News

Greetings Margaret Mead Community,
 
Please see below for information about Fostering Academic Achievement and Creating a Positive Culture as our standards of success at Mead.   
 
Fostering Academic Achievement
 
Academic Support:  If your student requires support with mathematics, language arts, science, or social studies or just help with organization, then please see below on various ways that we provide support at Mead to ensure your student’s success.

• The District 54 Infinite Campus Parent Portal provides access for parents and students to information including viewing assignments, attendance, grades, academic schedule, and teacher comments.   If you currently do not have a Parent Portal account, please email [email protected] or you can call our front office at 1-847-357-6000 and our secretaries can assist you.  If you have previously created a Parent Portal account and cannot recall your username or password, then you can reset them yourself from the parent portal by selecting “forgot password”.  You can also pay for optional instructional device insurance through your parent portal account.  
• Chromebooks: We use the organizational tools on the Google platform via Chromebook to help develop your student’s organizational skills and learn responsibility. This platform also serves as a communication tool between home and school.  Please remind your student to charge their Chromebook nightly and to bring their power cord with them to school every day.  For more information about Chromebooks, please click here: What is a Chromebook?   In addition, please click on this link: Parent/Community Instructions for Accessing their Child’s Google Calendar for helpful information for you to help your student manage their Google Calendar.   
• Mead Homework Website:  On a daily basis, you can see what assignments your student has to complete and to see when they have upcoming tests/assessments by visiting our Mead homepage and clicking on our Mead Homework Website—you can click on this LINK to begin using it now.  Be sure to bookmark this site to stay up on your student’s assignment list!
• After-School Academic Content Study Halls:  Our language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science teachers will be hosting after-school content study halls that will be open to all students who either need academic support from content specialists or just want a quiet place to study with peers at Mead.  The study hall schedule will be provided to your student soon—we encourage them to take advantage of these opportunities.  Please know that teachers are also available by appointment by emailing your student’s teachers to request extra help either before or after school.  
• Class Work/Flex Support Program: Starting soon, if your student has 5 or more missing assignments, then your student will take part in our Class Work Support Program to support their missing assignment completion.  The Class Work Support Program includes some or all of the following:
  1. Weekly missing work notices for students to remind them of outstanding assignments past due.
  2. An Afterschool Class Work Support Study Hall may be required for your student to attend after-school on Thursday to provide a protected time afterschool to hold them accountable and support them in completing their missing assignments. 
  3. A daily Homework Check-In and Check-Out with a Mead staff member may be required to review a daily homework sheet to support your student’s organization.   

 
Eighth Grade High School Transition: District 211 is in the final stages of updating its comprehensive transition guide for the high school graduating Class of 2029. The transition guide highlights important information for families of current 8th grade students, including details about the placement testing. Each District 211 high school has a unique version of the Class of 2029 Transition Guidebook. When available, electronic copies of each high school’s guidebook are on the District 211 webpage devoted to incoming freshman information.  The Class of 2029 Transition Guidebook is mailed home to families by October 1. The incoming freshman placement test will take place on Saturday, October 26, 2024.  Starting with the Class of 2029, students will be administered a paper version of Pre-ACT.  If interested in learning more about the Pre-ACT go to the ACT website. Information regarding teacher recommendations will be sent in October.  The window for teachers to submit recommendations is November 1 – 13. Please contact your student’s prospective high school for more information about the high school transition process.    
 
Personal Assessment of Core Competency: District 54 is committed to ensuring not only the academic success of each student, but also their social-emotional wellbeing. Your insight as a parent/guardian is essential in creating the most well-rounded picture of your student’s strengths and opportunities for growth. To gather your perspective, District 54 will send families of students in grades 3-8 an email link for each student to the District 54 Personal Assessment of Core Competency on Monday, September 30.  The survey will remain open until Friday, October 18.  Thank you in advance for participating in this survey, as we believe the home-school collaboration is critical to best support your student’s overall well-being.
 
 
Creating a Positive Culture
 
Mead PTA: Please join us for our next PTA meeting on Wednesday, October 9 at Starbucks in Elk Grove Village at 7:00 pm. We have an absolutely amazing and dedicated PTA that works diligently to support our students.  Our PTA website will be updated frequently with information about how you can support Mead.  The Mead website, PTA website, and our community emails serve as wonderful forms of communication to send out regular updates.  Please visit our Mead PTA Facebook page for information including how to join the PTA and how to sign up for volunteer opportunities through our PTA.  Thank you to the following wonderful volunteers for giving up time this past week to come and serve our students pizza and hot lunch for the first time this school year:

