Coach Spencer nominated Mrs. Faye Floyd this week as the Cardinal RED award Recipient. Mrs. Floyd has been an amazing school leader, and has worked to establish meaningful relationships students, faculty and staff, as well as community members. Students look up to her, and she can always be found on campus with students around her. She has created a place where students feel safe and can thrive in their learning environment. Mrs. Floyd listens to teachers' needs, and ensures every teacher on campus feels respected.  For all that she does to help create a positive culture at Ocoee Middle School, she is this week's Cardinal RED award winner. Congratulations, and thank you for all you do Mrs. Floyd!

Information and Communication Technology
With all of the focus on state tests, it is easy to overlook all of the great things that are happening in classrooms every day at OMS!  As you all might know, Ocoee Middle School in the district leader in the number of students earning Industry Certification and Digital tools certificates in Information and Communication Technology. These certificates stay with students throughout their academic career and are a testament to the excellent foundation in technology skills students at OMS receive. 

Thanks to the excellent work of Dr. Diaz, Mr. Thornton, Ms. Hladik and Ms. Stynes, our 7th and 8th graders are earning certificates in Gaming, Web Design, Database and Multi-Media. Additionally, Ms. Waseem, Mr. Cathers and Mr. Tiburcio are leading our 6th graders into the fun with certificates in Web Design!

Several Cardinals from Mr. Diaz's classes covering new material this past week (above and just below)

Civics
With the Civics End of Course exam (EOC) just around the corner, Ms. Isukh, Ms. Steiermann, and the rest of the 7th grade Social Studies Team are making sure student master all necessary standards through engaging reviews and practice.

Civics is one of our classes in which students track their understanding of specific benchmarks throughout the year. They can individualize their instruction and focus based on individual areas of need to help maximize all classroom efforts! We look forward to students showing off all they have learned in the coming weeks on their EOC!

The focus all across campus has been efficiency in education this year. In other words, teachers have worked very hard to make sure that they value every second of our students' time and effort by ensuring that the content covered in class is the information they will need in order to be successful. Additionally, they have focused on making sure that the students understand the content to the necessary depth of understanding to be able to fully understand and defend the 'why' behind all information and not just the 'what.'

Great work, students and teachers!

Ms. Isukh's Civics students engaged with reviews and practice (above and just below)

Ms. Steiermann with her 7th grade Civics students this past week. The Civics EOC is May 8 for all 7th grade students.

This past Saturday morning, April 22, all OMS Geometry Honors students were invited to participate in a 3-hour Geometry EOC review boot camp led by our OMS Geometry teachers, Ms. Weldon and Ms. Skeens. Beginning with a full breakfast spread, students participated in a Math XL review covering each Geometry unit and were able to brush up on specific skills and content previously learned this school year in preparation for this week's FSA Geometry EOC.

We had a great turnout of students and are so proud of our Geometry students, and teachers, and all of their hard work this school year. Good luck this week students, we know all of your hard work will continue pay off now, and in the future!

OMS Geometry Honors students in Saturday Boot Camp. In addition to reviewing important material prior to the upcoming EOC, they all enjoyed a good breakfast as one way of recognizing their extra effort on a Saturday morning. Well done Cardinals! (above and just below)