ADVENTURE AWAITS AT CARSON MIDDLE SCHOOL - WELCOME TO THE 2017-18 SCHOOL YEAR!

     Welcome to the 2017-2018 school year!  When we chose our theme for the school year as "Adventure Awaits" little did we know how accurate that would be!  We've actually been up and running for a few weeks now (4 to be exact) and things have been moving at a furious pace at Carson Middle School.  As you may have heard by now, our school community grew almost overnight as we welcomed an additional 150 students to our school this year.  While we are happy to have all of our students and families at CMS, we were certainly not anticipating growth of this magnitude in such a short amount of time.  Our school and district office staff has worked relentlessly to create additional scheduling options for our students to accommodate our students.  We have been challenged with our growth but we are also celebrating our growth as an opportunity to reach more students and families and we look forward to an excellent school year for all!  Our students and families have been absolutely wonderful in understanding and working with us - thank you all for your patience!  Also, thank you to our beloved staff at CMS for your hard work, patience, perseverance, and teamwork!  Thank you for making sure that our students had a safe place to start learning from day one - you are all incredible!

I will be updating this blog post monthly - we have some amazing things happening at Carson Middle School this year.  If you have something that you would like to highlight on this blog, please send it to me at: dsadler@carson.k12.nv.us

Thank you!

WHAT IS A SOLON?

DISCLAIMER:  This blog post is in no way advocating to abandon our school mascot from the Solon.  We are looking to update our Solon logo.  Please read the entire post so that you are informed in providing input as we consider feedback from our students, staff, parents, and community members.  Thank you!

What is a Solon  Last school year (2015-16) I had the pleasure of having Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval visit Carson Middle School to sign NV Senate Bill No. 504 into law in creating safe and respectful schools within the State of Nevada.  During the ceremony in our school gym I offered Governor Sandoval a "CMS Gold Coin" which is a token of appreciation given to our partners in education for helping to realize the vision of our school and in assisting our students in becoming future leaders.  The Governor quickly shared his personal coin with me as a sign of gratitude for inviting him into our school.  As we both inspected our newly minted coins, Governor Sandoval asked me, "What is a Solon?"   I replied to the Governor, "A Solon is a junior lawmaker.  With Carson High School being the Senators, Carson Junior High (as we were previously grades 7-9) adopted the mascot of the Solon to be junior senators."  Governor Sandoval and I had a good laugh about the mascot as he has been a lawmaker in several different incarnations as an attorney, assemblyman, commissioner, attorney general, judge and Governor but had never heard of a Solon.  "What is a Solon?," is a question that I get asked multiple times every year.  If you are a student, teacher, parent, alumni, or in any way connected to Carson Middle School you surely have been asked or have asked yourself what a Solon is.  Our school mascot is certainly unique!

The Carson Middle School staff met several times during the 2015-2016 school year to begin crafting a vision and belief statements to assist in guiding our school and clarifying our purpose as a learning community.  As part of developing a new school vision and beliefs for CMS I also implemented student focus groups for the first time since I have been the principal at CMS.  I met monthly with most of my student focus groups, some more than others, which were comprised of 10 to 15 students for each grade level (grades 6, 7, and 8).  I began each focus group with a series of questions aimed at gaining insight and perspective from our student population.  Some of the questions that I used were:

-If you had a friend or relative who was thinking about transferring to CMS, what would you want them to know about our school?
-What helps you learn at CMS?  What helps you be a successful student?
-Is there anything that makes it difficult for you to learn at CMS?
-How do you feel when you walk into your classrooms?
-Can you describe some specific things that teachers do to help you learn?
-Can you describe some specific things that teachers do that don't help you learn?
-How do you use student learning guides?
-What is a Solon?  How do you identify with being a Solon?

