Parent Newsletter

January 2015

Volume III, Issue 2

PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE

Dear Milwee Middle School Families,

As I welcome you to a new semester at Milwee Middle School, I need to introduce myself.

My name is Jim Kubis, and I am your new principal. I want to first thank Dr. Walsh for

providing me with a smooth transition into my new role. I wish her much success at the

county office. I received my bachelor’s degree in biology in 1981 from the University of

Akron and my master’s degree in educational leadership in 1997 from the University of Central Florida. This is my thirty-first year in education. I began my career in education at

Barberton High School in Ohio as a science teacher and basketball coach. I moved to Florida

in 1986 and worked for Orange County Public Schools for sixteen years, teaching science

and math, serving as assistant athletic director and coaching

basketball at Edgewater High School. In 1992 I led my varsity

team to a district championship. I began my administrative

career at Gotha Middle School as administrative dean. Later, I

was promoted to assistant principal and worked at Hunters

Creek Middle School. An opportunity then took me to the

Diocese of Orlando where I served as an assistant principal for

three years before returning to public education working at

South Seminole Middle School as assistant principal for five-

and-a-half years. I was promoted to principal and worked at

Markham Woods Middle School for four years. I have been

married to my wife, Lori, for twenty-six years, and I have a

son, Zachary, who is a junior in college. I enjoy golf, fishing, boating, officiating basketball and spending time with my

family. It is truly an honor to be selected principal of Milwee

Middle School. I am looking forward to starting this new

journey with my Spartan family. Together we will continue to

help your child succeed.

Sincerely,

Jim Kubis

Milwee has adopted a 0-4 grading scale that is in alignment with calculating students’ grade point

Congratulations to our very

own Mr. Brian Furgione –

Seminole County Middle

School’s Teacher of the

Year!

Congratulations to our Spartan Super Spellers from the 2014-

2015 Spelling Bee. First place - Rachel, second place - Kevin, third place -

Cristian!

Milwee Middle School

1341 S Ronald Reagan Blvd

Longwood, FL 32750

CAR LINE (Drop Off & Pick Up)

Teachers assist in the car line for your child’s safety and the safety of

others. We ask ALL cars to pull up to the furthest spot in front of building 9

so that students can be safely dropped off and loaded.

Students are not to walk through traffic without the explicit direction from

our teachers directing traffic.

Students are to be dropped off and loaded in front of building 9 only so that

we can move traffic off of 427 as quickly and safely as possible. Stopping in

front of the Media Center to drop off or load is prohibited.

Students are to pay attention and be alert. They are to be watching for their

ride at all times and move down towards the furthest spot in front of

building 9 to load in the afternoons.

Parents and Visitors are asked to refrain from talking on their phones while

in the car line. Directions cannot be heard and accidents can result.

Thank you for helping to keep students, teachers and staff safe at

Milwee.

GUIDANCE INFORMATION

Please contact Ms. Wolfrum in the guidance department if

you have a need for a community resource list or have a need

for your child to participate in our Friday pantry backpack

program. This program assists our students with breakfast

and lunch over the weekend.

All students at Milwee are provided the opportunity to eat

breakfast at school on a daily basis. Students do not have to

be on the lunch program to participate in our school-wide

breakfast program. Please encourage your child to eat

breakfast daily.

Contact the grade level counselor if your child has a

need for counseling services. There is a referral process

available for additional support services.

ATTENDANCE

Attendance is monitored on a monthly

basis. Students who miss 5 or more days

within a 30 day period are subject to

truancy measures. Excuse notes should

be turned in to the front office within 2

days of a student’s return to school.

Please contact Mrs. Michaels, attendance

secretary, if you have questions.

PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES

Conferences may be scheduled by calling

Mrs. Perez in the front office. They are

scheduled before school from 8:40-9:10.

