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 and/or milk purchase 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:  Starting soon, 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 Support Program: Starting this week, 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. A Class Work Guide (Mead staff member) may meet with your student to develop a plan to complete their missing assignments for the week. 
  2. An optional Afterschool Class Work Support Study Hall may be required for your student to attend after-school on Monday or Tuesday to provide a protected time afterschool to hold them accountable and support them in completing their missing assignments. 
  3. A daily check-in with a Mead staff member to review a daily homework sheet to support your student’s organization. 
  4. A Class Work Mentor (Mead staff member) may be assigned to them to work with them on organizational skills.   

 
Eighth Grade High School Transition: District 211 has posted some basic information including information about their course placement process on their website at Incoming Freshmen .  District 211 will inform us when the high school placement examination (PSAT 8/9) is scheduled.  Please contact your student’s prospective high school for more information about the high school transition process.    
 
Creating a Positive Culture
   
2023 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, October 2.  The survey will remain open until Friday, October 20.  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.

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. However, we will no longer accept other outside food deliveries to keep our schools secure.  Please see below for special days when hot lunches and pizza may be purchased in advance.  
 
PTA: The Mead PTA has set a goal to increase the number of PTA members at Mead this school year.  Please join the Mead PTA by clicking HERE!  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.  Please see below for other important information:

• Special thanks to the following volunteers who gave up time during their busy days to come and serve our students their lunches the past week: Priya Patel, Gita Mehra-Sabhenwal, Raquel Nettnin, Amanda Khalil, Cheryl Gleason, Jen Cocagne, Susan Fieber, Kim Serafini, Saachia Abdul, Jay Dias, Saadia Abdul, Shiho Tokunaga, Yuka Sugiyama, Brian Hoffman, Lizzie Simantz, Oksana Duliak, Heather Vargas, Dee Politis, Heather Ackman, Katarzyna Budzik, Linda Garman, Amanda Khalil, Tracy Stendardo, Remya Ramanath, and Sarah Cerasani.
• The Mead PTA Hot Lunch program has started. Please see below for important information: 
  1. Please consider volunteering to serve our Mustangs their hot lunch by clicking HERE for your preferred days and time.
  2. Please contact [email protected] if you have any questions about ordering.  
• Reminder that you must pre-order a pizza slice for your student by downloading, printing, and sending the attached order form back to Mead ASAP.  We will be serving Tre Amici Cheese Pizza during lunchtime. We are also looking for volunteers to come and serve our students their pizza slices.  If you are available to volunteer one or more times, please sign up at: We are looking for volunteers to serve pizza on Tuesdays to our students. If you are available to volunteer, please sign up by following this LINK

 
School Safety Drills:  You send your student to us every day with the expectation that we will not only teach them, but also keep them safe. We can assure you that this is a trust that District 54 does not take lightly.  As required by the Illinois School Code, our schools participate in fire, severe weather, bus evacuation and emergency response drills throughout the school year to ensure our students and employees know what to do should an emergency occur.  On Friday, September 22, our school will participate in both a hard lockdown and an evacuation 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 student from the drill. Should you feel this situation would be too traumatic for your student 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.  Each year the entire District 54 staff is trained on our crisis prevention and response plan, which was developed in coordination with our local police and fire departments. We review these plans annually with all of the fire and police departments that serve our schools because we work cooperatively to keep students safe. 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.  We also focus on prevention by forming relationships with our students to provide support when they need it, and so that 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.  If it was a real emergency, and not a drill, every phone number associated with your student’s record will be called using our notification system. We will also email parents/guardians and provide information on our website. We appreciate your cooperation and 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 student’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.   The safety of your student is very important to our staff. Should you have any questions about this drill, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
 
Girls Basketball and Cross Country have started their seasons!  Girls basketball plays on 9/19 vs. Lincoln Prairie, 9/21 vs. Keller, 9/25 @ Sandburg, 9/26 @ Eisenhower, 9/28 @ Addams, 10/3 vs. Frost, 10/10 @ Keller, 10/12 vs. Eisenhower, 10/16, 10/17 and 10/19 @ D54 Conference Tournament.  Boys & Girls Cross Country run on 9/19 @ Keller, 9/21 @ Crusader Classic, 9/26 vs. Eisenhower, 9/28 vs. Addams, 10/3 @ Frost, 10/10 vs. Keller, 10/12 @ Eisenhower, and 10/17 @ D54 Conference Meet.  Good luck, Mustangs!  
 
Clubs and Intramural Sports:   Please encourage your child to get involved in these upcoming offerings: Bocce, Garden Club, Anime Club, Soccer Club, Fluid Power, Tennis Club, Mustang Movement and Meditation, Pride Club, 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! 
 
On Wednesday, September 20, students will be dismissed at 10:45 am due to a staff inservice.  
 
Important upcoming dates: 

• September 20:  Half-day of student attendance due to Mead Staff Inservice 
• September 22: Lockdown Drill with students and Elk Grove Village Police Department
• September 29:  Pep Rally
• Monday, October 9:  No school
• Friday, November 3:  End of first trimester
• Wednesday, November 8: Student half-day of attendance
• Monday, November 20 and Tuesday, November 21:  Parent-Teacher Conferences
• Wednesday, November 22-Friday, November 24:  Thanksgiving break

 
Please visit our Mead JHS Website for the building calendar.  Don’t forget to “Like” us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and 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