August 24, 2023

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Thursday, August 24 - Back to School Night for Grades 3-5

Families of students in grades 3-5, please plan to join us on campus TONIGHT for our second or two Back to School Nights, our annual opportunity for you to hear about grade-level specific curriculum, classroom expectations, and more directly from your students' classroom teachers.

The fun begins tonight at 6:00pm! We will have MES PTA, MES Foundation, and Dolphin Donors tables to visit as you enter the building as well as along the breezeway to the classrooms (near our new murals!). In the café, we will have a Parent Information Fair, with 2-3 minute repeated sessions by Principal Sofianos and team on the "5s" (that's 6:05, 6:10, 6:15, and 6:20pm). This is a great opportunity to learn important information about this year, hear more about our yearlong STEAM initiative, and get insights into how to help your child be successful. You can also meet some of our non-Homeroom teaching staff and visit our beautiful library. Homeroom teacher sessions will take place in the classrooms from 6:30 - 7:30pm.

Please note that Back to School night is intended for parents and caregivers only. Morningside After School is providing parent-paid child care in the gym from 6-7:45pm if needed. Please contact Mrs. Patricia for more information.

Monday, August 21 through Friday, September 1 - Fall MAP Assessment Window

The first of three MAP assessment windows for the 2023-2024 school year will take place beginning on Monday, August 21st and will conclude on Friday, September 1st. Classroom teachers will reach out individually with specific class testing dates (both for this testing window and future assessments), but generally speaking, assessments will take place according to the following schedule:

MAP Growth Assessments - Reading and Math (Grades K - 5)

MAP Growth is the most trusted and innovative assessment for measuring achievement and growth in K–12 math, reading and language usage.. It provides teachers with accurate, and actionable evidence to help target instruction for each student or groups of students regardless of how far above or below they are from their grade level. MAP Growth Assessments will be completed on the following dates:

• Monday, August 21^st – Friday, August 25^th (Fall window)
• Monday, November 27^th – Friday, December 1^st (Winter window)
• Monday, March 11^th – Friday, March 15^th (Spring window)

Access a Family Guide to understanding MAP Growth: ENGLISH  SPANISH

MAP Reading Fluency Assessments (Grades K - 3)

This assessment allows precise, reliable insights to support early readers while maximizing valuable instructional time. With speech-recognition technology, group administration, and automatic scoring, MAP Reading Fluency provides a clear view of early literacy skills and learning needs for an entire class in about 20 minutes. MAP Reading Fluency Assessments will be completed on the following dates:

• Monday, August 28^th – Friday, September 1^st (Fall window)
• Monday, December 4^th – Friday, December 8^th (Winter window)
• Monday, March 18^th – Friday, March 22^nd (Spring window)

Friday, August 25 - Last Day to Order Your MES 2023-2024 Yearbook at the Early Bird Price

Now is the best time to order your 2023-2024 MES yearbooks, with the book price at its lowest ($40)! As a special Back to School treat, when you purchase personalization for your yearbook (only $10 more!), you can add up to four icons free! Icons are normally $5 each, so that's a $20 value. This special Back to School early bird discount ends on Friday, August 25th. After that, book prices increase to $45.

Click here to order your MES Yearbook today!

Interested in helping put together this year's yearbook? We are looking for additional help this year for the following roles:

• Image File Collector and Organizer
• Layout Assistant
• 5th Grade Yearbook Club Coordinator

If you're interested in helping with any of these roles, please sign up via Membership Toolkit. If you'd like to learn more about what these positions might entail, please contact contact Stacy Walter. Thanks!

Sunday, August 27 - Last Day to Shop the MES Spirit Wear Back to School Pop Up Sale

It's time to show off your MES School Spirit, Dolphins!

For a limited time only, you can buy NEW MES Spirit Wear for your students (and yourselves!) through our Back to School Pop Up shop. We have three designs that can be purchased on tee shirts, long sleeve tees, and hoodies, as well as a new hat design. Please note that shipping to your home is $8 per order, with free shipping for orders over $50. However, shipping to the school is free!

This is a very limited time offer, as the store will close on August 27th, 2023. All orders will ship about 20 business days after the store is sent to production.

