Happy May! It’s hard to believe we have made it to the last month of the school year. I want to take a moment to thank you all for your support. As I reflect on this school year, I feel I am the luckiest principal in the world to get to work at McCallum. We have amazing and creative students, a loving and devoted staff, and a supportive and kind community. This year has been particularly challenging due to all kinds of factors in and out of our control. Nonetheless, I can confidently say I wouldn’t want to do this work at any other school. Let’s finish strong!

Read the full update here. Highlights are below.

Important Upcoming Dates

• May 3-5 – Algebra 1, Biology, US History STAAR EOCs
• May 2-6 – Teacher Appreciation Week
• May 17 – Academic Awards Ceremony
• May 27 – Last Day of School
• June 2 – Graduation

It’s Teacher Appreciation Week

This week (May 2-6) is Teacher Appreciation Week. Please take a moment to thank a teacher. Our Mac teachers would love to hear words of affirmation from you and/or your student. It’s also a great time to reconnect with a teacher in your own life who made a difference somewhere along your path.

Online Registration Returning Students

Please complete the online registration for your student if they will be continuing with us for the 2022-23 school year. You can find this in the Parent Portal (look for tile AISD Student Registration) So far we have about 41% of our 2022-23 students registered online. Our goal is 100% so we have a ways to go. Thank you for your attention to this.

May Parent Coffee and Tea

May’s Parent Morning Coffee and Evening Tea will be devoted to the parents of our Knights. I will communicate directly with them on date and time. Be on the lookout for an email with details if you have an incoming 9th grader or new student to McCallum.

Cultivating a Culture of Respect

We are continuing to move toward our goal of creating a community-wide culture of respect. We have partnered with SAFE (Stop Abuse for Everyone) and Expect Respect to provide support for our school. So far, our staff has participated in trainings on Demystifying Consent and How to Respond to a Student Outcry. We also held our parent session on consent and building our parent toolkit around the topic of sexual assault. This month we will hold student assemblies to talk about boundaries and respecting the authentic wishes of others (verbal and non-verbal). The assemblies are being designed through a collaboration between Expect Respect and the student-led organization Knights Against Sexual Assault (KASA). Here are the dates of our upcoming assemblies:

• Friday, May 6 – Seniors
• Monday, May 9 – Freshmen
• Thursday, May 12 – Juniors
• Friday, May 13 – Sophomores

Senior Parents – Help the Class of 2022 Finish Strong

Graduation will be held on June 2nd at 2:00 at the Tony Burger Center. It is almost time to celebrate our newest McCallum graduates! Senior parents, this time can be challenging for some students. Senioritis has kicked into full-gear and some students may find themselves in a real predicament as we near the finish line. Please continue to encourage your student to finish strong. There will continue to be a lot of communication about graduation as we lead up to the event. We want to keep you informed. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions. We’re here to help.

Thanks for taking the time to read this Principal Update.

Go Knights!

Thank you,

Nicole Griffith
Proud Principal