• Mead PTA Hot Lunch: You can pre-order a hot lunch for your Mustang to be served on Thursdays during lunch periods by placing your order online here. Hot lunch ordering for December, January, and February will open on Monday, September 23rd, and end on Tuesday, October 15th. Parents can pay by PayPal (do not need to create an account), credit card, check, or cash. All cash and check (payable to Mead PTA) payments need to be turned in at the school office by noon on Wednesday, October 16th. ORDERS WILL BE CANCELED IF PAYMENT IS NOT RECEIVED ON TIME. 7th Grade & New 8th Grade Parents: Please contact the Mead PTA Hot Lunch team ([email protected] ) to obtain a key to create an account to order hot lunch. For 7th grade parents, please do not use the key that was included in the folder. 
• Mead Pizza: You can pre-order a Pizza for your Mustang to be served on Tuesday during lunch periods by placing your order online. Please complete and submit the form starting September 23 to order Pizza for December, January, and February.  Each pizza slice costs $3 and it’s Cheese pizza only.  All orders must be submitted by Tuesday, November 15. ALL PAYMENTS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY Wednesday, November 16 by 10:00 am. Check: Mead Jr. High (for only pizza money) Where: School office with your child’s name on the envelope. Note:  The pizza will be pre-ordered ONLY. Please contact the school office if you have any questions. This is the link for pizza ordering:  https://forms.gle/ep7EVLBmSVpo16Nb8 
• PTA Reflections: This year’s PTA Reflections theme is, “Accepting Imperfections”.  We would love for our Mustangs to show their incredible talents in the categories of dance choreography, film production, literature, music composition, photography, and visual arts!  Please see attached flyer and application for more information!  If you have any questions, please contact our Reflections chair at [email protected]   
• Volunteers Needed:
  1. If you are interested in volunteering, please complete this brief SURVEY to express your interest—thanks in advance! 
  2. We need volunteers to serve our students hot lunch—if you are interested, then please sign up HERE.   If you have any questions, the please email the PTA Hot Lunch Team at [email protected]
  3.  If you are interested in volunteering to serve pizza slices on Tuesdays to our students, then please click on this LINK and choose the time(s) you prefer!   
• Mead Spirit Wear Shop: Thank you to our wonderful Mead PTA for facilitating our Mead Spirit Wear Shop!  To access the online shop, please click on this LINK and shop away–the spirit wear shop is open 24 hours a day 365 days a year!  Once you have placed your order, your items will be delivered to Mead JH.  For current Mead students, we will send your ordered items home with your Mustang.  A portion of the purchase will support the Mead PTA.

 
Lockdown Drill on 9/20: As required by the Illinois School Code, our schools participate in fire, severe weather, bus evacuation and emergency response drills to ensure our students and employees know what to do should an emergency occur. On Friday, September 20 during second period, our school will participate in a lockdown drill. Our past experience in conducting drills has shown us that most students are able to participate with the understanding that it is just a drill. However, we do allow parents/guardians to exempt a child from the drill. Should you feel this situation would be too traumatic for your child or should you want more information about the drills, please contact me at 847-357-6070. Under state law, schools must still provide alternative safety education related to an active threat to students who do not participate in the lockdown drill. If a school were to have a real Lockdown situation, not a drill, every phone number associated with your child’s record would be called using our notification system. We will also text and email parents/guardians. We promise to communicate with you as soon as possible. Please be patient as our first priority will be the safety of our students and staff. While your natural instinct as a parent in an emergency is to go to your child’s school or to call the school office in an emergency, please understand that doing so may significantly impede the response capabilities of our local emergency responders. In addition, it is sometimes necessary to evacuate students to another location. In addition to holding drills, we also focus on prevention by forming relationships with our students to provide support when they need it and so they feel comfortable reporting to us when they hear or see concerning behaviors. Please reinforce this with your children at home. Let them know that they can also come to you when they feel unsafe and remind them that they should report any suspicions and concerns about school safety. After each drill, we reflect as a staff and with local emergency responders to determine if there are any procedures we might need to review with the staff and students. The safety of your children is very important to our staff. Should you have any questions about this drill, please don’t hesitate to contact me. For more information, visit our website at sd54.org/safe-schools.
 
Ordering School Pictures: School pictures are ready! To order, log in to your account on mylifetouch.com or create an account using your student’s student ID number. All families can also log on and order a FREE Digital SmileSafe card. More about the Smilesafe program here.

Signs of Suicide Lesson: District 54 prioritizes not only the academic, but the mental health of every student.  To that point, annually school staff work to teach students about mental health and how to seek help if they are worried about themselves or a friend. We are using a program called SOS Signs of Suicide.. The program teaches students about this difficult topic and encourages them to seek help.  SOS has been used by thousands of schools for over 20 years. Studies have shown that it effectively teaches students about depression and suicide while reducing the number of students’ self-reported suicide attempts.  Through the program, students learn that depression is treatable, so they are encouraged to seek help, how to identify depression and potential suicide risk in themselves or a friend, to ACT (Acknowledge, Care and Tell a trusted adult) if concerned about themselves or a friend, who they can turn to at school for help, if they need it. Students will watch age-appropriate video clips and participate in a guided discussion about depression, suicide, and what to do if they are concerned about a friend. Following the video, students will complete a brief depression screening tool. This tool cannot provide a diagnosis of depression but does indicate whether a young person should be referred for evaluation by a mental health professional. At the end of class, students will complete an exit slip which asks whether they would like to talk to an adult about any concerns. School staff will conduct brief meetings with any student asking to talk. We encourage you to visit www.mindwise.org/parents for information on warning signs for youth suicide, useful resources, and some of the key messages students will learn. If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s participation in this program please contact me at 847-357-6070 or any of our school counselors,

