Dear Families,
We hope you have a great weekend. Please take the time to read all sections of this update so you have current information regarding things occurring at Adams and in the district.
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to one of us directly at eatone@wwcsd.net or sheppardl@wwcsd.net.
Sincerely,
Erin Eaton
Student Safety
Our number one priority at Adams is to ensure all of our students are safe. In light of the recent tragedy at Oxford High School, we begin to ask ourselves just how safe our school really is. I am a mother of two middle school age children myself and will always do for your child what I expect is done for my own in their school setting to provide a safe environment. At Adams, the following resources and protocols are in place to ensure each and every child that walks into Adams is kept safe.
- The district crisis team (prior to this tragedy) has been working diligently to update/review our current lockdown measures to ensure we are prepared for any threat at any time. I am part of this team and have been trained to deal with this type of event just recently over the summer
- We have a school resource officer, Officer Donald, that we work with closely as needed from the Westland Police Department that is onsite in the district
- Onsite we have a school resource officer (Officer Dave) and behavior coordinator (Mr. I), both having law enforcement backgrounds to help us keep our students safe
- Adams has a building crisis team that meets regularly to review safety procedures and participates in tabletop exercises
- Enhanced safety features and cameras have been installed as part of the bond work
- Hall monitors patrol our halls throughout the day
- We have an Adams reporting form for students to report anything anonymously that can be found here
- We partner with Ok2Say – Anyone can report a threat against students or staff here
- All doors remain closed and locked throughout the day. Visitors must show ID at the door before being allowed into the building and all visitors must check in at the main office
We ask that you talk to your child about always reporting anything that makes him or her uneasy or could potentially lead to harm of any student or staff member. Please monitor your child’s social media accounts to ensure that threats and cyberbullying are not occurring online. Instagram has a feature for you to report any activity you see that is not appropriate in a matter of seconds. Instagram is very good at removing any content that goes against their standards.
Letter from Dr. Dignan:
School Wide Reading Initiative
We are excited to launch a whole school reading of Ban This Book by Alan Gratz! Here is a summary of what this books is about! We encourage ALL students to join the Google Classroom using the code ubtet5z.
It all started the day Amy Anne Ollinger tried to check out her favorite book in the whole world, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, from the school library. That’s when Mrs. Jones, the librarian, told her the bad news: her favorite book was banned! All because a classmate’s mom thought the book wasn’t appropriate for kids to read. Amy Anne decides to fight back by starting a secret banned book library out of her locker. But soon things get out of hand, and Amy Anne finds herself on the front line of an unexpected battle over book banning, censorship, and who has the right to decide what she and her fellow students can read. In the end, her only recourse might be to try to beat the book banners at their own game. Because after all, once you ban one book, you can ban them all…
Wayne Westland Foundation’s Annual Giving Campaign
Picture Retakes
Boys Basketball vs Franklin
Come support our Eagles as they take on our cross town rival on Wednesday, December 8 @ 3:30. All students and families in attendance must be respectful and follow school expectations, including wearing masks. Concessions will be available to support our PBIS program. Please ensure your child has transportation home promptly at the end of the games if they are dropped off!
NWEA Winter Testing
Students will be taking their winter ELA, Science, Math NWEA tests in the coming weeks. Please encourage your student to do their best on this so we can use this data to help us analyze the effectiveness of our programs and instructional strategies. This data is one piece of information we look at that allows us to determine students that need additional support as well as enrichment. Prizes will be raffled off for all students who meet their individual growth goals as an incentive to give it their all.
Off and Away for the Day Reminder!
Adams Middle school is a cell phone free school. If students bring their phones to school, they are required to be turned off and put away. There are several reasons for this, and specific details can be found below in the Off and Away Letter. Some of the reasons we enforce this include:
- Phones cause a distraction to learning and the learning environment
- Students often create videos and share them on TikTok or other social media platforms as well as text other students during the day – this is not acceptable at Adams
- We encourage face to face interactions during the day at school between peers in a society where cell phones dominate the way we communicate with each other
- Every classroom has a phone if a call needs to be made
- Parents can call the main office at anytime for messages to be relayed to students
The consequences for using phones during the day are as follows:
- First Offense – Warning
- Second Offense: The student will be asked to surrender his/her phone to the teacher and can pick up the phone from the office at the end of the day.
