From the Principal’s Desk

August 2008

Welcome back to Midland Elementary School and to the 2008-09 school year!

Welcome to Midland Elementary School and thank you for visiting our school’s website. I hope you’ll find this website helpful for you and it becomes a resource of information for you to learn more about our school, our PTO, school activities and the entire district!

Midland Elementary School is a Pre-K through fourth grade elementary attendance center, serving families living in the communities of Lacon, Sparland and Varna. This year, nearly 320 children will attend our school.

This will be my fifth year as principal at Midland Elementary School. As we approach the upcoming school year, we will welcome two new teachers, new members of our speech department and two new support staff members. We also are excited to be adding an additional section of Starting Blocks Pre-K for qualifying students.

Teachers new to our school this year include Kyle Anderson (PE) and Mallory Lindstrom (ECE/Starting Blocks). Karen Dunne (Speech and Language Pathologist) and Stephanie Wier (Speech Para Professional) join our district’s speech department. A new face in our office, but familiar to many, will be secretary Becky Bogner, who will spend each morning in the elementary building in the office before returning to her secretarial duties at the middle school by 11 am. Part time aide Carrie Schupp will move to a full time position in the ECE/Starting Blocks classroom. And we also welcome Brittany Kelly, who will work as a part time cook in our kitchen. All of these additions will fit in well with our talented and caring faculty and staff.

We are also excited to be adding an additional section of Starting Blocks Pre-K to our school this year. Due to the large number of qualifying students, the Midland CUSD #7 School Board approved the additional section, which Mallory Lindstrom will teach. It will be a blended classroom of both Starting Blocks students and Early Childhood Special Education students and meet in the mornings. This will enable us to meet the educational, social and emotional needs of even more three and four year old students in our communities.

Because of the additional section of Starting Blocks, several classrooms were relocated to different locations this summer.  The new ECE/Starting Blocks classroom is located next to the current Starting Blocks classroom in the ’57 addition. This means that Heather Markovich has moved upstairs in the ’57 addition, while Jennifer Davis has relocated her second grade classroom to the music room near the library. With that move, Steph Oltman’s music room was then moved to the former ECE classroom. Confused? Don’t worry…we’ll have maps at Open House to help you keep it all straight!

Students at Midland Elementary School have the opportunity to learn from an experienced, dedicated and caring faculty. They participate in a wide variety of school activities, and we hope that our students develop the skills necessary to become successful, life-long learners and productive citizens in our community.

We want your child to be happy and successful at school and believe that you play a key role. That role is to continually show interest in and support for your child. The child who knows that his or her family is interested in and supports the school program will almost always have fewer problems in school and will enjoy greater success.

We believe in fair and consistent discipline that encourages students to be responsible for themselves and their own actions. At school we try to create a safe environment where courtesy and kindness prevail and where there is respect for differences in other people, customs, and cultures.

Students are most successful when teachers and parents communicate and work together to provide the best opportunities for learning—both in and out of the classroom. Please share with your child’s teacher any information regarding his/her special needs that will help us better serve your child and your family. We believe that communication among parents, students, and teachers is critical in assuring student success.

I hope you’ll visit our school website often. Each month, you will be able to find our school newsletter, updated school calendar and the breakfast and lunch menu. In addition, you can find email addresses for our teachers, our school handbook, our school supply list and information about various curriculum initiatives, including the district’s curriculum mapping.

Please contact me at (309) 246-7215 or at jalbers@midland-7.org if I can be of further assistance.

We look forward to a great school year!

Sincerely,

Julie Albers