Principal's Letter for Jan. 2023
Kelly M. Borchard - Principal
Principal's Letter for January 2023
Principal’s Message
The New Year is here, and it is good to remember that we continue to focus on continued academic achievement. We are on the verge of announcing a Computer Science Immersion program for the 2023-2024 school year. We have a little more work to do with the staff, but more than the majority are excited about moving the school forward with a new signature practice. All grade levels are refocusing students tracking their individual progress on standards, and teachers keep working together in their PLC groups. Through the analysis, teachers will refine teaching practices to increase overall student learning. We will also be teaching our students about our new Peace Path tool to help students solve their own playground issues through a structured protocol.
SRTMS showed its holiday spirit in December. We participated in the Spark of Love toy drive, and we are able to collect about 60 toys and pieces of sports equipment for the program. The ASB also completed a track relay tournament and took holiday photos of many of our students that we sent to individual families that requested them. Everyone also participated in a Festive Winter Gear Day. It was a lot of fun!
Now that the first trimester is complete, it is a good time to highlight some positive aspects of SRTMS. Our TK-5th grade students continue to make excellent academic progress in reading and math. The first session of WIN time was successful and we are ready to start session two immediately after Winter Break. One hundred, thirty-eight out of one-hundred fifty-one middle school students earned grades of C or higher in all their classes. We have seven middle school interest groups to assist with student connectedness. The interest groups range from an art group to an investing/economic group. Lastly, the behavior on campus has been excellent. We have only had one suspension all year, and the students have embraced our “Be the Joy” program that focuses on congratulating students who do the right thing or bring joy to school. Still, we took the end of Winter Break as a new start, so we had behavioral expectation assemblies for all grade level spans.
The CAASPP dashboard went public recently. SRTMS scored five out of five for ELA and math showing tangible evidence of our excellent program. We kept our suspension rate at one out of five, the lowest level possible. We have some work to do to improve our chronic absenteeism indicator. However, a regular program, without many COVID restrictions, has resulted in better attendance already.
Lastly, we will begin our lunchtime basketball tournament for fourth through eighth grade in the next week. It will be a great time, and I will send photos to the Board next month.