During the month of October, Meyer School will celebrate Socktober. We will be collecting new socks to be donated to the Niles Township Clothing Closet. Students can bring in new socks of any size, which will be donated at the end of the month. Last year, we donated over 1,000 pairs of socks!

We want to show our Meyer Shining Stars that even the smallest acts of love, like donating a pair of socks, can make a big difference in the lives of our neighbors, who are in need. We will begin collecting socks on Tuesday, October 1.

Students can also show their support by celebrating Wacky Socks Wednesdays! Get your wacky socks ready to wear on every Wednesday in October!

SAVE THE DATE FOR SOCKTOBERFEST on Thursday, October 24, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at Meyer School to help us celebrate the end of Socktober. Thank you to the Meyer Parent Leaders for planning and hosting this event! Fun activities will include:

• Dance party
• Arts and crafts
• Games
• Face painting
• Food

The Meyer Parent Leaders will share more details in the coming weeks.

Parent-Teacher Conferences will be held on Thursday, October 10 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. and Friday, October 11 from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

An “October Parent-Teacher Conference” email was sent to all district families on Wednesday, September 25 with dates and a link to more information. Please check your inbox or our website for that email.

If you would like to meet with Meyer's specials teachers, please contact them through Seesaw or email:

• Physical Education teacher, Iida Borges, [email protected]
• Art/Music teacher, Carolyn Castellini, [email protected]

Students at Middleton are working to earn 1,000 Pride Paws as a building! Students earn a Pride Paw shout out card for demonstrating Respectful, Responsible, and Ready Bulldog Behavior around school. When a student earns that Pride Paw, their homeroom teacher keeps a tally, and sends the card home with the student so they may share their positive contribution to our school community with you at home.

Our 5th graders are currently taking a survey to select the next whole-school incentive we are working towards. Stay tuned!

Middleton students did a great job evacuating safely from Middleton to McCracken on Wednesday, and evacuating Middleton for a fire drill on Friday. We know that practicing for these situations can help us to be as safe as possible during a real emergency. Students did a great job!

Thank you to the 5th grade students who have advocated for a safer version of the game “Woodchips” to be played at recess. Mrs. Parker and I will invite interested students to review the Woodchips Rules they drafted and ensure they meet the safety parameters we need to maintain on playground equipment during school hours.

5th grade parents, thank you for your patience while we work with your children to both follow school rules and recess supervisor expectations, and to practice advocacy for causes that matter to them.

PICTURE DAY IS COMING! Fall Picture Day for all McCracken students is scheduled for Thursday, October 3, 2024. Lifetouch picture day order forms were sent home with all students on Friday, September 27. Families may pre-purchase picture packages online (with FREE shipping until October 2) by going to mylifetouch.com and entering the Picture Day ID code EVTMVKCXB. Students may also bring the provided form with payment on Picture Day. Please click HERE for the flyer and QR code.

Picture retakes will take place on Thursday, November 14. As a reminder, 8th grade students will also take graduation pictures on January 30, 2025.

McCracken students and staff will participate in a required school evacuation on Monday, September 30 at 9:00 a.m. Students and staff will practice evacuation procedures to ensure we are prepared in the case of a real emergency. Students and staff will walk or take a bus to our off-site safe location. The entire drill will take approximately one hour. Police officers will support the safe passage of students and staff across major intersections. Please contact the McCracken school office and administration with any questions. We will need to find an alternate date for the evacuation drill in the case of inclement weather. Any schedule changes will be communicated to families.

BuzzBot Robotics is an after-school academic team for students in all grade levels interested in designing, building, and programming their very own competition robots! Our BuzzBot teams design robots to compete in the Little 9 Competition Robot League. The McCracken BuzzBot coaches, Ms. Repp and Ms. Barrow, will teach students everything they need to know to build a winning robot. Students interested in signing up for the BuzzBot Robotics Team should complete this application, or see Ms. Repp for more information. The deadline for signups was Friday, September 27. If you want to learn more about the BuzzBot program, this flyer has important information and dates to consider.

Student Council Elections took place at McCracken on Friday, September 27! Student candidates in grades 6-8 were encouraged to run for Student Council president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer. Students can also serve as student council grade level representatives in this important student leadership group. Candidates worked diligently to create fun campaign posters, slides, and virtual speeches. All students and staff were able to view the speeches and vote for their preferred candidates, exercising their right to participate in the election process! We are so proud of all participating candidates and final winners! Thank you to Hannah Mosher for her sponsorship of our McCracken Student Council!

District 73.5 will host Parent-Teacher Conferences in person or virtually on Thursday, October 10 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. and Friday, October 11 from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. McCracken students are encouraged to participate in these conferences as a means for self-reflection, progress monitoring, and goal setting. PowerSchool is available to families and students to monitor academic progress throughout each trimester. It is not mandatory that each family meets with each teacher during conferences at the middle school level. We suggest prioritizing conferences and classes based on academic needs as documented in PowerSchool. We encourage parents and guardians to reach out to individual teachers throughout the year to communicate any updates and/or ask questions they may have about academic progress. We are so thankful to parents and guardians for their continued partnership!

Due to the number of students that McCracken teachers serve, the conference day time constraints do not allow enough appointment slots to schedule every family. In an effort to distribute appointments equitably among middle school families, McCracken will use the following process to increase access to conferences with middle school teachers:

• Families may schedule up to three appointments with McCracken teachers when registration opens at 7:00 a.m. on OCTOBER 1.
• The appointment limit will be removed on OCTOBER 4. Families may sign up for additional conferences with available teachers until registration closes on OCTOBER 8 at 3:00 p.m.

Please visit the Parent-Teacher Conferences page on the SD735.org website for additional information and registration instructions.