Student Attendance at Athletic Events

It's a good to have a sense of humor.

In today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, editorial cartoonist Dick Collier provided a clever and pretty funny representation of the district's new guidelines for student attendance at athletic events:Of course, the district does not have student-sized pet carriers nor would we condone such treatment.

We would prefer for parents to come to the games with students to help build and maintain a safe environment for family enjoyment.

What are the changes?

• High school students will have to show their student ID to attend any MISD athletic event.
  
  
• High school students, who fail to provide their student ID, will not be admitted into the stadium without a parent.
  
  
• Students, eighth grade and below, must be accompanied by parent.
  
  
• Students are expected to be picked up no later than 30 minutes after the end of any athletic event. Failure to pick up students within the 30 minute grace period may result in students being restricted from attending future athletic events.
  
  
• MISD Stadium - Students will be held in the first floor community room until they are picked up by an adult.
  
  
• R.L. Anderson Stadium - Students will be on the home side in front of the ticket booth until they are picked up by an adult.

Why are we doing this?

• We want our MISD athletic events to have a family atmosphere.
  
  
• MISD is attempting to provide a safe/secure environment for all individuals attending athletic events.
  
  
• Students have been left after the conclusion of athletic events for over an hour.
  
  
• Businesses are now open in the area of MISD Stadium. If students decide to visit these businesses after a game, they will have to walk across Highway 360 at night. For their safety, it is our opinion students should not leave the stadium area at the conclusion of games without proper supervision.

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By the way, this is the real community room:


(Thanks to cartoonist Dick Collier for granting permission to reproduce his work.)

First Day Photos for 2008

On a whim, we decided to put a call out to the MISD community for some photos from the first days of school.

We have been pleasantly surprised by the response from parents and teachers submitting photos to share.

Take a look at some of the faces that should be reminder of why we are all here. Check out the First Days of School 2008 Photo Gallery.

Welcome to Infinite Campus

We are ready to introduce to the MISD community the Infinite Campus Parent Portal. A Web page dedicated to Infinite Campus has been created to start us off by providing FAQs, Campus Contact Matrix (who to go to with issues and questions), Reference Documents, and other related information.

The Infinite Campus Parent Portal Information page will be the dedicated location for updates, announcements, and future documentation as deemed necessary by the district.

We encourage parents to be patient as our teachers learn this new system.

The attendance site will be open in the Parent Portal on the first day of school (Monday, August 25, 2008.) There may be a delay of up to a week before actual daily attendance is posted to the Portal. This will allow for class leveling and schedule changes which occur at the opening of each school year.

The grade site will also be open on the first day of school. Again, there may be a delay of a week or two as schedules finalize and assignments are made and graded.

[Update August 22] Ok, so it would appear that with the new program, comes new problems. Here's what we posted to the Infinite Campus Info page earlier today:

We are experiencing some issues with Infinite Campus related to the volume of users. This problem is being addressed by MISD, Region 10 and Infinite Campus. We expect some continued issues and delays into next week.

Thank you for your patience.

Before people start commenting about how "bad the system is" or the "see I told you it wouldn't work" let's all take a deep breath and remember that Infinite Campus is very large program and we are a comparatively large school district. Let's allow for a reasonable amount initial glitches and issues while we all adjust to the new system.

Back-to-Back "A" Days?

We started to get some questions from a few teachers, administrators, and from the community who were concerned and/or curious about the back-to-back “A” days on the 2008-09 A-B Student Calendar. This calendar anomaly was actually done on purpose and here’s why:

• There are nearly equal number of A and B days scheduled in our 177 instructional day calendar.
• The A-B Student Calendar has 89 “A” days and 88 “B” days.
• The end of the first semester has double “B” days followed by two “A” days that were scheduled for final exam review and testing.
• The second semester begins on a “B” day.
• April 17 is the end of the 5^th six-week grading period.
• April 20 is the beginning of the 6^th six-week grading period
• The end of the second semester has double “A” days followed by two “B” days that were scheduled for final exam review and testing.

We hope this clears up any confusion on this calendar and demonstrates the consideration that goes into setting calendars that affect students, teachers, and the administration.

Related: You can also get your printable 08-09 District Calendar.

Goodbye eSembler, Hello Infinite Campus

New for 2008-2009...

MISD transitioned to a new student records program last year (Spring 2008) and we look forward to offering new features for parents and students in the upcoming school year.

The district will no longer offer eSembler for student grades and attendance. This information and much more will soon be offered through a new parent portal system through Infinite Campus. Parents and students will be able to go to one place and find student information on grades, attendance, schedules, fees, class assignments and other pertinent information.

