Tuesday, August 19, 2014

August 2014


Dear Parent/Guardian,

Welcome to Shadow Ridge MIddle School (SRMS)!  The SRMS Staff is thrilled to start another year! I wanted to make you aware of a positive academic change we are making at SRMS, starting in the 2014-15 school year.  After reviewing years of student achievement data, researching literacy interventions, and visiting a handful of other Denver Metro middle schools we will be increasing your student’s literacy minutes.
In order to increase literacy minutes, we changed the overall schedule.  We increased our six period day to an eight period day, increased to five core content classes (math, reading, science, social studies, and writing) two elective classes, and an intervention time before/after lunch involving additional literacy and math minutes for every student.
We changed our past structure of cores (language arts, math, science, and social studies) to pod families.  The pod families consist of grade level wings (i.e. 6th grade level classes will be in one specific wing); therefore, all elective classes will also be in one wing.
The school day will be on the same time schedule implemented with bells.  All students will be passing from class to class at the same time, with all teachers out in the hallway.  The class periods will be approximately 52 minutes long with a 30 minute lunch and 17 minute intervention time attached to lunch.  Wednesdays classes will consist of 36 minutes with a 25 minute intervention time at the beginning of the day to implement our 6th grade WEB instructional component, character building instruction, school/district/state surveys, and the collection of any other required documentation.  
Our staff has embraced the change and is excited to move forward.  We are thrilled to make a positive change and move forward toward an increase literacy focus. The district has also been diligent regarding a district-wide literacy change.  You may follow the district’s guidance in our quarterly Five Star Journal or by reviewing the literacy plan on the district website.
Thank you for your continued support at SRMS, but most importantly your child.

Sincerely,
Susie Wickham
Principal