For the second consecutive year, both the Monroe Middle School Orchestra and the Monroe High School Orchestra have received first division or excellent ratings at the District 12 Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association Festival. The event was held last week at Monroe County Community College.
Earning the excellent ratings qualified both musical groups to participate in the state festival. However, neither group will be participating in the state festival due to other performance commitments. The MHS Orchestra now starts to prepare for a performance trip to Nashville, Tenn., and the MMS Orchestra will be preparing to perform in the Trills and Thrills Festival in Sandusky, Ohio.
Mrs. Ann Felder is the conductor of both groups.
Responsible Social Media:
Social media has been broadly defined to refer to 'the many relatively inexpensive and widely accessible electronic tools that enable anyone to publish and access information, collaborate on a common effort, or build relationships.
'Murthy, Dhiraj (2013). Twitter: Social Communication in the Twitter Age. Cambridge: Polity. pp. 7–8.
Dear MHS Community::
When social media is used responsibly, it is an influential means of communication. When it is used irresponsibly, it can ruin lives. Mr. Ronald Benore, an assistant prosecuting attorney for Monroe County, and Deputy Joe Hammond joined me in putting together a student a seminar on Responsible Social Media.
We are seeing students making mistakes each day, unaware of the consequences. It is our hope to inform them of ways they can avoid using social media irresponsibility so as to avoid its negative impact. Because social media is so easy to access and does not have a delay button, its misuse can happen easily and repeatedly. I do not believe anyone starts out wanting to hurt themselves or others with social media. Many times this is the result due to circumstances that led up to its misuse.
If after watching this social media lesson you learn one thing that helps you or someone you know use social media more responsibly, we have achieved our goal. If you learn something today that a family member or friend also needs to hear, please forward this You Tube link to them. Responsible Social Media Seminar (2nd Cut)
It is our hope that social media fulfills its intent which is to provide opportunities to publish, access information, work with others on a common cause and to build, not tear down, relationships.sk It has the influence to do so much good. Let us look for ways to do this, and avoid the pitfalls of misuse.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Kreps – Principal
Dr. Barry Martin, superintendent, Monroe Public Schools, explained what is happening with the poles at Bunkelman FIeld and how repairs will go forward.
"Monroe High School’s Bunkelman Field has been closed for use due to the collapse of one of the stadium light poles. Due to safety concerns, the stadium must remain closed until the remaining three light poles can be removed. The Board of Education has contracted with a local company to remove these poles. The removal of the poles must be done very carefully and calls for the use of heavy equipment. Because of the mild winter weather conditions, the Monroe County Road Commission has implemented frost laws for Herr Road, the main access road to Monroe High School. This prohibits the movement of heavy equipment on this road. Additionally, there is concern that with the current weather conditions, bringing the necessary heavy equipment into the stadium itself to do the work could cause considerable damage to the track.
"The school district is very aware of the issues this causes for the upcoming track season, and we are looking into options that will allow students to participate in track until Bunkelman Field is available. Our greatest concern at this point is to be able to provide a safe area for sporting activities, and until the remaining poles can be removed from the stadium, it must remain unavailable for student or public use. This is a complicated and challenging issue which is going to be disruptive to our sports program and costly for the school district, but safety must remain the priority as we work through this unfortunate situation."
When track practices begin, MHS will be using the Jefferson High School facilities for practices.
Every kid in school knows that “pi are squared,” but Monroe Middle School math students will prove to the world on Monday and Tuesday, March 14 and 15, that “pi are ‘round,” as in ringing ‘round the school.
On Monday, 3/14 – Pi Day, 3.14 get it? – math students in the classrooms of Mrs. Katie Oberdorf and Mr. Kevin Pilgrim will report to the Monroe Middle School auditorium during their class times to make and connect rings of Pi digits, in order – as many as 4,000 digits. When they go home at the end of the day, a huge chain of Pi digits will be connected. Students will be preparing the rings throughout the day but the largest number of students participating at one time will be from the start of school until about 9:45 a.m.
On Tuesday morning, March 15, the math students again will report to the auditorium, this time to carry the connected Pi digits outside and encircle the school, over a four city-block area. They are scheduled to be outside starting at 8:30 a.m. and the encirclement could take as long as 30 minutes.
Members of the second grade at Custer Elementary School raised nearly $500 for the Humane Society of Monroe, had a good time doing it and their teachers were able to have all of the activities fit together as part of the school’s regular curriculum, too.
A second grade math lesson is called the T-Shirt Factory but the teachers changed it to a Dog and Cat Gram Factory lesson. The teachers incorporated all of the prescribed lessons, fitting the dog/cat factory portion into them. In social studies, the students were studying economics, particularly how people work together in a community. The students were introduced to the importance of helping dogs and cats by watching a Humane Society commercial.
Deciding to help local cats and dogs, the students in assembly-line style colored dog- and cat-grams and then taped them to suckers. Always on the lookout for smart marketing, the students also made a commercial to show at school and made posters, too. They sold the dog- and cat-gram suckers at lunch and donated all of the profits -- $488.95 – to the local humane society in a short ceremony Monday, March 7.
Teachers participating in the project were: Sherri Zub, Jan Heck, Tara Pafford, Sarah Kokx, Jennifer Reed and Polly Fraser.
Grant Prater, a junior at Monroe High School, received a President’s Volunteer Service Award signed by President Obama from MHS Principal Mrs. Sandra Kreps, in a ceremony March 8 at the Monroe Public Schools Board of Education meeting. It was one of two awards Grant won as part of the 2016 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards.
He also was recognized as a distinguished finalist for his volunteer service as one of the top Michigan students this year.
Grant, who also is an Eagle Scout and very active at Monroe High, was recognized for spearheading the creation of a clothing closet at Monroe Middle School to store donated clothes, hats and gloves for students in need, eliminating the prior method of storing the items in trash bags. He worked with school officials, fellow student volunteers and his family, to convert a former school storage room to what is now called the “Trojan Outfitters” clothing closet. It actually looks like a mall clothing shop.
“You are an exemplary role model for your peers. Contributions like yours make our communities and our entire nation stronger. We salute your achievements,” officials of Prudential Financial and the National Association of Secondary School Principals wrote in a letter informing Grant of his selection.
Throughout Monroe Public Schools, students and staff have the advantage of the latest educational technology in classrooms at every level. Much of the money used for technology purchases comes from the Monroe County Educational Technology Millage. To see a good example of technology at work in our classrooms, please check out the link below.
Two choral groups from Monroe Middle School have qualified to participate in the state Michigan School Vocal Music Association festival in in May at Holt High school by achieving excellent ratings (1) at the District 12 festival this past weekend in Lincoln Park.
Receiving the excellent ratings were the MMS group Jubilation and the eighth grade choir from Team C. Choir director Mrs. Elise Dinwoody said that both groups also received perfect scores in sight reading which is quite an accomplishment.
Besides the two groups qualifying for the state festival, three other MMS choirs received good ratings. They are the seventh grade choirs from Teams A and B and the eighth grade choir from Team B.
The Monroe High School Boy's Basketball game against the Saline Hornets tonight will be broadcast live at 7 p.m. tonight on monroecountyradio.com. Jeff Yorkey and Jarod Calkins will handle play-by-play of tonight's game. To listen to the game, just go to monroecountyradio.com and click on Listen Live.