Daniell Students Slam-DunkHeart Disease & Stroke

Daniell Student Leaders Attend County Commissioner's Meeting

Enrollment in AC Classes Continues to Grow for 4th Year

Twice a year the state takes a snapshot in time to check the enrollment status of each student. The state applies weights to each course a student is enrolled and they provide funding to school districts based upon the results.  This process is called FTE (Full Time Equivalent).

Good news!  Daniell has experienced significant gains over the past four years in “gifted” FTE.  In the fall of the 2010-2011 school year Daniell reported 421 gifted segments.  This spring Daniell reported 674 gifted segments.  This is a 37.54% gain!  Over the past four years Daniell has made a concerted effort to identify and support highly motivated and highly achieving students in our school.  We serve them along with the already identified gifted students in Advanced Content (AC) and high school level courses.  Since middle school is the last true opportunity for a student to earn the gifted designation, we work hard to reach as many students as possible.  Teachers Rick Parker and Melinda Atkinson oversee this process.  In addition to identifying newly gifted students, Assistant Principal Javella Simmons strategically schedules gifted students into classes to maximize FTE.  This increase in gifted segments is another great example of our commitment to our students and their academic excellence.  

Students Perceive Academic Habits as Helping Them

Daniell Middle School offers a support class for all sixth and seventh graders called Academic Habits.  Students take this class everyday in addition to their four content classes and their two connections classes.  The purpose of this class is to offer enrichment, remediation, and a preview of upcoming content to students in the areas of math, language arts, science, and social studies. Every week students in Academic Habits go to a computer lab to work on online resources such as USA Test Prep or Study Island to reinforce the material in that subject area that they will need to know for the CRCT.

Each quarter the students’ Academic Habits class changes so that by the end of the year, students have taken an Academic Habits class in all four content areas.  95% of students agree that this class supported them in their content class. 97% of students say that they learned new academic vocabulary in Academic Habits that helped them in the content class. Read more.

Do you know your child's bus number?

Knowing your child's bus number can help everyone locate your child more easily in times of need or concern. Click below and type in your address. Then clik on your school and find out what bus your child rides. Bus Routes

Stay in School, Stay off Drugs - Professional Basketball School Assembly

New Immunization Requirement for 2014-2015

Seventh Graders Show Gains on National Assessment for Second Consecutive Year

Daniell seventh graders performed above the national average on the new Iowa Assessments, a set of norm-referenced tests that compare students’ performance to that of their peers across the United States. Replacing the former Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), the Iowa Assessments rank student performance according to percentiles. The complete composite for Daniell seventh graders was at the 61 percentile. This is Daniell's consecutive year to see an increase in our students' performance when compared to students across the country.

Mrs. Madison and Choral Department Bring Cinderella to Daniell

"Impossible things are happening every day!" sings the Godmother in Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical fairy tale CINDERELLA, and impossible things will happen when Daniell  grade chorus members bring this timeless tale to life on April 10 and 11 at 7pm.

We are thrilled at the prospects of bringing live theater to the Daniell community once again and look forward to creating and sharing magical moments with you.

Parents, if you’d like to help with props/costume/set design, please let Ms. Madison know. She can be bestreached via email at selina.madison@cobbk12.org .

Students Learn Real-World Applications from Guest Speaker

Our new programs of SolidWorks engineering, 3D printing, and Lego EV3 Robots are giving students the higher order level of thinking and practical career skills at J. J. Daniell.  We were privileged to have as a guest speaker in Becky Forbes’ Technology class, Mrs. Renee Dothard, of the Microsoft Corporation.  She is also the mother of one of our eighth graders.

Mrs. Dothard works with an international team of professionals whose mission is to develop more efficient software for corporations around the world.  She spoke to the class about her recent travels to Argentina and Antarctica where her team from Brazil and she tried to resolve why a cell phone manufacturing corporation had lost $80,000,000 of parts due to inefficient inventory software and theft from its own employees.  Their next mission was to develop a piece of software which will better inventory products and will be launched in October, 2014.

In addition to what her team’s mission was, she was instrumental in correlating her specific job to our engineering design program, manufacturing (which her team observed), and also explained how business is conducted with various cultures.  She did an amazing job of explaining with her career the importance of Geography, History, Language Arts, Math, and Engineering.  She represented the epitome of our Common Core, C.C.R.P.I., and all of Career Tech’s Pathways with our students.  The students were fascinated and well engaged.  

Daniell 8th Graders Exceed National Benchmark for College and Career Readiness

Daniell 8th graders outperformed their peers on the Fall 2013 Readistep assessment. According to the 2013 results, 34.3% of Daniell 8th graders are on track to be college and career ready compared to only 29.1% nationwide.

