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Open House

Thank you to all those who attended the Open House last night.  We truly appreciate the support of our parents!

Front gate & cross walk

When leaving Swiss Point through the front gate, you MUST STOP at the gate to look for pedestrians and/or bikers before pulling through to the road to look for traffic.  We have more students walking and riding bikes to Swiss Point and to Hickory Creek.  We MUST pay attention and look out for their safety!

Chess Club

We have a wonderful parent, Mr. Douglas Hayes, who has graciously volunteered to sponsor the chess club.  There will be an organizational meeting this Thursday, September 20th during study hall in the PLC classroom.  Interested students do NOT need to bring game boards to this meeting.  He will see who is interested and develop a plan.  THANK YOU Mr. Hayes for volunteering!!

Neuroplasticity Tips:  Here are a few ways to boost your brain power

• Develop your reading skill.  Reading effectively is a skill.  Master it!
• Summarize books.
• Develop self-awareness.
• Say your problems out loud.
• Describe one experience in painstaking detail. 

Thank You

Thanks to the Publix on 210 for donating plastic bags to help with the distribution of the Spirit Wear to the students and staff. Hooray for Publix for helping out the PTSO and all of SPMS!

Another Thank you!

SPMS recently received a check for over $376 from Target.  If you use the REDcard from Target, they will donate up to 1% of the purchases to the eligible k-12 schools the cardholder designates.  Each September, those funds are distributed to schools nationwide, including ours!  To learn more about the program, visit www.Target.com/tcoe.  Thank you Target and all those shoppers who use there card to help SPMS!

Changes in Grading at Swiss Point

As a part of Senate Bill 736 schools are supposed to be standards-based by 2014-2015. Here at Swiss Point, we are working hard to achieve this goal.  You are going to see and hear a lot about standards, learning goals, summative

assessments and formative assessments. Teachers are providing students with learning goals, so they can be more informed and responsible for what they should be learning. This year, our entire faculty is grading with an 80/20 

weighting - 80% summative and 20% general (or it could be 10% general and 10% homework).

In Standards-based grading, the main idea is that the grade is a measure of what students know or can do. It is not a measure of how well the students are obedient and it is not a measure of how much effort the students put into homework.

What changes will you see? You will see your student tracking their progress on learning goals and more formative assessments that provide information to the student and teacher about where they are in their learning. When looking 

at Home Access Center, you are going to see fewer grades.

Below are two great articles to help you understand more about standards-based grading.

Article on Standards-based grading 

Article on Summative & Formative Assessments

Talent Identification Program Information for 7th Grade (TIP)

Duke TIP (Talent Identification Program) seeks to identify students with strong intellectual abilities that would like to voluntarily take the ACT or SAT while in 7th grade. This program is not sponsored by Swiss Point but we are happy to provide parents with the information needed to register with TIP if interested:

1. Please review your child's 5th or 6th grade standardized test scores (FCAT, TerraNova, Iowa, CTBS, SAT, ITBS, etc).

2. If your child scored at or higher than 95% on either the reading OR math portions on a norm referenced test, he/she is eligible to register for TIP. Florida students took the FCAT in 5th and 6th grade which does not provide a percentile score, however, the developmental score can be converted to a percentile score that can be used on the registration form. If your child scored at or above the following developmental scores in 5th OR 6th grade they can register:

5th grade Reading 256

5th grade Math 256

6th grade Reading 259

6th grade Math 259 

*Please note that all of the qualifying developmental scores are within the FCAT Level 5

3. Please find all of the information about the program, differences between tests (ACT/SAT), when and where the tests are offered and how to register by going to Duke TIP's website at www.tip.duke.edu. If you have any additional questions please call TIP at (919 )668-9100

4. If you do register for one of the tests ($72.00 cost), you will use the following middle school ID: 200293-AB

5. If unable to access the site please, send your child to Melissa Lime, Academic Coordinator, for a paper registration to take home.

Jaguar Tickets

Winners of the Jaguar tickets donated by Winn Dixie are:

Herbert Steigelman

Arianna Mitchell

Alex Kuo

Grant Cioffi

Emma Geiger

Brittany Donor

Alice Hout

Brennan Baker

Jay Aligood 

The tickets are for the September 30th at 4:05pm game against the Bengals.  Thanks to all those who became members of the SPMS PTSO!

Fall Portraits

Fall portraits were taken Thursday & Friday, September 13th and 14th. Portraits will be delivered to the school in approximately 3 weeks.  Make-up picture day is October 18. 

Click here to read the Superintendent's Weekly Review 

dated 9/11/2012 

Home Access Information and Instructions

The school district has launched a new system for parents to access their child's academic progress.  Please review the following documents to learn more about how the system works and instructions on how to access the system.

If you are still having trouble logging into HAC after you have read all directions, please email Cynthia Casper at casperc@stjohns.k12.fl.us

Home Access Account Registration Instuctions 

eSchoolPlus and Home Access Center (HAC) Introduction

Home Access Center Email Verification Form 2012-2013