The Experience: February 2019

The Experience Official Newsmagazine of Mariemont City Schools

FEBRUARY 2019

BLUE RIBBON CELEBRATION Page 3 Tradition.

MHS FACILITY PROJECT Pages 4-5 Community.

WHAT’S NEW AT MARIEMONT CITY SCHOOLS? Pages 6-7 Innovation.

Next Steps

We know that our engagement and communication with the community does not end with the ballot issue. As it has been throughout the entire facilities project, the goal of the district is to be very open and transparent with you. We know the value of our community’s input and we again will be providing opportunity for community involvement as we finalize the design and construction phases of the Mariemont High School facility project.

The first of three Project Community Open House events will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 13, at 7 p.m. We encourage everyone to come walk the building, ask questions and learn about the construction process and timeline.

Additionally, there are opportunities to join community committees to work with the district in several key areas moving forward.

More information on these committees can be found on our website at www.mariemontschools.org.

treasurer’s

Because of the voters, we are able to continue providing the excellent programs and instruction that have been an integral part of our school district’s success.

Additionally, we are able to make necessary renovations to Mariemont High School and security upgrades at all schools across the district. And most importantly, we will continue to provide a quality education for our community’s children.

update

update

superintendent’s

Three months have passed since our community voted to maintain the excellence of the Mariemont City School District.

This was a critical issue that held significant weight in deciding the future of our schools and I am grateful to the community for its continued support.

After months of uncertainty, the financial future of the Mariemont City School District is back on stable ground. Thanks to voter support of the November ballot issue, the district is able to balance the budget in the five-year forecast and maintain the current level of staffing and programming.

We are certainly grateful for the support we have received from our community and promise to continue our strong track record of fiscal responsibility. The uncertainty and inconsistency of state financing provides a particularly tricky budgeting dilemma for our schools from year to year. That’s why I am so proud of the fact that we were able to stretch the 2014 levy an extra year despite losing $1 million in state funding during that time and we are already carefully watching the next state budgeting process with the new governor.

The bottom line is that the funds generated from the November levy will continue to set Mariemont City Schools up for success moving forward.

Be on the lookout for the Financial Annual Report which will be mailed to each resident later this spring. It will detail the financial state of the district and will answer many specific questions you may have regarding our financial path.

Tom Golinar Treasurer/CFO

Again, thank you for your support of the Mariemont City School District. I look forward to maintaining the excellence in our schools for many years to come.

Steven Estepp Superintendent

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www.mariemontschools.org

Mariemont Elementary Blue Ribbon Celebration Mariemont Elementary School students, staff, families, community and special guests gathered on Friday, December 14, to celebrate the school’s National Blue Ribbon Award of Excellence. The Mariemont City School District learned of the school’s national recognition on October 1. Superintendent Steven Estepp and principal Ericka Simmons attended the national ceremony to accept the award on November 7, in Washington, D.C. “It was important to have this day to honor and recognize our students, staff members, and community members who worked so hard to earn this nomination and award” said Simmons. “We are truly grateful to be considered among the country’s elite schools and we wanted to celebrate this tremendous accomplishment together as a community.”

The National Blue Ribbon celebration assembly included a Blue Ribbon highlight video and student performances as well as several studentwritten essays on what it means to be a Blue Ribbon school. Additionally, each grade level took a turn in the gymnasium playing special blue ribbon games orchestrated by the Mariemont Elementary PTO. “A big thank you to the Mariemont Board of Education, the administrative team, our PTO and the rest of the community who support our district and our school” said Simmons. “This day of celebration would not have been possible without each and every one of them!”

February 2019

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Building on Excellence:

Mariemont High School Facility Project Begins With passage of the operating and permanent improvement levies on November 6, 2018, voters showed their commitment to maintaining the excellence that defines Mariemont City Schools.

For two years leading up to the ballot issue, the school district engaged the community in a variety of ways to help all stakeholders understand our schools’ needs if we were to “Maintain Excellence.” During the fall, the district hosted “A Celebration of Excellence” at its annual State of the Schools Address. And now the district transitions into a period of “Building on Excellence,” a time to take the excellence already established in our schools and build on it with the Mariemont High School Facility Project.