Guess what most of our discussions focused on?  "What is a Solon?  How do you identify with being a Solon?," was by far the most popular question that students wanted to talk about.  Not all of our focus group students wanted to talk about the other questions but once we started talking about being Solons, seemingly every student was engaged and contributing to the conversation.  Some students had heard that a Solon was a lawmaker, or a junior Senator.  One student mentioned that Solon was actually a Greek philosopher and lawmaker (which is correct also!!!).  We had many students that had no clue what a Solon was and others that answered the question on a deeper level (A Solon is a safe and respectful student).  Our student discussions were lively and interesting and at the end of it all the students had some very clear messages about being Solons.  To paraphrase the student responses:  1) We like being Solons because it is unique and has lots of history behind it in Carson City; 2) We think the current Solon mascot is lame and looks like something out of the civil war era or Colonel Sanders (of KFC fame); 3) Nobody really identifies with the Solon because nobody really knows what it is; 4) Since nobody knows what a Solon is maybe we can still be called "Solons" but use a different mascot that we identify with; 5) Since we use "Solon Pride" as a nickname, and a group of lions is a called a pride, maybe we can use a lion as a mascot, still be the Solons, and call ourselves the Solon Pride.  I thought this feedback was insightful and intriguing, however, being a Carson Junior High/Solon alumni myself I understand that there is some historical perspective that needs to be considered before just changing things.  Which is why I have created this blog post and (hopefully) spelled out what has led us to this point in the "Land of the Solon."

Based on our student focus group feedback I have been working with some graphic artists over the past several weeks to create some modern, updated logos.  The block C that we had been using for the past several years was not our personal property so it seemed a good time to design a custom block C for our school so that we were not infringing on any property that didn't belong to our school. 2nd DISCLAIMER:  I am in no way suggesting to our school/community that we abandon the Solon as a mascot, however, we are looking to update and modernize our logo/mascot.  I have attached several designs below, which are all now owned by Carson Middle School, as possible logo/mascot options.  The first two designs listed are the current "SOLON" mascots that have been in use since the 1970's (we believe).  Starting with the third picture below, you will see some of the new designs.  We have not started using the lion in any of our designs as we would like some input before arriving at a decision on the mascot.  Even if we do end up using the lion - we will still be called the Solons and will use Solon Pride as we currently are.  I have also included a link to a survey that will allow you to provide feedback on our school logo that will be used to direct our decisions moving forward.  Please take a moment to consider the design proposals that are included here (based on last year's student focus groups) and also to complete the survey (which includes options for additional considerations).  Thank you for taking a few moments to read this blog and to provide your input!  Regardless of our any changes in our logo, mascot, slogan, etc. one thing is certain....

We...Are...SOLONS!

LINK TO SOLON SURVEY:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/solon_logo

Old CMS "SOLON" - circa 2000-2009

Old, Old CMS "SOLON" - circa 1970's/1980's

NEW BLOCK C (currently in use starting March, 2017)

PROPOSED "SOLON PRIDE" LOGO/MASCOT 

PROPOSED "SOLON PRIDE" LOGO/MASCOT 

New Logo/Block C - in use March, 2017

PROPOSED "SOLON PRIDE" LOGO/MASCOT 

PROPOSED "SOLON PRIDE" LOGO/MASCOT 

PROPOSED "SOLON PRIDE" LOGO/MASCOT 

COMING SOON: Carson Middle School Hydration Stations

I wanted to be the first to let the Carson Middle School community know that we have purchased three filtered hydration stations that will be installed at CMS over the upcoming winter vacation.  The picture above is the exact model that will be installed in three central locations:  1) main hallway outside of the gym, 2) between the restrooms outside of the cafeteria, and 3) between the restrooms in the main office.

In addition to providing fresh, cold, filtered water for our school community we are excited that we will be doing our part to prevent disposable/recyclable plastic water bottles from filling up in local landfills.  Our CMS Recycling Team does an excellent job and has has even expanded operations over the last year but we still find plastic bottles throughout the building on a daily basis that end up in our trash cans.  Did you know that in 2012 only 9% of all plastic waste was recycled?  That means that 91% of plastic waste ended up somewhere other than a recycling plant.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR CMS?
Starting Tuesday, January 10 (returning from winter vacation) we will start imposing a ban on all disposable/recyclable plastic bottles.  Our goal is to encourage all staff, students, parents, and visitors to take advantage of our hydration stations and to enjoy the benefits of the delicious water they will produce while doing our part as a school community in reducing plastic waste.  We will have a "phase out" during the month of January in which we will be phasing out all disposable/recyclable plastic bottles as we begin communicating with all students, staff, and families about this new initiative in our school.  During the phase out we will not collect any of the water bottles that are visible, but rather we will communicate information about our new hydration stations and request that re-usable containers be utilized in the future.  We will continue with the phase-out until we have developed and established a culture supporting our new water initiative on campus.