REMINDERS

Literacy Night 1/29 – 5:30 – 6:45 pm All County Band Rehearsals & Concert 1/29 thru 1/31 Beta club open skate 2/1 - 2:00 pm - 3:45 pm - RDV Pasta for Pennies 2/2 – 2/27 Title 1 Math Night 2/5 – 6:00 – 8:00 pm American Heart Association Hoops for Hearts 2/12-2/13 SECME Regional competition - 2/14 7:30 am - 4:00 pm UCF Curriculum Night – 2/19 6:30 – 8:00 pm Girl's Engineering breakfast - 2/20 8:30 am Engineering week - 2/23 - 2/27 Engineering family open house night 2/26 6:30 - 8:00 pm Cafeteria Incoming 6th Articulation 2/26 6:00 – 8:00 pm Media Center Regional Science Bowl - 2/28 9:00 am. 3:00 pm FSEC, Cocoa Energy Whiz Olympics - 5/2 8:00 am - 4:00 pm FSEC, Cocoa

MILWEE TRACK SCHEDULE

February 4

Sanford, Rock Lake @ Greenwood Lakes

Markham Woods, Teague @ Millennium

Tuskawilla, South Seminole @ Lawton Chiles (Hosted by Jackson Heights)

Milwee, Lawton Chiles @ Indian Trails

February 11 Millennium, Markham Woods @ Sanford

Greenwood Lakes, Rock Lake @ Teague

Lawton Chiles, Tuskawilla @ Indian Trails

South Seminole, Milwee @ Lawton Chiles (Hosted by Jackson Heights)

February 21 -County Meet at Hagerty High @ 8:00am

ptsa

Milwee PTSA needs volunteers to work the

school store, which is open from 8:45 – 9:40 am

each school day. PTSA needs volunteers who

can sign-up to work one day or several days a

week on a recurring schedule. Volunteers will

be trained by a PTSA Board member and will

work side-by-side with one or two other trained

volunteers each day. This is a great way to get

to know our students!

PTSA uses VolunteerSpot to manage our

volunteer needs which is located on our

website (http://milweeptsa.weebly.com/) or go

to our group page on VolunteerSpot directly at

http://www.volunteerspot.com/group/56388

154060#!/show. Interested volunteers can

also contact us directly by email at

MilweePTSA@gmail.com.

Other volunteer needs will arise so please

continue to check our website and Facebook

for alerts as seen above.

Fundraiser for Hoops For Heart

will begin January 6-Feb 13th.

Feb. 13th will be the day of

activity for it. Online donations

encouraged. Go

to http://www.heart.org to sign

up under Milwee.

Milwee Middle School Science Fair EXPO 2014

AWARDS

6th Grade 7th Grade 8th Grade

Cafeteria Gym Media Center

Most Creative Board Award

1st Riley O'Connell Alek Schoneck Jessica Goodchild

2nd Keller Danahy Julian Martinez Max Poorman

3rd Aidan Rubino Derrick Vanderslice Andrew Winter

Most Creative Topic Award

1st Liam Rosenfeld Sean King Anthony Cho

2nd Isaac Manshi Coral Rodriguez Karstan Fose

3rd Amanda Long Andrew Georgi Jay York

Most Inventive Project Idea

Award

1st Artthur Machado Dylan Davis Jacob Slavkin

2nd Morgan Worthy Tyler Paura D'Jon Smalls

3rd Justin Warren Erik Soldberg Jack Scully

Best Use of Food or

Technology Award

1st Maria Cruz Eleanor Stettner Kevin Jarvis

2nd Annilie Dupervial Jasmine Douglas William Cross

3rd Daniel Principe Matthew Aelker Carlie Guiley

Super Scientist Award

1st Vincent Hardesty Tyler Wood Maxwell Tucker

2nd Chad Petersohn Harrison Turner Kyle Koehne

3rd Mya Coco Allison Cartmill Saloanee Labh

Name Category

Alex Schoneck Engineering

Eli Garmon Engineering

Mark Bruckert Engineering

Aidan Rubino Environmental

Destry Jinks Physics

Kasey Bartholomew Physics

Vincent Hardestry Physics

Chad Petersohn (Alternate) Physics

Micheal Scott Zoology

Olivia Heintzen Zoology

Milwee's eight FIRST LEGO League robotics teams have been working extremely hard preparing for this tournament season. The season theme is 'World Class', and requires the teams to develop a new way of teaching something. Our teams' choices include a new way to learn music, a new way to learn about D-Day (using Minecraft), a new way to learn history (using virtual reality) and several other innovative methods. They designed, built and programmed creative robots to solve the robot challenges. We have won awards at our practice tournaments and are nervously looking forward to our next competitions. Our VEX team has attended one competition, and was thrilled to get into the second round. Two more competitions are ahead, and they are busy with their preparations.