While the bulk of the construction is not scheduled to begin at the high school until the summer, the design phase is well underway and we will soon be stepping into the first construction phase. Design work, which is happening with the help of industry professionals, staff, students and community members, will finalize the look of the learning spaces and aesthetics both for the final school building and the transition period.

As early as March you will see preliminary site work beginning, including the addition of a secondary access drive and the early work to install temporary classrooms. For more information on this timeline and to access a MHS Facility Project FAQ document, visit the district’s website at www.mariemontschools.org.

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www.mariemontschools.org

MARK YOUR CALENDARS Mariemont High School will be hosting a series of Community Project Open Houses this spring. All interested students, staff and community members are encouraged to stop by the high school to walk the building, ask questions and learn about the construction process and timeline from the construction team.

Additionally, the district will hold the Mariemont High School Groundbreaking Ceremony on Thursday, May 30, at 6:30 p.m. with an open house immediately following for one last chance to see the current Mariemont High School before construction begins.

Introducing: Hard Hat Update In an effort to keep the community, staff and students informed with the latest facility project information, Mariemont City Schools will be periodically rolling out a Hard Hat Update to share up-to-date news and notes. Hard Hat Updates will include FAQs, news releases, video interviews, renderings and more and will be disseminated whenever there is new information to share.

Hard Hat Update information can be found on the district’s website and social media accounts.

Mariemont Schools’ families will also see this information in the Warrior Weekly newsletter, which is emailed out each Thursday.

COMMUNITY PROJECT OPEN HOUSES all at Mariemont High School 7:00 p.m.

FEBRUARY 13, 2019 MAY 8, 2019 SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

Website: www.mariemontschools.org Twitter: @mariemontschool Facebook: Mariemont City Schools

February 2019

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What’s New at Mariemont City Schools?

What’s New? – Mariemont Junior High School Model UN Club Although piloted as a small club during the 2017-18 school year, the Model United Nations is in its first year of being a full-scale club at Mariemont Junior High School. The group originated as a staff Innovation project by a pair of social studies teachers, Kaya Collins and Nicole Parr, and drew enough student interest to keep it going past the Innovation project deadline.

“Model UN is really an opportunity for kids to be able to get their feet wet in the field of international policy making” said Collins. “It represents the actual United Nations and allows the students to grapple with real-world issues like world hunger, global security or terrorism. They have to work together to try and come up with solutions to these problems.”

In a Model UN setting, students are presented topics that could range from real-life historical events to fictional simulations from the likes of Harry Potter or a zombie apocalypse. They are assigned roles and given time to research their character’s beliefs, roles and possible reactions to the events. Groups of students, or “committees” as they are called in the Model UN world, then meet and collaborate on how to solve a problem based on their situation.

What happens next is up to the students.

“Sometimes they are a delegate representing a country and sometimes they are a historical person that has actually lived these events” said Parr. “They get to re-write history if they want to. It’s a lot of thinking on your feet and listening to others” “You can do pretty much anything” said Model UN seventh grade student Brooke Cole. “You can be assigned a category and you can put it into imaginary form if you want. You can be free with what are you deciding.

It’s almost like acting because you are pretending to be the person or group you are learning about.”

The Model UN club at the junior high has about 17 students participate on a regular basis with meetings happening a handful of times leading up to the group’s two conferences a year. One conference, held by Wyoming Middle School, happens in the fall while Collins and Parr decided to host their own conference for the MJHS students in the winter.

While the club is meant to be fun and engaging, both the teachers and the students acknowledge it comes with added benefits.

“I have learned how to do some quality research and how to solve problems” said eighth grade student Sam HicksJirkans. “The stakes may be fake but they feel real. You have to solve problems in the moment even though nothing can really help you prepare for what happens in a conference because everyone else has their own ideas and you have to work together.”

“The kids get to dig deeper into topics and for some that is their wheelhouse” said Parr. “It’s a passion that they love and it fills them up. It forces you to be active and that is what a lot of our kids want and thirst for.”

With the success of the Model UN club, Mariemont Junior High School will soon be offering Model UN as an Expeditions class as part of the district’s Warriors BEyond initiative, allowing more students the opportunity to learn about the group and experience the international policy making elements.

“We are starting to see these students gain experience they wouldn’t normally gain until high school” said Collins.

