January 2025 Dragon Digest

Dear DeSana Families,

Welcome back and Happy New Year! I certainly hope that you and your family had a safe and enjoyable holiday break and our Dragons are recharged and ready to go! We look forward to finishing out the school year strong in 2025.

It is time for our 8th grade families to begin thinking about the transition to high school. Please be sure to take some time to review the registration information included below in our newsletter and posted to Denmark’s website https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/site/Default.aspx?PageID=50855.

Sincerely,

Principal Sargent

• January 6th - Quarter 3 Begins

• January 16th - Local School Council meeting 7:45am @ DMS

• January 20th - MLK Holiday (No School)

We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the families who contributed to our Toys for Tots drive this past month. Your generosity helped brighten the holiday season for many children in need, making a true difference in our community.

Because of your kindness, we were able to collect an impressive number of gifts that will bring joy and smiles to children who might otherwise have gone without. Thank you for your support and for embodying the spirit of giving.

Twenty members of DeSana’s Model United Nations Club participated in Atlanta International School’s Model United Nations Conference (AISMUN) in Buckhead on December 13th and 14th. The students spent several weeks preparing for the event by researching their committee’s issue (examples include colonizing the moon and addressing weapons trafficking) and writing position papers.

DeSana students participated in five middle school committees and won seven individual total awards, more than any other school! “Best Delegate” is the most prestigious award, given to only one student in each committee. DeSana students were awarded all of the middle school Best Delegate awards!! The students who won individual awards are as follows:

Avika B - Best Research

Anvika K - Best Diplomacy

Harini A - Best Delegate

Satwik B - Best Delegate

Nimit K- Best Delegate

Lalith P - Best Delegate

Niyanthrii V - Best Delegate

In addition, DeSana won the coveted “Best Middle School” award! The students were absolutely thrilled and are proud to add the award to our school’s trophy case!

Monday, January 20th there will be no school due to the MLK Holiday.

Student Government Association is hosting the Valentine's Social on Friday, February 7th! The social is open to all grades, 6th, 7th, and 8th. The social will take place directly after school from 4:30-6:00 in the cafe (students will not be permitted to leave school and return – students will stay in their 7th period class until they are called to the cafeteria). This is a fun, casual dress event that is meant to be a modern update on the traditional middle school dance. Concessions will be sold and there will be games in the atrium. Tickets will be sold Mon 2/3 - Thurs 2/6 on SchoolPay for $5 with a limited number of tickets available! SGA is so excited to host this fun event!

We also need some parent chaperones. If you are interested in chaperoning the social, please sign up here. Reach out to SGA advisors Sarah Coats (sjcoats@forsyth.k12.ga.us) or Elizabeth Hubbard (ehubbard@forsyth.k12.ga.us).

Attention 8th grade parents! January is an important month for high school preparation. Your 8th grader will be registering for their high school classes before the end of the month. Please make sure to pay attention to the important dates for 8th grade parents at the beginning of this newsletter (and below).

Denmark has designed their school parent nights to give you the information you need to register your child. I will also be going into their social studies classes before the registration portal opens to help them with high school transition. We will cover the high school courses available to them as Freshman, GPA calculation, and Individual Graduation Plans (this is only a draft and meant to get them thinking about the next 4 years).

Additionally, here is a link https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/site/Default.aspx?PageID=50855 to Denmark High School’s counseling page.

The scheduling tab has great information, particularly the FAQ section. The parent information sessions, classroom guidance on high school registration, and Denmark’s visit to talk with students in January will more than prepare you and your child to register for classes.

If you are planning to rescind your out of district request (ex: you no longer wish for your child to attend Alliance), you will need to fill out the form linked here https://fcsapps.forsyth.k12.ga.us/OutofDistrict/RescindOOD.aspx

Please also email Aimee Tarver f39466@forsyth.k12.ga.us if you are filling out this form.

SAVE THE DATE: We are pleased to announce the date for the 8th Grade Spring trip this year. On Thursday, May 15th we will be attending a Braves baseball game and visiting the College Football Hall of Fame. More details will be shared in February!

Lots of new and exciting things are being planned for 2025 in the MLC!

🌟Our new ‘A Team’ has been hard at work - your Library Ambassadors! In January, things will get really exciting. Things to look out for are:

🐶 Dress Up Your Pet Contest to celebrate Dress Up Your Pet Day

🎨 Annual Homeroom Door Decorating contest to celebrate Black History Month - starts after MLK Day

🧙 Harry Potter Camp - before school AND during Thrive January 28-January 31

🍕 MLC ‘sleepover’ - an evening of reading and fun in the MLC! Tentatively planned for February 13th. Watch for more information!

