Happy New Year

Dear ECMS Family:

I am hoping that all of our families had a restful holiday break.  The second semester is well under way.  We had a very positive first week.  Students are, once again, focused on work and are fully engaged in the educational process.  Community Schools classes will begin on Monday.  Before we know it, it will be May!

You will see changes in the look of our district website as well as our own ECMS website.  Dr. Kamerzell's vision is to have a cohesive plan for social media throughout the district.  As usual, our CFSD vision is cutting edge.  We are going all out to model 21st century skills for our students and community. Please follow us on Twitter and Youtube where we will be posting videos (double click on any of the icons that you see on our webpage).  By the way, we will never post a student's image without parental permission.   You will be seeing more video blogs.  We are working on a virtual tour of our school as well.  Rachel is creating a video on how to use the PIV.  We are striving for constant communication with our parents and the community.

We were thrilled to have received praise from Ridgewood and Associates for our ECMS social media plan. We have a committee of teachers, parents, and students who are assisting us.  Kudos to Kelly Hawke for writing our social media plan.  She is a professional in that field who just happens to be a 1st year teacher at ECMS and a graduate of both ECMS and CFHS. Rachel Maleski is our CTI and is responsible for integrating technology into the curriculum.  She set me up with this blog and maintains our Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other social media.  Rachel is also in classrooms and works with students and teachers every day.  She also films and edits the principal video blogs and strives to make me look as good as possible (hence the soft focus)!  Robert Temple, our computer tech, maintains our website and is largely responsible for implementing the changes suggested by Ridgewood.  If you saw it "snowing" at Esperero during the holidays, that is an example of Robert's special touches that we so appreciate.

I wanted to give a special thanks to Cynthia Nocon, our ECMS FFO co-president who has spent countless hours analyzing our website.  I often marvel at Cynthia's vast skill set.  She has helped us to better understand technology.  Thanks to Cynthia for always being there through our website redesign and for doing so much work to assist us in clarifying our vision of what a website needs to do to best serve students, teachers, parents and the community.


My continuing gratitude list:

I am grateful to Amy Jobst and her wonderful parent volunteers who provided the faculty with a luscious lunch and door prizes on the last day of school.  Our lounge was beautifully decorated and full of holiday cheer.  Thank you, Amy!

I am grateful to my teachers who got all of their grades in before the holidays.  Your hard work is greatly appreciated.

I am grateful to Ms Sheryl Castro who left the classroom to be our Dean of Students!  She has done an amazing job this semester in her work with students, teachers, our custodial staff and with parents.  I could never ask for a more talented and amazing administrative partner.

Thanks to all of our parents who have been helping us to help their students.  We realize that part of school is academic and part social.  In my experience, no where is the growth curve steeper than in middle school.  Kids are changing every day and there are so many things that distract them. When they do take a misstep, it is nice to know that we have a strong parent-teacher partnership to help students make good choices.  Thanks to all of our parents for trusting us and for working with us to make middle school the best possible experience for kids!

I am grateful for our new display board in the parking lot!  Thank you, Cynthia Nocon and our always generous FFO, for making this vision into a reality!  Ms. Castro, Ms. Nocon and I would like to thank Mr. Basil Callimanis, district facilities director, for his assistance in making this happen.

Kindness in the Parking Lot
My wish is that kindness and consideration be at the top of the list in our parking lot.  The parking lot can be stressful, especially if one is in a hurry.  Please, let us be kind and patient in our parking lot.  We are all members of the Esperero Family.

Coming Up .  . .
Watch for the following:


1.  International Lunch in February (invite parents and grandparents to have lunch for $3.00). Special menu provided by Sodexo.  Look in our ECMS January newletter for more details!
2.  National Junior Honor Society
3.  Spelling Bee ECMS championship on January 11 in the library!
4.  Bird of the month with Mr. Glabicky
5.  CS presents Beauty and the Beast directed by Julia Higgins (coming later on!!)

 and so much more . . .