Principal's Message

25 July 2024

Dear Arcade Families,

I am happy to welcome you to the 2024-2025 school year! I have a slew of exciting updates to share about our new campus! If you have driven by Arcade over the summer, you have no doubt seen the remarkable changes that have happened over the past few weeks: buildings have disappeared, seemingly overnight, and now all of our new buildings are visible from the street. Even though it may not seem like it, as there are literal mountains of dirt in the front of campus, we are on track to open at the start of the school year, and when you arrive for schedule pick-up, those dirt piles will have been transformed into a field, blacktop, and temporary parking lot. The construction teams have been tirelessly working 10-hour days, 7 days a week, all summer long to ensure we are ready to welcome students and families to campus at Schedule Pick-up on Friday, August 9th and for the start of school on Thursday, August 15th.

Even though we will be ready for learning and instruction on August 15th, our campus will not yet be finished. Construction will not officially end until January of 2025. For the start of the year, for example, our parking loop will be up and running for the safe pick-up and drop-off of students, but the parking lot inside of the loop, will not be usable for a few months (a temporary parking lot off of the parking loop will be ready for schedule pick-up). While the construction process poses many challenges to an active campus, I will communicate changes to you and your students as often as necessary and as quickly as possible to ensure a seamless transition to our new facilities.

With our new build have come some other changes, as well. After hearing feedback from our community, families, and students last year, and gathering input from those groups and from staff, we have designed a new logo, which you can see on the left-hand side of this letterhead. We have also officially dropped the “fundamental” designation from our name, and so we are now officially “Arcade Middle School.”

The construction of a new school became necessary because of the population growth in this area, so our new campus will also bring about changes to our school community. We expect to start the year at around 550 students, which is significantly larger than last year’s student body. We have been preparing for this growth since early last spring, hiring many new teachers. As the principal of Arcade, it is of the utmost importance to me to find staff who share in our philosophy around student learning and personal growth: at Arcade, we are committed to working with, supporting, and teaching each student who comes to our campus. We understand that students come to Arcade with differing personalities, strengths, and areas for growth, and we want each student to feel valued, safe, and excited about their learning. With this in mind, it is my pleasure to share that we are welcoming nine new teachers to Arcade next year: Sara Anderson (science), Brittany Driffill (English and history). Aston Ferland (ASD), Lauren Kelly (English), Dorin Matveev (PE), Katherine Plasse (history), Mediha Shakir (science), Meagan Spencer (PE), and Michael Tat (math).

While I am happy to be introducing these staff members to you, I also must share that we still have more hiring to do. We currently have two vacant full-time teaching positions. We are working very closely with our district’s Human Resources Department to try to staff these positions, but the statewide teacher shortage makes this very difficult. We are in the process of securing long-term substitutes for these positions in case we are not able to hire staff for the start of the year. We will continue to communicate with you around our hiring progress in the upcoming weeks.

To our new families, I’d like to introduce two of our school-wide programs that help support students’ transition to middle school or to a new school: PBIS, Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports and W.E.B, or “Where Everybody Belongs.” Arcade’s PBIS program focuses on having all staff use common language and enforce “Spartan Strong” behaviors with students, the main tenets of which are being safe, kind, and responsible. We know that when our students exhibit these behaviors, they experience more positive interactions with their peers, they achieve more academically, and they build skills that will serve them both at Arcade and throughout their journeys to high school. Students will learn the “Spartan Strong” behaviors and expectations in all classes throughout the first few weeks of school.

Arcade’s W.E.B program partners incoming 6th-grade students with 8th-grade student mentors to ensure a smooth transition to middle school for our new students. Please plan on sending your 6th grader to W.E.B. Orientation on Thursday, August 8th from 9:00 to 10:30 A.M. For incoming 7th and 8th graders (i.e., students new to Arcade only), W.E.B. Orientation will be held on Thursday, August 8th from 11:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M.

Please be advised that we will be unable to provide campus tours during W.E.B. Orientation on August 8th and students and staff will have to remain in the MP Room; however, campus will be ready for students and families to explore after they pick up their schedules at Schedule Pick-up on August 9th. This is the same day that we expect teachers to be allowed back on campus, so we will not be giving formal campus tours, but families are welcome to walk around and find classrooms. I respectfully ask that families do not interact with teachers at this time; they have much to do in a very small amount of time to prepare their rooms to welcome back students on the 15th.

We truly have an exciting year ahead of us! I look forward to getting to know you at our campus events throughout the year, our first of which is our Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at the start of Back-to-School Night on the evening of Thursday, September 19th. I value being a collaborative partner with you in your child’s education, and I welcome any questions, concerns, ideas, or feedback. To that end, I send a weekly newsletter, the Spartan Shield, every Sunday evening to communicate important weekly updates with families. If your email address is up-to-date in the Parent Portal, you will receive the newsletter automatically.

You can contact me at any time at  lindsey.mcmanigal@sanjuan.edu or at 916-971-7300.

Sincerely,

Lindsey McManigal

Principal