Your copy should address 3 key questions: Who am I writing for? (Audience) Why should they care? (Benefit) What do I want them to do here? (Call-to-Action)

Create a great offer by adding words like "free" "personalized" "complimentary" or "customized." A sense of urgency often helps readers take an action, so think about inserting phrases like "for a limited time only" or "only 7 remaining"!

Wednesday, September 6 - Last Day for 3rd and 4th Grade Families to Pre-Order Books for the Upcoming Visiting Author

On Thursday, September 21st, MES will play host to visiting authors Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko as part of a collaborative event between the Amy Snowden Mather Library at MES and Little Shop of Stories in Decatur. They will be presenting their new book, Dogtown, to MES 3rd and 4th grade classes. Dogtown is a humorous and moving middle-grade illustrated novel about a shelter that houses stray dogs - and robot dogs!

Information about pre-ordering signed copies of the book were sent home with 3rd and 4th grade students in this week's Wednesday Take Home folders. Please note that orders must be received by Wednesday, September 6th in order to arrive in time for the Visiting Author event later in the month. Thanks to our partnership with Little Shop of Stories, 20% of the sales of these books will be donated to MES.

Friday, September 8 - MES International Festival Volunteers Meeting

We are excited about our first festival of the year, the return of the International Festival on Saturday, September 30th from 11am to 2pm. This event will require a lot of volunteer support, so please read on for more details about how you can get involved:

MES International Fest Volunteer Sign-Up

There are several ways to help out with this year's International Fest:

• Event Set-Up and/or Breakdown
• General event volunteer to fill in where needed or at underrepresented tables
• Volunteer by Country in one of the following roles (please indicate your preferred role during sign-up):
• 1-2 Table Leads per table
• Up to 6 Table Volunteers per table
• Unlimited number of Table Supporters, who are people who cannot volunteer during the event but want to support by donating, providing artifacts and/or decor, and more

If you're interested in helping out, please click the button below. Specific volunteer times related to set up will be determined once we know how many tables we have. Breakdown will be immediately following the event.

NOTE: There will be a volunteers' meeting at 8am on Friday, September 8th. Please make every effort to attend! Please email Shraddha Srivastav Strennen if you'd like to volunteer but cannot attend this meeting.

We can only have tables for the countries that have volunteers, so please help us out! We love to have all of the countries from our recent survey represented!

You can learn more about International Fest on the MES International Fest website. For questions about this event, please email Shraddha Srivastav Strennen.

Sunday, September 9 - Kindergarten Bowling Social

Please join us for the first Kindergarten Social of the year - Bowling!

Kindergarteners and their families are welcome to join us from 1:00-2:00 pm at Midtown Bowl on Saturday, September 9th. The cost per each bowler is $10, which can be pre-paid via the Venmo link sent out in this week's Wednesday Take Home folders. An Evite link is also included in same flyer - please use this link to RSVP for each paid bowler only. Midtown Bowl can NOT accommodate payment on site or additional bowlers the day of the event. All RSVPs and payments must be received by Friday, September 1st. If financial assistance is needed to participate, please contact Mallory Rahman.

SAVE THE DATE: Book Fair is coming on September 18th - 22nd!

The 2023 MES In Person Book Fair will be September 18 - 22, 2023. There will be hundreds of titles to engage our avid readers and inspire our emerging readers - picture books to leveled readers, chapter books to graphics novels and of course all the current best sellers!

Proceeds from the Book Fair support the MES Media Center. The fair also supports Teacher Classroom Libraries.  

Visit the book fair webpage for all details

Parent Safety Meeting Video Available for MES Parents and Guardians

If you missed our 2nd Annual School Safety Meeting with Officer Louis during the first week of school, you can now view the recording of this meeting here. Please do not share the link, we are only providing this for Parents & Guardians of Morningside Elementary School students. We apologize for the delay! 

You can also view the presentation from the meeting here, which describes all of the drills that take place at our school, including weather, reverse evacuation, and three levels of lockdown. At Morningside, we are not scared - we're prepared!

