Newsletter Piece

 

“HowNice It Is!”

Jeff Barry, Middle School Principal

I wonder about our students, especially our eighth graders. Do they appreciate the honor of being the first eighth grade class to attend our new middle school? They may not now, but I would hope they will one day. I'll bet the ninth graders would like to say they were here first. I still feel bad they missed the new school by one year. Many of them have been over to see it, though, and quite a few come over here to their art class. I wonder about the staff; do they truly appreciate where they are now working? Yes, I think they do. And then there is the office staff – my administrative assistant, Lorrie Riese, our counselor, Patti Edler, and me, the first principal here at WMMS. We all three have to pinch ourselves sometimes, realizing where we used to work for many years and where we work now. We are blessed.

One very good question has been posed by several people, asking if I can tell a difference in the students' behavior and/or school work. My answer: “Kids will be kids, and for some reason, kids will be ornery – not that I ever was!” I have also answered that our students respected the old middle school and are expected to do the same in the new, and they do. As far as school work, they are expected to do their best, and our staff expects our students to work hard and learn. That is happening. We just completed our fall Measurements of Academic Progress tests, and I am proud to say our 200 sixth-eighth graders did well with nearly 90 % meeting the goals for reading and math or showing a year's growth from last fall's tests. Also, we had only four students fail a first quarter core class, the lowest number on record! Soon, we will be preparing our students for the state test for which we are most scrutinized, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. We will expect our students to do just as well as they did last year – and hopefully even a little better.

I have been honored and humbled to be the first principal of such an awesome new building in such a progressive school district. Over the past few months, it has been fun and rewarding to give many tours. Talk about feeling proud! If you have not been in to see our school, or you have kids and/or grandkids who have moved away and and are back and want to see it, just give me a call at 483-2165, and we will set something up. This is “our” school, and we should all be proud.