Stay tuned for a school awareness campaign concerning water bottles and be on the lookout for official CMS water bottles that will be available as incentives for students.  We are excited to bring these hydration stations to our school and look forward to establishing ourselves as leaders in responsible water consumption and plastic reduction.

Grading and Academic Achievement at CMS: 100% Accountability

Part II of II

Carson Middle School has supported a shift in grading practices that are driven by a standards based mindset and implemented practices that support standards based assessment of learning. Our vision for academic grades at CMS is reflected in the following statement: Carson Middle School will report student grades that are accurate, consistent, meaningful, and supportive of student learning. To define what exactly this means to students, parents, and teachers we have established the following definitions in relation to grading:

Accurate: By basing a student’s grade on solely academic factors, the teacher creates a clear picture of what the student has learned without the influence of other factors. These other factors, such as effort and attitude, are still essential, but are not part of the student’s academic grade and are communicated separately.

Consistent: For each unit, the teacher will provide a student learning guide that describes exactly what the student will need to master. Using student learning guides establishes clear expectations for mastery up front and applies them consistently throughout the unit and semester.

Meaningful: A meaningful grade is one that clearly communicates what learning has taken place. Scores are recorded by the essential standards rather than by type, such as assessments or homework, making it easier to identify areas of strength and to address areas of concern for each student.

Supportive of learning: Grading supports learning by focusing on the material that has or has not been learned rather than on accumulating points to reach a certain total. The reassessment policy also supports student learning by allowing new levels of learning to replace old when a student shows improvement on an assessment.

In a nutshell, our grading practices are geared towards academic progress reporting (grading) being reflective of what students have learned, according to what the standards say should be learned. When considering that 95% of our students passed all classes last school year, it may appear that all of our students are high achieving. When you consider roughly 80% of students at CMS reached mastery on all common benchmark assessments, it may appear that our students are making great progress in mastering all standards. When considering our latest student data component of standardized testing scores from last school year (discussed below) you might wonder what in the world is going on at Carson Middle School.

Last week I attended a Carson City School Board workshop in which all elementary and middle school principals discussed and answered questions regarding our Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) results. As you might recall, the State of Nevada aligned with the SBAC as the assessment arm in rolling out Common Core State Standards in 2010. The SBAC is the official state assessment that, for our middle schools, replaced the Criterion Reference Test (CRT) which was last taken by Carson Middle School students in 2013. During our school board workshop there were many relevant questions asked, "Why are our scores so low? Why are some other states higher than Nevada? How do we compare with other states? How do we compare with other districts in our state? What are we going to do about these low scores?” among many other very good questions.

As with any student learning and/or performance data point it is critical to first understand exactly what the data represents. It may seem fairly obvious that our student proficiency ratings speak for themselves: 22.87% of CMS students were at or above proficiency in math and 49.49% were at or above proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA). I agree with a few of our board members that these numbers are not acceptable and that we need to do something to improve our scores.  As I stated during the workshop, I own these scores and take 100% responsibility for them, so should everybody in this school and community.  There are no excuses, however, it is important to point out that these numbers represent our first look at student assessment through the SBAC lens as we have not had any student data (CRT nor SBAC) for the previous three school years. While our student scores did not meet our expectations, particularly in math, having student performance data will now allow us to answer some critical questions as we identify gaps in achievement. Do we need to consider curriculum adjustments? Common assessment (benchmark) adjustments? What are instructional adjustments that we need to consider? As my colleague Mr. Jeremy Lewis (middle school ELA implementation specialist) pointed out the SBAC math assessment does not simply assess math skills, rather, the assessment includes reading, critical thinking, problem-solving, strategic thinking, deductive reasoning, writing, and logic reasoning.