The Readistep College and Career Readiness Benchmark for 8th grade is the score that 8th grade students should meet or exceed to be considered to be on track to be college ready. Like the PSAT/NMSQT and the SAT, ReadiStep measures the skills students need to be on track for success in college and careers. The College Board’s College Readiness Pathway assessments are equally or more aligned to the Common Core than any other large-scale assessment available today. College Board’s College Readiness Pathway

STEM Initiative Underway for Daniell Students

Solid Works professional engineering software is now being used by our students in their technology courses taught by Mrs. Forbes. This softward is part of our STEM initiative (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). With this new software students can design parts, assemblies, and mechanical drawings.  This is the same type of technology used on products such as Orange County Choppers designs, prosthetics, and even NASA's Mars rover. Students also have available in their technology courses 10 Lego EV3 Robot Kits and the Lego Robotic software with simple click and drag programming. Only seven schools in Cobb have the honor of utilizing these amazing state of the art technologies this school year. 

The technology course reinforces critical math skills, physics, science, and even benefits language arts skills.  For example, students on Mr. Hawk’s robotics’ team can now manufacture new parts for their competitions.  Ms. Forbes is also working in conjunction with Mrs. Maddox, Mr. Hawlk, and Mrs. Hebb to design interdisciplinary lessons to be taught in the academic classrooms.

For more information, feel free to email J.J. Daniell’s Technology teacher, Becky Forbes, at becky.forbes@cobbk12.org.

Daniell Receives ADL Recognition

Daniell has earned the ‘No Place For Hate’ designation from the Anti-Defamation League. Daniell was the first Cobb middle school in 2012 to be a No Place for Hate certified school! The school is currently finishing activities to achieve the ADL recognition for two years running.

To aschieve this recognition students and teachers completed the five steps required to demonstrate the school’s efforts in combatting bullying behaviors and educating students on diversity and acceptance.

The No Place for Hate initiative provides educators and students with the resources to ensure that anti-bias and diversity education are an integral part of the school curriculum.

No Place for Hate also helps to create and sustain inclusive school environments where all students feel valued and have the opportunity to succeed by promoting respect for individual difference while challenging bigotry and prejudice.

For more information on the No Place for Hate program at Daniell, contact DaniellPTSA@hotmail.com. For help with talking to kids about bullying, visit www.ADL.org/CombatBullying and CCSD's bullying resources.

Ramos Selected for Center for Disease Control Detective Camp

Michaelle Ramos was selected from more than 200 middle school applicants from across the country to attend the CDC Detective Camp this summer. Her application consisted of written responses to several essay-type questions and on the recommendation from Mr. Parker, one of her Daniell MS teachers. She was one of 18 children to attend the July session.

For three days she had a behind-the-scenes look at the CDC exploring different public health careers and learning about infectious diseases. She had the opportunity to work on a mock outbreak investigation and present the findings to the group. All campers visited the David J. Sencer CDC Museum, which is open to the public. The camp is for rising 7th and 8th graders and the application process will open up again next Spring.

For more information about this program visit the following link. http://www.cdc.gov/museum/camp/junior/index.htm

Performing Arts Alive and Well for Daniell Students

TheThe Grimm Lives of the Inbetweens by the Alliance Theater came to Daniell students the week of October 14.

Daniell students explored the Grimm lives of middle schoolers! A fairytale-middle school mash up of knights on bicycles, princesses with braces, bullies and jocks, and so much more. Building on the interactive history of the middle school series, this year’s installment collides fairy tales with the experience of Real Tweenagers. Using digital storytelling, interactive theatre techniques, and quirky renditions of classic tales, this show will bring to life a contemporary middle school experience.  This show is No Place for Hate endorsed.

Our school's second Performing Arts Series was held January 21, 2014, during Connections.  It is part of the Atlanta Opera Studio Tour called En Mis Parabras. 

A bilingual (Spanish and English) opera, En Mis Palabras is an opera that every student, no matter his or her cultural background, can relate to. Ana Maria struggles with the adolescent dilemma of finding her own voice and figuring out who she is, while her father struggles with the adult dilemma of knowing when and how much to let go so that this young adult may safely develop that sense of self. En Mis Palabras features four singers, guitarist and pianist.  Educational prep materials correspond directly with Common Core Georgia Performance Standards for English Language Arts, Literacy in History/Social Studies, Modern Languages, Music and Theater.

Daniell Out Performs the State Middle School Scores on the CCRPI

Daniell Middle School scored an 85.2 on the new CCRPI. This beats the state middle school performance of 81.4.

The results look very different from previous years as schools are now being measured under a new instrument called the College and Career Readiness Performance Index (CCRPI) as opposed to adequate yearly progress (AYP). With CCRPI each school gets one overall score which is made up of many assessments.

Knowing that our students have been taking the 2013 CRCT the past two weeks, please be sure not to confuse the results just released this week with any of the tests which our students have taken this school year. Click here for more information.