[update July 24, 2008] The expectation is to have the Infinite Campus portal system provide Attendance and Lesson Plans (assignments) starting on Day 1. Then, as our teachers get used to the new system and start adding in grades, parents will have access near the end of Week 2.

We realize this is a major shift for teachers, parents, and students and will require heightened levels of patience as we move forward.

[update August 18, 2008] More information is now available: Welcome to Infinite Campus blog post as well as the dedicated Infinite Campus Parent Portal Information Page.

We will also send information via the district's e-newsletter, the MISD Messenger. Do you subscribe to this free e-newsletter?

MISD Superintendent announces his retirement

July 9, 2008 - Superintendent Vernon Newsom announced today that he is retiring from Mansfield ISD in June 2009. Newsom has served as the Superintendent of Mansfield ISD since 1996. In that time, the district has grown from one high school to four. The district has also opened the Ben Barber Career Tech Academy, and 23 other school facilities. He oversaw the creation of the Mansfield ISD Education Foundation, which has now raised over $1 million to support innovative education projects in the district.

"This was a very difficult decision for me," said Superintendent Vernon Newsom. "I have invested a great deal of my working life in Mansfield ISD and the entire journey has been extremely rewarding. This is a great place and a great school community. I want to thank students, parents, and the entire community for affording me the chance to serve this school district.

The time is right for me to move on in June of next year. I look forward to retirement and spending more time with family. For anyone who might be concerned about the coming transition, I want them to know that we have an excellent executive staff in the district and an exemplary school board to take on this task. "

An integral part of this plan was the creation of the Deputy Superintendent position in 2007. With the support of the Mansfield ISD Board of Trustees, Newsom has created a transitional leadership team within the district. The Mansfield ISD School Board will now begin drafting a process to hire a new superintendent for Mansfield ISD. There is currently no established time line or process defined. Details will be made available to the public and MISD Staff as soon as they are available.

"We will certainly be sorry to see Mr. Newsom go next summer," said Gale Moericke, MISD Board President. "As someone who grew up in Mansfield ISD, it is impressive to think back on his accomplishments. He was truly the right leader at the right time, as he was able to guide the district through a time of tremendous growth and change. I am confident that the district will move through the transition well, and the board will select the right person for the job."

Newsom's legacy will continue on in the programs of Mansfield ISD and at the state level. A few highlights include:

• In June, he embarked on a trip to China with Dr. Bob Morrison as a guest of the Chinese Hanban Agency on the eve of the MISD offering Mandarin Chinese as an elective for the first time next year.
• The district has passed six successful bond elections. The most recent, a $241.5 million election in 2006, will fund the construction of the district's fifth high school and other school projects.
• Newsom has served as the past study group chair of Region XI Texas Association of School Administrators, TASA Executive Committee; previous Chairman of UIL Legislative Council, current chair of the UIL Legislative Council Athletic Committee, and past President of Texas Association of Suburban and Mid-Urban Schools (TASMUS.)
  

Mansfield ISD is currently one of the fastest growing school districts in Texas. The district currently operates four high schools, a Career Tech Academy, and a variety of other schools and programs. The district will open its 20 th elementary school, Louise Cabaniss Elementary, in Grand Prairie this fall.

Scheduled Downtime

MISD Web site and GroupWise Update

The MISD Web site and GroupWise e-mail servers (for district staff) will be down intermittently Thursday, July 10 through Sunday, July 13, 2008 for some required maintenance.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Summer is a considerably slower time and provide the opportunities for system updates such as these. We've received e-mails and calls concerning the webmail system issues from staff and wanted to share what is going on. As stated before, this will have an impact on the district Web site as well.

This is actually good practice for if/when something happens and our district Web site is unavailable, our hope is that our community will turn to Your Mansfield ISD Blog for updated information. (Plus, this will force our hand to work at keeping this blog a dynamic or at least interesting read for you.)

Thank you in advance for your patience.

Updated: Just in case anyone is interested in what's going on technically speaking:

Mansfield ISD Technology will be relocating servers from the Central Administration Building (current main core MDF) to the Police Technology building. The new Core location has more space to accommodate servers and equipment. It is also equipped with a diesel backup generator to keep core equipment running during power outages.

Mansfield ISD has 2 blocks of Public IP (Internet Protocol) addresses provided by AT&T, our Internet Service provider. The location of the network device is how the IP address of that device is determined. Public access servers such as webmail and the MISD website will have new IP addresses because they are being moved to a new location.

Our public servers have a domain name registered with AT & T that is associated with an IP address. An example would be: The MISD web site’s domain name is mansfieldisd.org. It resolves to an IP address on the World Wide Web. Because we are changing the IP addresses of the servers, it may take a couple of days for the Internet to resolve the new IP back to the domain name.

- From the MISD Academic Technology & Networks Department