MSE collects $1,722.23 for Change for Children!

The collecting and counting is over and according to these 5th grade ac"count"ants, our students collected $1,722.23! Ms. Andrews students collected the most change ($224.24) which earned them a pizza party. Mrs. Dahl's class brought in the most quarters (519 quarters) to make her the 2021 MSE Quarter Queen! Our school participates in the Positivity Project and our focus this week was "Other People Matter". Our students certainly embraced this belief as they worked to raise money for "Children in Crisis", a nonprofit organization that provides a home to abused, neglected, and abandoned children in our community.

As an AVID school, WMS teachers design and lead lessons full of WICOR (writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading) strategies.  Teachers use the WICOR learning model to guide students in comprehending concepts and articulating ideas at increasingly complex levels.  Through WICOR, students build mental toolboxes of strategies they can apply to learning situations both in and out of the classroom.

Last week, while preparing students for the upcoming FSA writing assessment, sixth grade ELA teacher Mrs. Alex Parker led a two-day lesson full of writing, reading, and organization strategies.  First, she taught students how to “PAT” the explanatory prompt they were given to write about, teaching them to text-mark and look for the purpose, audience, and task the prompt required.  Reading the directions carefully to understand these key elements helps student writers better organize their thinking.  Mrs. Parker also gave students a reading purpose based on the prompt, instructing them to text-mark two non-fiction texts, looking for evidence about why and how art can be created from trash.  Teaching students to read for a purpose and mark key details along the way helps aid student reading comprehension in general.  Before turning students loose to write their essays, the teacher showed students various organizational styles for constructing their thoughts, encouraging them to “do the way that works for you.”  She even went a step further and provided students with sentence starters to help them organize their thoughts within paragraphs.

Teachers like Mrs. Parker use WICOR strategies to help students build mental frameworks they can apply to not only the tasks at hand but also to other learning situations.  Across campus, WMS, as an AVID school, strives to develop well-equipped lifelong learners.

The Walton County School District was well represented at a recent event in Orlando sponsored by the Florida Department of Education.   Pictured (L to R) Ms. Jeanine Abadie, teacher at Emerald Coast Middle School and past Teacher of the Year, Mrs. Devon LaMonica, past Teacher of the Year in Okaloosa County and current administrator at the Magnet Innovation Center at St. Joe Watersound, Mr. Richard Corcoran, Commission of Education for the State of Florida, and Dr. Alexis Tibbetts, Principal of South Walton High School and finalist for Principal of the Year.

Ashanti Kee attended Walton County schools as a child, including Maude Saunders, Walton Middle, and Walton High. As a middle schooler, Ashanti was blessed to receive the 2 + 2 Take Stock In Children scholarship. This is where the idea of college and becoming an educator began to blossom. Ashanti graduated from high school with honors in Math and was a member of the Mu Alpha Theta math honor society. She also graduated with honors in Spanish as a second language. After high school, Ashanti went straight into college at FAMU in Tallahassee, Florida. Later she finished her Associate of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees at NWFSC in Niceville, Florida. Ashanti has been working in the Walton County School District for about 8 years. She began as a substitute teacher and Title I Tutor from elementary to high school level. She then became a teacher’s aide at the WISE Pre-k. While finishing her bachelor’s degree, Ashanti came back to MSE, where it all started, to complete her student teaching. This is also where her teaching career began 3 years ago and continues now into the present. Ashanti has even had the privilege to work side by side with one of her childhood teachers.