Principal's Weekly Update

A theme of last week’s letter, understandably, was New Year’s Resolutions. We are currently filling up the bulletin board outside the main office with pictures and descriptions of the the goals/resolutions of our staff, and you can see that our "Final Photo" below offers some good advice for managing one's mindest. My wife recently encouraged me to try the “Good Reads Challenge” for this year (you set a goal for how many books you want to read and then track your progress). Somewhat coincidentally, I found out on Friday that Ms. Mancini is doing something similar with her students. They are taking part in the “Million Word Challenge”-- which encourages them to read one million words– it doesn’t matter if they read short books, long books, if they stick with one series/author/genre, as long as they just keep reading. Ms. Mancini has provided her students with links to sites which will tell them the number of words in a given book.( I played around with one yesterday–the Harlan Coben mystery that I plowed through over the vacation had precisely 83,732 words). Students will chart their progress and will earn recognitions/rewards when they hit the 250,000 mark, the halfway mark, etc. I’ll have to see if hitting the million word mark is easier or harder than reaching my Good Reads goal.

You may have tuned in to this week’s BOE Budget meetings. On Tuesday night Dr. Semmel provided the broad outlines of his proposed budget, which would represent a 5.26%increase over current year spending. On Thursday night, the middle school principals were present to highlight the needs of our buildings. The highest priority is a proposal to add a Reading Intervention teacher at each middle school. We have a foundational belief that reading is the pathway to all learning as well as a desire to put in the strongest possible MTSS Plan– Multi-Tiered Systems of Support-- for students who require different levels of remediation. Adding a Reading Interventionist would allow us to provide structured, intensive, and even individulalized supports for students who require them. We encourage you to follow the budget process and to advocate as appropriate for funding which will support our instructional goals at Madison.

We begin mid- year i- Ready testing on Wednesday of this week–first up is Math, with Reading to follow next week. We know that students are increasingly invested in their scores and how much progress that represents from their baseline performance in the Fall. They have an awareness of their “scale score” and are motivated to increase them as much as possible, no matter what that staring point was. We look to the scores to evaluate instruction to this point, and to make any necessary adjustments based on what the testing shows.

Earlier this week 6th grade School Counselor Tracey Cranston was presented with Middle School Teacher of the Year for Trumbull by the Veteran of Foreign Wars.There was a ceremony at Town Hall on Monday evening and again Thursday night with the VFW/Auxiliary of Trumbull. In previous letters, both this year and last, you have read about Tracey’s efforts to encourage our students to honor those in military service, to include her help in organizing our annual Veteran’s Day Ceremony, and the initiative which she took in creating our permanent memorial– our Wall of Remembrance, which honors the military service of Madison family members and friends. In accepting this honor, Mrs. Cranston noted, “The real award goes to active-duty soldiers and veterans like my son, Ryan, who is currently deployed in Kuwait, away from his family for 10 months.” I have to remind you all that Ryan is a Madison Middle School and THS graduate– we are very proud of both Cranstons.

The state of Connecticut has designated January as Islamic Heritage Month, and the town of Trumbull has followed suit. You can read the First Selectman's Proclamation in which Mrs. Tesoro asks us “to honor and celebrate the rich history, diverse traditions, and significant contributions of the Muslim community to our society, recognizing their role in shaping our cultural, social, and economic landscape”. At Madison, we will look to honor Islamic contriubtions to our culture through our daily announcements, and in classroom discussions, consistent with our efforts to celebrate all of the cultural backgrounds of our students.

I almost forgot to mention that the insert photo this week is of the Trumbull High School Chamber Singers, who visited on Friday. They performed for our 8th graders and answered questions about the high school music program. It was great to see some of our former "Madison Singers".

** Save the date! The annual Crosstown Showdown will be on Saturday, January 25th at Trumbull High. The boys tip off at 3:00 followed by the girls at approximately 4:30. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased online using this link.

Reminders:

Attention 8th Graders: Please ensure that your parent or guardian has submitted your baby photo for this year’s yearbook. *Deadline is January 27th.*

Effective School Solutions will be hosting a virtual parent workshop “Understanding School Avoidance for Parents and Families” on January 15th from 6pm-7pm. Please see this flyer for more information.

Attention 8th Grade NJHS members: Reminder that your Individual Leadership Project Reflection Questions and pictures are due in Google Classroom by 2:30 PM on Tuesday, January 14th.

Clubs & Activities:

Science Club meets Monday, January 13th and 27th this month! Get ready to build Marshmallow Towers!

Dungeons & Dragons Club will meet on Monday, January 13th in Room 206. Reminder that this meeting will be for DMs only. Players should continue working on your character sheets.

Try-outs for the official Madison MathCounts team will take place next week Monday, Wednesday, and or Thursday after school in room 110. All students interested in trying out must stay after school one of those days to do so. Anyone can try-out even if they haven’t practiced. The top 10 students will be selected to be a part of the team that competes at Fairfield University on Saturday Feb. 1st! Good luck to all!

Do you love writing stories and poems? Are you an illustrator or an artist? Join the Madison Literary Magazine Club to help create a magazine that will be shared on our school’s website. We will meet every two weeks in Room 106, and our first meeting is on Wednesday, January 15th. Make an amazing, creative magazine that shows off the work of talented writers and artists at Madison.

Long letter this week-- guess there was a whole lot of good news and important information to share. It totals 1,127 words-- perhaps you can count that toward your own "Million Word Challenge". Best wishes for a great weekend.

Take care,

Peter Sullivan