East Cary Middle School

Happy New Year! It's great to have Tracks 1-3 back. Of course, our Track 4 families are still enjoying their extended holiday break. We have several events pending so please monitor our school website's homepage: campus tours for parents, a variety of information sessions - including a STEM night, Spelling and Geography Bees, a PTA supported On the Border night (be sure to mention ECMS), and an ECMS parent/author making herself available for book signings - with parents and staff only - at 2:30pm on January, 10 in our media center.

We have a fabulous staff at ECMS. Our staff are highly qualified, many have graduate degrees, considerable experience teaching and a history of nurturing high student achievement. In that context it is hard to single out any one person among so many wonderful folks. Nevertheless, our teachers voted Ms. Arthina Blanchard as ECMS' Teacher of the Year - a great pick! Ms. Blanchard is extremely hardworking, embraces instructional technology and does not accept student failure. We are so proud to have Ms. Blanchard represent ECMS as our Teacher of the Year!!

We have some big field trips coming up soon with 8/1 and 8/3 going on their overnight DC trip in February followed by 8/4 not too long afterwards. I will be accompanying the latter group and Mr. Pruette (AP) will be going with the 8/1 & 8/3 students and teachers/chaperones.

We are all shocked at the terrible tragedy that has unfolded in Newtown, CT. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected. The bravery displayed by the staff and students at Sandy Hook ES was incredible. The media to date has paid much attention to how the school's emergency drills, and staff and student familiarity with them, seemed to have prevented additional loss of life.

Our number one concern at ECMS is always student safety followed by ensuring your child receives the very best education possible given the time and resources at our disposal. Our staff and students have practiced a variety of emergency drills and will continue to do so. We are also fortunate to have a Cary PD officer on our campus full-time and a large number of security cameras that are monitored. Of course, we will be reviewing our safety protocols and enhancing wherever possible. In the interim, we will do our best to provide a sense of normalcy for our students.

Great Talent Show last night in our school auditorium - good student and parent turnout. We had 25 acts and 35 plus student participants/performers. Acts ranged from martial arts displays, Indian dancing, violin and piano playing, acoustic guitar, much singing, dance acts and ballet!! Thanks to all the brave students that took the stage and provided a diverse show for the rest of us. Many kudos to Ms. Mitchell (6th grade teacher) for all the time she put in to organizing our talent show and ensuring it was a success. I'm looking forward to our Band Night thatwill take place on the evening of December 6 - big turnout expected for that event.

Congratulations to Ms. Arthina Blanchard - our high performing and very dedicated math teacher on the 7th and 8th grades (Track 3) as she was voted by her peers as our Teacher of the Year! She beat some tough competition as we are fortunate to have so many high quality teachers here at ECMS. We are very proud that Ms. Blanchard will be representing ECMS moving forward.

Congratulations to our soccer girls for their 2-1 play-off win over Lufkin Rd Middle School.

The NC Department of Public Instruction has awarded ECMS "Model School" status for the strength of our Positive Behavior and Intervention Support (PBIS) program. Thanks to Ms. Schutt and her PBIS commitee for their ongoing efforts to put in place initiatives that support and reward positive student behavior.   

I joined a large group of 6/1 and 6/2 students on a field trip to the Triangle Rock Club's indoor climbing facility recently. The students had a wonderful time and it was great to see them scale the walls and overcome any fears they may have had prior to participating in the event. We will have a 6/3 and 6/4 group doing the same trip in December.

It was a lot of fun coaching our fabulous volleyball girls in their Powder Puff Flag Football game against our soccer girls last week. The soccer girls, coached by Mr. Pruette (assistant principal), won a close fought game 12-6. Mr. Pruette's trick plays might have been the difference... :)  The football team were our cheerleaders for the afternoon - coached by Ms. Martin - our other AP. The football boys' pyramid at half-time was looking impressive until it collapsed at the last minute!

We have our school Book Fair starting Nov 13 and ending Nov 21. On Nov 14 we will have a Chik-Fil-A and book night. Between 3pm-6pm families will be able to purchase sandwiches and books. Some of the proceeds of all books purchased go towards supporting our library media program at ECMS.

Finally, let me share that we have our IMP-Skill Talent Show on November 29 at 6pm. There is a second audition for students that would like to perform on Thursday, November 15, 2:30pm-4:00pm. A final dress rehearsal will be held on November 27. Thank you so much to Ms. Mitchell for facilitating the Talent Show!