Dear Parents,

We are off to a great start at Montgomery! While we did experience some "growing pains" that included transportation and breakfast issues, we have certainly made significant improvements in those areas and our kids are doing a SUPER job in the classrooms! We are proud of the many accomplishments and the positive attitude that our students bring to school each day that will lead to high achievement this year. Speaking of Achievement, the State of Ohio has released some information that includes some awesome news: Montgomery Elementary appears to have earned the status of "Excellent with Distinction" for its efforts in 2011-2012. This is the highest honor the State can bestow and it highlights not only meeting all standards of proficiency but also that students showed more than a year’s growth academically. We are proud of those efforts and the efforts of our new Lincoln students (Excellent rating) and the improvements displayed in Edison’s scores from last year. In addition, Ashland City Schools has been designated with an "Excellent" rating overall. All of this information, along with the outstanding efforts to date, bodes well for our future success as the New Montgomery.

Our 6th grade students will attend Outdoor School from November 7-9 at Camp Nuhop. This is a great opportunity for our students to bond and for them to learn in a different way for a few days. We are excited about this opportunity but also understand it presents some challenges as well. This is particularly true in fundraising on such short notice. We appreciate the efforts of our students and parents to meet this challenge.

Parent-Teacher Conferences will be on October 30 and November 1 this year. We will be sending home more information in the coming days with our students on 2-teacher teams scheduling first. Our departmentalized-teams (more than 2 teachers) will use student-led conferences which offer great flexibility in scheduling and many other benefits as well.

In closing, we will continue these newsletters (bi-monthly) throughout the year. As always, we appreciate the many ways our parents support our students and staff. We are blessed. With that support, we look forward to maintaining the standard of excellence that is……Montgomery.

Steve McDonnell
Montgomery Intermediate Principal