- Third Offense: The student will be asked to surrender his/her phone to the teacher and can pick up the phone from the office at the end of the day. In addition, the student will face an appropriate consequence.
- Fourth Offense: There will be a meeting with administration and the parent to create a personal electronics plan/contract. The phone must be picked up from the office by a parent.
Several students have reached the fourth offense. We do not want to burden you or take up our time dealing with this by asking you to meet, so please review expectations with your student. We appreciate your support.
Off and Away for the Day
Yearbook Cover Design Contest!
Students have until December 10, 2021 to submit a yearbook cover design that may be selected to be the front or back of the 21/22 yearbook. The guidelines can be found here or below.
Thursday, January 13th at 7:30 pm
Little Caesars Arena
Join Wayne-Westland Community Schools for a fundraising Spirit Night with the Detroit Red Wings. Make sure you select your individual school upon checkout!
TICKETS START AT $39
A portion of each ticket goes back your school
Earn the chance to participate in a Post-Game Photo on the Main Ice
Top school receives a Little Caesars Pizza Party!
TO PURCHASE TICKETS:
Detroit Red Wings vs Winnipeg Jets (fevo.com)
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Joelle Marino
Joelle.Marino@OlyEnt.com| 313.471.7534
Late to School/Student Tardies
This week we launched a first hour attendance contest to provide our students with incentives to help them arrive at school on time. School begins promptly at 7:50 am, with our doors opening at 7:40 am. We have several students getting dropped off to school late daily, or walking to school and arriving late. In some cases, students are arriving later than 8:15 am and are then marked absent for the first hour. Valuable learning is lost during this time and late arrivals cause disruptions to classes in session. We ask that you help us with this by ensuring your child arrives on time.
In addition, we have several students arriving to classes after passing time tardy. Students with multiple tardies per week are serving a lunch detention and completing a reflection sheet to help them think about what they need to do differently to ensure they are on time and why being on time is important. If your child serves this detention, you will be notified through mail with a letter sent home stating how many tardies your student had along with the completed reflection sheet.
Please review our expectations with your student so we can ensure we are making the most of our instructional time throughout the day.
Book Fair – Starts on Monday!
The book fair will be in the AMS media center December 6-10, 2021. You can shop in person or online here.
Holiday Concert
Our winter concert that will be taking place on December 16, 2021 @ 7:00pm. The concert will be held in Stockmeyer Auditorium at Wayne Memorial. Our instrumental music students have made incredible progress in a short amount of time and I know they’re both excited yet super nervous about doing this! They will be performing both holiday music and standard concert repertoire alike. It would be great to see you there! Here’s a
link to the digital program if you’d like to see what music we’ll be playing.
Student Sickness/Daily Health Screening
If your child is sick, please keep him or her home. We ask that you complete the daily health screener found here each and every day. If your child displays any of these symptoms please do not send him or her to school. If you are sending your child to school sick, others are impacted and in some cases being required to quarantine.
If your child is pending a COVID test result, please do NOT send him or her to school. Also, ALL students must wear a mask properly. Masks must cover the mouth and nose at all times. Please send your child to school with a mask daily.
Please report any positive COVID cases or close contact cases to the office as soon as you are made aware.
School Expectations
Please continue to review expectations with your student. We focus on being safe, respectful and responsible at Adams. Also remind your student that we are an off and away for the day school and we do not permit cell phone use at any time. Each student has his or her own locker to lock phones in if they bring it to school.
PBIS Matrix
Off and Away for the Day
Updated Adams Parent Handbook and Code of Conduct
Order Your Yearbook Today!
School CNXT
There will not be school on Monday, January 17, 2022 in honor of MLK Day. In person learning will resume on Tuesday. Below, you can find a snapshot of what next week will look like. Please note the half days on Thursday and Friday to accommodate exams and the end of the semester.