🤩 We are looking for volunteers to come in at around 11:00 am to help with a new lunch time check out opportunity until the end of lunch at 12:43 pm. This could be a shared timeframe - we are just looking for helpers and then will take it from there according to everyone’s availability!

🍭 The next Book Fair will start March 19 to combine with Science Fair (one stop shop!), and you know that we are already full of wonderful ideas to make it bigger and better!

📖 Do you like reading? Would you like to read some Young Adult Books for approval? It’s quite easy - all you do is read the book, and then fill out a Google Form to give feedback. If so, please reach out to Mrs. Bryson.

📚 So far this year - we have 25,549 books circulated! That is a few lower than last year, but still a good number of readers visiting and enjoying our collection. Our latest top readers (November 17-December 17) are:

1. Sayesha B

2. Maxwell F

3. Sadhana K

4. Anirudh A

5. Shreyas E

6. Aalin R

7. Myra S

8. Kyle E

9. Muath B

10. Pratyaksh B

🍩 Our next Breakfast with Books will be during Thrive on March 7 Remind your students to turn in their punch cards and to keep reading!

🙏 We are looking to form an MLC committee to help with supporting fundraisers, events, grant-writing, and more! We would meet on occasion, and also work digitally once decisions are made and responsibilities determined. These are the things we are currently working with:

• Brainstorming fun for our students!

• Book Swap evening event planning to be held in April

• Searching for technology and literacy grants and helping with applications

• Creating book lists and finding reviews

If you are interested, please email Mrs. Bryson at bbryson@forsythk12.org.

Thank you for supporting our students, our readers, and the MLC!

Don’t miss out on celebrating a great school year with us! Order your Yearbook before they run out!

To order, go to YearbookOrderCenter.com and input our school order number of 25646.

Here is a student video promoting why each grade needs a Yearbook!

Help us to make your student a star in the Yearbook! Drop your photos into ESHare and make sure we share your great moments! Please give us ALL the information you can about who is in the photo and what is happening!

We are collecting pictures of Traveling Dragons and Dragons and the Arts, and are always grateful for any pictures taken at any school events!

Advertisements are still available in very limited numbers (we have exceeded our goal and opened up some new spaces). This year we have FOUR categories of ad options 🙂

1. 8th grade ads - celebrating graduating middle school!

2. 7th grade ads - celebrating the journey

3. 6th grade ads - celebrating the start of middle school - you are only new once!

4. Business ads - sharing your business with all of our Yearbook readers

How to create/purchase an ad - please remember that this is separate from the cost of the book.

Please direct any questions to Bridget Bryson at bbryson@forsyth.k12.ga.us

Thank you for supporting Yearbook!

The tentative dates for tryouts are Monday-Thursday 4:30-5:30 pm February 17-20, 2025!

Track and Field is open to all 7th and 8th grade boys and girls. In the month of December, the coaches will be holding 2-3 informational meetings to discuss dates and requirements to participate in the tryouts.

It is very important to have a completed Athletic Physical on file and uploaded to Dragon Fly before the first day of tryouts. If you need additional information about how to complete physicals, please visit the DeSana Athletics or the DeSana Track and Field pages on the DeSana Middle School Website.

All physicals must be current through May 1, 2025!

Each week our basketball coaches will be in the cafeteria and the gym before school selling basketball tickets directly to students. For $10, students will receive a wrist band which will grant them access to one night of basketball, pizza, and a drink from the concession stand. We also are allowing students to stay after school with one of our teachers in the event they can't get a ride back by game time. We are looking to pump up our student attendance and share some exciting basketball.

PTO is excited to help foster engagement in school spirit and attendance for our last home basketball games in January! I know we briefly discussed the details in previous emails, but wanted to recap here so we're all on the same page and can help socialize the games and boost participation.

- WhiteOut Games will be held on Jan 14th (Lady Dragons) and 15th (Dragons) at both 7th & 8th grade games.

- PTO will provide white rally towels to the first 50 attendees of each game

- Dragon Nation Spirit wear is now available for purchase on a dedicated online store for our school (see store link below). This is a quick turn to meet the printing deadline in time for the games. All spirit wear will ship for free directly to DeSana on 1/13.

https://spirithero.com/collections/desana-2

(Profits from the the spirit wear sales will go towards the purchase of our very own school mascot! We have researched a really cool Dragon mascot that we would love to purchase for the school.)

What we need from you:

- Help socialize the event for maximum awareness and turnout

- Promote students and all in attendance to wear white

- Possible to make an announcement during half-time or pre-game leading up to this game?

Thanks for supporting our idea and we can't wait for a couple of fun nights in January with the teams! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.