There are many additional considerations in seeking solutions to increasing student achievement and our SBAC data is an important consideration as our starting point in guiding school improvement moving forward. We will be carefully evaluating our performance indicators as a school to suggest and implement adjustments that will increase student achievement on SBAC and benchmark assessments in the future. Perhaps most importantly, we now have specific student performance feedback that will allow us to make important decisions in supporting our school vision: a culture of shared responsibility to engage, empower, and inspire successful lifelong learners.

Grading and academic achievement at CMS

Part I of II

Last week I highlighted just a small handful of some incredible innovations that are taking place at Carson Middle School.  Innovation is often thought of as something “new” but I like to think of innovation in education as something that allows us to apply different solutions to support or adjust to changing needs.  At Carson Middle School we are constantly considering ways in which we can innovate.

One of the innovations that we have spent a lot of time working through to support at Carson Middle School is student grading.  At the end of the 2013-14 school year we had a record number of students fail one or more classes with only 79% of all students at CMS passing all classes.  In terms of student numbers we had 869 students passing all classes and an alarming 231 students fail at least one class.  As we looked closer at our student pass/fail rates it became clear that student grades were not always reflective of what students were learning in classes.  What we noticed is that some student grades were inflated because of extra credit being assigned for non-academic assignments (i.e. brining in Kleenex boxes, being a hard worker, being nice, etc.) and some student grades were being deflated because of non-academic assignments (i.e. being late to class, not having a pencil, not turning in a permission slip on time, etc.).  As a staff we could all agree that we wanted to support having extra Kleenex in classrooms and could all agree that it is important to work hard, be nice, turn your work in on time, and be prepared for class the truth of the matter is that these were all non-academic grades that were significantly impacting student achievement within our school. 

Over the past two school years we have spent a significant amount of time learning how to implement standards based academic grades at CMS.  Our goal has been to promote student learning by reporting student grades that are accurate, consistent, meaningful, and supportive of student learning.  We created a citizenship grade to allow for behavior based grades that are still significant, but separate and not specifically related to standards based academic content (i.e. being prepared, being on time, etc.).  As a result of studying our gradebooks, from 2014 through 2016 we were able to raise our academic achievement levels significantly from 79% of all students passing to 95% of all students passing all classes. 

Think back to when you were in middle school.  Think about your experience as a student and how you were graded as a student.  What stands out to you about how you were graded?  Were you graded fairly?  How do you know?  Were you graded according to how well you learned the material?  How did you know what the expectations were about how you would be graded?  Think about how much has changed in the world since you were in school.  Often we hold the same expectations for our schools currently that we did when we attended schools.  In reality, it is a completely different world - both inside and out.  Academic grading is something that we all have experience with as a student, but very few of us really have experience and training as educators to truly understand what exactly the academic grade represents.  What goes into the academic grade and what exactly does the academic grade communicate to the student?  The parent?  The teacher?  There is a lot to consider in determining answers to these questions. 

Our teachers have been extremely innovative in building a complex system to support student learning that includes curriculum, assessment, and instruction.  As we are in the process of transitioning to support Infinite Campus as our student data management system I would ask our entire school community to be patient with the transition to a complex data system.  While we are going through some growing pains in our transition, I am confident that we will continue to create meaningful conversation between our school, students, and parents regarding academic achievement.  We are on the cusp of our SBAC scores being released and while I know our student achievement data won’t be what we would like to see as a school or community, it is a data point as we consider how to best support the learning needs of our students.  Please ask your students about Mastery Connect and how it supports student learning.  Please monitor Infinite Campus and ask your students about their academic progress.  Please communicate any questions that you have about learning at CMS to our school staff.  Most importantly please continue to build relationships with students to support academic achievement.  I will continue the grading conversation here next week – for now thanks for stopping by and please let me know if you have any questions.  Thank you!

The POWER of INNOVATION (use the force!!!)

