Principal
Notes
02/12/2013
January,
February and Snow Days…
The second quarter is
in the books, report cards have been uploaded to Edline and Progress Reports
are due out on March 4th.
Teachers have been administering the second half of their District
Determined Measure (DDM) assessments; the administrators are getting ready for
MCAS and the PARCC Pilot; and we could have a snow day…again? I know most kids love snow days and teachers
do as well. But we are not so excited
when it comes time to making up the day in June. We are feeling ready for the warm
weather.
5
school days until… High School Musical
Jr.
The cars have been
lined up in the evening at Parker to pick up the cast and crew members from
rehearsals. We are so excited for the
show, it seems like there is higher demand for tickets this year than in years
past. I don’t know if it is due to the
familiarity of the show, or the fact that students are having so much fun preparing. Either way, you will see a lot of familiar
faces at the upcoming shows.
Cyber
Safety
We have always worked
to communicate and reach out to the Parker parent community, not to alarm, but
to keep you all informed about what we are seeing at the middle level. In the past months, we have seen an increase
in the use of social media sites and aps that we think are difficult to
monitor, and may be unsafe. The sites
are Ask.fm, Snap-Chat, Kik and Vine. Ask.fm, often confused by adults as the
Ask.com site, the two sites are very different products. Ask.fm is a virtual
question/survey space that allows followers (or students in our case) to ask
any question with complete anonymity.
Students can log onto anyone’s site and make a comment, or start a chain
reaction of comments that are often very hurtful.
We have seen
instances like, student Jane Doe has a run in with a friend and gets onto
Ask.fm and writes “OMG I so hate …” this
post has no name attached to it and it allows for readers of the post to also
log-in and make a comment. By the time
Jane Doe’s friend gets to school the following day, there could be 40 comments
that are considerably less than kind or helpful. This makes learning very difficult while a
student is trying to deal with this public provocation and Jane Doe could be
facing a school consequence (or worse). This
is obviously a simplified version of how technology can be used in a way to hurt
another student. We would encourage you
to look on the web to find out more about Ask.fm.
Snap-Chat
is a photo messaging application that allows students to send pictures and text
that can be viewed for a few seconds until the picture and message pixilate and
disappear, giving the person viewing the message the impression that the
picture and text are gone forever. We
have seen students using this ap, that is sending or receiving pictures/text,
taking chances that they wouldn’t normally take because they believe what the
send or see disappears and there is no evidence. This is not the case of course, but student’s
behavior certainly indicates that they think it is completely anonymous.
Kik
is
a messaging ap and Vine is a
picture/video sharing ap that allows students to send and share videos. We hear from parents that there is very
little oversight or adherence to safety rules and regulations on these sites
and often content is shared anonymously and isn’t always appropriate for middle
school students.
I strongly suggest
that you search the web to find out more about these products. To teach students more about cyber safety and
cyber bullying, we will be hosting a presenter from the Middlesex Partnership
for Youth on March 6th. If
you have questions about the aps listed above or about our upcoming
presentation please drop a note.
Thinking
about Makayla
This past Monday, one
of our eighth graders, Makayla Griffin lost her father, Dennis Griffin, to
liver failure. Dennis was 41years
old. I do not normally report or write
about loss or family matters, however in this case there are so few people that
know about Makayla’s situation that I think it is important to let the
community know. Makayla is a remarkable
young lady, she presents like every other eighth grader. She loves music, school and especially her
friends. Few students know that she has
lived with and taken care of herself and her dad for several years. I am
particularly grateful for the support and guidance that Ms. Ketlak has been
able to provide for Makayla during this difficult time. Makayla is back to school and her attitude is
so upbeat and positive it is remarkable.
We will rally around Makayla and provide her the support we can to help
her through this very difficult time.
Please keep Makayla
in your thoughts.
