The Principal’s Corner richard.drolet@cumberlandschools.org

We are now officially halfway through the school year! Here is some updated school-wide information:

Congratulations to our December (2011) Students of the Month:

Joshua Smith (Luminary Team – gr. 6); Zachary Fogell (Pioneer Team – gr. 6); Ryan Luisi (All Star Team – gr. 7); Tyler Girard (Extreme Team – gr. 7); Jasmine Lindsay (Team Aviators – gr. 8); Andrew Duncan (Team Evolution – gr. 8); Gavin Lacroix (Team Unity – gr. 6); Michael McCue (Team Unity – gr. 7); and Gianna Rousseau (Team Unity – gr. 8)

The last day of the 2^nd quarter was Friday, Jan. 27^th. 2^nd Quarter Report Cards will be mailed home on Friday, Feb. 3^rd, 2012. Please contact your child’s guidance counselor for a copy of the Report Card if you do not receive one by Tuesday, Feb. 7^th, 2012.

We should receive your students’ Fall 2011 NECAP results soon. We will mail your child’s individual NECAP test score results home in our next mailing.

Congratulations also go out to our school Spelling Bee finalists. The winners from each grade level are: Peter Askar (gr. 6); Dan Acello (gr. 7); and Robert Bouffard (gr. 8). These students will compete in the District-wide Spelling Bee here at North Cumberland Middle School at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, February 8^th.

Our February PTO meeting will take place at 7 p.m. in the NCMS library on Wednesday, Feb. 8^th. At this meeting Mr. Masterson, NCMS Assistant Principal, will present information regarding Cumberland’s newly revised anti-bullying policy.

The February Parent Coffee Hour will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 28th, from 9-10 a.m. All parents are welcome to attend.

NCMS Teacher of the Year 2012 – All members of the NCMS community (staff members, students, and parents) can submit nominations. Please forward a one page (250 words or less) essay explaining why you feel the nominee should be the 2011-2012 NCMS Teacher of the Year. Nominations are due by the end of April.

Congratulations to Logan Crooks (gr. 8) for winning our school-wide Geography Bee; also congratulations to Sean Bradley (gr. 8), who was our Geography Bee runner-up. Logan will represent NCMS in the future at the state-wide competition.

Congratulations to all of our hard-working students who made honors for the 2^nd quarter. We will have our 2^nd quarter Honors Assemblies for each grade soon to recognize these students.

Attention Parents of 7th Grade Students: The school dentist will be coming to North Cumberland Middle School soon. As required by the Rhode Island Department of Health, all 7^th grade students who have not returned a yellow dental card will be examined at that time. If your child has not returned a yellow dental card, we encourage you to do so as soon as possible. Presently, there are over 100 students on Ms. Kellys’ (school nurse/teacher) list to be examined. Although Ms. Kelly is fairly certain that the majority of these students are being followed by a dentist or orthodontist, we have not received a card from them and we are obliged to have them looked at. Since we have received multiple cards without names on them, Ms. Kelly will be sending green cards home with all students whose cards are missing @ January 27^th. Please ask your child if he/she received one of these notices. As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Ms. Kelly regarding this at carolyn.kelly@cumberlandschools.org or 333-6306 x 109.

Our 8^th grade History Fair will take place here in the cafeteria and gymnasium on Tuesday evening, March 20^th. Students will be judged from 5 - 6:30 p.m. The History Fair packet will be e-mailed to all parents on the ListServ soon. 8^th grade students should al soreceived the packets in their respective 8^th grade social studies/history classes. Please contact Mr. Therien at jean.therien@cumberlandschools.org (8^th grade social studies/history teacher) if you are interested in being a judge. Parents are invited from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. on March 20^thto see the projects and then hear the winners announced.