Carson Middle School is a learning community that is at the forefront of creativity and innovation in education.  I wanted to take a moment to highlight just one of many incredible innovations that is taking place right now at Carson Middle School.  Through the outstanding leadership of Mr. Rob Hostler (7th and 8th grade Technology and STEM teacher) our students have launched a school media production laboratory called "CMNEWZ."  In the short time that we have been in school (since August 22) nineteen students in Mr. Hostler's advanced multi-media class have created a school media website, linked our social media accounts, created a YouTube channel, and have begun production as a fully independent news media channel.  We are so excited to see what this wonderful group of learners and leaders bring to our school and community.  Please take a moment to explore the work that they have created so far this school year.  What they have created and achieved in such a short amount of time is truly incredible!  I am so proud of the effort and passion that Mr. Hostler and his students are pouring into this project and can't wait to see the positive impact that they are going to have on our school culture.  As we launch this project we want to make sure to highlight students, staff members, community organizations, athletics, academics, clubs, extra curricular activities, and all of the wonderful things that are taking place at CMS and in Carson City School District.  This is where we need your help!

We have created an e mail address for you to send information to be considered for our communication and media news networks.  Anything related to CMS that you would like to highlight, celebrate, or communicate in a positive manner will be considered.  All you have to do is send an e mail message to:  CMNEWZ@carson.k12.nv.us. That's it - it's that easy!  Please make sure to send as much information as you can, as well as a contact name and phone number or e mail address so that we can follow up with questions.  You can also contact the CMNEWZ CREW directly.  Check out their links below.  They are still building the media network before officially launching next Monday, October 3.  A huge thank you and congratulations to Mr. Hostler and our CMNEWZ CREW for supporting innovation in our school and community!  Congratulations on a successful launch!!!

http://www.cmnewz.org/

https://twitter.com/cmnewz2016

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqBF71uB4__BW6wNqfD296YwkPjBoQv2g


DON'T FORGET TO LIKE US ON FACEBOOK:

https://www.facebook.com/cmssolons/

Welcome!

Welcome to the 2016-2017 school year!  Actually, we are already completing our fifth week of school if you can believe that!  Fast and furious has been our pace so far this year and the forecast shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.  Anyhow, welcome to my first blog post for the 2016-2017 school year.  I will be using this site weekly to increase communication with staff, students, parents, and community members.  Thanks for stopping by!

With the quickened pace of opening the school year and implementing a new student information system (Infinite Campus) it has been critical for us to remain focused on our task at hand: student learning.  During the 2015-2016 school year our staff (along with parent input) met numerous times to craft a vision and belief statements to assist in guiding our school and clarifying our purpose as a learning community.  It was important for our school community to craft a vision that was clear, concise, easy to communicate, and most importantly meaningful and relevant.  Every decision that is made at Carson Middle School is filtered through our vision and beliefs.  Here are our statements:

Carson Middle School Vision:
Carson Middle School will create a culture of shared responsibility to engage, empower, and inspire successful lifelong learners.  

We believe:
All students are capable of learning.
High expectations for learning are reasonable to ensure academic success.
Every challenge is a learning moment and an opportunity for re-teaching.
All students and teachers deserve a chance to work and learn in a safe and respectful environment.
All students deserve to be challenged in a way that empowers them to take control of their own learning.
All staff, students, and family members hold stake in the educational process through shared responsibility.

As a school community we will continue to monitor, implement, and adjust our vision and belief statements throughout the school year and into the future.  These statements are not just words on a page, rather, they are directions and guidance for our moral compass as a school community in supporting our school motto, "Learners today...leaders tomorrow."  I would like to thank all of our staff and parents that assisted in creating our vision and beliefs and look forward to working with all of our school community members as we implement, instill, and adapt our vision and beliefs in the future.

This is already shaping up to be a wonderful school year at CMS!  We have some exciting new projects underway including a student run news network, remodeling and addition to our STEAM facility (science/technology/engineering/arts/math), new Chromebook devices for all students, increased technology integration, updated communication systems (Facebook, Twitter, school website, etc.), just to name a few.  We will be focusing on increased communication, innovation in learning, and building relationships with our students and community throughout the school year.  Please stop by on a regular basis to see what's happening at CMS!  I look forward to working with all of you throughout the school year!

Regards,

Dan Sadler, Principal
Carson Middle School
dsadler@carson.k12.nv.us

cms.carsoncityschools.com