Lunches:  Students should bring their own lunch to school.  Students can purchase water, refreshments, and snacks from the vending machines in the cafeteria.  Please encourage your student to be responsible and bring their own lunch to school every day.  When lunches are brought to school after the students arrive, it can be disruptive.  With a focus on student and staff safety, District 54 will not allow food delivery services (including, but not limited to, GrubHub, DoorDash, and local restaurants) to our schools. We will continue to have hot lunch and pizza days, which are planned events, organized and supervised by school or PTA volunteers. Reminder that the front office cannot accept other outside food deliveries to keep our schools secure.   
 
Support the D54 Foundation: Join us on September 18, 2024, for a Dine to Donate event at Village Tavern & Grill in Schaumburg! From 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., 20% of your bill will be donated back to the District 54 Education Foundation when you dine in or carry out. To ensure your purchase counts towards the donation, simply present the event flyer (Village Tavern Dine to Donate Flyer) to your server along with a copy of your bill at the time of payment. Copies of the flyers are also available in the school office. Please note, this offer is not available for online orders. Enjoy a delicious meal while supporting a great cause!
 
Run to Read: Join the District 54 Education Foundation, School District 54 and our Title Sponsor, Northwest Ballet Academy, at the 20th annual Run to Read on Sunday, September 22, 2024 at Dirksen School. This event will include a 5K run/walk, a 1-mile walk and children’s races. This year the event will be hosted by the District 54 Education Foundation. The District 54 Education Foundation is committed to providing support to children from financially struggling families in our district. With this change in host, all funds raised this year will be used to support programs for these families. By meeting the basic needs of students, they are preparing students to be successful at school, thus the name Run to Read still applies. Register for the event, donate or sign up to be a sponsor here Run to Read Website. Not a runner? With a $10 donation, you can sponsor a District 54 student whose family cannot afford to participate in this race. 
 
Girls Basketball/Cross Country: Girls basketball plays on 9/17 vs. Lincoln Prairie, 9/19 @ Frost, , 9/23 @ Eisenhower, 9/24 vs. Keller, 9/26 @ Addams, 9/30 vs. Frost, 10/7, 10/8 and 10/10 @ D54 Conference Tournament.  Boys & Girls Cross Country run on 9/16 vs. Frost, 9/19 @ Crusader Classic, 9/24 vs. Eisenhower, 9/26 @ Keller, 10/1 vs. Addams, 10/7 @ Frost, 10/10 @ D54 Conference Meet.  Good luck, Mustangs!  
 
Clubs/Intramural Sports:  Please encourage your student to get involved in these upcoming offerings: Tennis Club, Soccer, and Mead TV.  Please visit our Clubs and Intramural Sports page on our website for more information and downloadable permission slips for these clubs and intramural sports! 
 
9/18 Half-Day of Student Attendance:  Students will be dismissed at 10:40 am this coming Wednesday, September 18.  
 
Upcoming Dates:

• Wednesday, September 18: Half-day of school due to Staff Inservice
• Friday, September 20: Lockdown Drill with students
• Sunday, September 22: Join School District 54 in supporting literacy and promoting health and fitness for all ages by signing up today for the 20th annual Run to Read on Sept. 22, 2024, at Dirksen School. This is a favorite event of many students, staff and families in the District 54 community because the morning includes something for everyone – a 5K run/walk, a 1-mile family walk and children’s sprint races. To top it off, every participant gets a T-shirt and a finisher’s medal. Take advantage of early-bird pricing and sign up HERE 
• Friday, September 27: Pep Rally!
• Monday, October 14: No school
• Wednesday, October 30: We Are One Day during the half-day of school
• Friday, November 1: Pep Rally!
• Friday, November 1: Fall Ball
• Tuesday, November 5: No school
• Friday, November 8: End of First Trimester
• Friday, November 15: Mead PTA “Donuts with Grownups”
• Monday, November 25 and Tuesday, November 26: Conferences
• Wednesday, November 27 through Friday, November 29: Thanksgiving Break

 
Please visit our Mead JHS Website for the building calendar.  Don’t forget to “Like” us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and watch our YouTube Channel to stay updated with the latest news and information about the great things happening at Mead.  As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.  Thank you for your continued support and commitment to ensuring your student’s educational success.
 
Have a great week,  
 
Scott