The Amy Snowden Mather Library at MES Presents the MES BOOK CLUB!

Let’s build a reading community at MES with a monthly book club! Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Jenna Bush Hager have book clubs, and now the Amy Snowden Mather Library at MES has one too! Each month, we will announce a new read for students and families to read independently or together.

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For August and September, read THE WILD ROBOT and THE WILD ROBOT ESCAPES in anticipation of the September 26 release of our October book of the month: THE WILD ROBOT PROTECTS.

Check out limited copies from MES Library, buy copies at your favorite local book retailer, or visit the public library. Click the buttons below to access discussion guides. Read as a family, neighbors, friends, classmates, or on your own! Pre-order a copy of the Wild Robot Protects here.

Please visit the MES Library website to view and download the discussion guides for the August and September books.

Don't Throw Away the P-EBT Cards!

You may have received a P-EBT card in the mail over the past week or so. Anyone who attended an APS school last year and did NOT use their P-EBT card may be receiving a new card this year with rollover funds from last year. These cards have cash value and can be used for a variety of groceries, toiletries, and necessities at most stores. These cards are related to a past Congressionally-approved pandemic benefit that was disseminated last year; cards appear to have been resent to families that did not previously use them.

If you do not need to use your card for your own family this year, don't throw it away and don't let it go to waste! Instead, please consider one of the following options recommended by Linda Brenner of Grady Cares:



• Buy items for Intown Cares - here's what they need / drop off or mailing instructions: https://intowncares.org/donate/food-donations 
• Buy needed snacks and/or supplies (tissues, pencils, books, wipes, etc.) for any APS school - ask a counselor, social worker, office staff, principal team, etc.
• Use it to buy your own groceries and donate the money you would have spent to Grady Cares, Intown Cares, or another organization of your choice

Note: you should NOT give your card or pin number to anyone else; it could be considered fraud.

Technology Tips: Infinite Campus Parent Portal

One of the main apps that MES uses to communicate with parents is Infinite Campus, which we call the Parent Portal. The Parent Portal is an easy-to-use, secure communications tool that enables parents to access attendance records and grades for their students. Once you set up your account, you will be able to use this same account all the way through high school graduation! If you have any younger children, they will be added to the Parent Portal when they enter our school. There are some helpful links here for things like a forgotten password or if you still need to create your account. 

The Parent Portal is also the system that Principal Sofianos uses to send school related emergency or other messages. Be sure to create your account so that you can change your contact information if needed. Today a message was sent at 8:19am with updates on the working HVAC system for six of our rooms. There were 19 families who did not receive these messages due to failed or invalid attempts in trying to send that information stemming from out of date or missing contact information. It is important that you receive APS and MES messages at the email and phone number that is correct and most convenient for you. Please check your Infinite Campus Parent Portal account today to ensure everything is up to date!

MES Principal Blog

Principal Sofianos has been busy updating her blog this year, with some help from Assistant Principals Dr. Sinclair and Mr. Baron. Recent blog posts have featured a snapshot of "Life as a 5th Grader at MES" and an introduction to the new school counselor, Mr. Saidi Osen. Be sure to keep up with all the school news straight from the principal's desk by bookmarking her Principal's Blog and checking back often!

APS Board of Education Monthly Meeting - Monday, August 7

The next monthly APS Board of Education meeting will take place on Monday, August 7th from 2:30-8:00pm. All meetings are held at the Atlanta Public Schools Center for Learning and Leadership Auditorium and are typically livestreamed via the APS Board of Education Facebook Page. Interested parties are welcome to provide comments during the Community Meeting portion (which begins at 6:00pm) by signing up in person from 5:00-5:50pm.

Stay Up to Date with the APS Midtown Cluster

Click HERE for resources directly related to our cluster.

Stay Up to Date with the 2023-2024 APS Calendar 

Click HERE to view the district calendar and start planning for all the breaks.

Click HERE to view the Atlanta BOE 2023 Calendar.

Thank you to our 2022-2023 Diamond Dolphin, Dolphin, and Platinum-level sponsors for supporting our school!

Sponsorships for 2023-2024 are available now!

For more information about Dolphin Donors, please click HERE.