Greetings Vikings,
On this last day of the school year, I want to thank all of you for the extraordinary ways in which you have supported your children during this most unusual school year. You have demonstrated that your passion and dedication are like no other. None of us expected that we would spend a whole year of school going between remote, hybrid, and in person learning. You, as parents, became teachers and worked alongside Smith teachers to help educate your children! We learned that we are more resilient than we ever expected and that we lean on one another for support. The strength of our school community and wholehearted passion to make our school community strong, makes O.L.Smith a very special. It has brought us closer together and became more evident that we lean and support one another for the success of our students. We can honestly say that we had the most unusual school year – ever -as we lived through historic times. But we got through it TOGETHER.
During this past school year, we fully implemented the MTSS (Multi-tiered Systems of Support) Process that we are most proud of. We were able to support and provide interventions which helped us reach more students than ever before. We continued to implement PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports), Restorative Practices and many other practices that helped us support our students while communicating our expectations. In the classroom, we had great success with the implementation of Formative Assessment, Differentiated Instruction, Content and Language Objectives, Claim-Evidence-Reasoning or CER Writing and so much more. The district continued to support us in our work to pilot the Professional Learning Community (PLC) that was initiated at Smith four years ago. We had time built into our schedule for teachers to collaborate and implement a guaranteed and viable curriculum so that grade level content and practices are aligned. Despite the unusual circumstances, teachers continued to analyze data, identify essential standards and collaborate on best practices. We still have work to do, but we definitely have a strong foundation in place that we are all proud of. We will be taking all that we learned and building on those systems. We will never stop self-assessing and taking all of your feedback in order to improve. All stakeholders provided us with a great deal of feedback which will be reviewed and used to improve our practice.
During this past year, we had some great events and activities sponsored by student led groups (and supported by caring and dedicated staff members and parents!) Student Council, WEB, PTSA, and NJHS, etc.. These activities and events helped improve the climate and culture at the student level. We had a mobile Black History Museum visit all social studies classes, virtually. WEB Leaders did an outstanding job working with our incoming students to help get them acclimated to middle school during this difficult time. We added a great deal of Viking graphics throughout the building. Students take pride in being Vikings and we are proud of them.
To those of you who are leaving us for new places and adventures, we wish you all the best. Congratulations to our very capable 8th graders who are ready to embark on their high school experience. We hope you enjoyed the very unique end of year carnival that was dedicated in your honor, the Viking delivery of your very own lawn sign and the live promotion ceremony that was so beautiful and felt so real). More importantly, we hope you enjoyed being clapped out of O.L.Smith the same way you were clapped in as 6th graders.
Special thanks to all of you who have contributed in ways small, large and unimaginable! Thanks for getting your kids to school on time each day and for waking them up for their virtual meetings. Thanks for the kind notes of encouragement that mean so much, as well as your feedback and patience with us as we navigated through the uncharted world of remote learning. Thank you for ensuring your child’s homework was done and turned in. Thank you for communicating with me when things needed to be addressed or tweaked, and for reaching out to ask questions when things didn’t quite seem right, etc… Thank you for providing rich and engaging, well-rounded experiences for your children and knowing that education is about joy, wonder and fostering curiosity, along with the development of social skills needed to succeed. For these, and a million other things, we are truly grateful. Thank you for an amazing school year! I genuinely appreciate each and every one of you. Most of all, thank you for giving me the honor of working with your children.
I want to send my heartfelt gratitude to Ms. Makled and our dedicated PTSA for being true partners and sponsoring the carnival event as well as coordinating and making miracles happen anytime we needed them. A special thanks to Dr. Elder and Mr. Reddick for working diligently on the promotion ceremony slideshow to ensure our 8th graders had one last special event to look forward to. We hope you all enjoyed it!
For anyone who suffered in any way or lost a loved one, family member or friend, I want you to know that my heart goes out to you. For anyone who faced family and personal struggles, I pray that you overcome and have better times ahead. To our frontline workers, I thank you for risking your safety to take care of others.
As a school, we will do everything we can to support children both emotionally and academically during the next school year. We provided students with resources for summer learning if they are not attending summer school. Food will also be available at 3 pick-up sites in the district (the 3 high schools) throughout the summer. Most of us—adults and children–definitely need a break from being online. I know I do! We hope your children will be able to relax and spend some time outside. Please try to keep reading, as that is really important for students (and adults).
We hope to be back in school full time next year. More information will be sent at a later time. We plan to have the 6th grade orientation and schedule pick up on Tuesday, August 24th from 8:30-12:00pm. Seventh grade schedule pick up is August 25th; 8-10am and 8th grade schedule pick up is August 25th; 12-2pm. The first day of school for students is August 30th and that will be a half day. We will update you as the details are made available to us.
Until then, enjoy a fun, relaxing, and well deserved summer with your family!
Sincerely,
Zeina Jebril, Ed.S.
Principal of O.L. Smith Middle School