“Sometimes we focus so much on ancient history, world history or U.S. History and now the students are getting a chance to learn about modern day issues and it gives them a more comprehensive look at social studies.”

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www.mariemontschools.org

What’s New? – Mariemont High School Warrior Bell At the end of the 2017-18 school year, Mariemont High School principal Dr. Jim Renner presented a problem to a group of teachers: the staff needed more time to collaborate with one another during the school day and the students needed more time to relax and de-stress from the anxiety of high school. English teachers Liz Reilly and Eric Weiss led the charge in establishing the new MHS tradition: Warrior Bell.

Warrior Bell is a 37-minute period right after lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

On Tuesdays students are given the freedom to decide how to spend this period of time while Thursdays are focused on building a tighter school community with group meetings and presentations. This time also allows departments to collaborate together and teachers to hold office hours if a more personalized setting is needed for some students.

“We realized we had a higher and higher percentage of students who are just ridiculously stressed out and anxious at school” said Reilly. “Now if they have a physics question they can take care of that, if they need a break they can do that.

There are a lot of choices for the students” Tuesdays in particular allow the students at Mariemont High School to participate in whatever they may need on the day. Academically, they can see a teacher during office hours, work together with other students on a group project or head to a quiet study room. But the options extend beyond academics for students to relax a bit during the week. The library is open to students with a maker space and board game options. Yoga is offered in the auxiliary gym and an open gym/intramural league is available in the main gym. Clubs also use this time to meet while some students simply pick a spot to talk to friends.

“I think kids really appreciate the extra break” said Reilly. “More than anything, it is just that extra time to hang out or do what they need to do to get some stuff done. It is giving them a chance to be kids and make their own decisions about what they need in that moment.”

As the year goes on, MHS is still listening to feedback on Warrior Bell and will continue to tweak the logistics of it. But it appears to have found a solution that benefits both the teachers and students at the high school.

February 2019

Marie Huenefeld Friend of the School Award In 2015, the district launched the Marie Huenefeld Friend of the School Award, to recognize individuals in our community who make significant contributions to our school district with their time, service and/or expertise to create a better experience for our students and make us a better school district.

If you know of an individual who you believe should be considered for this award, please find the nomination link on the district website (www.mariemontschools.org) and submit the online nomination by Friday, April 5, 2019. The recipient will be honored at the Board of Education meeting in May. 7

28 MHS 10th Grade Respect Retreat – 8:00 a.m. – SonRise Church

27 Band Bash – 7:00 p.m. – Mariemont High School Gymnasium

27 MHS AFS Dinner – 3:00 p.m. – Mariemont High School Commons

27 MJHS 7th Grade Courage Retreat – 8:00 a.m. – SonRise Church

26 Strings Extravaganza – 7:00 p.m. – Mariemont High School Gymnasium

26 ME 5th Grade Kindness Retreat – 8:30 a.m. – SonRise Church

25 MJHS Winter Sports Awards – 7:00 p.m. – Mariemont Junior High School

22 MJHS Night Out at MHS – 7:00 p.m. – Mariemont High School

21 College Planning for Parents of Sophomores and Freshmen – 7:00 p.m. – Mariemont High School Room C-20

20 Night of Singing Choir Concert – 7:00 p.m. – Mariemont High School Gymnasium

18 Presidents’ Day – No School

15 Mariemont Academy – No School for Students

13 MHS Community Project Open House – 7:00 p.m. – Mariemont High School

11 Board of Education Meeting – 7:00 p.m. – Mariemont Elementary Cafeteria

FEBRUARY

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TPE 6th Grade Play – 7:00 p.m. – Terrace Park Elementary

ME 6th grade Play – 7:00 p.m. – Mariemont Elementary

ME and TPE 6th Grade Bowling Party – 12:00 p.m. – Madison Bowl

Life and Leadership Series Essay Guidance for Juniors – Mariemont High School Auditorium

ME Carnival – 4:00 p.m. – Mariemont Elementary

TPE 5th Grade Kindness Retreat – 8:30 a.m. – Terrace Park Community Center

MARCH

2 Warrior Way | Cincinnati, Ohio 45227 www.mariemontschools.org

www.mariemontschools.org

UPCOMING DATES

www.mariemontschools.org

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