Greetings Meridian Students and Families,

We are open and on time this morning! I can’t believe it has been a month since I’ve checked in. I sincerely hope you have all had a great holiday and start to the new year. It’s important to step away and recharge. It’s also nice to get back into a routine.

The days off from school due to weather were not something we wanted to occur. However, given the wild week of weather we experienced last February, it was somewhat anticipated. One of the things we did to prepare was develop a school calendar where there were a couple of days built in to mitigate missed days due to weather. We will likely be attending school March 16th and April 27th, our two designated emergency snow days. Please know there isn’t any official word on that yet. We would like to get through most of February to ensure we don’t have any additional weather surprises. You can see this year’s academic calendar here. Thank you, again, for your patience and grace as we navigated last week. I also want to thank our maintenance, custodian, and transportation teams for their work assessing the roads and and treating each building so if things were to lighten up, we could have attended school. Here’s to hoping we have a smooth finish to January and get through February without any unexpected closures.

Yesterday our nation honored the life’s work and achievements of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. As we know he worked to end racial segregation and promote equality. Meridian School District has a commitment to working on multiple areas where we may provide greater support to all students – both within and outside of the classroom. We have identified several areas for equity in the district, in particular, closing learning gaps for students with regard to race, class, gender, ability, sexual identity, gender identity, and language. We have an obligation to position our students to be strong learners, regardless of their backgrounds.

This is a shortened student week. We are finishing the semester this week. Friday is a scheduled student day off and a teacher workday. We will start with the new semester next Monday, January 27th.

Have a great week,

James

Dr. James Everett, Superintendent

Meridian School District

Reminder…

Join me for Drinks with the Doc on February 6th from 6:00 – 7:00 pm. I will be joined by Joe O’Brien, our Director of Technology and Assessment. We are meeting in our PD/Board Room in Building F on the MHS campus. We had planned this to occur last week but ended up canceling due to the poor weather. This is typically informal and follows whatever questions come with our guests. This time, Mr. O’Brien will be prepared to share a bit about his role and the answer any questions about the technology capital levy – and whatever else may surface! Information on the technology levy is found here. We will have coffee and treats – and look forward to talking with you soon!