Friday Memo - 8/20/21

Important dates
August 23 - First day of school!
September 17 - half day professional day; dismissal at 12:32 pm
September 19 - Hixson Community Open House, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm

82nd issue of Hixson Happenings
Click HERE to read the most recent Hixson Happenings!

Morning and Afternoon Supervision Schedule
Click HERE to view the morning and afternoon supervision schedule.

Open House
Thank you so much for an amazing Open House this past Wednesday. We received a ton of positive feedback from our parents and I truly believe that many of our students are very excited to start school on Monday. 

Attendance
Please remember to take your attendance within the first five minutes of class. Be flexible with tardies during the first two weeks of school because 67% of our students are brand new to the building. I've included the link to the HXMS Attendance Procedures if you need to review it.

 HXMS Attendance Procedures

Staff Picture Directory
Ready to start putting faces with names so that you can learn who your new colleagues are? Click the link below to access the Hixson Middle School Staff Picture Directory!

HXMS Staff Picture Directory

The building WILL be open this weekend
Some of you have asked if the building will be open this weekend. Turns out, it will be from 8am to noon on Saturday! Our head custodian, Michelynn Hunter, asks that you do not put anything, including trash, in the hallways. You need to email Michelynn if you need something removed. Please note, Hixson administration will not be in the building on Saturday.

Professional Learning Communities update
Since our District Continuous Improvement (DCI) rep was suddenly reassigned, we had to cancel and reschedule our Professional Learning Communities training. This will be rescheduled for September 17, which is our half day PD day. In the meantime, you technically have six CLT meetings prior to September 17. You are permitted to use that time as you see fit until we officially "re-launch" our PLCs on September 17. However, there will be one short task that I will ask you and your CLT to do prior to 9/17 that does not require any knowledge of PLCs in order to complete it. This task will be shared with you on Friday, August 25, along with the official list of CLT groups. For now, just focus on the first few weeks of school. 

Community Open House - September 19, 2021
Hixson will host a community Open House and ribbon cutting on Sunday, September 19 from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm. During this time, community members will have the opportunity to participate in student-led tours, view the ribbon cutting, listen to a few short speeches (Dr. Simpson, BOE, etc), hear Cbabi Bayoc conduct "artist talks" about our murals, enjoy refreshments, take fun pictures at a Hixson photo booth, and more! 

Since this is a Sunday, your attendance is not required. However, please consider attending because we have been asked to offer teacher-led activities around the building such as games in the gym, STEAM activities, music (band/orchestra/choir) etc. More details on the community open house will be forthcoming. 

When students are quarantined
This is a reminder that you will have to provide live instruction for students who are quarantined. You will need to use a webcam (we have these in the building from last year) or open a Zoom on your laptop to provide that access. Please be sure your Zoom links are ready to go should you need them. 

Newsletters
This is a reminder that I will start transitioning the Team & Department newsletters to you this upcoming week. You will need to provide me the name of the individual who will log in to S'Mores each week and update your team or department's newsletter. I will need this name by Friday, August 27 at the absolute latest. When I receive the name, I will send that person an invitation through S'Mores. Please check your inbox for this invitation. Once you accept the invitation, you should be able to start working on your newsletter. The first newsletter that you will publish on your own will go out on September 10. Sarah Magruder and I will no longer update your newsletter for you after the September 3 newsletter. You can take over with the September 3 newsletter if you feel okay with S'Mores once you start working with it. Just let Sarah Magruder know so she knows not to expect your info on your Google doc. Your newsletter needs to be updated by the end of the day every Thursday. It is already linked to the Hixson Happenings. You simply update it and log out. I will send everything to parents on Fridays.

Please email me the name of the person who should receive the S'Mores invite from the following groups:

• 6 Unity, 6 Integrity, 6 Bravery, 7 Unity, 7 Integrity, 7 Bravery, 8 Unity, 8 Integrity, 8 Bravery, Counselors, Library, Math, PE/Health, Fine Arts, Practical Arts, SSD, World Languages, Gifted

In your newsletter, you need to include the following: team/department name, contact info, date (week of), a section per teacher for weekly updates which should include homework, a brief reflection on the week, and a brief look into the following week. If you choose, you can include pictures, videos, homework calendar, Google Forms, PDFs etc. You and your team/department will need to decide how to share the content that you want in the newsletter with the person who has S'More access. 

Please do not panic about using S'Mores. It is extremely user friendly, and its basic premise is what I call "click & type". It really is that simple.