Mission:  One Team, One Goal:  Student Success!

Vision:  To be a school of excellence where all students succeed.

Motto:  Lead By Example!

Hello, Dickerson Middle School!

We are working hard to welcome you all to our 2022-2023 school year.  There's a ton of information below and we hope it is helpful as you are closing out your Summer break and preparing for the school year.  Now that our rising 6th graders are officially ours with the electronic transfer occurring from our four feeder schools to Dickerson, we are happy to reach you all via this communication.

 Student Academic Course information:

We know most of you are super eager to learn how your students will be academically placed for this school year.  This Wednesday, June 14, 2022 we will be posting our AC and Math placement criteria on the Dickerson website (Home/Curricular/Curriculum Links).  Additionally, we will be opening your student’s 2022-23 academic course placements for you to see in ParentVUE.  You’ll access your student’s academic course placements, but not teacher assignments or a daily class schedule – meaning the order of the classes listed does not indicate the actual class period.  Please use the AC placement criteria posted on our website if you have questions regarding your student’s placement.  *Remember that final schedules will not be given until the first day of school; this includes Connections (except 6th grade – who will go through a Connections rotation to engage in all the music classes.  Student homerooms will be posted in the school on the day of Meet and Greet.*

If you would like to opt your student out of any AC course placement or high school course placement, please email ValerieJohnson@cobbk12.org with your request.  Please note that there is no waiving into an AC course; students must qualify.  Students who are identified as gifted are served through AC classes and are placed accordingly and appropriately with the placement criteria used as a baseline.   Also, as we inch closer to the start of school, we will carefully look at each student’s course placement as an additional verification measure; technology and human errors are always possible.  In the event we do catch an error, you will be notified of any changes.

To ease some of our new middle school parents’ minds, we want to point out that Math 6/7 and Math 7/8 are hyper-accelerated courses, meaning that they are AC courses.

Specific to 8th grade, we have some classes in which we’d like to provide some clarification.  If your student is scheduled for Spanish IA MS-HS, this is the Spanish course that earns high school credit; Spanish 8 S1 is our fundamentals Spanish course and does not earn high school credit.  Additionally, students who are taking a high school math course and also qualify for AC Science were placed in Physical Science A MS-HS, which earns high school credit; only those in a high school math class are eligible for high school science.

We also have support classes at each grade level.  If you see your student is scheduled for one of these support classes (in place of Reading), please know that we used current performance data to make these determinations.  If students demonstrate growth at the end of the grading period, it’s possible they can come out of the support class.  On the flip side, if your student demonstrates the need for additional academic assistance, they might eventually move into one of the support classes. The process for identification is very fluid.

Bookbags/Lockers:

After experiencing middle school without lockers and much review and discussion with parents, staff, and students, the North East Cobb schools have decided to begin the school year without lockers and continue our practice of using bookbags.  Please note the Supply Lists below.  Teachers have created a list of nominal and essential supplies.  Teachers will continually work to minimize the amount of materials students have in bookbags throughout the school year.

Supply Lists: Supply lists (by grade level) are posted here.

6th Grade & New Student PREVIEW DAY - Friday, July 22, 2022

This event will allow students (only) to meet a staff member for a tour of the building on this date.  Reminder - no student schedules will be available until the first day of school.  Again, student homerooms will be posted in the school at Meet & Greet. Tours are taking place that morning for students from 9-11:20ish.

Time    Last Name Starts with…

Meet and Greet – Friday, July 29, 2022
6th Grade:  8:30-10:00am
7th Grade:  10:30-11:30am
8th Grade:  12:00-1:00pm

Save the Date for Open House: (Coming Soon)

Again, we know this is a lot of information, but we know you've been waiting for much of it with anticipation.  Enjoy the remainder of the break!

Adam R. Hill, Principal