Robotics students have just started the new semester, and are delving into the background of the subject. LEGO Robotics classes are using the Engineering Design Process to solve the problem of the annoying magically tangling charger cords by designing a Robot Charging Station for the department.

Milwee Celebrates E-WEEK February 23-27 Milwee Middle Celebrates Engineering Week in February, plan to dress up for the following Spirit Days. Students will also be able to participate in an Invention Contest, this year’s challenge is to design an item that will incorporate a rubber band. This competition is actually a National competition and is called Rubber Band Contest for Young Inventors. Students can not only win here but they can submit their invention to the national competition to win the $2000 grand prize. Any student at Milwee can participate! Plan to attend the Engineering Expo Thursday, February 26 from 6:30 -8:00 to see all of the great inventions, student video games, robotics, family activities and the wax museum participants. Monday, February 23 Engineering Dictionary Day

Tuesday, February 24 Engineering college day

Wednesday, February 25 Alternate Energy Day

Thursday, February 26 Dress like your favorite engineer/Inventor. Friday, February 27 Dress for Success

Dear SCPS Families:

Seminole County Public Schools is pleased to

announce that we are now able to send announcements

via SMS text messaging to your mobile phones.

If you would like to receive these announcements as

text messages, please do the following:

Step 1. Ensure your school has your cell phone

number on file through our Skyward database. If the

school did not have your cell phone number on file

and added it, wait at least 24 hours before proceeding

to the next step.

Step 2. From your cell phone, text the word “Join” to

the number 56360.

If our messaging system finds a match for your

number in its database, you receive a confirmation

message thanking you for joining school alerts. At any

time, you can unsubscribe by texting “Stop” to 56360.

Step 3. Create a contact on your phone with the name

of your school or simply SCPS (if you have children

in multiple schools in the district), or another

meaningful name, and the phone number 56360. Then,

when you receive a text from this number, you know

who is sending it.

Thank you!

2015- 2016 COURSE REGISTRATION

Preparations are underway for the 2015-2016 school year. Please see the

timeline below for course registrations:

Incoming 6th Grade:

End of January – Beginning of February: Course selection information will

be send to our feeder elementary schools at the end of January – beginning

of February. Current 5th grade students will bring this information home at

that time.

February 19 – Curriculum Night; 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. – Teachers and

counselors will be available to answers questions and assist with course

selection.

February 26 – Q&A Session; 7:00-8:00 p.m. – Counselors will be available

to answer questions regarding course selection.

March 2nd – Course Selection Sheets due. They can be turned in to the

elementary counselor or brought to Milwee. They can also be turned in on

February 19th and February 26th.

Current 6th and 7th Grade Students

End of January – Course selection information will be send home with

students through their math teachers. These will be due back to their math

teacher by February 6, 2015.

All current 6th grade students MUST have their 7th grade immunizations

completed and the required form returned to Milwee before their course

registrations will be processed.

For additional information please visit our website at:

http://milweeregistration.weebly.com/.

PARENT/GUARDIAN CLIMATE SURVEY

The Education Accountability Law provides parents, educators and community

leaders’ an opportunity to participate in the development of improvement plans

for schools. In order to gather information that is vital to this process, we are

asking parents to complete a School Climate Survey. The twenty-five questions

on this survey deal with issues that educational research shows to be

characteristic of effective schools. The results will report our parents’ level of

satisfaction and/or concern with these issues.

Parents may access the survey as follows:

Parent Survey in English: www.surveymonkey.com/s/MSParentclimatesurvey2015

Parent Survey in Spanish: www.surveymonkey.com/s/MSParentSpanish2015

To access the survey on the SCPS website: go to the District website at

www.scps.k12.fl.us the District website, click on PARENTS in the top, horizontal

menu, then click on the CLIMATE SURVEY link in the left menu of the Parents

page. A fly-out menu will display for the user to select the English or Spanish

version of the Elementary, Middle, or High Parent survey.

