As we reach the end of the 2019-2020 academic year, we want to thank our Plano ISD families for the patience and support you’ve demonstrated during this uncertain time of implementing remote learning. Your feedback is important to us and will help our teachers, staff and administrators better support your needs as we prepare for the 2020-2021 school year.
I wanted to take just a moment and thank everyone who has volunteered their time and energy towards the SMS PTA this year.
Whether you gave a little of your time or a lot, your contributions matter! Giving your time is one of the most selfless acts, and I wanted to let everyone know how much I appreciate your efforts.
I especially want to thank everyone for their patience these last few weeks as we’ve had to make major adjustments to our procedures during this unprecedented time. I hope we set an example of how a volunteer organization can run during a time of crisis and uncertainty.
We made a great team and I couldn’t have done much without such an amazing group of people!
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
-Helen Keller
Cynthia Steele
SMS President
A free online tournament through Zoom on May 31st
Due to the cancellation of the last PISD middle school debate tournament, a student-run 501(c)3 organization named the Be the Light Youth Association is holding a free online tournament through Zoom on May 31st.
The events that we will be offering are Congressional Debate, Public Forum Debate, Poetry, Dramatic Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, Original Oratory, Prose, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Storytelling. Students can win trophies and awards and will receive feedback from experienced high school judges.
On May 12, the Texas Education Agency released information making optional end-of-year assessments available to parents, students and school districts. These assessments were created with released STAAR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness) items from previous STAAR assessments. As a district, Plano ISD will not require students to participate in these assessments. We utilize Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) and other methods of measuring learning and identifying potential gaps that will need to be addressed when school resumes next fall. Our curriculum teams will work with teachers to address intervention needs as well as review some of the curriculum included in this current grading period. More information on learning support for this summer is coming soon.
SMS Families, please remember to reach out to your teachers and thank them for all they do! Here's a link to the staff directory. We love our amazing teachers, paras, counselors and administrators for all the hard work they put in! The teachers appreciate you, parents, too!
The PTA will celebrate our teachers in person during the first week of school in the fall.
The Plano ISD Arts In Education committee conducted a Facebook Live awards ceremony for students who advanced and won at the council level.
Please click HERE for the details and view the video of the ceremony.
Dear Parents and Students,
On behalf of the SMS PTA, we would like to let you know that we will continue to support the students and community as best we can during the school closure this week and with any other decisions that Plano ISD makes for the future. Certainly, we are in uncharted territory with the novel coronavirus, but the health and safety of the students and community will remain our top priority. As such, we have decided to cancel the Spring Social which was planned for March 27th. All other events will be determined at a later date, depending on what Plano ISD decides is the right course of action to take.
In the meantime, I urge everyone to follow the CDC’s guidelines to help prevent the spread of infection and to stay up on top of the news as the situation is fluid and rapidly changing. We are active on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, so please use those as a resource of information. Also, if you have any positive stories, tips for keeping the kids busy, or anything funny we would love to hear about it! Post them on one (or all!) of the social media sites. I think we could all use something uplifting, and it will remind us that we are all in this together… even if it’s at a 6-foot minimum distance.
Stay safe and healthy,
Cynthia Steele
SMS PTA President
Due to the rapidly changing situation, the Spring Social originally scheduled for March 27 has been cancelled.
The SMS Book Fair is coming up and we need your help!
The book fair will run from Thursday, February 27th through Tuesday, March 3rd from 8am to 3:30pm (weekdays) and during Open House on Monday, March 2nd from 6:30pm - 8:00pm.
On these days, volunteers are needed to run the cash registers and help circulate to answer questions. You will need to be a PTA member to operate the cash register. If you have not used the cash register before and would like a tutorial ahead of time, you are welcome to come to the library Wednesday, February 26th at 9:00 for a demonstration. If you can't come in then, no problem. I would just recommend coming in 15 minutes ahead of your shift so those working before you can show you how. It is fairly easy so please don't worry.
Volunteers are also needed on Wednesday, February 26th at 9:00 am for set up and Wednesday, March 4th at 10:00 am for take down.
Please note that most 6th grade classes will be visiting the book fair on Thursday, most 7th grade on Friday, and most 8th grade on Monday. If you want to know when a specific teacher is scheduled for the book fair, please email me.
If you can only work part of a shift, please indicate that in the comments. Make sure that you have completed an online volunteer application form that can be found on the PISD website.
I recommend completing this early as it takes 2-3 days to process and be cleared to volunteer. If you are not sure that your background check has been cleared or if you have any other questions, please contact the PTA Library Coordinator, Stephanie Miller-Pu, tx2co2tx@hotmail.com These students are great examples of Respect: Simple Things Make a Difference!
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Flora Cevallos
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Idan Cohen
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Retag Mohamed
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Savvy Moody
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Jolie Nguyen
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Matthew Salter
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Kennedy Tyler
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Oscar Barragan Guerra
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Adam Blasingame
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Soho Dell
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McKenna Dunn
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Carson Harris
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Eitan Mor
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Breanna Smith
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Adeeba Zaman
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Erik Arapi
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Patricia Bosiacki
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Marc Hutanu
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Vivian Lozano
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Alexis Nisbet
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Valentina Peralta
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Paige Robinson
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Gavin Suddendorf
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This Saturday, 10 students represented Schimelpfenig at the Preston Trails Chapter of MathCounts. Everyone did exceptionally well in a very challenging competition. Those students are: Albert Jiang, Andy Qin, Chenxi Zhang, Daniel Glabai, Harry Ye, Jason Ma, Kate Lee, Tristan Driggs, Tristan Ramon, Vivian Pang
Daniel, competing as an individual, and our school team, consisting of Albert, Andy, Chenxi, and Kate will be advancing to the State MathCounts competition on March 27th and 28th!
Please congratulate them!
