Dust Devil Weekly

Once again this school year we will be focused on improving school wide attendance at JMMS! Each week we will report out our daily attendance rates. Our goal is to be above 96% each day...we can do it!

Monday 2/24: 94.74%

Tuesday 2/25: 95.74%

Wednesday 2/26: 94.49%

Thursday 2/27: 93.23%

Friday 2/28: 88.22%

GRADE LEVEL WINNER: 6th GRADE!

PERFECT ATTENDANCE WINNERS: Colin Denham, Jeannie Kinnally, Kayden McFarland, Nora Staples, Brianna Youssefi

Did you know that an Excused absence is the same as an Unexcused absence for a student? If your child is going to be out for an extended amount of time, you can request and Independent Study Contract. This contract acts as attendance for the time they are not in school, as well as, allowing students to stay on top of their studies!

- In Science, grade 8 was exploring Newton's Second Law of Motion to provide evidence that a" change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces acting on the object and the mass of the object.

- Ms. Zarick's class making models of the human eye!

- Maestro Cortés' Spanish Language Arts 7th and 8th grade students. Here you can see the students celebrating after completing their essays, proudly displaying their names on the Wall of Achievements! They have been working hard to compete in the Literary Contest "Escribo en español" 2024-2025, organized by the California Department of Education. In the end, everyone managed to write a 400-word argumentative essay, and only 10 students were selected to compete in the contest. However, for me, everyone was a winner because they all gave it their best effort.

- Anything but a Backpack Day!

- Students from Liberty Charter visiting at lunch to tell our Dust Devils all about their school!

Apologies for the link not being active last week! Here is an updated version. You can use the QR code or click directly on the ad to take you to the link!

We are excited to announce our first eSports Family Night on Wednesday, March 26 from 5:30-7:00pm at JMMS. Students will be able to sign up in teams to compete against one another in Mario Kart. Teams can have a family member if you have a gamer in the family, if not, students must be accompanied by one adult. More info to come!

This year we are excited to announce that our 8th Grade Promotion will take place on Wednesday, June 4th at 4 pm. As many families know, we usually have our Promotion on the last day of school early in the morning. However, this year that would fall at the same time as Granite Hills' Graduation ceremony. We know that many of our families will be celebrating their graduating Seniors that morning so we have decided to celebrate our promoting 8th Graders the afternoon before. We are excited to have our ceremony at a special after school event. We look forward to seeing you all there!

It is time for Open Enrollment at Creekside for the Dual Language TK and Kindergarten programs. Space is limited so if you are interested, contact Creekside to sign up now!

We appreciate your patience as we put all of the pieces in place to get our JOAN MACQUEEN PTA MEMBERSHIP DRIVE underway! And....it is time! Our Membership Drive has begun! You can join online beginning NOW for just $15 a membership. We have set a goal of 200 members and we are well on our way with already 50 members! Please consider joining our newly formed PTA. PTA is a vital part of any school community and JMMS is excited to have a PTA back on campus to support our students, staff and greater school community! We will be hyping up the students by hosting a little membership competition. The grade level with the most memberships will receive a MEGA ICE CREAM SUNDAE SOCIAL! The second place grade level will receive ice cream cone party and the third place will receive a popsicle party. We want to reward all grade levels as this is an exciting time for JMMS and our newly formed PTA! You can join by using the link here:

https://jointotem.com/ca/alpine/joan-macqueen-pta/join

We are excited to announce that our 6th grade class will be attending Camp Cuyamaca from March 17-21, 2025! We know that is months away; however, because the week has a cost of $350 we like to give our families the time to start making payments asap. If you would like to start making payments or pay for camp in full, you can pay cash or make a check payable to Joan MacQueen Middle School beginning now. You can bring the cash or check to the JMMS office. Time to start getting excited for camp!

As we begin the year, it is important to remind your student that they need to have their Chromebook each day charged and in their backpack. While we know that we want our middle schoolers to work on becoming more independent, we also know that it takes time. So, as they work to develop these skills, please help them by giving them reminders nightly to charge their Chromebooks and then to put it in their backpack in the morning. Thanks for your continued support!

JMMS is excited to offer Spirit wear for our Dust Devils! You can find offers and options here:

https://macqueenmiddlespiritwear.com/

Mon 3/3 - Trimester 3 Begins

Weds 3/5 - Late Start Morning

Weds 3/5- Trimester 2 Report Cards Posted to Student Vue