Hello Dolphins!  This is Kristen Faircloth, principal at Durant Road Middle School, with your weekly message.

We enjoyed celebrating Destinie Hartman, Jeff Kleiber and Dawn Edwards this week in honor of Assistant Principal Appreciation Week.  I know we all appreciate our Assistant Principal's hard work and dedication.  Thank you for being an essential piece to our school community.  We also celebrated National Volunteers Week and participated in the Lenovo Day of Service.  The students who attended the Lenovo field trip on Monday did an excellent job with behavior and representing Durant.  They helped assemble 4500 STEM kits for elementary school students.  We had another great evening of Student Led Conferences on Wednesday, April 10, 2019 with tracks 1 & 2 families where our students took ownership of their learning and shared their progress and goals with their parents/guardians.  On Thursday, April 11, 2019, we celebrated Dawne Pittman, Instructional Assistant, at the Teacher Assistant of the Year Banquet.  Finally, our band students did not let a little rain stop them from attending Music in the Parks at Bush Gardens on Saturday, April 13, 2019.  It's another great week to be a Dolphin! 

Durant Road Middle School will be receiving a server upgrade/campus reimage on Monday, April 15, 2019 and Tuesday, April 16, 2019.  Due to the upgrade, students and staff will not have access to technology.  Students will be ask to keep their phones at home or in their book bags.  If you need to contact your student, please call the front office.

WCPSS is conducting the Panorama Family Survey again this school year.  One of the pillars within Vision 2020 is "Community Engagement," which centers around Parent Engagement.  In support of this, WCPSS will continue its successful Family Survey effort and aim to gather actionable data from all parents and guardians in the district.  Using this data, WCPSS school and district leaders will be able to both assess where they stand relative to their goals in Vision 2020 and better understand how they can align their resources to improve identified areas for growth.  The survey asks families about a variety of topics relevant to their experiences with their schools and district (barriers to engagement, family support, family efficacy, family engagement, school climate).  All surveys will be administered from Monday, March 25 - Friday, May 3.  Parents/guardians with an email address on file with the district will be emailed a survey from Panorama.  Parents and guardians will be asked to complete one survey per school that they have a child attending. DRMS has had 70 families complete the Panorama Survey thus far.  

Our first Splash Dash is almost here!  Tracks 1 & 3 Splash Dash is scheduled for Tuesday, April 16, 2019 and the weather looks like it is going to be perfect.  All teachers now have fundraising pages set up and the PTA has a $50 gift card to Vidrio for the teacher who raises the most money.  $78.79 was collected during lunch on Thursday, April 11, 2019 which included $62.11 for Ms. Smith, sixth grade teacher!  Below is the updated leaderboard:

-First Place - H. Smith

-Second Place - D. Cisowski

-Third Place - L. Miles

-Fourth Place - M. Dunton

-Fifth Place - K. Bollinger

-Sixth Place - M. McGrath

-Seventh Place - R. Huber-Jones

The top three fundraising classes are L. Miles at $840, S. Collins at $820, and K. Bollinger at $700.  Our grand total to date is $6438!  Keep up the amazing work of supporting this important and much needed fundraiser and help us reach our $20,000 goal!

Track 3 Dolphins track out on Thursday, April 18, 2019.  Friday, April 19, 2019 is a holiday for all students and staff.  We welcome back our track 4 Dolphins on Monday, April 22, 2019.  

Many of you are aware that thousands of educators from throughout North Carolina are planning to gather in Raleigh on Wednesday, May 1, 2019.  They are attending a rally at the General Assembly to improve classroom opportunities for our children and to improve working conditions for teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and others who support our schools.  Therefore, all schools will be closed for normal operations on Wednesday, May 1.  It will become an optional teacher workday.  No make-up day for students will be required due to the number of instructional hours already accumulated this year. 

Thank you for supporting DRMS,

Kristen Faircloth

Principal