McMillan Moment
For the Month of December
Important Reminders:
December 7-11: Hat Week for Missouri Veteran's Home ($1 a day)
December 8: 3-5 Christmas Concert @ 7pm (Emmons Hall)December 18: Last day of school before Christmas Break!
McMillan Elementary Christmas Concert
Tuesday, December 8
7:00 p.m.
Mexico High School
Emmons Hall
Grades 3, 4 and 5 will perform several holiday pieces.
Attendance Matters...
- Schools: First and foremost, recognize and celebrate good and improved attendance. Create a strong school culture around daily attendance. Additionally, track individual student absenteeism data, and use that data to identify which kids need interventions. As noted, there are many reasons kids miss school, so schools should offer interventions that match the student’s particular need. For example, offer free and reduced-price breakfast to kids in need; recent studies show that access to breakfast in the classroom helps increase attendance rates.[vi]
- Afterschool programs and community partners: Use afterschool programs as a “hook” to entice students to come to school daily. Afterschool programs and other community organizations can also often connect students with resources that meet basic needs, like healthcare and transportation, which may be acting as barriers to consistent attendance.
- Caring adults: Mentors, tutors, coaches and other adults can and should send a consistent message of encouragement to the kids they work closely with. Trusting relationships can also help students open up about why they are missing school, which helps adults know how they can best help them.
- Parents: Build a habit (and an expectation) of good attendance as early as possible in your child’s life, and model good attendance yourself. Avoid scheduling vacations that would force your children to miss school. Keep an eye on your children’s absences – both the frequency and reasons. Maybe your child is being bullied, or falling behind in math class, and doesn’t want to tell you about it. While some absences are unavoidable, and no child should attend school while sick, consider if there are things that you can do to reduce the number of days your child misses.
- Students: Deliver some “positive peer pressure” to your friends to let them know you care, and that you miss them when they don’t come to school. Offer to help in whatever ways you can. Swing by a friend’s house or send them a text before school, or encourage them to sign up for a Get Schooled Celebrity Wake-Up Call.
PBiS
On November 18, McMillan students earned a DAWG tag party for all of their awesome behavior! It was so much fun and the children had a blast! Please ask your child what they earned for this DAWG tag party. In December, we will be working on being respectful and responsible in the cafeteria. The children use the cafeteria daily to eat their breakfast and lunch. They are expected to walk into the cafeteria using a level 0 voice. Once they are seated, they may begin talking in a level 1 voice at the table with their friends. If they have a question, they are asked to raise their hand for assistance. Please ask your child how they could be respectful when walking in and eating lunch in the cafeteria. In addition, another way to be respectful in the cafeteria is to use good manners when speaking with others in the cafeteria. Please ask your child about some good manners they can use when speaking with others in the cafeteria. We will then be talking about ways to be responsible in the cafeteria. One way to be responsible is for the children to keep their area clean. This is an easy way to earn DAWG tags! The cafeteria staff love to give out DAWG tags to students that they see following the expectations and keeping the cafeteria clean. Please talk with your child about some ways that they can be helpful and clean up the cafeteria in order to earn DAWG tags!
Counselors Corner
STARS (Students Talking About Respect) will meet during December.
November All-Stars
McMillan Elementary
Email: rmoppin@mexico.k12.mo.us
Website: www.mexicoschools.net
Location: 1101 East Anderson
Phone: 573-581-5029