Dear MTUESD Community,
Lots of activity happening on the maintenance side over summer. The custodial crew is doing deep cleaning in classrooms, and we greatly appreciate their work. The Thursday and Friday days off saw the carpet crews in at Mark Twain and they completed three rooms at Copper over this week. Additional work included the installation of a new freezer by the Mark Twain gym that runs off the generator in the event of power outages to prevent those crazy big food losses that we had experienced in years past. This was funded by a kitchen grant of restricted money.
Summer Session 2 will be underway shortly. The kids are getting some great individual attention and the activities and enrichment component have been spreading a lot of joy and fun. Stop in the office, if you want to register your student.
If you are interested in the after school program for your student for the fall, it is imperative that you sign up in the office now. Forms are available at Mark Twain or you can call the office and we can scan one to you. This is a program that has eligibility criteria, and we need to know who’s interested, so we can staff it appropriately. Final notification of acceptance in the program will be made as we get closer to school start.
Just a reminder that classes are bigger than in the past years. That is a reflection of our budget status. We have worked on how to use our additional support staff to mitigate those larger classes, but please don’t be surprised when you come to school and see it. The days of 20 and 25 kids in the class are long gone with the expiration of the Covid money. We are getting back to the old days of 28 to 30, so please don’t be surprised, and understand, if I had another way, I would do it.
I also want to remind our fourth through eighth grade families that there is change in the failing grade remediation policies. Please reference the handbook. It is available online and I have included a link for you below. We have copies of the grading policy that will be available in the office. Essentially, we are no longer doing remediation packets. We found that a few students were just goofing off and then realized they could do a packet for two weeks and pass a course. That is not the intention of a remediation packet. What is going to happen instead is robust communication between the teacher and the families to communicate that a student is not performing and to involve the families in helping to remediate the issue with the student along with resources at the site. Our goal is that a student learns the content, not just gets the D- to pass the class. I want to make sure families are aware of this policy change, so we will be messaging this early and often. This is particularly impactful if your student plays sports. There will be no opportunity to remediate that F, but there will be every opportunity to correct it before the grade posts. If you are not on Infinite Campus yet, make sure you see your site secretary and get logged in so you can check your student’s daily grades. This is part of our shift to being in partnership with our families to make sure kids are successful before they fail.
Here is the handbook link. Take time to read it please, so we are all on the same page:
We had the Wild Things representatives out and he did an incredible animal education program. Gabe does a terrific job explaining the habitat of the animal and it’s a fun-filled education process while kids get to see and sometimes touch the animals. This is something I’ve enjoyed doing at all my schools and it really brings creatures from around the world to the kids. Great fun.
The Fire Academy was stellar. If you want your student to participate in this next year, if we are able to build the program, keep your eye out for enrollment details as we get closer to spring. Our deepest gratitude to Superintendent Nanik and Chief Parks for designing this event for our kids.
I hope you have a tremendous weekend and enjoy the beautiful weather. Mark your calendar for school start on August 13.
Sincerely yours,
Louise Simson
Superintendent
650-996-3290