The parent survey window is now open and ends on February 27, 2015. Thank

you for taking time to complete the climate survey. Your feedback is appreciated

and valued by SCPS.

Milwee Middle School

Upcoming Title I Events

The following family engagement

events will take place in February

and March.

Light refreshments and childcare will be provided for these events.

January 29 ELA/Reading Night – Learn about the Florida State Assessment

standards

February 5 Math Night – 6:30 to 8:00 – Learn more about the Florida State

Assessment standards.

February 19 Curriculum Night – 6:30 to 8:00 - For incoming 6th grade families.

This is an opportunity to see what goes on in the classroom and speak with

counselors regarding course selection.

February 26 Incoming 6th Grade Question and Answer Session – 7:00 to 8:00 –

For incoming 6th grade families. This is an opportunity to answer any final

questions before course registration information is due on March 2, 2015.

February 26 EWeek; 6:30 to 8:00- Fun engineering activities for the whole family.

Title I – Family Engagement Activities

As a Title I school, we have developed a Family Engagement Plan

with parent input. Our Title I – Family Engagement website

outlines the activities which we plan to provide for families to

support student learning. You can reach this website in a couple

of ways:

From Milwee website (www.milwee.scps.k12.fl.us), click on

“Title I – Family Engagement”

Go directly to: http://milweetitle1.weebly.com/

In addition, Seminole County Family Engagement resources can

be found at: http://scpsfamily.weebly.com/

We have also developed a “School Compact” which outlines the

responsibilities of student, school and parent in our support of

student learning. Please contact April McManus at

april_mcmanus@scps.k12.fl.us for additional information.

8th Grade Information

6th Grade Information

***IMPORTANT *** IMPORTANT *** IMPORTANT ***IMPORTANT***IMPORTANT***

***Attention all 6th grade students.***

The law requires all students entering the 7th grade to have an updated immunization certificate. No

7th grade schedules will be issued to students without documentation of the TD(Tetanus Diptheria)

booster and the Hepatitis B series immunizations. This needs to be done before April 15, 2015.

BEFORE

WE

FORGET

High School Registration

High school registration will start the first week of February. Students will be receiving

information through history class.

* Information on the open house dates and the registration process will be posted on the Milwee

website.

*Students who have been accepted to magnet programs need to make sure they return the

acceptance letter to the Choices Department by January 20th.

*Registration materials from the high schools will be distributed to students as we receive them.

Grades/Promotion Requirements * Please monitor your child’s grades and be award of the current grade point average.

* Transcripts in Skyward will be available to high school counselors and may impact the

selection of classes available to students.

* You may schedule a parent teacher conference by contacting Mrs. Perez in the front office.

* Please monitor your child’s grades and assignments on a weekly basis in Skyward if you have

access.

* Weekly progress reports are available in the guidance department if you need assistance with

weekly behavior and/or academic monitoring.

* An overall 2.0 GPA is required for a promotion to grade 9. This is also a requirement for

sports and extracurricular activities the first semester of next year.

Oviedo High School offers the students of Seminole County a unique opportunity to participate in a cutting edge Bioscience Technology Program. In this program, students will participate in laboratory based courses where they will study topics such as DNA science, Forensics, Microbiology, Genetic Engineering, Bioinformatics,

Genomics, and Proteomics. Our classrooms are equipped with state of the art laboratory technology that will prepare students to work in various laboratories around the country. Students that finish the program will have an opportunity to earn an industry certification as a Biotechnician Assistant. The Bioscience program is recognized by Seminole County Public Schools as a Program of Emphasis. The Choices Department offers options for students around the district to attend Oviedo High School and participate in this program. We will be hosting a special Bioscience presentation in conjunction with our Curriculum Night on Thursday, January 29 at 5:30 pm. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Rob Frasca, Assistant Principal at robert_frasca@scps.k12.fl.us or at 407-320-4009.