Students of the Month - December
Chatham Middle School honors students who display positive character traits with the selection of Students of the Month from each grade and the encore team. For the month of December, CMS would like to recognize Shelby Ford (5th grade), Joe Intrieri (6th grade), Kayla Tator (7th grade), Carl Aladin (8th grade) and Jacob Avens (encore) as our Students of the Month.
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Erin Clark Wins CMS Spelling Bee
Top spellers from grades five through eight competed in the eighth annual CMS spelling bee, held the afternoon of January 10th. After twelve rounds of letter-by-letter action, eighth grader Erin Clark came out on top, successfully spelling “waiver” to dislodge fellow eighth graders Sadie Kratt, Ana Verma, and seventh grader Tara Shetsky, all of whom tied for second place. As the CMS spelling bee champ, Erin will go on to compete in the Capital Region Spelling Bee held at Proctor’s Theatre in Schenectady on February 7th. Read more..
Students Celebrate Each Other with "Five Minutes of Fame"
Sixth graders focused on each other’s interests and hobbies with classroom show-and-tell sessions held in December. Students brought in items from home and discussed their favorite activities - from riding motorcross to collecting rocks, from baking cakes to studying wild animals - one student even presented a slide-show about her trip to Africa. The five-minute presentations helped students get to know and better respect one another.
NJHS Hosts Senior Luncheon
This December,
Chatham Middle School's National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) hosted a Holiday Senior Citizen Luncheon in the school cafeteria. This yearly holiday gathering provides seniors with food, entertainment, and a way to connect with the young people in their community. NJHS membership is for students in grades six through eight who have an average of 90 or better in all core subjects and demonstrate outstanding qualities in character, service, leadership, and citizenship.
Youth Summit
The CMS leadership club attended the 10th Annual Northeast U.S. Character Education Youth Leadership Summit, held December 1st at Russell Sage College in Troy. The students participated in workshops that revolved around the summit’s theme of “Dignity for All Students”, with topics ranging from student leadership, to diversity and anti-bullying practices. As many area school districts participated, our students were also able to interact and discuss pertinent school issues with other young leaders from around the capital region.
Career Exploration
Sixth graders have begun their journey into exploring the world of work. The CMS career education program brings community members from different working backgrounds into the classroom to talk about their careers. As part of the program, students also examine their own goals, creating personal computerized career portfolios where they keep an inventory of their interests and match careers to those interests. Here, guest speaker Lynn Cross talks with students about the work she does at the Little Brook Farm.
Academic Celebrations
On December 7th, CMS held a series of festive "Gratitude Assemblies" for each grade. Parents and family members were invited to attend the daytime award ceremonies and join in celebrating CMS students earning high honors, honors, student of the month, and special grade-level awards.
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CMS Recognized at National Character Ed Forum
During the 2011 National Forum on Character Education in San Francisco, Chatham Middle School was recognized as one of only three middle schools nationally to receive the distinction of "National School of Character." CMS received the honor in 2011 following numerous other character education awards. CMS guidance counselors Jackie Hoffman and Cyndi Herron, with technology teacher Sara Murray, attended the forum and accepted the award on behalf of CMS. They also presented a workshop on "Creating Character through Serving Others" and participated in many professional development events. Read more...
Book Talk
In fifth grade, students were busy preparing for their “book talks.” To help strengthen reading comprehension and listening skills, each student was tasked with presenting their class with a 3-5 minute presentation on a book they had recently read. Presenters discussed their book’s author and gave a summary of the story, highlighting the main characters, setting, plot and theme. Each student also selected and read excerpts from his or her book and talked about what they liked or disliked about the story. Throughout each student’s book talk, their peers took notes and rated the presentation.
CMS Addressing Needs of Students with Disabilities
The NYS Education Department has identified Chatham Middle School as a “school in need of improvement” based on state assessment results in English Language Arts for students with disabilities. Test scores for students at the middle school level indicated that the “students with disabilities” subgroup did not meet improvement benchmarks set by the state. Schools that do not show adequate yearly progress for two years in a row in the same subject, grade or subgroup are considered in need of improvement.
It should be noted that, in all other areas of assessment, students met state standards and Chatham CSD remains a “district in good standing” according to the State Education Department.
Chatham CSD utilizes such state assessments, as well as other data to identify and address areas of our educational program that need improvement. As a result, CMS has already put in place measures to improve the progress all our students make, including those with disabilities. Read more...
