From the desk of Karen de Marché
March 24, 2008

Many of you are aware that DMS participated in the state-wide 8th grade writing assessment in January. Students were given a prompt and had to write a five paragraph essay during a specified amount of time. We recently received the results, and I want to share those with you. There were 191 students tested and 91% met or exceeded the required score. The state average was 77% and the Northwest Georgia RESA district, comprised of 16 counties in our area, was 78%. DMS had two students with perfect scores! We are so proud of these young people and the teachers who worked with them. While the preparation for this test actually began in the language arts classes when these students were in 6th grade and continued throughout their 7th grade year, Mr. Jelley, Mr. Randolph, and Mrs. Lay did an excellent job of putting on the final touches in getting them ready. Congratulations to all of them on an outstanding performance!

It was good to see so many parents on Thursday for the Parent/Teacher Conferences. I am sorry that there was such an issue with the traffic during the early dismissal. Hopefully, things will be better next year.

Please remember that we are in school on Friday, March 28.

As I reminded you last week, take some time to discuss with your child the importance of the CRCT and your childi's need to take all of the testing sessions seriously. We need students to arrive on time and ready to show the state what they know!

The new computers have arrived and our technology specialists will begin installing them in the classrooms in the next few days. This is a result of the SPLOST and updates computers that are currently running Windows 95 and 98! We are so looking forward to having this new updated technology in our classrooms and eventually in our two labs. Your continued support of the ESPLOST enables us to do so many things that we would normally not be able to do because the state is not funding education the way it needs to in order for our system to provide modern up to date facilities and technology for our students. Dade Middle will undergo several updates in the next several months. Next week I will tell you about the renovations to the office area, the addition of bathrooms on the 6th grade hall and the renovations to the old vocational building. By this time next year, the look of several areas on the DMS campus will be quite changed for the better!

Karen de Marché
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