Meadow Hall Staff Newsletter

Our next big school event is the Culture Fair on Thursday, May 11th at 6pm. Please encourage participation from your students. The culture fair packet is attached if you would like to send home on Dojo or email to parents (again).

Kindergarten Orientation is this Thursday and Friday, May 4-5. Current kindergarteners will not be attending school those two days.

Please see the link below for the K orientation schedule and those involved:

K Orientation Schedule

In lieu of the last week's staff meeting, we will hold articulation meetings for each grade level. Team Leaders, please see Ilana to finalize the date we'll meet as a grade level team for articulation. Please come with several days/times that work for your team.

Please see the Articulation Memo

Please review the linked memo for information regarding Meadow Hall's after school programs for next school year.

MHES Before & After School Programming for FY24

Please plan a to celebrate Ms. Ibrahim and Ms. Panasethaned, our two amazing Food Services employees, during the week of May 1st. They are AMAZING and work so hard making sure our students are fed breakfast and lunch every day!

Thank you!!

MCEA members currently in their evaluation year, please be sure to provide Desmond and Ilana with a copy of the self-evaluation standards V and VI document linked here to support your final evaluation report for the FY23 school year. Please supply this to Desmond and Ilana ASAP as we are currently writing the final evaluations.

This past week MCPS sent a memo to administration regarding the Leader in Me program. Here is an excerpt of that memo.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is committed to all students' social-emotional/well-being learning. Since the 2021–2022 school year, MCPS has utilized the Leader in Me (LiM) curriculum to support our student's well-being needs. However, due to ongoing implementation challenges, budgetary constraints, varying perspectives around the content of the curriculum, and perceptual data from staff regarding its effectiveness, for the 2022–2023 school year, schools will have the following options for social-emotional/wellness learning:

1. to continue or start to implement the LiM curriculum, or
2. Implement existing district and school-level curriculum and resources

Administration sent an email for the FY24 Leadership Team members to vote on how to proceed. The overwhelming majority voted to use the existing district SEL resources instead of learning a new program. Therefore, Meadow Hall will not adopt Leader in Me next year and will not have summer training for the program. You may withdraw from Leader in Me training on PDO.

We apologize for the convenience, but we only received this information last week.

Please see this memo regarding MCPS volunteers: Reactivating Volunteer Support in Schools

See the employment opportunities at Twinbrook Pool, for those interested:

MCPS is introducing a new technology to combine the way you log into Google, using your existing Microsoft username and password! The new technology is called “Google Federation.” Google Federation is being enabled for all MCPS staff on a rolling basis and will be enabled for you and the rest of the staff in your school Tuesday, May 2, 2023. There is nothing you need to do. This change will simply redirect you to the Microsoft login page once you attempt to login to Google.

Specifically, when you enter your MCPS Google account as part of logging into Google, you will immediately be prompted to enter your Outlook login and password. You will no longer be prompted for the Google password. Platforms that normally require MCPS Google credentials, such as Google Drive, Gmail, Canvas, or Zoom, will be affected with this change. The benefit for MCPS staff is that they only need to remember one password, the Outlook password. Federation only affects the login process and does not affect the user experience after logging in; you will still be using the same firstname.mi.lastname@mcpsmd.net account.

If you would like a step-by-step description of the new Google login process, please click here. If you need additional assistance, please contact your school ITSS or the MCPS Help Desk.

As we begin planning for FY24, we are looking for staff to lead programming for next school year in the following areas:

• Student Council (Paid Stipend)
• Minority Scholars Program (MSP) (Desmond will help to facilitate this and relinquish responsibility as staff become familiar with it. You do not need to be a minority to lead this) (Paid Stipend)
• SERT
• Social Committee
• Staff Wellness/ RJ Coach (Paid Stipend)
• Homework Club- Morning (8-8:45) or Afternoon (3:25-4:25 pm); support kids with homework as needed ( Paid Stipend)
• STAT Performance Afterschool Programming- Lead an afterschool activity of choice (Paid by STAT)
• Other opportunities as Staff see a need

Please contact Ilana and Desmond if you are interested in leading any of these initiatives as we would like to get these on the FY24 draft calendar and begin to put things in place to support those who plan to lead these initiatives. We thank you in advance.

Our May PTA meeting is happening Tuesday, May 2, at 7pm.

In-Person: Meet in the Media Center

Online Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88420918867?pwd=NnhFUWV2RWhjQlRTSEpOU1EraHhNdz09
Meeting ID: 884 2091 8867; Passcode: MHESPTA

We had 79(!!!) MHES students run at the Fun Run today (this # does not include younger/older siblings, teachers, and family). For comparison, we had 61 students last year - so this is amazing!! A special THANK YOU to Lana Crouse for running the event, and thank you to everyone who helped with the event, before and during! Also thanks to all the teachers for promoting it in their classrooms! Here are all the details and "lists:"

BATTLE FOR SPARE CHANGE

We raised a total of $1,287.38 in the coin drive this year! Thank you to all of the teachers and staff who hyped this up! Here is the breakdown of how that money will be used:

Recess Supplies: $500+

P.E. Supplies: $500+

The remainder will be applied towards items such as: Main Office Needs, Staff Lounge/Workroom Needs, 5th Grade Celebration Supplies (balloons for balloon arch, plates for cake, etc.), Popsicles for Kindergarten Playdates, Silly string/pie-ing supplies

CLASSROOM WITH MOST ATTENDANCE

Congrats to MS. HELLMAN for having the most attendance from his classroom at 44%! MS. RYBACKI was a close runner-up with 38% in attendance.

GRADE WITH MOST ATTENDANCE

Congrats to 5TH GRADE for having 29% in attendance!

PIE WINNERS!

These students were selected to pie/silly-string teachers and staff:

David Dhandu (Hur)

Laila Costa (Rowell)

Brandon Clasby (Werner)

Hannah Coppersmith (Taylor)

Gianna Duran (Rybacki)

Layla Tynes (Rybacki)

Alice Hedrick (Newman)

Encourage student participation in the Culture Night Fair

Determine articulation meetings

Celebrate our Nutrition Services Personnel

Updates grades in grade book - interims due May 15

Tuesday, May 2 - Leadership Team mtg @ 3:45pm; PTA mtg @ 7pm

Thursday and Friday, May 4-5 - Kindergarten Orientation

Tuesday, May 9 - Staff Meeting @ 3:45pm

Thursday, May 11 - Culture Fair @ 6pm

Monday, May 15 - Interim grades due!

Tuesday, May 16 - Equity PLC @ 3:45pm

Email: Ilana_N_Simhon@mcpsmd.org
Website: https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/meadowhalles/
Location: 951 Twinbrook Parkway, Rockville, MD, USA
Phone: 240-740-5260