Principal’s Pen: September 2-6, 2019
Hello and Welcome to the 2019-2020 School Year:
We are very excited to welcome the Class of 2023 to MHS! We had a very successful transition day last Wednesday and if you ask your son and/or daughter what they did that day they will tell you that they got to go outside, received a t-shirt, and had a cookie at the end of the day. Of course there were many other activities that took place with the focus being on how to be a successful student at MHS. Several of our staff members offered mini-sessions centered around time management, note taking, study habits, organization, as well as personal wellness. One of the activities that we had the freshmen do was to write themselves a letter with a focus on what they hoped to accomplish in the four years they are at MHS. Each letter was placed in an envelope and we will be giving it back to them on their graduation day. As a staff it is our goal to support these students in achieving their goals and we will strive to offer that support and encouragement every day over the next four years.
Our upperclassmen arrived on Thursday and while they were definitely disappointed that summer was coming to an end many were ready to begin the next chapter in their high school career. The seniors are anxious about graduation and many have said they can’t believe that in a few short months they will be graduating from high school. For the sophomores and juniors they have said that they can’t wait to be seniors but realize that they still have a few more years to reach that goal.
We will continue to share with you, What learning looks like at MHS, through photos taken not only in the traditional classroom setting but other learning environments as well. We are proud of the work that we do with our students and we want to share with you their successes, which aren’t always shared when asked, “What did you learn at school today?”.
We would like to welcome three new teachers to our staff: Mrs. Patricia Hyland (Spanish), Ms. Kayla Madore (Life Skills), Mr. Scott Hallett (Social Studies). Many of you may have heard that Mr. Bowers left us at the end of the summer to become the new principal at Lawrence High School which means we have a new assistant principal at Messalonskee this year. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Peter McLaughlin to this new role. We are very fortunate to have him join our administrative team and he has definitely hit the ground running. There has been a slight change to the grade level administrator assignments for this upcoming school year. Mr. Dunbar will be working with the sophomores and seniors while Mr. McLaughlin will be working with the freshmen and juniors. Please feel free to reach out to them at anytime with concerns that you may have with regards to issues specific to your son and/or daughter.
In a few weeks we will be hosting the NEASC visiting committee (which is comprised of New England educators) and their task is to assess our academic programming, adherence to our mission statement, and all that encompasses the running of a high school. We will be reaching out to parents to ask that you be part of their interviewing process. They will be reaching out to students, faculty, board members, community members, parents, and administrators to get a comprehensive perspective of what MHS is all about. At the conclusion of their visit they will leave us with a list of commendations as well as recommendations that we will need to address in a two year and five year report (this information will be shared with you digitally once we receive the final report). There are three rankings that the committee has at their discretion to award to a school; accredited, accredited but on probation (which means they have identified some specific areas that need to be addressed), or non-accredited. Currently we are an accredited high school and it is our hope that remain so. This is a process that occurs every 10 years and I would liked to commend the staff for spending the last two plus years putting together the necessary reports and documents that the visit requires. We will keep you apprised of the process and visit and as mentioned above we will share with you the report that is generated from this visit.
Each student received a packet of paperwork that contains important information. New to this school year is that all free/reduced lunch forms must be returned to the school whether a student does or does not qualify for the program. We have provided you with an envelope in which you can place the form (for confidentiality purposes). Please have your son/daughter return these forms along with the emergency forms as soon as possible. Make sure to double check that all lines requiring a signature have been signed.
As I did last year I will be writing a weekly Principal’s Pen. In this memo you will find information about upcoming deadlines and activities as well as photos of events that have taken place at the high school. We also have a tweeter account, facebook account, and our website is updated on a regular basis. We also have a new hastag, which is, #EaglePrideMHS, which will allow us to direct folks to other great things happening at MHS.
Again, welcome back and enjoy the week.
Paula