First Day Photos 2011

Thank you to all in the District community who shared your photos from last week for our 4th annual First Day Photos online gallery.

Once again, we had over 100 photos shared with us. Check out this year's photos.

New Foundation Mini-Grant Program

The MISD Education Foundation has started the "WeCan...Choose!" mini-grant program. This new grant program inspires teachers to write grants for projects and materials for immediate implementation in their classrooms.

The goal is to give our parents and our community an opportunity to help us fund more of these terrific projects and get much needed resources into our classrooms to benefit our children.

NOTE: From August 29 – September 29 you can donate online to specific "We Can...Choose!" grants.

The MISD Education Foundation is a 501c3 organization that has provided more than $2.3 million to teachers in our district to fund innovative projects in our classrooms. Over the past 12 years the Foundation has funded more than 990 grants though two grant rounds a year. In addition to the new mini grant program, teachers can apply for up to $1000 and a grade level or campus can apply for up to $5000. Special THINK BIG grants provide $10,000 in funding. These grants are made possible by the generous donations from businesses and corporations and individuals and organizations in our community.

Superintendent Update - September 2011

Dr. Bob Morrison discusses a new bond election, the balanced budget, the opening of Nancy Neal Elementary and the new MISD iPhone app.

Thank you, Methodist Mansfield Medical Center

Guest Post by Eric White, MISD Athletic Trainer

On behalf of Mansfield Independent School District Athletic Department, I want to express my gratitude to Methodist Mansfield Medical Center, its physicians, nurses, and staff for the spirit of volunteerism that they displayed on Saturday, July 30, conducting sports physicals and echocardiograms for more than 300 athletes. Their generous donations of time and equipment ensured many of our athletes are ready to compete safely as the season gets underway.

Volunteering their time at Mansfield Summit High School were local physicians Darin Charles, MD; Nancy Georgekutty, MD; Donna Shannon, MD, Keto Trivedi, MD; Mary Welp, MD; and Jeff McDaniel, MD. Cardiologists Joshua Jacobi, MD and Alan Taylor, MD.

Additionally, volunteers who helped organize and assist in the sports physicals and echos were Angel Biasatti, Henry Burdine, Mario Chavez, Casey Darwin, Julia De La Guardia, Annie Dukes, Christie Enslin Rijan Giri, Carol Hague, Beverly Hill, Stacey Hensley, Herman Jaime Jr., Bernnie Kennedy, Jay Lavers, Patricia Looper, Kalinda Longino, Victoria Mays, Paula McMahan, Rosa Nyaoga, Jeanne Reeves, Amber Roten, Sandra Sanchez, Shelby Shaw, Debra Stafford, Christina Tillotson, Teresa Tucker, Kimberlee Williams, Michelle Williams, Karen Yates and Vicki Yoder.

With the help of Methodist Mansfield Medical Center the Mansfield Independent School District athletic department has benefited immensely and we are appreciate of their community outreach efforts and their health programs that benefit our entire community.

While we partner with Methodist Mansfield year-round, this one-weekend’s effort has not only helped our coaches, it has brought increased visibility to our role in mentoring and supporting healthy athletes in our community.

The Mansfield Independent School District athletic department thanks Methodist Mansfield Medical Center for its commitment to building a healthy community and we look forward to continuing to work toward a better community.

Sincerely,
Eric White
Athletic Trainer

District joins the City of Mansfield for "Daybreak" segment

On Friday, August 19, community members, staff, parents, and students took part in an early-morning opportunity to show some community spirit, while showcasing the City of Mansfield and the Mansfield ISD.

Mansfield ISD and the City of Mansfield was the featured community on Daybreak (WFAA Ch. 8) at Victory Plaza south of the American Airlines Center.

Many students helped out in providing some morning spirit including the Mansfield HS Band, Varsity Cheerleading squads from all 4 MISD High Schools; and some student athletes/teams that won a State Championship during the 2010-2011 school year. According to Daybreak anchor, Ch. 8's Cynthia Izaguirre, this morning's group set a record attendance.

Thanks to all who joined in on the fun.

Mansfield ISD launches iPhone App

The App's out of the bag!

Mansfield ISD has launched the long-awaited and planned iPhone App just in time for the start of the 2011-12 school year.

The idea for the iPhone App materialized last summer and we received some early interest, wishes and suggestions for functionality.

We listened to that feedback and put together a comprehensive mobile app for our community.

» Get the Mansfield ISD
iPhone App

We wanted to provide our parents, students, and staff with as much of the relevant and useful Mansfield ISD information, links, documents, resources, etc. at their fingertips.

Through the MISD iPhone App, users will find:

• Campus and department directory complete with phone numbers and maps
• Cafeteria menus and meal pricing
• Infinite Campus access for online grades, attendance and student information system
• Interactive map and portal to our web search engine used for attendance zones and bus routes
• News and blog updates, MISD YouTube videos, and quick access to our online photo galleries
• and much more....

Why did we choose to do an iPhone App?

MISD iPhone App home screen

We're always looking for ways to expand, enhance, and improve our school district communication and this seemed like a pretty solid way to do that to reach an ever-increasing mobile audience.In the 2010-11 academic year, our website traffic increased in the area of mobile devices. Leading the pack of mobile devices was the iPhone, with over 102,000 visits. We took into consideration iPod and iPad device access to our site and determined that right now, the traffic could support an iPhone App.

Android users, we haven't forgot about you. Our current plans are to begin the process soon for an Android App since that platform brought the next highest number and percentage of mobile device traffic.

For now, please let all of the iPhone users in Mansfield ISD know about the District's app and be sure to let us know what you think.

Fan Fest 2011 Photos

Thank you to all who joined us last week for the 5th Annual Fan Fest.

The Mansfield ISD Athletics Department held the 5th Annual Fan Fest on Thursday, August 11, 2011 at Vernon Newsom Stadium. Fan Fest has become an annual free kick-off event at Newsom Stadium. It features the District's high school varsity football teams, drumlines, cheerleaders, and drill teams. Community members were invited to choose their seats, purchase football season tickets, meet the football players and coaches on the field while enjoying an evening in a pep rally-like atmosphere.

Reasons for the five minute earlier high school start

Mansfield ISD high school students will report to school five minutes earlier this year due to an adjusted bell schedule.

Mansfield HS, Legacy HS, Summit HS, Timberview HS will start school five minutes earlier at 7:10 AM (Classes are dismissed at 2:30 PM.)

Ben Barber Career Tech Academy/Frontier HS will begin the day at 7:00 AM (Classes are dismissed at 2:30 PM.)

So why the change?
The earlier start time was done for several reasons. Basically, the earlier start times create more flexibility for students taking courses at Ben Barber Career Tech Academy. We also had to adjust the schedule to transport students to and from BBCTA on the morning and afternoon bus schedule to ensure they would not miss class at their home campuses. Additionally, Tarrant County College Southeast Campus requested longer class times for duel credit courses that students can take at the BBCTA campus. And lastly, the adjustment will allowed Ben Barber CTA to qualify for additional funding which, in this economic climate could not be ignored.

Change can be tough (and maybe even a little unpopular according to a few of the Twitter replies we've seen from students) but we appreciate everyone's flexibility and understanding for this adjustment.

Get a printable copy of the high school bell schedule chart is available on the MISD website.

Photo credit: svenwerk