Middle School Principal’s Letter
Dear Parents,
Thank you for reading our first edition of the News and Views. We want to welcome our new families to our learning community. Each year we welcome new teachers, and this year we have an outstanding group of educators joining the middle school.
Brian Ossman – Social Studies & Language Arts – Austria
Ryan Staley – Math & Science – Abu Dhabi
Lisa Young – Math & Science – China
Sarah Christensen – Spanish – Cairo
Alan White – Language Arts – Kazakhstan
Matt Parnell – Math & PE
We are all aware of the road that lies ahead for this school year is both unprecedented, unknown, and daunting. We have decided that going forward, our focus will be on well-being, engagement, and feedback. We are prioritizing well-being more than ever this year; student’s engagement is also another layer along with.
We can no longer use the road map that we are used to; it’s not going to get us to where we need to go. The Middle School Task Force spent the summer devising a plan for our paradigm shift.
Our middle school paradigm shift is putting Maslow’s hierarchy as a priority over Bloom’s taxonomy. Maslow’s hierarchy categorizes basic human needs, and Bloom’s taxonomy identifies different levels of learning.
If students’ and teachers’ physical, mental, emotional, and social, well-being are addressed daily then it will be a good year.
Our students do not learn if they are not engaged. Whether learning occurs virtually or in person, therefore, we are designing learning opportunities that engage all students, behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively. We devised the word RAMP as a means to ramp up student engagement. It stands for Relationships (with teachers, with peers and with content), Autonomy – student choice, Mastery (understanding and feedback), and Purpose – beyond class.
Our teachers will focus on the skills and knowledge that students will demonstrate and how they can provide feedback to help them get there. During these unprecedented times, clarity in these three areas is more critical than ever. The good news is that well-being, engagement, and feedback are not new, they have always been the key to quality education. Our goal is to live them, teach them, and embed them into our middle school ethos.
We are asking you to take a look at the MS Opening Guidelines. This guideline is in place to help our teachers and students understand the mitigation steps we will be implementing this year. We will be sharing the groups on Sunday August 16th at 4:00pm.
August 18th & 19th
MS Blended Learning Schedule
Thank you for your continuous support of the middle school.
In Partnership,
Courtney Bailey
Middle School Principal
Announcements
New CAC Bus Application Form
The new Bus application form, including the COVID-19 School Transformation Rules, is now available on the parents’ dashboard.
Below is the direct link:
New Bus Application Form
Student physical reminder – 2020/2021
A physical is required to be completed and sent to the health office on or before the first day of school for the students in Grades 3,6 and 9.
Forms are accepted either by email or hand-delivered to security at the front gate.
https://www.cacegypt.org/PDF/Student_Physician_form.pdf
CAC Health Office
Three Cheers
Three Cheers to Mrs. Torky, Mrs. Harouny, Dr. Parnell, Mrs. Ennis, Ms. Spencer, Mr. Storey, Mr. Miller, Mr. Brown, and Mr. El Bably for their efforts on the Task Force team.
Three Cheers to Mr. Geoffroy and the maintenance staff for all the work done on campus this summer.
Three Cheers to Ms. Nibal Ahmed and the custodial staff for their efforts with the cleaning of the campus.
Three Cheers to Mrs. Abdel Hady has worked endlessly over the summer to update the dashboard and create the designs on campus to remind faculty and staff about social distancing.
Three Cheers to Ms. Fahmy, Mrs. Urbiztondo, Ms. Spencer, Mr. El Duweini for helping with scheduling and getting the school ready for opening.