We had a busy November ensuring high levels of learning at Randall Middle School! Students will be bringing home their first trimester report cards on Friday, December 9, 2022. Our CECSD K-6 report cards use standards-based grading and reporting. With standards-based grading and reporting, teachers provide students with meaningful feedback specific to the multiple learning standards in each subject area. The traditional grading system only provided students with a single numerical or letter grade for each subject area. As you review your student’s report card, notice your student’s strengths and areas needing growth. Chat with your student about their goals for the second marking period. Our mission at Randall Middle School is to ensure high levels of learning for all students and adults. One of the ways we work to ensure high levels of learning is to empower students to have ownership over their learning. If they are working to reach proficiency with a learning standard, they may need to put in some extra time and effort in order to reach proficiency. For example, if multiplication is one of the foundational skills for a learning standard your student is struggling with, practicing their fluency with multiplication facts might be an appropriate goal. Each of our students has their own Evidence of Learning Portfolio, and these are updated throughout the school year as your student progresses with their goals. Periodically asking your student about their Evidence of Learning Portfolio and their progress toward proficiency will help to support our Randall Middle School mission.

On December 14, 2022 we will host our Randall Middle School school wide spelling bee. Each homeroom classroom has two top spellers (winners of the classroom written spelling bees) who will compete in the schoolwide oral spelling bee. The top four participants of the schoolwide spelling bee will move on to the regional spelling bee in Syracuse.

We continue to use ROAR (Respectful, Open-Hearted, Act-Safely, and Responsible) to support school and district wide behavioral expectations. We believe that this is done Better Together, meaning we all have a role in the success of our classroom communities and school. We currently have an incentive underway where each classroom community needs to reach 24 points, and a schoolwide total of 312 points. Points are earned by classroom communities meeting their ROAR learning targets that they have identified. Once we reach this Better Together schoolwide goal, on December 20, 2022 we will have a schoolwide field trip to the JMA Wireless Dome in Syracuse to watch the Syracuse Orange Women's Basketball team play UAlbany. We are preparing for our field trip by having each classroom community research one of the players or coaches and teach us about them on the morning announcements each day. We look forward to arriving at the Dome on 12/20 being Syracuse Orange Women’s basketball experts! If you are a registered CECSD volunteer and would like to volunteer to attend our field trip on 12/20, please let your student’s teacher know as soon as possible. If you are not a registered volunteer and wish to become one, please see the volunteer guidelines and then submit the volunteer form.

The holidays are officially here. That means the reality of snow and ice as well! As beautiful and fun as this time of year is ….it is equally wet, cold, and potentially dangerous. Please have students dress for the weather and packing a spare outfit is always a good idea!

All 5th grade vision and hearing screenings are complete. Thank you to the Lions Club and SUNY Cortland for all their assistance this year!

Physicals: All 5th grade students are required to have a physical examination. School physicals are scheduled every Thursday morning in cooperation with Guthrie Medical. Please contact the school nurse at (607) 758-4174 if you have any questions.

Happy Holidays to you all! May the “wonder” of the season bring your hearts a smile or two!

Nurse Neuman

~Danielle Beltz

We are trying stop-motion in art!