Good Evening Murch Families,
Happy Halloween! I hope everyone celebrating has a fun and safe night of festivities. In this second installment of Mr. C’s Corner, I want to take an opportunity to reflect on another great month of school and all of the exciting opportunities coming down the pike as we wind down our calendar year.
October was chock full of activities. Murch Plus began in grand fashion. Over 15 courses are being offered and over 300 students have signed up. That is an incredible number of students who are taking part, which is very exciting. As we move through the school year, we hope to be able to identify ways of bringing in additional programming opportunities for our students, like chess, dancing, and karate, while bearing in my mind costs and continuing to ensure that ALL students are able to take part. I also want to say a huge THANK YOU to Ms. Berger and Ms. Eckstein for once again getting Murch Plus off to a great start.
I would also like to take a moment to thank our Fall Fair committee for making the fair such a smashing success. And many thanks to every volunteer who made this event happen. It has always been a wonderful community building event and our students always have a great time attending, myself included.
I am also excited about all of the field trips that have taken place already this school year. Field trips play an important part of opening the classroom walls to learning and what better place than Washington DC and the surrounding areas to explore. Our Kindergarten classes went to Sunrise Nursing Home. The First graders went on a trip to the Kid Museum. Our Second graders have gone to the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum and to Politics and Prose. Our Fourth and Fifth Graders had an opportunity to go to the National Museum of the American Indian, as well as the Fifth grade trip to the Adventure Park at Sandy Spring. There will be other field trip opportunities for all grades as the school year goes on, and I hope that ALL eligible parents will take the opportunity to chaperone.
October also brought many other exciting opportunities for community engagement. Over 90% of Murch parents took part in parent-teachers conferences this month. While this is tremendous, we would love to see 100% engagement from all of our families. If you have not yet had a conference with your child’s teacher, please reach out to schedule one.
Last week, two different and very robust meetings took place. The first was our LSAT meeting on Wednesday evening. The major points of discussion were Murch’s upcoming enrollment projection, factors that will influence this projection, and the LSAT’s response should the projection come in lower than anticipated. We should be receiving the enrollment projection within the next ten days so will have more to report on this issue in the coming weeks. We also discussed the limited information we currently have on the budget timeline for SY24-25 and the role that the LSAT will play in helping to create and advocate for Murch’s budget needs. The LSAT meeting was also an opportunity for us to discuss family engagement, the reconstitution of the school’s equity team, and various opportunities for families to provide additional staff and classroom support as we get deeper into the school year.
On Thursday evening, we held this school year’s first Data Night. The purpose of these meetings is to share what our school priorities are, both from an academic and social/emotional standpoint based on our comprehensive school plan and the data we currently have for each child in reading and/or math. We looked at the trends in our data and shared our plan for how we were going to work toward closing the achievement gap. We also shared information about last year’s PARCC results and shared our plan for creating an advantageous testing environment for every student who will be taking the PARCC assessment this school year.
And on Saturday, the first Parent Forum was held. There are four more forums planned for the school year and we hope that everyone will take the opportunity to join AP Hawkins and me. They have always been a fantastic way for us to hear directly from our families and engage in deeper, more meaningful conversations about issues impacting our community. Prior to the remaining meetings, we will communicate some additional information, so please be on the look out.
Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to celebrate some of the fun and inspiring moments that took place this month. I am so proud of Murch’s entire cross-country team! Our team not only performed well at their various meets, but they represented Murch with pride, showing amazing displays of team camaraderie. Unity Day was also a celebration of the commitment we make as individuals and as a school to prevent bullying from impacting anyone’s life in a negative way. I want to thank Ms. Miller who organized an anti-bullying assembly where students had the opportunity to sign their name as part of their commitment to make Murch bully free. And the Halloween parade, as per usual, was a ton of fun! I always love seeing the creativity that students and teachers come up with. Shout out to our first grade teachers for their very creative costumes, reflecting their love of the book, “The Day the Crayons Quit.”
Looking ahead to November, I want to remind everyone that while school is not in session most Fridays (November 3rd and 10th, and then we are off for Thanksgiving from November 22-24th), there is still a lot of work getting done, by students and teachers. On Friday, November 3rd, teachers will be in a training session and working to increase their understanding of the whole-child model by working with staff members from TRANSCEND. On Friday the 10th, there is no attendance for staff and students to celebrate Veteran’s Day. We celebrate the heroism of the men and women who served honorably for our military. Not only their service during times of war, but also peacetime. During our Thanksgiving break, I hope everyone has an opportunity to rest, be with loved ones, and celebrate and honor all of the things we have to be grateful for.
With much gratitude,
Mr. C