Back-to-School Letters from District 300 Administrative Staff

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Dear Students and Parents:

Welcome back to another new year at Du Quoin Middle School. I hope that you and your loved ones have enjoyed the summer and are ready to return to school. The start of the 2012-2013 school promises to be an exciting time for DMS.

We have made several curricular changes to better meet the needs of our students and to further introduce technology into our daily classrooms. At the beginning of the year, each classroom with have an interactive projector that will allow our teachers to bring unlimited resources into our student's classrooms and expose them to data that was not previously assessable. We will also begin the process of introducing iPad's into our daily curriculum. This year the 6th grade will have access to iPad's on a daily basis. Teachers will provide instruction using the iPads and students will complete tasks and assignments using them at school. This is an exciting step in the process of introducing the latest technology into our building.

We have also made changes to our RTI period at the beginning of the day. RTI stands for Response to Intervention. The purpose of this period is to break our students into very small groups and provide them with daily supplemental instruction in reading and math. The instruction will be based upon the individual student's specific needs in both subjects. The period will last twenty minutes and will be used to reinforce our core curriculum that our teachers teach on a daily basis.

As always, I strongly encourage you to contact all of your student's teachers. Your support at school is one of our greatest resources. Every year, we watch our students succeed who have supportive and educationally minded parents at home. Your support and influence on your son or daughters education cannot be under rated. Please contact us with any concerns you may have throughout the school year.

I would also like to remind everyone that DMS is still a peanut aware building. This means we are asking that no peanuts or products containing peanuts be brought into the building.

Again, welcome back to another school year. I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Sincerely,

Aaron Hill

Principal

Du Quoin Middle School