when our parent volunteers open up the school store to sell merchandise and smart snacks as a fundraiser for our school. Students may use cash, cards, and digital pay options at the check-out to pay for their items. The school store will open on Tuesday, August 20, 2024 and the PTSA is always looking for volunteers to help run the store, so sign-up today!

Movement Breaks during Lunch:

The last 15 minutes of lunch is a great time for students to walk the track and go outside (weather permitting) to shoot hoops, pass a soccer or volleyball, or just get a breath of fresh air. Students enjoy socializing with their peers and taking a break from the day. Movement breaks during lunch will start on Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Thank you for your understanding as we prioritize student safety and have established procedures to maintain an orderly learning environment.

Principal Marquand

All Mears 6th graders present received their Chromebooks on Thursday or Friday with their Homerooms. Absent students and those 7th and 8th graders who don't have an ASD Chromebook will be assigned one in the coming week.

Each student's ASD Chromebook:

• Is on loan from ASD for the entire time they are with the school district, until either graduation or a move out of ASD.

• Should be brought to school every day and home every day.

• Should be kept charged up, well taken care of, and usable.

• Should have a grade-level schedule sticker on the top.

• Will be kept by your student over the summer & used by them in future school years.

Reminders:

• Students should not be using anyone else's Chromebook.

• The better care they take of their Chromebook, the better their Chromebook will work through high school.

• Students can put identifying vinyl stickers on the exterior of the Chromebook and use metallic sharpie to write their name on the charger block and the under-side of their Chromebook.

ASD has committed to improving the literacy skills of all students across the district. For students in grades 3-8, we are committed to supporting our students to reach our academic goal:

• The median growth percentile of grades 3-9 students on Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) growth reading and math will be at least 45%.

Literacy is a priority at Mears. We have dedicated 15 minutes every Monday because reading is central to the work we do to help students be successful and to become lifelong readers. The following is an excerpt from a blog series from Renaissance Learning, a research backed educational software and analytics company:

An analysis of more than 174,000 students’ Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores revealed that connection between reading engagement and reading performance was “moderately strong and meaningful” in all 32 countries examined, including the United States. On average, students who spent more time reading, read more diverse texts, and saw reading as a valuable activity scored higher on the PISA’s combined reading literacy scale.

Overall, students with high reading engagement scored signicantly above the international average on the combined reading literacy scale, regardless of their family background. The opposite was also true, with students with low reading engagement scoring significantly below the international average, no matter their socioeconomic status. In short, reading practice matters for kids from all walks of life.

Looking at only American students’ PISA scores, we see that reading engagement had a higher correlation with reading literacy achievement than time spent on homework, relationships with teachers, a sense of belonging, classroom environment, or even pressure to achieve (which had a negative correlation). In addition, a regression analysis showed achievement went up across all measures of reading literacy performance when reading engagement increased.

Although the PISA only assesses 15-year-olds, similar patterns can be seen in both younger and older American students. In 2013, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) compared students’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores with their reading habits. For all age groups, they found a clear correlation between the frequency with which students read for fun and their average NAEP scores: The more frequently students read, the higher their scores were.

During Homeroom/Advisory, students will enter their classrooms, put on their lanyards and pick-up their schedules from their teacher. We will be following the bell schedule below and students will be meeting all of their teachers for this year. Counselors will continue to make schedule adjustments over the next couple of weeks. If you have a schedule question or need academic support for your child, please reach out the your child's grade level counselor for assistance:

6th grade: Ms. Brenda Councell-Johnson

7th grade: Ms. Ula Suapaia

8th grade: Ms. Evelyn Dutton

• Cross Country Running

• First Practice August 19 (4:15 p.m.-5:45 p.m.)

• First Competition September 4

• Following weeks, races Mondays and Wednesdays (5 schools each)

• Races begin 6 p.m., with the exception of Championships

• Boys Basketball

• First Practice August 19 (4:15 p.m.-5:45 p.m.)

• First Game September 5

• Games begin 6 p.m. on weeknights, varies on Saturdays

• Baseball - Outsourced with Alaska Legion

• Registration will be live August 1st

• First Practice anticipated August 19

• Jamboree competitions August 24 & 31

• First Competition September 7

• Competitions Saturdays in September

• Some weeknight competitions, including Mulcahy Stadium under the lights

Is your child going to absent from school? Save time and send a quick email to our attendance email box, mearsattendance@asdk12.org or you can call the school at 907-742-6400 and select the Attendance Line option to leave us a voice mail, either option is a great way to notify us!

Our office staff is available daily, please don't hesitate to reach out if we can help you in any way, our hours are 8:45-4:15. Thanks so much, we are here to help serve you!

We do not accept, Door Dash/Uber Eats/ETC, food deliveries for students before, during, nor after school. We will NOT accept deliveries of any kind. We have a school meal program offering balanced meal choices daily. In addition, the Black Cat Cafe offers smart snacks daily for purchase.

Lunch Detentions are held daily during each lunch wave in Room ST6.. Students are expected to check-in with the supervisor at the beginning of lunch. Students who need to purchase food from the cafeteria will be issued a fast pass to procure their food and return to Room ST6 to serve the assigned lunch detention.

Detentions are 8:30 am-9:15 am, in Room ST6, Tuesday-Friday. Please drop-off your student at the MPR entrance to access the building. Security staff will greet your student and escort them to Room ST6. Please contact AP Svendsen or AP Matthews with any questions.

Everyone

Accepted

Respected

Safe

Email: marquand_carla@asdk12.org
Website: https://www.asdk12.org/mears
Location: 2700 West 100th Avenue, Anchorage, AK, USA
Phone: 907-742-6400